The Final Frontier My Ass

It's kinda scary to say that I'm on track. I've gotten all my sources, and I've gotta have notes on enough of them by tonight so tomorrow I can write this paper and turn it in come Friday. That said I'm extremely reluctant to do work right now, which is precisely why I'm doing a blog post on time.

Based off the complex and confusing nature of research papers in college, I have come to conclude that space, far from being the final frontier, will never be more than ONE frontier in the multifaceted dimension of intellectual exploration. This book that I am currently reading for my Cold War based final has just explained how, beginning with the original historical approach in which the US was reacting to wold domination schemes, historical opinion evolved into something resembling "it's all the US's fault we're so terrible," and from there into "it was a metric fuck-ton of every conceivable influence from international politics to American corporations!" The only conclusion this introduction arrives at is that consensus on the beginnings of the Cold War will NEVER be found! This leads me to consider the ridiculously complex arena of international events as a confusing and forgetful cacophony that, even given absolute understanding of the situation down to who mailed what derogatory memo about whats-his-name's mother, we STILL wouldn't actually understand things. My point is, beyond exploration into the Earth's oceans (which is still just as far fetched as Roddenberry's Star Trek), beyond exploration into outer space, and beyond exploration into mathematics, physics, or any of the other, tangible exploratory mediums, there are many unseen levels of exploration going on within time and history, philosophy and politics, psychology and the ridiculous complexities of human nature that, if Michael Pollan is to be trusted, are as infinitely complex as the intricacies of physics. This makes the idea that we will ever be actually "done" exploring any one direction patiently ridiculous. Now I'll admit I'm ranting, because even in Star Trek, space never was the final frontier, as the whole show was about discoveries in science and the human condition (although the latter was extremely simplified and pretentious), but if something as simple as understanding what has already happened is still as complex as deep space exploration, one wonders about the true lengths of ignorance piled into a phrase as simple as "Space. The final frontier."

In all honesty I'm just sick of how complex and hard it is to learn things properly. One would think that, with all this smart centered around something like this, we'd come up with a better system. "Question everything" my lumpy foot. Do they even know how hard it is to find numerous resources dealing with things that aren't CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH?

Patching Holes

Word of advice, don't try mixing an all nighter with sickness, then try running halfway across campus. Things were spinning and I hurt in places that don't exist.

So yes. Something was due today that I didn't allow myself enough time to do. That said, something's due this Friday that I've not allowed myself enough time to do, but I don't have class, and for now I'm sitting in bed, enjoying a little reprieve while my lungs heal.

It'll be good to be home once this is all over with.

Good Timing

So this morning I looked out the window and saw clear skies and sun. Wintertime, I realize, means clear skies all night let all the heat out of the area, which pretty well guarantees frigid temperatures all day, but that sun seemed to me a promising source of energy. I donned my lighter, Skunkworks jacket, figuring with the sunny weather it would be adiquate. It was not.

Im a sick. I really don't understand how, or when, but I am. Even as of late, I've had the habit of sleeping with the window open and the fan blowing frigid air inside so as I could pile on as many covers as possible. Last night, however, I opted not to, and even with all my blankets on I was not too warm. I did not sleep well, and my head is constantly fuzzy, which I figure will be a boon to my performance during finals week. Can't worry over a question if you don't have any clue you're taking a test. Proove that the quantity Cosecant X minus Cotan X times the quantity Cosecant X plus Cotan X over Secant X equals Cosin X. My answer: Cows are fluffy and taste well.

Fuck "Friends Forever"

So I'm definitely moving to a different floor next semester. I'm moving in with a guy named Thor, who wears a microsoft programming team jacket, has two vintage slide rules, and is in my DnD group here at college. I told him that I was going to inherit a slide rule for Christmas. Thing is, when Mum and I were talking about this, I was kinda leaning toward the Think Geek slide rule, and now I'm definately prefering the heirloom one. Hopefully Mum reads this soon.

You know that song that they'd always play at every single graduation ever, whether it was from grade school, or even just within grades? I liked that song for the longest time, because I'm a music lover and the sweetly sad emotions it invoke in me are particularly strong, even still. Problem is, I get sick of that feeling quickly, and I've never had that myself. I mean, sure I've left pleanty of friends behind, I left my whole group behind when I graduated from middle school into a school out of the district. Thing is, it never really got to me. Either I wasnt actually leaving anybody behind, as with my current group in Seattle, or really I didn't fit in very well.

