State of the SoaM

I've been doing this blog for a long, long time. It's the longest running thing I've ever done. Tomorrow is the four year anniversary of this thing. I started it when I was a Senior in high school, and here I am, a senior in college. I'm married, I'm just about to become a teacher, and I am no longer a teenager.

Because of my change in life status--marriage, college senior, future teacher--running this blog is becoming more and more difficult. I have put a lot of thought into this, and I feel like this is the right move. As of today, I am retiring Scribblings of a Madman. It's been a long and good run, and I feel this is the right moment.

Don't take this to mean I am giving up on writing. Far, far from it. I have stories currently out and under consideration at lots of places. However, I feel like I've just been limping this thing along for a while, and I'd much rather spend what little spare time I have working on my craft than plunking out an entry here. It's been a ton of fun, very therapeutic, and I've met a lot of really cool people. But since this has become more of a chore and an obligation, I feel the time is now, let's end this puppy on a high, as it were.

I want to thank you all for reading this for so many years. For caring about what a silly, lonely, high school senior had to say. Thank you for the support in my writing, and I wish you all the best luck in the world.

(I reserve the right to pick this back up at any moment without warning. I am King here at SoaM. I have the right. Nya nya. :P But I don't see that happening right now.)

Good luck with everything you do. I wish you only the best.

Thank you, and goodnight,

Jason Rayburn

I Have News!

It's been a long time, and I have a ton of news. Lots of news.

The last time you heard from me was Spring Break. Darling Dearest was in rehab, I was concerned with make up work and finals, and I wanted to write some. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to write. I spent most of Spring Break reading the last two books of the Twilight Saga because of Darling Dearests urgings. I didn't work on my make-up papers (which I should have) and then I returned to school.

A couple of weeks later--April 1st--I turned 21. It wasn't a big deal. I've never really cared about drinking one way or the other. I had never had a drink up until that point (except for an accidental sip when I was little and thought it was Peach Nectar and not a peach wine cooler), so I didn't rush out and celebrate with a giant bash. As a matter of fact, I stayed in all evening and frantically worked on my make up work.

The next day, however, was much more eventful. Darling Dearest got out of rehab! Thankfully, it was before the 10th of April, which is our anniversary of the day that we started dating. We had a lot of fun, and then the big day came. April 10th, 2010. One year from the day we started dating. 1 year of ups and downs, comedies and tragedies. And it happened. We got married. It was a very small ceremony at my grandparents. She looked beautiful in her little white dress we got.

The same day we got married, we moved into our new apartment. We are now completely on our own.

We've been married for a little over a month, and it's been amazing. I never thought I could love someone so much.

I don't want to get too mushy and such, so I'll just say that this was literally the best decision I have ever made.

Darling Dearest still has a few problems--she walks with a limp, her left hand isn't QUITE as steady as the other, and she can't really raise her left foot up. However, she's come SO FAR in such a short time that I can hardly complain. Also, she's been playing Guitar Hero to help her coordination in her left hand, and we're going to the gym at our apartment complex to build strength and help her work on her walking more. In addition, we're looking into some outpatient rehab.
So...that's how things are. You are now up to speed. Thankfully, I managed to make it out of the semester alive...although not without a few problems involving my scholarship. But that is all going stuff that we'll deal with as we can. I'm so glad to have the summer to spend with my new wife.

Goodbye 2009!

Well, 2009 is drawing to a close. And I gotta say, this year, I'm glad to see it go. It's hard to classify this year. On the one hand, I want to say the year was a success. After all, I met the girl i want to spend the rest of my life with--something I never thought that I would do, but especially not so young. And yet, I have, and it's fantastic.

With that said, in the same year that I met my beloved, I almost lost her. Twice. I met her at the beginning of the year--one year ago today, as a matter of fact--and I almost lost her in April. A tornado hit and destroyed a good portion of my hometown. Several months later, I was in a horrific car crash that my girl and I are still recovering from.

So where does 2009 lie? Is it a draw? Or should it be packed up and shipped out with a "good riddance" to follow it out the door. These are questions I don't have the answer to.

So I talked about the bad things--a tornado, a car wreck, various drama's a college involving regime changes, major drama in the summer from my fiance's crazy family--now I need to talk about good things.

I met my beloved. We began flirting, and the first several months of dating-but-not was awesome. We talked on the phone for hours. It was amazing. We started dating, which was even more amazing. We had tons of fun over the summer, despite drama, and our relationship grew. We went to college, where things were nearly perfect. I was fortunate enough to come into a bit of money so that I could some things I've always wanted and a new car. I got engaged. I began planning the rest of my life with my girl. My fiance has made a dramatic recovery from the wreck. The doctor's said she's 3 months ahead of schedule. She's doing amazing, proving, once again, how awesome she is.

I think if there were a theme to 2009, the theme would be change. So much has changed this year. My brother is in his senior year, I got engaged, we both got new cars, friends moved across the country, others drifted away, some drift back and forth. I got a bit of money to start planning a life with. I walk with a cane. My town has been rebuilding itself. Hundreds lost their homes, and yet, I've heard some say that the tornado saved a drowning town--now many of the companies that had no work have work to do again.

Whether they're good or bad changes, they were changes nonetheless.

So, goodbye 2009. I really won't miss you that much. You gave me some tough love, and I'm not sure I've forgiven you for everything you've done. But you brought me some really good things, too. I extend a firm, curt handshake to you. Welcome 2010. I hope you bring twice the fortune, with none of the tragedy.

