Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Dot, Dot, Dot, Dash

The top hat, the race car, and the thimble are all pieces from the board game “Monopoly.” Sara was the first to guess the reference correctly, and so she earns another point. This make her tied for third place with the likes of Mimmi and Semjazazaza. Also it’s important to note that Mr. Baggee guessed another obscure question correctly. This brings him a whopping’ three points, and makes it very difficult for the other players to catch up with him, heh. We’ll see if his winning spree continues as I try to make my title references more and more diverse.

Thanks to everyone who replied to the last post, I didn’t think I was going to receive as many responses as I did… so this definitely surprised me. Hopefully I didn’t offend anyone, heh.

Sage: hero is not dead as far as I know, but you’d have to ask Ben about it to know for sure. I assigned him his issue well over a month ago, Mm.

Current High Scores
JC Baggee 8 Points
Shinmaru: 3 Points
Mimmi, Semjaza Azazel, Sara: 2 Points
Ben, Solo Tremaine,
Nerdsy, Arcadia, Anatema: 1 Point

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My little brother got a job earlier this week, and that fact kind of irks me. Now don’t get me wrong, I think young people should get part-time jobs (especially in this economy,) they teach you a lot about how the world works, they teach you a lot about people, and they give you a lot of freedom and disposable income to boot.

But this is my brother -- my little brother. He’s only 16... my parents can’t possibly expect him to juggle the responsibilities of working five days a week and keeping a decent grade point average in school. Heck, it’s something I’m struggling with and I’m much more responsible than he is. At least, I always thought I was much more responsible than he was.

I’m kind of taken aback by my little brother, and the seemingly intelligent choices he is making with his life. I don’t support his decision to drive around a Corvette (a death trap, in my opinion) nor his desire to test out of high school a year early… but darn, he already seems to know who he is, and what he wants out of life. Maybe a lot of that has to do with the fact that he has a closer relationship to my parents than I do (for a variety or reasons) or the fact that he has had a successful relationship with his girlfriend for the past nine months. [Everyone in the family has noticed a big change in his behavior since then; and so I wonder if perhaps my own maturity is being stunted by the fact that I do not have a significant other. Anyway…]

Being two years older, and “the smart one” I guess my little brother always felt like he needed to catch up with me. He just barely got his driver’s license, and now works five days a week at a local seafood restaurant. Both of those are things I couldn’t even fathom to do at that age -- all I have to show for my Junior year is a mediocre school paper and a few dozen posts in my old “Angry Student” blog.

I’m not necessarily jealous of my brother and the big steps he is taking at such a young age. I know that even in some small way he wouldn’t have done those things without me first doing it myself and setting some sort of standard. “Josh works to pay for his car, so should you.” “Josh has a job, and doesn’t sit around the house all day long.” etc. That’s the role of an older brother, I suppose. I’m the one who gets to deal with everything first, and as such I’m the one who sets the standards on which all my fellow siblings will be judged.

There’s a bit of pressure in having that role, but for the most part I have shrugged it off in an attempt to be my own person, and set my own standards as opposed to living by those set by my parents. I know that’s a very self-righteous statement; in many ways the standards I set for myself are infinitely worse than the ones any parent or sibling could set for me. That’s just who I am, I guess.

He’s going to be the first one to get married and he’s going to be the first one to have a child of his own (if not necessarily in that order.) Those kinds of things bother me, even though I’m not even capable of doing those things I still hold myself to those very conventional standards on what makes an “adult.” I’m just wasting so much time, and making so many bad decisions these days. Everything is a learning experience for me, and my brother gets to learn from those mistakes without having to deal with the same consequences that I have..

Even though I don’t really talk to my brother, or even like my younger brother these days, I do admire how he seems to be making some very large steps towards adulthood while I sit here and type about 80’s cartoons and board games.
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