Today I really just didn't want to work on my paper, so instead I decided to watch a couple episodes of Firefly (seeing as I'd just brought the series back from home). Soon, my friend, Aaron, calls me up, and I hadn't seen him for a while (he hadn't been coming to class for weeks) we get together to watch Firefly. Thing is, he tells me that he's been accepted into UW, and chances are he'll be gone by the end of the week. Furthermore, UW doesn't accept WSU credits, which is why he hadn't been showing up to class. So, essentially this was my last chance to see him.

So we spend the time watching Firefly and talking about how cute Kaylee is. We also talk about how much it sucks that the show got canceled, and how really, that 'battle' is only as over as Serenity Valley. So here now I'm telling you all of this, because I find it poetic, because he's a really good friend, and while I have lots of really good friends here and in Seattle, I don't have any like him, so it sucks that it got cancled. That said, it's only really as over as Serentiy Valley.

Fish and Cats and Food That's Not Corn!

I'd put something funny here, only all I can think about is how fuzzy my cat is.

Home for Thanksgiving, and I'm extremely happy. Timer for the fish went off. Be right back. Back. Oh crap. Need salt. Ok. Back again. Where was I? Oh yes! Home! Very happy.

It's Been Too Long For Too Many Things

Had rabbit for the first time today. Now, maybe it was the peculiar way they spiced it, but I really couldn't eat very much of it at all. It tasted good, it's just that it somehow brought into disturbing clarity that I was indeed eating rabbit. Probably didn't help that they kept the meat on the bones, and you had to suck it off the ribcage... My friend put it very well. "I really don't want Southside (our diner) to be my first time trying something."

It has been far too long since I first tried my hand and DMing. The game went horribly because I was far to busy to help them set up their characters properly, I probably should have done quite a few things differently as well. It was only one encounter, and no plot happened, and a few of them seemed quite bored by the experience, then we all had to split because everybody had work to do. Recently, I've been significantly more active in building the dungeon and the advanture and I'm really looking forward to throwing these traps at them! I've been doing this in my spare time, instead of reading comics and the like. It helps, too, that Cole and I have been working together regularly, so not only do I consistantly get lots of work done, I also work on projects like these. That said, I've got something else dogging my mind. Near the beginning of the year, a friend and I made an effort to get involved with some sort of extra-curricular things that would eventually lead to good opportunities. This was at the suggestion of my eternally wise mother, and it would have been a great success too, if I hadn't exploded with work soon after. Problem is, it didn't stop. It never stops. I've been getting better and better to deal with this stuff in stride, but I'm far too busy to invest more than a few minutes at a time to any effort, and it's been neglected for so long. I guess I'm just having trepidations at how it looks to these people to have effectively dissapeared off the face of the earth and then pick it back up again. Still, it's much better to try and look bad than not to try at all.

I Love my Mother

Cole and I have started making a habit of working together for long stints of time. This is because we found we both get significantly more work done when in the presence of another jerk who is working.

I'm reading a book for college about the production of food in America. It's called The Omnivore's Dilemma. It horrifies me. Here are some excerpts;
"It takes more than a calorie of fossil fuel energy to produce a calorie of food; before the advent of chemical fertilizer the Naylor farm produced more than two calories of food energy for every calorie of energy invested."
"They say you only need a hundred pounds per acre. I don't know. I'm putting on closer to one hundred eighty."
"Some of it evaporates into the air, where it acidifies the rain and contributes to global warming... Some seeps down to the water table... The spring rains wash [some] off Naylor's fields, carrying it into drainage ditches that eventually spill into the Raccoon River."
"We have perturbed the global nitrogen cycle, more than any other, even carbon."
"Unless you grew up on organic food, most of the kilo or so of nitrogen in your body was fixed by the Haber-Bosch process."
I would like to take a moment to say, thank you so very much, to my mother.

Redemption

Here is an interesting phobia I had never considered before. It is currently possible for me to inhale my own hair.

Last year, in Mr. Hoehne's class, I wrote, what I consider, to be an incredible stain upon my history as a writer. I took a concept that I was thoroughly enamored with, combined it with the enthusiasm for drama in human action that I took from The Dark Knight, and sprinkled it with ineptitude so profound it makes my hair stand on end. The piece, was the literary equivalent of a grade-schooler drawing stick figures exploding with gore upon a pointless and tactless battlefield of crayon. I am ashamed to say that Mr. Hoehne, in his apparent wisdom, took me aside and talked to me about the piece. He informed me that I was indeed the infamous and unnamed student whom he told the class had horrified him and his wife, and asked me if I was alright, whereupon I assured him I was appropriately horrified at my own creation as to be sane.

