So, I'm surviving in the Big City.

I've had loads of ups and downs already, but I've generally held up my spirits in the name of "taking the adventure head-on."

But when you take things too head-on too quickly, you end up subjecting yourself to some pretty intense stresses.
That's what happened. My lack of sensitivity to my non-individuation needs had led me to end up with a deficit of sleep, food, and socialization, and my lack of time management skills began to hurt my schoolwork, and left me no time for art. In general, I wound up in one hell of a funk. Neither here nor there.

My family came to visit me this week, and that really helped me get back into the swing of things.
I learned a lot this week about where I can get food and when, about how I can keep track of my health, about how I can spend my time wisely and still get plenty of sleep. I got to hang out with my sister, which was great. In general, I worked this weekend to focus my inner compass just when it started to spin out.

However, now I think I'm getting sick. I've developed a pretty awful cough, probably from spending too much time out in the cold wind and the rain. It's been raining pretty much non-stop since Thursday. We'll see what happens, but by the looks of it, I'm afraid I might end up with the same kind of bad bronchitis/pneumonia that I had last October, and the spring before that. Well, looks like I'll have to fight it out.

All that aside, school is going pretty well for me now. Even though I don't have a single art class (*sob*) I'm enjoying my academics. In my "cultural foundations" class I'm doing a lot of comparative study of art and literature, which includes lots of myths and religion. That's my favorite thing to study, quite frankly. I'm taking a course on South Asian cultures, which is all the ideas behind Hinduism and Buddhism. In that class, we're reading a lot of Hindu texts (which remind me so much of Free Play) and having huge discussions. The teacher rocks, too. My India class is my favorite class, I think. I have a writing class where we have an assignment to watch a foreign film that we've never seen before without any subtitles, and write about what we think is going on. Hilarity will ensue! I'd gladly take suggestions for what movie it should be!!!

In my social foundations class, I'm actually kind of bored. While the teacher is a good guy, and he knows what he's talking about, he has the problem of letting the students talk too much. I used to not believe that there could be such a thing. I usually think there's nothing better than a class discussion where the children generate the knowledge, I.B.-style. But I was wrong. Sometimes, kids can be SO bad at critical thinking, that it's better to just ignore them rather than let them say something really dumb and ruin the discussion for the kids who get it. So, yeah, my social foundations class is slow, but it's also bearable because the work we do is all about PHILOSOPHY (glorious philosophy). So while the students are spewing out a lot of relativist nonsense in class, I can turn to the required readings of Plato and Aristotle for solace.

In other news, Sometime this month, I finished that PSA that the Crosswinds people wanted me to do!
[link] (I just made it available to the public today)
I've also joined this club of kids who are also doing Liberal Studies, but are tracked for film school, like me. We are going to produce some films while we wait.

My family also brought me my art supplies! So I'm going to spend some time painting every week, at least.