Looking at my bookshelf, I just realized how awkward and funny it is that last year's edition of Esquire's "Big Black Book" sits next to the D&D Monster Manual.

What does that say about me as a person?

When I first started my career as a university student, I lacked a certain trait that would make or break my success. I didn't have any vision. I mean, I had things which I assumed were a vision, but not the proper sort. I imagined myself as this cross between popular and nonchalant, you know? I wanted to be that cool guy. I imagined reinventing myself to fit into the social circles that weren't existent when I went to high school.

Thing is, it's incredibly difficult to reform yourself into a mold when you're not even realistic about the mold that you're in. At all first year orientations (or at least I assume this is the case), you are told that you can recreate yourself to be whomever or whatever you choose. For the first time in your life, you can say, "My name's Adam, or Sarah, or Elizabeth, but my friends all call me Bobby," and no one will question your unwavering devotion to your new persona--save for when your friends come to visit from home, but I digress.

This is wrong. Or at least it was the case for me, in retrospect. I didn't have much drive to recreate myself, though this is in part because I didn't have much drive to even exist in any personable function through the better part of my first year at college. I laugh now at the fact that I was so maladjusted, though I know it's not quite funny. Lots of people wash out, and I'm very lucky that this wasn't even an option for me. My mama, for lack of a better word, would've tanned my hide.

I'm nervous about the upcoming school year. It's my last academic year as a student, before what will hopefully be a rewarding series of them as an educator. I still think, despite a general trend of apathy in my relationship with God over the course of the past two years, that this is exactly where He put me, and for exactly what He wanted me to do. I don't have any authority from him on the subject, but thinking about anything else really just makes my heart ache.

I don't know how things will go this year. But I'm excited. I'm ready to step into the role that God and UE have been preparing me for from my first breaths to my stubborn proclamation in seventh grade.

I will be a teacher.

stop shitting on intellectual property from the 1980's.

We do not need a "Red Dawn" remake. We do not need a "Robocop" remake. We don't really need a "Friday the 13th" remake, but that might be amusing.

Each of these films filled a particular niche for the time period that they were set in. That niche does not exist anymore.

You wanna do a remake? Remake Robocop 3, and take out all that family-friendly bullshit and make it as bleak and fun to watch as the first one.

Sometimes I consider the notion that I would like to be a famous asshole.

I imagine myself driving a very fast, very ridiculous car. I would nudge lower class cars not unlike my own Dodge out of lanes, cut in lines at stores or pay ridiculous prices for meals that wouldn't even come close to filling the stomach of an Ethiopian baby.

I wouldn't have to show up for work, and when I did, it would be to antagonize; it would be because I'd be the boss, and could flip off employees with little to no recourse. I would come home to a large home with harsh, uncomfortable furniture in rooms that other people's brat children wouldn't even be allowed to set foot in.

I look at these things, imagine myself being a little skinnier, maybe a little taller. Better-defined cheek bones. All the things that make men wanted by women. Huge closets (which I still want, even if I'm never going to be filthy rich) for multiple suits (which I also want, despite possible poverty).

All these vapid things, hallmarks of success and consumerism, pale in comparison, however, to the little things I've got. Jar of peanuts. Working cell phone. Box of Flav Or Ice popsicles. The big things too; good friends, amazing girlfriend. Fulfilling career choice. Success in its own right.

Does gloating about these successes, much greater than being a famous asshole, make me in essence an asshole?