Chapter 2

Well I since I've been back in time a month or so I figure I should tell you why I was so freaked out beyond the obvious of being back in time. You need to understand that I'm a history major.

Now to some people this must seem like a great advantage and that I know all about this stuff and know how to survive right, Wrong! Have you ever hear of the phrase the more questions you answer the more the questions the answers bring up, what that means is that, yes I know lots of cools stuff about the past, but I also know all the terrible things that can happen. Like smallpox, polio, cholera, dysentery, gangrene. I could go on about this. Also I'm a generalist I don't get into specifics, I liked history from the Greeks till the cold war I don't know all that much more about the wild west that I didn't learn from movies and high school textbooks.

I'm really way more worried about my mental health. I have two major urges going on in my head right now. One of them if always wanted to do but couldn't with was be the guy to come up with all the cool inventions of this time period. The other urge is much, much, more sinister. It is the urge to go over to the dark side. To indulge myself in all the evils that I always wanted to do but never would do in my old life. What worries me about this is that I have no clue which of these two ideas will be the one I follow the struggle is so balanced it scares me. One day I want to buy a shotgun walk into the bank and rob it and ride off into the sunset. The next I want to invent self contained cartridges for guns, and scientific theory's and practices.

I took a couple philosophy classes in college so I have some background to explain this on I feel like I'm in the state of nature. I think it was Locke or hobs or Calvin, anyway, I don't belong to this society so the social contract I implicitly agree to is no longer valid and the one in place I disagree with, this I think is why my inner turmoil is such a closely contested battle. Without that condition I'd be as normal as I was but I'm not normal and I never was. Normal people don't have the thought and urges I do or if they do they repress them better than my own.

Its September now 5 months since I came to this time and I've worked my way to a decent sized town i do odd jobs and any sort or work I can find I have a tarp that I sleep under that's inside one of the towns stables. The owner heard my tale I made up and took pity on me and will let me stay here as long as I want. I am getting worried about winter though I have been through some really cold nights already but I know that this area of Nebraska can get really cold during the winter I also know that sometime after the 1850's the coldest winter ever happen but I don't know when that is either. My lack of skills and knowledge sometimes makes me just want to break down and cry. Other times I just get so angry I fear what I might do.

This week alone I thought about being a doctor because certainly I'm better than some of the quacks I've heard of but I just don't think I could do it I'm to paralyzed by what I don't know. As more and more days go by I find that I am more and more inclined to give up on a meaningful profession I just don't know enough to get by at one general job and unfortunately the payment for ideas man isn't all that good in 1850's Nebraska. This has lead me to the conclusion that I must seek out a wealthy benefactor to provide for me while I develop some of my ideas or finally turn to a life of crime or if possible do both. It is just so frustrating if I had come back in time ten years earlier I would have more time to come up with great ideas before the civil war. But two and a half years just isn't enough time. I also would have been better off if I had made it farther along in college, sophomore year is to early it was still all gen-eds and introductory level stuff. So ten years on the other side would have been better as well. I think that the bastards that sent me here wanted to make this a s difficult for be as possible.