Student Government Is Complete Bullshit

So, if you know me (and thus far most people that read this blog do), you know that I am completely and vehemently opposed to participating in engineering-related extracurriculars. This is mostly because I want to get away from people that think exactly like me during my down time.

It shouldn't come as a surprise then that I am usually blissfully unaware of what my student government is doing. Today, however, I was reminded of their slightly annoying existence by a survey intended to gauge interest in this year's Chemical Engineering Chemistry themed clothing. I don't usually buy into any of these things (what can I say, I'm not a joiner) but I did today for some reason.

All the designs are horrendous. There is not a single item of clothing that they have designed that I would even consider putting on my body. Some of the designs could work if they weren't so fucking fixated on their chosen colour scheme (seriously, who does black writing on black fabric. Idiots.) and putting them on sweaters. Because I'm made of money and can afford your shitty over-priced clothing with ugly designs that I had no input in, or even the opportunity to give it.

My whole problem with student government, essentially, boils down to this: it's one big clique. If you didn't get involved in first or second year, none of the members that did will give a shit about your opinion. Even with this survey, I highly doubt anyone on that committee will modify their designs given our opinions. They don't care, they'll do whatever they want instead of what the majority of the class wants.

Yes, I realize that I could have gotten involved with this whole shebang earlier if I wanted to be a part of their decision making processes. Yes, I could let my class rep or whatever know that I want things to be done differently within their organization. Ultimately though, I don't really give a shit what happens. It's just incredibly stupid, in my mind, that they completely designed this faculty clothing without consulting us first. Or even asking us what kind of colour scheme we thought would be appropriate!

Whatever, they'll do whatever they want in their little hive minds. I'm not going to buy a Chem Eng sweater this year, just as I have never bought a Chem Eng related item before. I'll just go back to my student government free bubble, where everyone is happy and doesn't wear ugly black on black crew neck sweaters.

I Suck at Relationships

I don't think that I would be alone in saying that I am terrible at relationships. As a twenty-something, I'm not sure that this is all that unusual. What is unusual (I think anyway) is that I still can't seem to figure it out, despite having a fair amount of "learning experiences." I feel like I'm going to need to break it down for y'all, so I may as well.

My very first boyfriend was someone I met on the school bus at the beginning of high school. He liked me way more than I liked him, which is probably the first indication of how all of this turned out in the end. I was pretty terrible to him (to be fair though, it was my first relationship). I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted a relationship at that time, or that I was even ready for one, but stupid me goes full steam ahead anyway. I broke up with him in a blog post. I hadn't intended to, of course, but my quoting lyrics of a song made everything a little mixed up and crazy and that was the end of that. I found out much later that he was not necessarily strictly interested in girls, which I think is pretty cool. The major lesson here: be honest with what you need and want out of a relationship, especially if it turns out that you aren't really all that into it.

My next relationship happened in first year university. Again, he liked me a lot more than I ended up liking him. He kinda broke me down in the end; I liked that someone liked me. My self-esteem was in the toilet in those days, so any bit of affection was like the Holy Grail at that point. Before we ended up getting together, we signed a lease to live together the following year (I don't even need to tell you how big of a mistake that was). We ended up breaking up over the summer (he wanted things from me that I wasn't prepared to give -- mainly to go out and spend time with him alone at his parents' farm) but got back together when school started up again. That didn't go too well either -- I'm pretty sure he cheated on me (not that I can verify this claim) because my self-esteem was still in the toilet. Swarovski crystals will never look the same to me ever again. The major lesson here: don't rush into things.

My last relationship to date just ended a couple of weeks ago. This was a guy I had met purely by chance, and by all indications he was a sweet and fun guy. He was in the army (suuuuuuuuuuuuuper fit, I'm not even going to lie) and had no real intention of ever doing anything else with his life. He blew me off a lot and wanted me to change things about myself that I was totally not comfortable with. Get to know me a bit better and maybe I'll tell you what he wanted me to change. In any case, this dude had serious amount of emotional baggage, my best friends and family didn't like him, and he had no control over the place that he would end up living. This relationship was like trying to get blood from a stone -- there was never a snow ball's chance in hell of it working out between us. The major lesson: don't go forcing something if it's just not right.

If anyone has figured out the formula for happy relationships, can you please show it to me? This is one equation that I'm having major difficulties solving.