Drinking Whiskey at Midnight in a Room of My Own

So, I have found myself very busy as of late. Still, I make sure I get some pleasure reading in a few times a week. It's a hold over from working at the factory. I would make sure to read every night, because I could feel my brain going numb standing in front of those machines. I needed intellectual stimulation and I received it from a parade of novels I would read, all summer. Now, back in school, I am intellectually stimulated every day, but independent growth through art is still an important part of college experience. So, I listen to as much music as I can, watch movies often and read whenever I can find the time (if someone tells you they don't have the time, they are lying. They just don't like reading).

So that brings me to the topic of this post, Graham Greene's A Burnt-Out Case. This summer, I read Green's Brighton Rock because it was came highly suggestion from within the pages of Frank Portman's novel King Dork. I enjoyed it, but found it a little too convoluted (I found out later that this is because I haven't read the book that preceded Rock yet. It's on my list). A Burnt-Out Case has opened my eyes to what Greene is capable of. The biggest reoccuring theme in Greene's novels is Catholicism and it is in full force in Burnt-Out Case. It is like a theology lesson wrapped in a prose fiction, but it never leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The plot of the book is very convoluted, as is Greene's style, but basically, a tormented, famous Architect and atheist, Querry, travels to an African leper colony to live out the rest of his days in seclusion. There's more to the story than that, but anything else would only ruin what develops, however slowly. That is one of my big gripes with the book. Events are unfolding slowly in and in almost out of order. I'm nearly done with the book and the love interest is just now being introduced as a fully realized character in relation to Querry. If you can go that far, Graham Green, you can probably figure out a way to leave her out of the plot entirely.

Still, the book is full of inspiring, thought provoking moments and I would say it has legitimately changed my outlook on life. One of the greatest aspects of the book is all the people who insist that Querry is a great man (a saint even). Querry meets this praise with anger and strikes out at these people verbally, he insists that he is a godless, horrible man. These people are shown by Greene as dullards and through most of the novel, I found myself agreeing with Querry, but I am slowly realizing that these people may, in fact, be right about Querry. It's quite a lesson about self-image, I think.

Formula For Success

So, hey dudes. Let's talk Lent. I'm not really a practicing Catholic anymore but I am proud of my Catholic upbringing, it's probably the closest thing to an ethnicity I have and I hold on to it tight. So, in keeping with my heritage, I have decided what I'm doing for Lent: I'm going to go to bed later and wake up earlier.

Now when people hear this, they may think I'm trying to be more productive. My friend Candice said "Well, you'll get more done." That's not the point at all. The point is to have more fun by having more hours in the day to be awake. Since I spend pretty much none of my time moping or not enjoying myself, any extra time awake is going to be more good times. If I feel like I'm not having as much fun or even that I'm having an equal amount of fun to before, I'll probably stop doing it. Right now, in the words of Ohio's own Delay "I'm tired all day and I like it that way."

Therefore, if any of my friends would like to join me at any point in this adventure, I encourage it. Late night hang outs all week are welcome, just make sure if we're not at home you get me home. I'd like to get my 3 or 4 or 5 hours of sleep in my own bed.

Type type type, hack hack hack

So yeah, I used to do a blog here about music that I like. I did that for a very short amount of time because a bunch of reasons I don't want to get into. These days, all my friends have blogs and I want in on that sweet action. This is gonna just be a personal blog, with my own experiences and opinions being featured. I don't really know where to begin or end here. If you don't know me, (what are the chances of some rando reading my blog?) my name is Corey, I'm a Junior Telecommunications major at a university in Ohio. I don't really know what to post right now. When interesting things happen or I have a day worth talking about, you'll be the first to know.