Can this be??? Another posting in a recent period??? It is!
Ok. So it's Halloween. Strangely, year after year, this is a day when MASSIVE changes happen for me. While no changes have actually occurred yet, I have opened quite a few doors of opportunity today, as well as I am jet-setting some future ones.
First off, my sister is going to be here TONIGHT. My dad is bringing her back from Utah because she decided to live with us. As long as she doesn't make too big of a mess, I'll be fine (historically that has been a problem). Supposedly, she's gotten better at taking care of that sort of thing, but we'll see. (update: she's here!)
Secondly, I beat dungeon siege (one of the few games that I've played out of the bajillion that I've acquired this year). Words of advice: Don't play Dungeon Siege! It's a diablo clone, yes, but it's so pretty... pretty pretty... ahhh.... and that's what hooks most people.
I'm glad that habit is over. On to learning!
I got my insurance cards today, so now I can go to the doctor and rack a huge bill or something. The fact that I get all medical stuff half off for working at the hospital doesn't hurt, either.
Thirdly, today I was accepted into the CR honors program. YAY!!! Time to go hammer out that thar degree, yessiree bob.
But seriously, I knew I was going to be accepted into the program from the moment I decided to join (maybe before?), and now that I got the ball rolling, I'm gonna use this opportunity to build something big and beautiful (transfer?). Although the next step is securing more financial aid (i'm worrying about keeping the financial aid that i have right now) I got mobilize myself for school, get this crazy train of a plan in motion!
I'm planning on ditching my car. After being able to slow my life down enough to get a good foothold, I did an audit on my financial situation (not just money, but time as well), and found that the car costs a little bit under $7 a day -- the cost of a restaurant meal. The bus, on the other hand, is significantly cheaper. even at $2.50 a day the bus is still a bargain.
On top of that, I'm spending roughly 1.5 hours a day driving -- time that I could use to sit and read on a bus.
The feedback that I've been getting from people is that I'll be ok with it for a while, but will want my car back after a few weeks. Well, there was a point where I took the bus to get everywhere that I needed to be, and i actually enjoyed it. Moreover, the disadvantage that made me have a car was that I was too far away from the bus stop (I was out in the boonies at the time). Now, I'm a mere few blocks away. To top it all off, if I really need to go somewhere, I can use my dad's car. What if I need the car? I won't. I found that I can't make it on my own without my father at this point (the price of housing compared to unskilled wages is INSANE), so I won't worry about it. Furthermore, the car may die very soon. If I implement plan "el BUS-o" now, I won't have to deal with this potential problem. In general, if it fails, I will make something work. It always works out in the end. I've been in worse situations than the painted scenario, and it always has worked out.
Continuing on, to cut costs I'm going to be setting aside some time to make my meals so I can eat at places like school and work. When I say that, I mean that I'm going to allocate some time each week to cook all my food, make sandwiches, whatever, and then have a steady supply ready to go. QUALITY meals (because I'm picky about what I put in me) that are cheaper is just a plain good idea (hey, somebody has to make the meal. Should you sit around, doing nothing, while someone else makes the meal (does he care about the food as much as you do?) or should you make it yourself)
Now, "why am I cutting costs when I don't need to?" is something you might ask. The answer is that I'm chopping my hours of work down to 16 from 32. Working on the weekends (hopefully, actually, it's pretty certain I probably will, considering this job), when working at the hospital is really just studying my books, is the goal.
What about entertainment? Won't I burn out? If I need some entertainment (although studying has proven rewarding for me), I have plenty of video games that I have bought/acquired (though I hope to god I don't try getting into one again since they really affect what I want to do -- god help me if it's a Massively Multiplayer RPG that I get sucked into!), and I also have a lot of entertaining learning that I could do (you wouldn't believe how much music I listen to. To make my own music now... especially after all my piano class has taught me, as well as I can just plain ol' draw (when I'm at work and I can't study but it's slow enough that I'm bored, I do this. Can't draw that great, though I have noticed significant improvements. This pleases me...)
In any case, I don't want to do pointless work. I want my job to work for me, not the other way around... (and, as time goes on, I find better and better strategies to make this closer to the ideal)
Repetition is the death of the soul
anyway, to sum up everything, I'm getting my shit together. I think I've bottomed out on my downstroke of productivity/life/etc. Time to go up!
