Positive Reflection

About five months have passed since I started going to grad school in Iowa. I've actually done a lot; small things add up. That's been a pretty important lesson. Little things that, viewed individually, are easy, become monumentally hard when piled all together.

Another: things that at one point of my life I was really good at, I can't expect to be an expert at all of them at this point. Be that piano, languages, writing, or math, things don't last forever, but some part of them remains. The part that remains at least can regenerate and become what it used to be. Of course, the seed needs good soil and the right climate to grow in. Iowa's pretty harsh for that, and it's hard to provide room for other parts of me to grow when so much of my math brain has to grow as well. Just like it's hard to find space for anything good in Iowa when it's overrun by cornfields.

The part of me that's trying to force itself out of the soil is the grown-up, the guy that knows what's good for himself and the guy who knows how to get himself through a normal post-college life. At the same time, the young guy in me wants to force his presence through the robotic work weeks.

I've learned a lot about living independently, and there's not much that I can say I've finished learning. Here's what I've learned and what I'm learning...

Learned:
- To cook consistently, and added a few dishes to my very limited repertoire (aka burritos, sloppy joes, pancakes... all of which my boyfriend or his mom cooked and I decided I should be able to as well, haha. Also curry, which isn't hard when you have a sauce pack. mmmMSG.)
- A house is not a home. Roommates are not necessarily to become friends, at least not ones who are there when you need them.
- My academic side needs to be constantly stimulated, or prodded. A lot of last semester was just prodding, though, and that's not good either. (AKA A lot of work with no purpose.)
- To live on my own, coordinate shopping trips and laundry all while maintaining the academic routine to which I'm currently enslaved.
- How to come out to larger groups of people/coworkers that I'm constantly around.
- Having a long-distance boyfriend with an open relationship is extremely tough, but it's what I want, and if anyone's capable of it, I am. (Well, if the relationship weren't open, that would be ideal, but that's not possible. :/ Also it's questionable whether closed is actually ideal on my end - I haven't resolved that question yet. More on that later.)
- Grad school is grad school, regardless of where it is.
- Regrets must be gotten over. The way I've done this for the Spring semester is by reviving my focus on learning math IN class (which I enjoy more than learning math outside of it, admittedly). Yes, that actually has done the trick, at least so far.
- And the above solved the problem of how to deal with incompetent teachers and sketchy academic quality.
- It's difficult to keep in touch with people who don't live where you are, even if they're back home. Facebook is useless in facilitating this task, as well as many others.

Still learning:
- Math, and I'm learning to accept that I'm going to be learning predominantly math for awhile, and if I continue at this, potentially for the rest of my life.
- How to balance my personal needs with my demanding school routine.
- How to accept that though I may not have a job and I'm only doing homework, I am still useful and I'm doing what I should.
- How to deal with having an open relationship. It's really hard to stay convinced of the other guy's love when it's so early in the relationship that you had to do this, regardless of the leaps and bounds the other guy goes to in order to facilitate that. Also, I get lonely out here too, and I wonder if the open long- distance actually is better than closed long-distance for me. Unfortunately there's no way to evaluate that because the latter situation didn't happen. Actually, I probably had a chance to try to make it happen, but I conceded a little too early. And on a related note:
- Sometimes life presents you with two choices, and you can only pick one. Both are decent choices, but really something's missing from both, and by choosing at all you get the added pain of not having the other choice, not knowing whether the other is better for you. I kind of feel that way at this moment with the open vs. closed thing. But back to the relationship, the obvious thing is to just go with seeing other guys/hooking up with them and seeing where it leads. One thing, though: This is a pain in the ass. I would rather not do it, but it hurts me not to. Essentially I'm forced to. It's kind of like going to school and getting the reward later, or at least that's what I have to tell myself. But yeah, there isn't any going back right now from what I agreed to (and I wasn't reluctant at all when I agreed to it, actually), so the proper course is to proceed. In any case, what I'm learning in general when faced with these kinds of situations is just to proceed and believe that I made the right choice, though the reasoning may not be evident in the short-term (but the payoff should be there in the long term). Japan v. Paris, I'm over that. Boston v. Iowa, I'm not quite there. With the relationship thing, I actually don't care too much about the decision I made, but I just don't know how to proceed, and it scares me, as it did before I was in a relationship. Well, I got a pretty good relationship out of my efforts so I might as well have faith and confidence in myself.
- My phone calls to friends back home and elsewhere have been long and taken a lot of time out from studying. My pondering about life has been long (like the paragraph above) and reduced my study time similarly. I need to ponder life and study simultaneously, I guess? I'm still learning how to deal with the lack of time to do everything I feel is necessary.
- Still learning how to go to bed early consistently. Just broke off from that routine the last two days, and when this happens it really KO's my ability to work.
- How to come out to my parents and get them to accept who I am, and who I'm with.
- How to prevent myself from getting lonely later by realizing the possibility that I will be (even if I don't feel lonely at the moment), and seeing other guys/going out to the gay bar, or hanging out with friends when I need to, or calling friends when I need to. I think the first one is the most important, because I tried it last semester ONCE and I actually felt a lot better, even if it was just sleazy dancing and nothing else.
- How to realize that I am who I am and I should play the game of life by my rules, i.e. seek success where I know I can get it and put myself on top, not relative to other people, but just on top.

It's been awhile. Thanks, freewriting.