This is more than I bargained for...

I am officially jaded. And its the kind of jaded that you can feel in your head, in your heart, in your sore feet, in your exhausted eye lids and, worst of all, in your smile (or lack there of). It's a secret kind of jaded that I'd prefer to keep hidden behind a giggly facade of wonderment that gets me so far in this business. It's kind of a eagerness, almost, that is really just compensation for how hollowed out I feel inside.

I am the jaded jack-o-lantern. When the little candle is on inside of me, I shine and look full, even happy. But when it is daytime and I am all but exposed, I am just a hollow orange shell with a creepy smile.

I am over CCM, in the best possible way. I don't want to be here. I know that that sentiment is just winter term and the exhaustion of living through heaps of shows, homework and snow but I still feel like a little, rational part of me feels that way too. This place is running us ragged just to run us ragged. I feel like it doesn't have a point, aside from making money off of the productions. I feel like we are all just hampsters running on wheels creating the electric current that makes this place run. And then what? We get jobs and we leave and we are just hampsters running from wheel to wheel because that's all we know to be good and holy. Is that it? Is that what this school was meant to do? Because it obviously wasn't intended to help foster connections between people. There is too much competition, too many divisions, too many expectations, too much gossip for that to actually happen. While we are here we create fake bonds to tide us over and keep us from trying to jump off that wheel to make life easier. It's like the military man who is still in love with his high school sweetheart just because he needs someone to occupy his mind in the strenuous world of war.

I am jaded because I know what I want to do but I don't want to be ruined and destroyed and beaten to a crisp in order to do what I want. This is not what I bargained for...