Today was my first week of paid work other than Bonner ever, other than picking potatoes back in the day for the parents of my friends Owen and Vaughan. It was definitely my first nine-to-five (or seven to three-thirty) job ever, and in general I enjoyed the experience. It's good to know that I can just punch in and earn money by the hour; punch out at the end of the day, go home, hang out, play WoW, blog, do creative writing, sit around and listen to Fall Out Boy, whatever. Point being, it's way different from being a student but it's still a lot of fun. And the work isn't too bad either; I like the mowing, mulching, and other kinds of tasks we get to do. When we're in groups and coordinating it's so much less of a drag than doing it on my own back home in Richland Center.

My only other notes: if anyone in Ripon wants to hang out this weekend, I'm bored and ready to hang out. Except on Sunday, because I have to go to my sister-in-law Abby's medical college graduation party.

Also, I was moving TJ's fridge into my room and I cut my arm around the wrist area on the grille at the back; I commented to Nate that people would think I was emo because my wrist was cut, and then I realized that that would be a great title for a Fall Out Boy song: "I'm Not Emo, I Just Move Refrigerators!"

Yeah, this is an emo post. Please don't kill me; if you're not in the mood for emo-ness, simply skip this entry... I promise I won't be offended. And, as always, I'll try to put a positive spin on my existential angst, because what good is life if you can't pull every last ounce of good out of it that you can?

So, I've spent the last two days since returning to Ripon essentially sitting in Scott 301, since we are not yet allowed to move into Merriman, and no one is left around in the dorms. I did have a great time watching the seniors graduate - congratulations Jess, Kali, Gretchen, Amanda, Chris R-W, and Shane among others! Despite this the dorms seem lonely and sad... even the greening of the trees all around the dorms and the graveyard can't lift the sense of melancholy that surrounds an empty Ripon campus.

I love Ripon. I have never felt more at home anywhere in my entire life. It's a place where even the flaws have their own character... I mean, who can fail to love a place where you're as likely to be woken up at midnight by an exploding dumpster as by a roommate returning? But being alone is bad for me. I spent the first thirteen years of my life essentially alone, and ever since then my entire life has been a race to be around people... it's not about conformism, it's about being alive. I've always believed that nothing exists unless people see it, and so to be real I have to be around others. This may sound like a scary or depressing way of living life, but it's not - unless you're alone.

When I'm alone in this place, like any place, the negatives come into mind so much easier than the positives. When I'm alone here I don't think about all the good times spent with Tau or with my buddies; I don't think about our Wednesday night gaming group or Tau formal. I think about every pointless fight I've ever had; I think about interpersonal friction and bad things people have said about me, or about bad things I've thought about other people. I think about how I'm still single, instead about how I have friends.

When I'm alone philosophical reflection comes so easily on negatives. Why is there loneliness at all? In an evolutionary sense I'm trapped in the utmost meaninglessness sitting alone in Scott 301, because there are no opportunities to reproduce either my genes or my memes (ideas). Why do people have conflicts? Why isn't humanity united? All of these questions come to mind, but they're all dancing around my fear of being alone.

I said at the beginning of my emo rant that I would try to finish on a positive note, so here it is: I'm not depressed. I've come to realize that. I've never been depressed. I can be sad, I can be lonely, and I am these things on a fairly regular basis. But I never give up. I've never even considered giving up. Before I start something I swear I will finish it; I swore that when I started high school and when I came to Ripon. I would like to believe that somehow I took a similar oath before I was born.

I know this is the kind of rant that I often wish people wouldn't post on their blogs, because it only serves to depress the people who read it. But I guess that this "emo-ness" I'm experiencing, as I crudely term it, is not an entirely negative phenomenon. Loneliness and solitude can generate ideas, and can generate reflection on life, and that's what I've done. I've realized that I cannot be defeated, because however much I may be down at the moment, I love Ripon. It's why I've stayed here over the summer, it's why I came here to begin with.

Ripon is home. Existential angst be damned, I love this place.