Here, however, this story takes a twist. In my latest english class, focused almost exclusively upon analytical essays and the formation of the unknowably exact and confusing organization of arguments, the sole opportunity for creative writing has given me the chance to redeem this story in my mind. I believe I may have succeeded. The story may be different, but the concept that enthralled me is still there, and I believe it shines through. I am tempted to take it upon myself to polish this tale and make it shine like nothing else, then to present it to Mr. Hoehne with a note simply saying "I am sorry for unleashing that monstrosity into the world, but here is what I meant to do. Is it not good?"

That said, I'm afraid my current teacher won't care for it because it's over eight pages when she expected about two.

Blogging for Blogging's Sake

I tried looking around my room for something interesting to spark this. Clearly that did not work.

I keep saying eventually, once I'm back on top of things, I'll be able to focus on the things I want to do. Problem is, I don't think that day will ever come. It's not like typical disillusionment, where people romanticize the past, I actually know I was in better shape before. I've been getting worse. But hopefully this next regime will lighten things up. No.

There's nothing to say here because talking about what is happening is depressing and unrepresentative, and I've nothing better to say.

Triumph of Evil over Good

Every time I think I've found a good method for drawing my e-comics, I discover a fatal flaw.

I will be the first to admit, I love tormenting Cole. He reacts so beautifully, and it goes far and beyond simply reacting adversely to every little thing I do to him. You see, quite often I can entice him to play along through various means of persuasive corruption. Now, I'll not boast that my feats are anything more than playful cajoling, pushing him to do things he would, perhaps, rather not do. However, it thrills me nonetheless to see his mighty and proud will bend towards the little embarrassments. This evening I doomed Cole to grow a mustache, but even more than that, I convinced his girlfriend to admit that she too was just a little bit curious what it would look like. "Truly," you might say, with sarcasm dripping, "you are a master of corruption and influence. Truly these poor mortal fools know not the strength of your grasp." But I would shrug. For you see, I know the scale of my small victories, and this does not please me, rather, the knowledge represented therein. Because, neither Cole nor Lydia have any real will to find out what his mustache will be like. Indeed the risk is that it could be a hideous mold, hooked into his face, and on their own neither Cole nor Lydia would want to see this. However, I do, and because I know that both foster a slight, perhaps a little morbid, curiosity, I can will them into conceding to this. I have said, that the only reason anybody submits to pure evil, is because they themselves are a little evil as well. These little proofs comfort me in this fact.

Blogaloggalog

I really need to start drawing comics again. I've got a good drawing program that'll let me do what I want, and a good scanner. There's a project in English 101 that I want to do a comic for. We'll see what happens.

So I pulled an all nighter last night. I was up until five writing the movie paper for English that's been killing me for about four weeks now. I wore the same clothes for three days straight, and I was really tired, so I showered at six and now I'm going to bed at seven. I'm happy with how the paper turned out, because I think I got the organization down, but I do expect the teacher to shoot it down anyway. I really want to keep getting work done this week and next weekend. I've let myself fall way behind in Math because my other classes are so hard, and I'm really not that impressed by the class, even though I AM learning stuff. I need to get my act in shape. On the upside, I remembered to pay my housing early this week so I didn't have to rush for it. I'm tired, night.

Depressed. Don't want to work. Feel bad about not working. Depressed.

So apparently getting a fake mustache for $5 was a pretty good investment.

So here's the problem. I don't want to work, but not working makes me depressed. In order to relieve the depression, I do stuff that's not work, then discover that it's way too late and I need to get to bed on time so I can get up early. Come morning, I sleep in for several hours, and promptly don't update my to-do lists which I drastically need to reinstate now that I'm not completely swamped by a single project. Essentially, the cogs are all bent out of shape and don't have the will to put them back. To make matters worse, I've actually got some drive to do the things I WANT to for once. I've picked XCode back up and I'm playing around with a computer based drawing program, maybe I'll start drawing comics again. Until I get out of this funk, however, I can't do CRAP because it all feels bad, like too many sweets. I know I need to get off my ass and do all these things, but when I do I discover that it's 6:30 and a Wednesday, so I update my blog instead.

Victory!

