The time of the cycle is such where I have to write the editorial for this, the ninth issue of NeuFutur. It will be the last of NeuFutur you will ever see under these circumstances, as I just don't feel right going from politics to personal issues and back again while trying to hold a stable audience. So, after this issue, the ninth of NeuFutur and thirteenth of my career, things are going to change. If you have been noticing the work I have been doing on the domain http://www.neufutur.com, you are noticing the beginnings of something back. I subconsciously marked this divergent turn of events in the Ni-Vana piece, which was originally a web and livejournal exclusive, and is now reprinted for your enjoyment. That wild dream had the effect of capping off a wonderfully delirious month in which everything I knew or thought I knew was turned on its head.

While the events that occurred in my life may not be as shocking or as serious as some of the pieces in other zines, they still mean a lot to me. I have to be honest. Sure, I do the zine for people to read, but the zine has increasingly become a method for me to went my feelings, angers, and the like. So, while the events that occurred in my life may not be seemingly as important in scale to those zines dealing with rape and suicide of close friends, I still feel it important to write about and I feel very valid in this. The last month of school (which we will give the arbitrary dates of November to December 11th) has been one in which I have felt the least grounded, and the most confused I have ever been in my short life.

We start out at the Portland Creating Change conference for NGLTF, which had its end at the beginning of the month that I had delineated. While the events were empowering and incredibly fun, the events at the conference can only be said to be of tangential importance to the narrative at this point. The conference and related activities will be focused on in a later part of this magazine, so don't worry, this won�t be a totally depressing issue. I come back to the school late that Sunday night, and immediately I am punded with papers that I had procrastinated on. These papers included a massive 11 page beast that I was working on for American Government with two other people, and a set of journals for my Honors Scholars class that each had to be a page (11 movies worth, of which I had only written 3). To top this drama off, I had ran out of money on my food account, and had to resort to using money off my laundry account to bottom-feed off the vending machines and go to meetings just for food.

A stressful situation, perhaps, but one that many college students have to deal with at different times during their collegiate career. When we throw on the varied layers of other requirements and obligations, things get a little stickier. Of course, I had to work three days of work at the library for my work study, I'm used to that nine hours of dullness. But, as luck would have it, a few members of a fraternity decided to try to win me into their fold, inviting me to dinners and like, further adding issues to my already-stressed self. I mean, I've been over to that specific fraternity numerous times, and they guys there are incredibly nice, but do the obligations of being an activist and a frat-boy cross each other? I mean, I am a treasurer for both the Feminist and the LGBT organizations on campus, and with the policies of the fraternity itself, would I have to change who I am just to be a proper frat-boy?

Hopefully some of the people can begin to see what type of drama was is my life at the time. For those who do not see it yet, here's some other layers of drama and stress that essentially made my life a living hell. Call me whatever names you want, call my that patriarchy-confirming epithet "Mama's Boy", but I need some form of continual contact with my parents to functions at my peak. I love my parents, simple as that. Well, I had decided to make the sojourn back to the house for Thanksgiving break, so I had to go get the tickets, ensure that I have a ride up and from the bus station in both Indianapolis and Columbus, and stay up on the increasing amounts of homework that were piled in front of me even through this break at home. Needless to say, everything went okay, and I was able to keep my cool and get some serious work done through the break. However, when I got back from the break, no word or news came from my parents for a week, something that immediately started klaxons in my head. Talking to them finally on Sunday, I learned that they were just very busy during the week.

This is starting to get a little longwinded, and I don't want my potential audience to get bored with me this early in the issue. Before the glory that was Christmas break, I still had school obligations, mainly my final exams in all of my classes. I don't feel that I really need to go into how stressful final exams are, because most of my audience has had to deal with a major test once or twice in their life. Stress was only increased when I learned that I had to do two papers, taking up the final in two of my classes. Again, I was able to work through these.