Reality Check In Progress...Please Stand By

Another semester ends and it is once again time to take stock of my life. Good grief, what have I done? I let my blogging lapse in order to concentrate on my classes (not that anyone is out there waiting for my next post with angst) and after careful review I have come to the following conclusion: BLAH!

While my immediate family will tell you with much glee that I'm a much better person now that I'm not working in prisons, I respond with this....at least I knew who/what I was then. I was a leader, a respected veteran and above all I was feared by those who had reason to do so. Quick actions and a piercing glare were my trademarks. Now I spend most of my time looking away from people, not from shame but from fear of being labeled a dirty old man. You see, it's hard for someone my age (thirty *cough, sputter* something) to go to college classes without being labeled as some kind of weirdo by at least one member of the opposite sex. I spend all day sitting in classes and walking the campus doing my best to avoid an "Oh My God, he just smiled at me" moment. It was a lot easier at the prison, at least I had a captive audience.

So there it is, bad punctuation and all. I've put off any hope of a relationship until graduation seeing how I'm old enough to be everyone's dad (well, crazy old uncle anyway).

AND IN THIS CORNER......

Monday creeps closer. The day that I return back to classes at the University. While not particularly dreading going back to class, I am however not overly ecstatic about one of the classes.

Let's just say that Ethics is something that I'm not exactly well established in. I'm not a complete horses' ass, but neither am I Gandhi when it comes to certain issues. The more that a group of people politicize themselves....the more I come to loathe them. A good case in point would be gay rights. I was fine with gays before they were a political statement. Now that they are a complete platform for officials looking for election, I have become intolerant in my views to the point of not caring if they have rights or not anymore.

This could be a long semester.....