My bracelet broke. It's going to be quite some time before I can fix it. My wrist feels funny without it.

It's quite hard to accurately convey the disgusting feeling I've had coating my insides for the past two weeks. By no means is that feeling gone, I've still got work to do, but this time... this time I'm optimistic. I don't believe that I've ever experienced that much self deception in my life before. Convincing myself day by day that my subject was alright and that I would be able to write a paper on it in time for today, I don't think I ever actually believed it, or at least the deepest part of me didn't. That's probably what brought me down. It's a bit ironic actually, had I actually been enthusiastic about writing this paper on Sin City and Dick Tracy vs. Crime Inc., I would have probably been fine. I would have been able to motivate myself enough to write a decent paper comparing the two and their societies. But I wasn't. Despite my bouts of excitement on the prospect of having good resources, being able to do the work and doing it on time, at least a part of me realized that it was hopeless. It's ironic because that part caused my depression, my lack of will, my desire to simply creep away into a corner and enjoy what little pleasures I could, ignoring the proverbial elephant.

Even more ironically, the solution to this revolting funk came from making a bad decision, one I knew was a bad decision, and had I made it at noon yesterday when it first occurred instead of later at four, I might very well have had a complete paper today. As it is, I'm in a better mood now than I have been for a while, but like before, it won't last. It will probably be much more manageable though. I'm very hopeful that I may have learned an important lesson in writing, rather than in planning, because more than hard work, it is important to pick a good topic, and even this past weekend I realized I had made a bad mistake. I envied Jon, you see, because he had the brilliance to pick Tim Burton's Batman and Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. He is, let it be known, an amazing Batman fan, and while I must point out that he was absent today during the first peer reviews, I expect his paper will be very good. But allow me to impress upon you the magnitude of importance of picking a good topic. Yesterday, I systematically discovered that, while all my sources were very good and very applicable to my movies, they were quite specifically not what my teacher wanted. I couldn't have even written a single topic paragraph with my previous two movies. At 4:30, however, I decided to take a leap of faith, almost unconsciously, and switch to Soylent Green and Children of Men. I imagine the air around me resounds with the exciting perfection of the pairing of these movies. both depict the same thing, a dystopian future brought about by the sins of human society, but both of these images are effected profoundly by the prevalent issues at the time. Soylent Green deals prominantly with overpopulation, while Children of Men deals with pollution in addition to more etherial subjects such as the decline in religion and political activism. I must admit that I've only seen Children of Men once, and while Soylent Green was good, I wasn't all that impressed. However, paired together these two films fill me with excitement, rivaling that of my other film favorites (V for Vendetta and The Dark Knight). To prove my point, and bring this long winded paragraph to a close, since 4:30, I have managed to lay plans for an epic and detailed paper, and I know exactly where I'm headed and what resources to use. So, while I am not finished and I do not have all the resources I need, I am confident that by Monday next week, I will have a paper full of significance and sound reason.

That said, through all of this excitement, I know I have only prolonged the duration of this drudgery of work that is upon me. I am leaning on, relying on and hoping on my excitement and interest in the topic to carry my through this work and to motivate me to work hard enough to do what I have taken upon myself, but I am pessimistic in light of my previous bouts of excitement over my origional movie selection. I know I cannot revel in the good feeling of having finally found a subject I am entirely satisfied with, because if I do I may not want to leave the warmth of hope for the cold reality of work. We will see what happens.

Additional:
Mother must be horrified. Today was only a peer review, and I had the first part of my four part paper done. It was five pages including the single introduction paragraph, but compared to the four out of eight page average for the class, I think I'm alright. Still, I've got a lot of work to do and less than a week to do it.

Out of the Way and Under the Bridge

I think that's the first time I've watched Sin City without laughing. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

I haven't counted the number of books I've got to read through today and tomorrow. That said it's 16:24 and I've not touched a single one. I HAVE however watched Sin City, and I think I'm even more muddled over my thesis. It matches what I've got in my mind perfectly. I'll look at how entertainment has gotten more violent since Dick Tracey vs. Crime Inc. How the characters and "heros" have changed from strong, infallibles to... God I don't even know what to call that. there might be a third topic as well, but I really don't need one. I've got > 9000 books to go through, each with at least one chapter pertaining to my subjects. I'll also have to find some statistics looking at crime then and now, just sugar-coat things a little, and I've gotten to all this long before everybody else has. So why, oh why, am I so muddled? Everybody else can pound out a thesis with their fists with no problem apparently. Jon, an actor and English major whom I have a great deal of respect for, hadn't even started research last I talked to him this friday. That said, I fear that for all my hard work and effort and reading till my eyes bleed, he'll still put out a better paper than I. I know I'm doing something wrong, but I can't figure it out. It doesn't help that I strongly question our Engl 101 teacher's grading methods. Jon himself has commented that she seems to have a very specific paper she wants out of us, and if we don't fit that we fail. She gave us an example paper and told us it was about a middlle draft. It was terrible. Everybody in the class knew that they'd written better papers than that and gotten worse than "middle." It's all so very confusing... and paranoia inducing. Mostly, I think it's the fact that it's... 16:33 and I've not yet started work... sigh.

