First blog!

PS. My blogs won't be this long!!! I swear!!! This is a comprehensive introduction to my life, of which I highly recommend you read as I doubt you will understand my other posts without the background info.

Hey everyone, welcome to my first blog and my first post! I thought of ways to make this interesting and have had a few failed attempts at blogs. Do I make it all about Oscars? Survivor? My angry rants on life? My happy rants on life? I honestly had no idea. The fact is that my life is kinda boring. But for the little drama in my life, I hope that many of you readers can relate to me :). I mean, we read memoirs about affairs, drug addiction, sex, or epiphanies about life, and I think many of us (myself included) expects our lives to have that (in the words of the amazing Ms. Travis) "jazzy pizzazzy" ring to it. The fact is that 90% of us are boring, though if I've learned anything from films and reality TV, often the most boring lives are the most fascinating.

Enough of my rant about not being extraordinary! In this blog I hope to just let you know who I am and kinda release the ideas and creative juices that go through me, as well as what I hope the future will be like. Before I go further, let me explain who I am: I'm Mike (or Michael...though Mike is a bit more relaxed for me) and I'm a first year student at Brown. I am currently pre-vet, though the disastrous (56%!!!) result of my bio test has made me think that I may do history instead. And that's it...

My life is basically me trying to learn about myself and others, and try to be happy. I tend to be a planner and my academic plans are constantly changing, but my personal goals aren't changing that much. To be honest, I'm not an academic. I kinda recognize that I'm, at best, on the lower end of the intelligence here at Brown and don't really know why I'm here or how I got here. The friends I have made are enough of a reason to be here and, to be honest, even if I graduate with all C's, I will always be proud of me going to Brown. I don't feel that I should be here, but getting here was a huge accomplishment in my life and if I realize my grades aren't good enough for grad school and I have to follow my secondary plan of being a high school history or bio teacher by getting a masters here, I will have no regrets. I came to Brown a very different person. I believe I was smarter, had a little more motivation, and was excited about learning. Not so much anymore, but I've grown a lot personally, which in my mind is way more important than getting an A. I met great friends, experienced the pain and joy of love, explored the hook up scene only to realize I want to settle down, and have finally come to terms with my sexuality. I came to Brown wanting to leave with a great job with great money- now I want to leave happy. And if that means half the salary, you know what, I really don't care. I try my best and if my best is a C at this school, I can only leave with that knowledge.

My dream since I was 10, and saw the premier episode, has been to be on 'Survivor'. I am facebook friends with many of them and have talked to a few of them, and I honestly get jealous when I see them all hanging out together and having fun and becoming part of this large family. When the amazing Jennifer Lyon, who came 4th on the Palau season died, the support from all seasons cemented that family together, and I want nothing more than to be part of it one day. Though I obviously want to win by a strategic game, my goal is to just get as far as I can and experience that raw nature of challenging your body and mind, meeting new people, and making life long friends. I've been in situations I'd rather not share where I've lived in close contact with various groups of people and I can't stress the connection you get, and it honestly was a wonderful thing. I hope to have a fledging reality TV career (also on my list: The Amazing Race, Big Brother, and like every reality star, a trashy VH1 reality show) in order to gain access to my true passion: film. I am a screenwriter and would love one day to publish them, direct films, and really touch people.

And so this is the biggest dilema in my life. I am at a school where learning is supposed to be enlightening and motivating, but my "academic" dreams are really secondary to my personal dreams. I mean I love teaching and I love animals, but if someone told me I could drop out of Brown tomorrow to do films and be on TV and write books, I fear that I'd do it in a heartbeat. Like, I love the idea of Brown and I love being here, but I sometimes feel like it should be reserved for someone who loves sitting in a classroom and learning, which is not me. I won't ramble more because this is the big topic of my life right now (and a painful topic- it is so hard to force yourself to write a paper you honestly couldn't care less about). But until then...I'll talk to you all later!!!