I’m tired of treating everything like a business venture. I might be a workaholic except for the fact that I don’t have enough actual work to keep me that busy, nor do I really have anything I can forsake in the favor of work. So I’m a developing workaholic.

Really though, I don’t know what people do with themselves. I’m taking an extra class this semester just to keep the idle loneliness at bay, which means I have so much reading and writing homework, on top of my volunteering (I’m a regular at two articles per issue - weekly) for the university newspaper and my attempts to write on my blog, that I barely have a free moment - and I still feel I have so much free time I don’t know what to do with it.

Netflix doesn’t really interest me. I only have the patience to get through a season or two of Friends and then I just get bored. My watch-list is so full of movies I thought I would watch (and write about) months ago but I’m not interested in spending two-three hours sitting and watching a movie. I need to move.

I should go out more, but where, and with no transportation except the unpredictable and uncoordinated busses, I have no way of getting home after. As you can tell by my picture at the top, it snowed again. I have to walk through that if I want to go anywhere. Makes it difficult to be social. I wish that wasn’t an excuse but it kind of is, isn’t it?

On a different note, I’m reading Amanda Palmer’s book, “The Art of Asking” and loving it. She really gets at the lack of connectedness in the world and understands it. I feel like she’s writing directly to me and I imagine most readers feel that way too. It’s a great book, I highly recommend it.

Most days it’s hard to get out of bed. Somehow I missed the notice on how to be cool in university, or I wasn’t paying attention to it. Probably the latter. I’m not really interested in being cool, I’d rather be eccentric or artsy or whatever but I have too much self-awareness/self-consciousness to feel comfortable in my skin enough to not care. So I do care. Or I don’t. I’m not really sure, I guess it depends on how you phrase the question. What’s the question again?

The problem is, I’m really good at small talk. I can strike up a conversation with anyone, and I try and ask different and more interesting questions than the usual drivel about the weather or whatever it is small talk is supposed to be about. It’s going beyond that I’m no good at. How do you invite people over? How do you connect with anyone when everyone is more interested in their pinterest account than in making eye contact?

I joined pinterest a few weeks ago. Isn’t that ironic?

Two years of university and I know more than 50 faces (can’t remember everyone’s name, but I dare say they probably don’t remember mine either so there). 50 faces, two of whom I talk to on a sort of semi-regular basis if I happen to see them in the hallway. The rest are mostly recognizable strangers.

I think I’ll move closer to campus for next year. I know, I just moved out of a bad roommate situation, but now I want to be within walking distance so I can go home after class to recharge but still be able to go to the library or something - I never go to campus unless I absolutely have to and I don’t know why, but that’s something I want to do. If I’m stuck here until I finish my degree I might as well get used to that.

But it’s reading week and I want a fresh start. On top of studying for two more midterms (I’ve written four already) and writing about five term papers to get caught up / try get a head start, I’d like to get into a new mindset. I miss caring. I miss writing. I’ve had writer’s block for almost a month and it’s horrible. I’ve completely abandoned my fiction writing and focused entirely on journalism, which is great but not exactly what I want to do, but it’s something. I’m good at it, I keep telling myself, and maybe I can use it as a job to support my other writing.

I’ve always treated Hi like a personal letter to no one in particular and I think that’s the best way I can use it. My blog is for professional movie-related writing. Twitter is for networking. Facebook is to keep in touch with people who live far away but that’s about it. I need a journal but my handwriting is too bad to do it by hand, and I think too fast for it anyway, so Hi is my personal diary, except I don’t think of it as a diary, more like a love letter. With less romanticism and more longing.

Because maybe it helps, you know? Maybe it’s not just me, but someone else who can’t quite articulate what they want. We should share our words with each other. Our own secret form of therapy.