A Little News on Goings-On and Musings on Plans for the Future

So, over the past few weeks, I've been procrastinating. I have (or rather, had) three essays to write (two now). One for Mythology, one for British Literature, and one for Women in Chinese History (due the day before yesterday). I did get the Chinese one in, but I have yet to start on the other two. This procrastination can be blamed on two things (besides laziness, which should be obvious).

Number the first: I have had an absurd amount of drama at my dorm. My girlfriend and I ran an amazing campaign for such short notice -- we were only told two days before the election that the election was coming up. Usually, we have two or three weeks, this time, we had only just signed up to run when it was already time for the election.

After some amazing campaign posters done by yours truly, and some good promises, which we intended to keep, we sat back and waited. I got the position I wanted -- Vice President. However, my girlfriend did not win President. Then, we discovered a series of fishy circumstances where ballot boxes may have been stuffed and the Resident Director may have rigged the results to put one of his friends in office instead. Regardless, we decided to stick it out. Until we saw the rest of the results of the election...or rather..the consequences.

The entire government was outrageously one-sided, with virtually every position filled by one of my Resident Director's friends. No matter what any of my fellow government members decided to do, it was vetoed instantly if my RD didn't like it. Beyond that, he began lying to us, making threats if we didn't do what he wanted, and doing things that were way beyond what power his position as RD is capable of.

I have taken steps to report him to the people in charge of all of the dorms, and I would like to start an anonymous letter writing campaign of complaints, but as of yesterday, I have also resigned my position. I refused to be berated by someone who was my equal in power and an underclassman and had no idea how the dorm community worked.

Number the Second: I might have stumbled upon one of the greatest things in the history of my entire life. A video blog on YouTube known as Brotherhood 2.0. They're known as the Vlogbrothers now, and they're fans are...Nerd Fighters. How cool is that?

I decided, one day, to start watching from the beginning up to now. I'm only about a quarter of the way through, I've already experienced so much with them -- new jobs, new books being published, having to move, the drama of your house almost being sold out from under you, and through it all, they greet these challenges with a great sense of humor.

Beyond that, though, they do more. They realized, after a few posts, how popular they were becoming, and not only set up a "scholarship to decrease world suck" which went to help one of their friends' family who died of cancer, but they also began donating money to help people in poverty stricken nations start up small businesses. They share many of the same causes I do, but they also differ from eachother enough to have actual, and interesting, discussions.

The thing that has me hooked the most? One of them is a literary aclaimed YA author. John Green, author of Paper Towns, An Abundance of Catherines, and Looking for Alaska.

The other, his brother, Hank Green, is a computer programmer, and a writer for magazines like Mental Floss.

It's so amazing, because to see they interact with the world, their jobs, their wives, life...it makes me think about how I'm going to be when I'm they're age.

I will turn 21 in April, and then I really will be a man. I will have earned every right that you can earn in this country with the exception of lower car insurance, which won't kick in until I turn 25. Anyway, I digress. I'm in my Junior year of college. I've taken the Praxis I already. I aced it. I'm that much closer to becoming a teacher. I'll be graduating in a couple of years, and it scared the bejeezers out of me.

I haven't told my mother this yet, because we're a very, very close family, but I'm thinking about moving out this summer as well. I've been looking at apartments. I've been calculating my budget, based on what I'll earn over the summer, my refund check when I return that fall for school, and other things. I've also been looking at where I want to settle down and spend my life. I would like to move to Chicago and experience the Big City Life for a couple of years. I'd like to get an apartment and a teaching job and just teach for a couple of years, and then move to a 'burb somewhere and get started on the rest of my life. I want to go to England sometime before I settle down so I can say I've been to Europe at least once, and I'd like to get married somewhere in there too.

It's very interesting, but I feel like I'm staring at my own mortality. Planning out these steps for what will begin the real beginning of my life -- and not the safe "Real Life" that college creates, but the real Real Life that comes when you've achieved your goal of having a career and now you're stuck with it for the rest of your life.

I think part of the reason this has been on my mind is because those guys, specifically John Green, are how I want to be when I "grow up." He's a full time writer, he's married, he has a few odd hobbies that keeps him busy, and he's also very worldly, intelligent, well-read, etc. His life is pretty much the goals I've been setting for myself since I was in high school. And seeing someone living the dream -- my dream -- has sort of re-focused me on my dream.

Yesterday, I was looking up cities I might want to think about moving to either after I leave Chicago or if Chicago doesn't work out. I found it. It's amazing. It's everything I want in my future town -- MUCH bigger than my home town, and actually even bigger than my college town. It's cold, it'll get lots of snow, it's not too big, either. It'll be a good break from the city life. It's also really close to some cities that will keep me entertained on the weekends. It's basically my dream place.

And between shopping for apartments for the near future and looking at houses for the somewhat more distant future, I've been so excited I can't sit still. I've also been so scared I've had a hard time going to sleep. It's what I want to do with my life, and really look forward to it, but leaving my family and striking out on my own is...mind-boggling, terrifying, and foreign.

Anyway, enough rambling. I just had stuff I needed to muse on for a bit.

Be Patient

I'm trying out new templates and things. The template around here is getting kinda boring, and I'd like a change for the new year. So if the site seems to change every time you show up, don't mind it too much, while I search for a template I like.