I'm stuck.

That's the best way to describe it. I just lack motivation lately... to do anything.

Anything at all.

The downside of this is that I have a project looming overhead for school, which I am making progress on... but not as much as I'd like to be making.

I get distracted too easily. I'm not sure what I'll need to do to regain my focus. A big part of the problem is that I have so many things on my list to do... I need to sit down and break them into smaller and more manageable tasks, then set a timeline for the tasks.

Yet, I'm not motivated to do that either. Bleah.

Oddly, I cannot blame this state of inactivity on being too social, since I haven't been going out. I can't blame it on sleeping too much, since I haven't been sleeping.

So, what have I been doing?

I spend a lot of time sitting in a chair and staring into space. I don't even have music going most of the time.

What's wrong? I know what I need to do... I just don't know how to find that spark of motivation to get it done.

I've been working out more than anything... so at least part of my routine is surviving. However, my workouts have been frustrating. It feels like my metabolism has slowed down.

Get this: In mid-summer, I was weighing in at 157 lbs. and I was running 2.2 miles before I would have to walk a lap or two.

Now? I weighed in at 168 lbs. last night. I was able to make it 0.4 miles before I was so winded I had a death rattle.

It's an interesting situation, because I have bad knees and ankles. If I get too heavy, I'll have to quit running and switch to something with lower impact. However, I like running and I really don't like the way elliptical machines make me feel... but if I don't keep doing cardio exercise, I'm going to reverse all of the fat-burning I've done in the past.

True, some of the weight gain has been muscle. However, when I look at the muffin top, I know that it isn't all muscle. I even have a couple of pairs of pants that no longer fit.

Perhaps it is this "crisis" I'm putting myself through that is tainting my mental state.

Maybe I need some drama in my life again. I dropped a lot of weight the last time, and found motivation to get my shit together.

Now, I'm just like... meh.

I'll figure it out. I truly believe I just needed to write this down... and next I can reframe it into a "How do I fix this?" state.

No worries. All is not lost, but I need to stop this backsliding before I create a major situation for myself! I know I can fix this... I just need to do it.

Analysis paralysis is a bitch!

Finally, the quote of the day. Incidentally, this is what I'm using for my monologue in acting class.

You know, I think I understand what you're like now. You're very beautiful, and you think men are only interested in you because you're beautiful, but you want them to be interested in you because you're you. The problem is, aside from all that beauty, you're not very interesting. You're rude, you're hostile, you're sullen, you're withdrawn. I know you want someone to look past all that at the real person underneath, but the only reason anyone would bother to look past all that is because you're beautiful. Ironic, isn't it? In an odd way, you're your own problem.

I keyed it in from memory, did I get it right? It's a Jack Nicholson line from Wolf.

This morning, I had the television on whilst I was preparing for work, which is something that I never do.

I'm learning there is a reason... a method to my madness, if you will.

Anyway, one of the featured stories on the morning programme I was watching was about a school policy change in, I believe it was Illinois.

The school is banning hugging.

Yes, you heard me right. Hugging. In fact, the story on TV suggested they are also considering banning hand holding and were threatening to ban "high fives."

This is absolutely the stupidest thing I have ever heard!

It is no wonder there are so many screwed up men and women in this country... since we keep sanctioning crap like this!

It's bad enough that most boys and girls don't get the opportunities to figure out how relationships work in school. Combine this with the unwillingness to actually teach children how relationships with men and women work, and we have a valid explanation for the skyrocketing divorce rate and the hordes of dysfunctional families that stay together "for the children."

Humor me and let me venture out onto this limb. Take your average serial killer. Does anyone think about what made him that way? Is he the guy who learned to cringe when a pretty girl walked by? Did he ask the head cheerleader out to the ball, only to have her laugh and tell the whole school and make him feel like a jackass for doing nothing other than showing interest in someone?

What if he had known what to say and, more importantly, how to say it to her? Think back to your days in high school. Some people had it, others didn't.

Some of it comes down to parenting. Usually I rant about parents who don't know how to be parents, but on the flip side there are also parents that shield their children from every conceivable harm. Perhaps Dad was the guy who spilled his lunch tray in front of the prom queen and never quite got over the laughter. Why even risk putting his sons and daughters through that humiliation.

We have forgotten that in order to succeed we need to endure and learn from failure. One cannot exist without the other one. This is why, for the most part, people are more afraid to succeed than to fail. They don't even try.

Why risk the failure?

Now, I love my parents dearly, but I accept that I was shielded as a child, and I'm just now learning to overcome this bad programming. Risk is your friend. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always had.

So, did I stray from my rant about the schools banning hugging? No, not really. Schools are already having a problem with de-socializing the students. It's bad enough that teachers can no longer care because of the social misfits looking to profit from someone else's generosity, that any sign of affection for a student... a child who seeks validation, probably because he or she isn't getting it at home... leads to a lawsuit, firing or worse.

Our society is also to blame. A sophomore girl has a terrible day, and her male teacher is the only one around for her to confide in. He can tell that a hug will brighten her day, so he gives her one... but a classmate of hers sees the hug.

This classmate tells her that the hug consisted of inappropriate touching of her breasts, and together they tell her parents, who in turn tell the administration... and the teacher is "presumed" guilty before he even gets to tell his side of the story.

He's damned by the media... just for giving a damn. Sad.

So, if the parents are teaching children to be de-socialized, and the teachers a coerced into de-socializing students... well, what do we prefer: a little PDA in the hallways, or some disturbed kid who can't talk to anyone running through the hallways with a Glock?

Do people even realize they are CREATING these anti-social children?

And now this school is not only against student violence, but they are against any signs of student LOVE?

I'm sorry, but I am not going to let my children be exposed to that... you people need to pull your heads out of your asses!

Another related link. Both are subject to link rot.