Additional:
My roomie moved out yesterday. I'm sad because he was a good roomie, and he had a TV, but immediately after, me and a friend set about rearranging the room to give me more space and an AWESOME desk. Sadly, while he was away with his visiting parents, I found out that there was no chance I was keeping this room to myself for very long. Apparently there's a waiting list to get into Stephenson. While checking mail earlier today, I found a bit of what appears to be spam waing for my new roomie. I've been getting to bed early (20:30-21:30), and I'm afraid my new roomie will cause problems with that.

And You Know the First Thing I Do is Forget to Post?

I have decided that I will not consider myself a man until my late twenties or early thirties. People are living longer, and despite the increase in violence and morally complicated situations in entertainment, I believe that childhood has been lengthened in our culture. While considering this on my way up one of the many hills in Pullman, I realized that I'm 19. Holy crap.

Working. Yet again. I'd like to think that this time I've got a sufficient jump on things, but I really don't think that'll amount to much. This paper is much larger than the other one, and I don't actually HAVE that much more time. Apparently two weeks is enough time to write a paper that requires a minimum of ten critical resources. I have less than a week. This is not through any lack of diligence on my part (this time), it simply takes a while for freshman students to figure out what the HELL they need to be looking for, seeing as out teacher seems to expect us to know already. Suffice it to say I'm gradually building a sense of distaste for my english teacher. Honestly, I'm not upset about the assignment. I just want another week to work on it. But as things stand, I'll be working myself to death for the next... five days. I MUST be doing SOMETHING wrong, but that can't be right. I'm perfect.

P.S.
Just found out where Nickelodeon got it's name. That makes it's "Splat" logo all the more entertaining, if increasingly disturbing.

Plea

Last night, just before one, I woke up to find a drunk guy peeing in my room. I'm not angry about that, but this morning I am furious. I am furious because of what mother has done, and because she wields ultimate power, she sees need to use it to interfere with things I enjoy doing. After these past weeks of hard work, during which I did not update for lack of time to do anything other than work, mother has seen fit to enforce a little agreement we have. I had agreed to do this blog if I could update with one big post every Wednesday and Sunday, and she agreed to let me do that if I did so regularly. If I did not, she would make me switch to a single line every day. Here's the problem. If I do switch to a single line every day, I won't update. It will not work. Because I do things during the day. Because I have work and a million other things to do every day, and if blogging becomes something as simple and inane as a single line every day, I won't do it. It will slip my mind and it won't get done. You see, here's the thing that mother simply does not seem to get. I enjoy blogging. I enjoy the sound of my own voice and I enjoy writing about myself, but I also writing something useful to inform her of what's going on. Yes. A single entry every day, assuming I actually do it, will give you an idea of what I am doing and what is happening in my life. But do you really think that this blog would be so much better if I simply wrote:

Some guy pissed in my room.

I am writing this as a plea. I am willing to beg. Please do not make me write a single thing each day. This should not be a chore, I enjoy it immensely. Please do not make it one. I will not be able to do it if you make it a chore. I'll stop, you'll get angry, and you'll stop paying for my college. Please do not make me do that. Please.

Because If I Have Half a Brain I'll be Researching Tomorrow Instead

There was a fire drill just earlier. If There's a real fire, I'm taking my mac. No questions. That and a coat. The Enterprise ought to be fireproof, right?

despite the fact that I should be getting MUCH more done than I am, it seems that all my work goes to spinning my wheels and taking care of things that I have to do during normal level of work. So, even though Mum and I have gone over the plan, and it should be pretty well fool proof, I just don't seem to be doing enough. So now I'm terrified again. Yay.

