Student 76156899 - PBLs and Grief.

This was an e-mail I sent to my Bio 9D professor.

PBL stands for "problem-based learning" and "PBLs" are basically worksheet assignments. Story is I missed out on a bunch of 'em unknowing of their value to the course grade. So, I tried to write myself out of the situation.

It was a failed attempt promptly met by rejection, but on the plus side, the professor was thoroughly entertained by the e-mail.


Dear Prof.,

I have committed a series of small follies, reckless and stupid, that have amounted to a great burden of stress. Not exactly the model individual of academia, I missed out on numerous lectures due to a thoughtless cocky action of signing up for your 9 o'clock lecture (which I can hardly wake up for) and working about 20 hours per week (some of the shifts being late night). This has led me to becoming one of your more dysfunctional students; I am wobbling insecurely on the track of this course. Because of my confusion and general disorganization, I have missed out on four out of the five PBLs you assigned. And looking at the syllabus again, I've realized that PBLs are actually worth 30 percent of the course grade... Woh!

Please don't mistake me for being lazy or unconcerned with furthering my intellect and knowledge. I am very grateful for my college education, but at the same time, my devotion to my own personal ambition (which is writing) sometimes makes me stray from the going-ons of my courses. I may not be very disciplined, but damn it, I am severely invested and impassioned in the one thing that gets my blood going - materializing my mind's ventures through the pen. But anyway...

Normally, I would suck it up and take what I righteously deserve. But, in my current situation, a bad grade's not just a bad grade. Already having made my GPA rather shaky through the antics of my first year, the situation stands that if I screw up again this year, my financial aid will seriously suffer and thus unload a burden onto my parents - a truly dishonorable act. I have been improving this year and my GPA's on a steady climb up to the 3.0+ safety point. A D or an F, though, would really knock me down a good couple of steps. Don't mistake me, I am not asking for your pity, but I am asking for some generosity that can come from human sympathy.

Let's get to the meat of it already: Is there any way you can give me a personal assignment to make up for perhaps two or even three (if you're feeling it) PBLs? You don't have to be easy on me either. Make me suffer for my missteps, make the assignment hard. Hell, give me a good diseases-related paper to write. I might even enjoy writing it and in turn, make it enjoyable for you to read. Guaranteed, I won't half-ass this assignment. Looking back, just doing the PBLs would've been much easier. But lost time is time lost. Can't do anything but shrug it off.

So I only ask that you give me a little boost out of the fire pit and make me feel a bit more comfortable. Anxiety's a bitch, excuse my cursing.

At the mercy of your decision,
Thomas Lee

Two Men and a Mountain

Two men met at the base
Of a mountain.
And they gazed at the rock-
Aged millions of days.

One man said,
'A man can surely climb to the top."
The other agreed:
'And for certain, man can build something taller.'
So the two men nodded
And concluded that man was great.

The two men left.
The mountain stood.
Man or mountain:
Which is absolute?

Independence, Missouri

This is the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. It is located in Jackson County of Missouri.

Built in 1941, Lake City is operated by Alliant Techsystems, a multibillion-dollar weapons company headquartered in Edina, Minn.

It is the primary U.S. military supplier and it has the potential of pumping out 1.5 billion rounds per year.

That's a lot of bullets.

Anyway, this is little peek at my upcoming short story.

It's gonna be good.

The Great Conversation

Originally written on paper. A passage that flows weightlessly with the fluidity of the pen.

Relax yourself and read this out loud. Pause at the commas. Inhale at the periods. Get into the rhythm of it. Let it go by itself.

The air is hyper electric, the sensation is inescapable. Exaggerated gestures, wild eyes, God-man personified in the truth of an orgy of ideas that moves the cigarette smoke to tumble and weave fluidly - an improvisation that will never be governed by natural laws and can only possibly go to infinity ascending the bone, flesh, and skin that can tear and rot and break and ruin, collisions of the souls of you and me and her that impart waves which bounce off walls and ceilings never deaccelerating, never losing momentum, seeping out the window and straight into the sky and more and more into the vast space of dark matter reaching the mouth of God as it inhales and exhales as we feel it.

A. Prolonged. Breath.

Late night hours and cups of coffee but no dark circles around our eyes nor the body tired nor the burden of the body itself felt, but we are up in the air in that infinite space between our glowing eyes staring right into each other as we laugh and feel alive, but not just simply alive, but alive in that we can feel and hear and see and taste the warmth of our most intimate unification - our spirits dancing and tangling and flowing into one another producing a matter with limitless potential, waiting to explode and explode indefinitely, never to be exhausted.

Slow times at the cigarette lounge.

I hate to look at the date of my last entry. Having not published anything for that long of a time guilts me. It nudges me and gets in my hair and yells in my ear - it's discouraging. I can't pump out solid stuff every week, I've tried. I'm invested into every individual piece I write. When I'm writing, the moment I feel forced and uninspired, I drop it. Right now, I have seven different incomplete letters, thought pieces, even some flow of consciousness crap. They all started fresh, but as they went through, they went right to some real rot. Not publishing that shit.

Perhaps this public blog shit wasn't a good idea after all. People are demanding!

Look, I've got my own pace. This ain't no hobbies blog with daily updates and whatnot. This is a fuckin' literary blog. Let me be, hungry readers. I'll update when I've got something I actually want to publish.