Let's wing it and see where it goes...

My current state: in a slump and worn out. I'm still trying to maintain a positive facade, but the passion to excel in my schoolwork diminishes with each passing day, with each assignment, with each day closer to a 4.0 semester. With all the excitement gaining focus on future goals at the beginning of the semester, I stormed out the gate in all my classes and established a very healthy A in each class. The fall semester is fastly reaching an anticlimatic endpoint. At my current pace, I could walk into each of my classrooms, Christmas tree the final, fling the scantorn sheet toward the professor, jump on my desk, do a little salsa... and still receive an A. Some NFL reporters said the other day that the biggest problem of the Philadelphia Eagles is that they play down to their competition and are lacking a killer instinct. What of me? I'm losing the killer instinct that has made me a prosperous student this fall. I'm playing down to the competition, putting unenthused effort into papers and exams that cannot drastically damage my grade. The great ones, in whatever area we may be discussing, persevere because they defeat not only the outside blockades, but also those internal obstacles that test mental strength and heart. Internal apathy is a mighty shackle to unlock and serves as the bane of my battle to be great.

I don't let others see my struggle, though, and this outer guise actually serves as a medicine, relieving me of the symptoms of apathy. Ever since my return from last month's trip home, I have acted been more friendly, cheerful, and energetic in my relations with other people, whether friend or stranger. I'm more confident and attractive in my outer appearance and have noticed the results. I have decent conversations with unfamiliar people. More girls smile at me. I have stronger relationships with my professors. I feel that people are more intrigued by me, more interested in getting to know me. Granted, my shyness still shields me from being the life of a party--- or even a guy who can dominate an initial conversation, for that matter--- but I sense that fewer people misinterpret my shyness for aloofness or conceit. If I feel that people are more attracted to me while perceiving my shyness for shyness, do I feel that people are attracted to me because they see me as more genuine?

This evening I headed over to Alehouse to take in a Big Red and some friendly atmosphere. Normally my tab comes to $11.44: $6.95 for a Big Red, $0.49 tax, and a 54% tip for Chas.

(Does any server deserve a 54% tip? Probably not, but Chas is no longer our server; she is a friend. I miss her when she's not working on a night I go to Alehouse, and she genuinely misses us when we leave for over a week. I know that she cried when her daughter left for the first day of kindergarten this year, that they just moved into their first house, that she cannot decide if her favorite color is blue or green, that with the thousands of Big Reds she has delivered us she has never had one, that she has a passion for acupuncture. Chas is simple but sincere and always knows she can have the cherry that comes on our Captain Jacko's dessert.)

Today's bill was much higher. Not because Chas decided to charge me for mountain dew or extra hot sauce, but rather because I picked up the tab of someone else. Earlier in the evening a bet was placed inside the Chi Omega house. We were serving shrimp scampi, and Caroline had sloshed the treys with far too much scampi butter; arteries clogged with congealing fat cells at the mere sight of angel hair swimming in this pool of lard. As a joke, I offered someone--- whose name shall remain anonymous--- a free ticket when we went to Alehouse. All he had to do was drink a glass of the scampi butter. Who would dare sign his own death certificate in this manner? Apparently, a hungry college student who is offered a free meal. Without hesitation, he filled a glass two-thirds of the way with the garlic-infested fat and drank his way to a free dinner--- and closer to triple bypass surgery.

These stories may not be the most outrageous or luring of tales. They may not cement themselves in your memory after tonight. But for now, they are intriguing, genuine, and likeable, yes?