I figure, I'll just have to start staying up till midnight like the rest of my compatriots. Hopefully studying. I'm not eager to do that, firstly for the obvious reasons but beyond that I'm afraid of working myself to death this week, and not having the gumption to work myself as hard as I need to for the paper due after NEXT week. Hooray!

Hopefully I can make it through this week intact enough to prevent this from happening again.

The Morning After

My God it was FREEZING in my room this morning! While this bodes well for me, I'm afraid that I'll not have enough covers later. I might have to close the window and turn off the fan.

This is to make up for not posting last night, so I might as well tell you why I didn't post last night. I've been trying to find people for a DnD group from the moment I got here. In the process I've discovered this campus is ripe with DnD groups and people who play, including one DM using 4.0, about which I've heard AMAZING things. Well, I decided to attempt the mantle of DM, not knowing what I was getting into. Yesterday was our first DnD session, and my first attempt to get things moving smoothly. That's the goal, moving smoothly, because when things move smoothly, people can focus on playing their character more than playing the game. Problem is, I'm playing 3.5, and it seems that system is set up much more for the little detail rules and picky or exact roleplay. I still don't know all the picky rules, but Alex is much more experienced than I and he's helping me out. Thankfully he's equally as stubborn as I am, so when he points out when I'm doing things wrong, he can stand up to my sheer ignorance. I'm also trying to get a good discource going between the two of us, so we're arguing less. Every time he brings up an innacuracy in my game management, he always has very good reasons. He really does play by the rules exactly. Problem is, I think I want something more like 4.0. Can't say for sure, because I hardly know 3.5 and I've never even touched 4.0. At any rate, we only got through one encounter, which is really not great, but we were somewhat pressed for time and I was really inexperienced. I think this was a better learning experience for me than it was a game for the rest. Still, it was really fun because all my friends (except COLE who was talking to Lydia) were around one table, joking and talking and goofing off. Hopefully the game gets better quickly, and nobody was put off by gaming.

Bagels are an Amazingly Good Food

At 7:20 I realized that I should get food before the dining hall closed at 7:30, but I wasn't all that hungry. At 8:20, after my shower, I decided to go down to the ridiculously convenient convenience store in the Stephenson main building to get bagels. With Bagel as my witness, I shall never go hungry again!

Every time I ignore the "Journal!" reminder from iCal, I feel a little bad inside. Sure, it was appropriate when I was bogged down by homework to ignore the reminder, but now I've just been ignoring it. That said, it does go off at 8:30, the time I've decided is my proper bed time, so maybe I ought to change it. Still, I'm ignoring it because I don't want to do it, not because it's too late. The last journal entry in there is from weeks back when I was delusional with the flu.

Speaking of the flu! Apparently, I was still contagious when I went back home, sooo yah. Everybody really ought to keep track of their symptoms. I don't want to be the one to bring Swine Flu to Aviation High. (although, I have to admit that does sound kinda cool)

Because Mum Bothered me

I have just discovered Red Dwarf: Back to Earth. With this on top of DnD, SNES, and a large and very good group of friends, why the hell am I so generally annoyed all the time?

Every time I begin to think "life's pretty OK right now," it seems that grand mother swoops in with some horrifically troubling facts about how incredibly not OK my life is. The real problem is she's right every time and she's also the only person that can really help.

So yes, my life's been pretty, irregular as of late. I'm not getting to bed when I want to, the rest of the people in my dorm have a tendency of being loud late at night, but I'm not even sure if that's loud enough to be a problem. I'm not really stressed, just angry because for the 8th year in a row the universe has consistently smacked me upside the head for feeling good. Reminds me rather disgustingly of the Vogon homeworld, but I digress. Apparently it is the people above me that have a habit of banging, so I'm going to go on a trip upstairs.

It Had to Happen Eventually

I must have been working too hard. I was in the store in the main building of Stephenson getting something to munch on as I pounded my head over the thesis for my paper on the Atlantic slave trade, and I almost asked to buy "a can of Pringles and a carton of slavery."

I missed a post. I very specifically missed a post. Specifically because I told my mother earlier that day that I would post, and I did not. My mother! How terrible is that? But it had to happen eventually. I've been piling work upon work and I'm suffering from... some well known work phenomenon where it all builds up in the week before due date (I can't recall what it's called just now). At any rate, even in a post that is little more than me saying "I'm too busy right now," I refuse to write just a single sentence on life. I refuse to treat this blog like some bastardized Twitter.

Go, Notes and Fear

So apparently the HP 11C scientific calculator is downloadable as an app for iPhones and the iPod Touch. I wonder if Joshi knows this? Anybody feeling like giving me an iTunes giftcard upwards of $9.99?

Go
I played Go with a friend of mine. He's in my GenEd 111 class, and then my PreCal class right after. He's really cool in that he's probably the biggest geek I've met here. I think his name is Eean? Ean? Not sure on the spelling either. Great friend. Anywhoo, I was taking a geek test (to find out if I was a geek) in PreCal (the teacher was droning on something I already knew. Trust me, I checked). I mentioned my outrage that the test included Chess geeks, but not Go, and he agreed! I believe he is one of the first people, if not the only person, I have ever met who knew about Go before I explained it to them. This discovery was exciting. Even more exciting, he's just as bad at it as I am. So, right after PreCal, he and I went back to my dorm to play Go (he was amazed I actually brought a Go set to college). The game was surprisingly even, until Ean made a fatal mistake. (He remembers what. I do not) I eventually won, but the game was very close for the longest time. He and I agreed that this will become a regular thing. I am exploding with happy.

Notes
Soooo. I'm a good student. I'm here to learn. I opt to stay in and do homework, instead of go out and party. I get to bed early, and wake up early to plan my day. I keep lists and sync my calender with my ipod so I'm always on time to class. So logically, I've been keeping on top of my notes, right? I totally haven't spent a week and a half accumulating something along the lines of 20-30 pages of notes on various subjects, without editing and compiling them into some sort of neat, organized notes-document. Right? Yah... sooooo. That's what I spent the hour and a holy crap it's nine already. Yah. Spent all that time working on notes, and after that I've got a grand total of two pages of math notes translated... But it's progress! Mostly I was figuring out Word's infuriating formatting, so now I've got it set up it should be much easier. We'll see how much I can get done tomorrow.

Fear
As I mentioned earlier in a letter to my good friend Lydia (whom I've told about this blog. Say hi Lydia!) I am working hard to get on top of my classes, so as I can start work on getting on top of my life. I currently have no idea how to get from here to the amazing, and far from average, career that I've built up in my head. Firstly, I've been aiming at robots, and this may or may not be what I'm actually interested in. I find I've grown more and more obsessed with blurring the line between man and machine. I like the field of human/machine interaction (or "building peripherals to the human experience," as I put it in that letter to Lydia), and that's what I really think I want to do. Problem is, I really have no idea where to look. I don't even know what it's called. It's this really wide field including User Interfaces, prosthetics and really crazy stuff like adding extra senses to people and messing with their heads. On the subject of robotics, Mum told me to watch things like the Great Robot Race (the one with all the autonomous vehicles out in that desert) and note all the schools involved, and sure, that's the way to do it, but where do I find things like that? Honestly, I really need a mentor at this time in my life (I highly regret not getting one in high school, and for whatever reason I don't work well with Mum) only I don't think this school is set up to help me get one. Right now my long term is so nebulous and confusing, and a good deal of that is the school's fault. It'd be really nice if I could find an adult who could tell me what to do...

How Bugles May Have Saved My Life

Warning.
I may or may not have coughed on this blog. You may want to take precautionary measures such as wearing a face mask, sterile gloves, thoroughly washing your hands every 2 minutes or so, or burning your computer after use. If you get sick or start showing symptoms of illness as a result of this blog, you may not hold me, my body, or affiliates of my body at fault legally, illegally or otherwise. By reading this you have agreed to the terms and conditions previously stated. Ha HA! Got you NOW!

Just to clarify, I am still sick. I am not, however, hallucinating-existentialism-fever-dreams sick like I was yesterday. I've got to give my body credit, it knows when to throw shit like this at me. All week (or since Wednesday round-abouts) I had this little annoyance in my throat just behind that little dip in between my collar bones. This persisted till Friday, when right after precal, after I ate lunch (4:30 maybe?) my body decided to give me notice with the biological equivalent of a General Protection Fault. Oh but it gets worse. I slept the rest of that day, and feeling a little better the next morning, I talked to mum about it. remedies were suggested, courses of action were laid out, and advice was given. Essentially I was to get a treatment (I picked Theraflu), drink plenty of fluids, and at the suggestion of a local nurse, sleep if I felt I needed it. I slept almost the whole of that day. I didn't eat. I didn't drink. My room was sweltering hot and I had a fever. That whole day was a mixture of fever dreams, psychedelic epiphanies, and sick feelings whenever I even thought about food or water. Eventually, in the evening, I woke up and threw up. Almost made it to the toilet too. Things started getting better after that. I ate a little, drank a little, and eventually managed to go back to bed. Again, I woke up at ten, vomiting curses instead of stomach contents, mostly at whatever idiot designed these dorms without a proper ventilation system, preventing cool air from coming through my open window and into my bloody hot room. I still think they're an idiot of the highest order. I went outside to get some cool air in me. Strangely, I found myself to be hungry. Eventually I found some Bugles, which I bought and ate. As anticlimactic as that sounds, that's quite the point.

