Me behind a stone monument we found on one of the trails on Morrow Mountain

I spent most of my morning doing schoolwork; apparently, Saturday morning really is the best day for this. I’ve gotten everything but part of my reading done for Cultural Studies, and I’ve read so many things this week that have changed my outlook on the “cultural products” that we consume and how corporations and mass culture producers seek to shape us to their whims rather than letting us realize that we do have free choice to accept or reject what we want to consume. It’s definitely made me rethink the concept of the tv diet and we’ll probably revisit that within the next few weeks.

The consumer diet goes well; other than food purchases and toiletries, we’ve made no purchases at all in the month of February. I suspect that we’ll get through this fairly easily as February is a short month and we’re so busy that we don’t really have time to go shopping anyway.

I spent a lot of time journaling yesterday, working through some things that I’m carrying, personal baggage and whatnot, and I feel like I’m (hopefully) starting to at least approach the other side of the most recent identity crisis that I’ve been dealing with for the past week or so. I’m trying to reconcile my present-day self with the “me” of ten years ago, seeing what about myself I wish that I had kept and trying to revive it and seeing what I didn’t like then that I continue to do and trying to stop those things. It’s funny how you can simultaneously change so much and also not change at all.

I’m feeling like very little of this makes sense, and I apologize for that, but I also feel like good things are happening, so if nothing else, that’s making this day better:). Tonight will be spent reading the last two chapters of one of my Cultural Studies books and trying to make a thoughtful post or two on that before getting ready for the always-busy Sunday activities.

Here’s a pretty good picture of relaxation for you: