My Insuppressible Urges

As of now, it is 7:00 pm on the night before my high school exams.  A combination of senioritis and my understanding of the triviality of these exams has led me to distract myself with writing about the very things that I am distracting myself with.  Which includes this.

Lately, I've been seeking some sort of creative outlet.  Music doesn't really count, since the music that I play is all ensemble work, where creativity works more in favor of the conductor than the musician himself.  I have dabbled in composing, however, and I've found the perfect song to arrange for a small ensemble.  I really want to write that and perform it, and the thought of how cool it would be if I successfully completed such a piece is overwhelming my mind.

Also, I've been reexamining the partial mess I created back in November.  In order to fill the post-marching band void in my life, I signed on to compete in National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo).  That didn't go so hot.  I ended up abandoning the "novel" around 11,000 words, a grossly intimidating 39,000 short of the universal goal of the project.  My thoughts of starting anew without the 30-day time constraint taxing the quality of my writing are also on my mind.

As far as writing goes, my friend (who I shall refer to as T-Rad, as I do in real life) and I have seriously considered writing a mini-musical based on the severely hilarious and explosive 2009 blockbuster, "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra".  It was very, very fun casting some of our theatrically-inclined friends as characters in the film, but our enthusiasm for writing the thing faded as we realized how damn hard it would be to make a budget stage production out of one of the most special effects-laden films to date.  This would be sufficient grounds to abandon the project if T-Rad and I were not so obsessed with the glory that would come with accomplishing the tremendous feat of writing a musical.  So we decided to instead create a completely original full-length musical comedy (since we share essentially the same sense of humor).  Right now, we don't even know what it's going to be about.  But that doesn't mean I'm not excited to the point of distraction.

I've also been concerned lately with the state of my own reading.  I haven't read a book for recreational purposes since I read Blindness this summer.  Now I've purchased another Saramago novel called "Death with Interruptions", "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer, and "Under the Dome" by Stephen King.  I've been tempted to crack open one of these books many times over the past few weeks, and it looks like that will soon happen.

On a less creative note, I've also been extremely determined to finish some of my yet-unfinished video games, and replay some of my old favorites.  I haven't finished Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Final Fantasy XII (this is sad since I've owned it for two or three years), and God of War I.  I want to replay all of the Kingdom Hearts games while I'm at it (although I don't need to replay Kingdom Hearts II, since I beat that around a month ago), as well as some Zelda games and Okami.  I'm a nerd, I know.  At least I didn't mention any of the old N64 games that I will undoubtedly play this summer. 

My main problem with all these things flying through my head isn't that I'm distracted by them.  Honestly, I really don't give a shit about studying for exams anyway.  My problem is that I don't know which of these tasks I should aim to finish first.  There's no way I'm going to be able to do all of this before college, yet most of it seems implausible once I actually go there.

One way of looking at this situation would be to say that I should prioritize them in order of how likely I am to accomplish them.  The problem with this is that it puts the musical dead last on the list of priorities, which happens to be the thought that I am most excited about.  I'll definitely give it some more thought.  I can definitely see one of those books in my near future, though.  And by my near future, I mean tomorrow.