Like the Beating of a Drum

Is this blog not intended as a good thing for me? Then why, pray tell, am I up late yet again, with bags under my eyes and a fuzzy grasp of the near future?

I must say this does not bode well. I have four teachers (despite three classes, but not to worry), three of these are English and History teachers, and one of these cannot keep a class riveted to save her life. I believe my quote is, or ought to be, "Paying attention in class keeps me from being bored." That was doodled in one blank space in my pre-cal class. I must say, I am learning, but to say that is to say that the man in the desert, having found a sippy-cup of water, is drinking. They're using some system called ALEKS. I am not entirely sure I wish to be ruled by a thing created by people that cannot seem to spell it's name correctly. That said, perhaps I'm not in a position to judge (cue laughtrack). I was assulted by ALEKS during my orientation. He judged me without letting me know what I was doing wrong, tricked me with vague questions and expectations, and used wordings and notation that I had neither seen nor used before. Still, perhaps that last bit wasn't entirely ALEKS' wrongdoings. Perhaps someone well taught, with a doctorate maybe, should have taught us these things instead of inflating his ego with long winded speeches. Yet here I am, sitting in Math 107, Pre-Cal, learning to play ALEKS' game, breaking through ALEKS' notation, and eventually I will satisfy his unchallangable judgement. I will listen to the lectures of ALEKS' deciple, and read ALEKS' texts, and fortify myself against his tricks one by one, until ALEKS' will find no more exits to the maze of it's creation. Perhaps sooner than ALEKS might think.

Let There be Blog!

I'm wearing the school colors to bed. Red shirt with grey underwear.

I said there'd be a blog entry and DAMNIT THERE'LL BE A DAMN BLOG ENTRY! Even if it IS two hours past my rediculously early bed time and even if I DO have to get up even more rediculously early to maintain my over all rediculous college sleeping schedule! But that's the test then isn't it? I've chosen this rediculous sleeping schedule because it's easy to keep (I'm usually in bed before any temptation to stay up arrives) and it feels good (I like sleep. Sleepy sleep sleep.) plus it gives me time in the morning to organize everything (Mom eat your heart out). Then again, It seems that college society just isn't organized for sleeping like that. We had a hall meeting today that dragged on late, and although I cannot blame that for keeping me up THIS late, it did mean I was taking my shower an hour after I wanted to. I was worried that I'd have classes that kept me up too late, but that seems very much not to be the case, and my roomie doesn't really seem to bother me or vice versa, so that all works out. Now I'm just worried that I'm sleeping too much, and I wonder if I can actually do all the things I need and want to.

FINE! If THAT'S how you want to play it!

So apparently google has yet to grasp the concept of the humble [tab] based indent. They can basically do whatever they want and we'll come gawking like pigeons for feed, but they have yet to understand that tab can be used for indenting.

Hello. This is my blog, I hope it suits your purposes. I am a brand shiny new freshman, straight out of the package, at WSU, and I'd like to think I have all the experience that comes with that. I'm tired, I'm hot, and I've been rushed from place to place for the past couple of days as the instructors and advisors chant instructions and helpful noise at me. There's been plenty of presentations, arguably on much the same thing. We're rushed from place to place and promptly been made to wait as the sun bears down upon us like we're an insult to it's integrity. Today, we were finally sat down with a councellor to sign up for classes, and I very much believe that my Orientation Councelor's group was the very last one in line for this, so that made things convenient. I've barely got a first set of classes, one of which I've got to attend simply to beg the professor to squeese me in. I'm hardly even taking any engineering classes, just pre cal. The rest are english and general education (whatever that means) classes. Two of each. Yay.

Welcome to college.

This blog is largely going to be an eclectic collection of writing, as Mum is making me do it. I apologize for the lack of structure or locus, but right about now I'm tired and hot, so please you to live with it.