To go off on my tangent: why is it that I go up and down in productivity/mood/etc? Several factors: 1) school starting and ending takes time for me to adjust. 2)changing jobs creates chaos 3) getting out of sync with my schedule screws me up (going to fast for my schedule is the first part of the process). It's up to me to fix everything, but it's hard.
As for my personality right now, for the last 1.5 months I've been worrying about my reclusive nature. Why am I acting this way? Why am I not the social butterfly, with my entire day filled with friends and acquaintances, that I used to be? I sort of know why: I've been getting more passionate about topics in general, and I like to argue. I'm polarizing. I don't go out of my way to get conversations going. I just think about studying, and how much I'd enjoy doing it (I've turned studying into some sort of sick game. I like to do it)
I have a habit in my personality of trying to imitate others. If I see something that I like, I try to implement that into myself. Other times, I like to see and experience what others are going through by doing what they do -- even if it's something I don't really care to do. Generally, I'm apathetic on opinionated matters.
Though, as I mentioned before, i've been a little bit passionate about things in general.
On top of all this, I'd like to mention that my mind is such a dynamic thing. I change my opinions so much in such short periods of time (weeks) that I'll be the first to admit hypocrisy. That's just who I am. It's something I have to do to imitate others, consider possibilities, etc. unfortunantly, I can be wildly unpredictable at times (such as giving up things you'd think I'd never give up. Ever.) But, I value my mind in this state. I don't want to give it up.
Overrall, when I'm trying to say is that, while I was a "social butterfly" in the past, and a recluse in the present, I will be something different altogether in the future.
I'm never worried about these things. I do enjoy figuring out how I work by looking back at my past self (hind sight is 20/20, after all). The only time that I really stop and consider things are when I have to make decisions that have irrevocable consequences -- killing something, for example. Not that they're very common decisions (no, I haven't had to decide to kill anything. Hope I never have to) . Mainly, the decisions made today and the consequences thereof are almost always revocable.
It bothers me how some people can be so clung to such revocable decisions. Moreover, the decisions made can be stupid, silly things! Take my workplace, for example. So many little things that need to be done correctly that it's impossible to perfect (at least, without stressing yourself out/frazzling your nerves). When mistakes are made, people get so upset. "You shouldn't page laboratory on the intercom by saying 'laboratory department. "You should say 'laboratory' instead." "You need to answer 'operator' instead of 'office' on the telephone." "You need to get a copy of the medical card -- not just the POS ( <-- electronic insurance verifier)." "You need to highlight such and such fields with a highlighter. That way the billers will know the insurance is changed. What? you have a copy of the insurance cards on the back of the pack? Doesn't matter. Highlight all 18 of them anyway"
I think you get the idea. It's so stupid! There's a constant war, and it's because everybody is making mistakes. It doesn't matter! I don't strive for perfection anymore. Actually, I gave that up long ago. I do strive for perserverance, however.
Moreover, with school and everything, I'm beginning to discover that I'm happier doing my schoolwork than making money to buy big items. I've bought some pretty big items -- 27 inch television is the one thing that sticks out in my mind right now -- and this thing does absolutely nothing for me, except for when I bought it (it made me feel powerful).
Worse, I feel anchored with this item. I have to worry about it being taken care of (not getting damaged), it's that much harder for me to go somewhere, and, ultimately, I don't use it!
Furthermore, the concept of ownership is purely abstract. You don't really "own" anything! I could go steal your baked beans and ketchup right now, and, supposedly, under our rules of "governance" that was not an ok thing to do, but, if you eliminate all the rules that we assign right and wrong to, it was a legal thing to do according to reality. I can take the baked beans and ketchup, and I did. Nothing stopped me, so how can it be wrong? Because humanity decided that this perfectly legal act (at least, according to reality) was somehow a "wrong" thing to do. That, because I don't "own" the baked beans and ketchup, I have no "right" to make decisions about what happens to them.
Might Makes Right, Baby.
Now, I'm not saying I want this to be the law of the land. I kind of expect and like "owning" things. But, I think this is an important concept to recognize.
Anyway, I was talking about materialistic woes with Richard, and he told me his tales of starting out in Japan with nothing. He felt so free. I can relate to this when I was moving around so much that I had to ditch everything but the shirt on my back (and somehow I even lost my hair during that time, but that's a different story), and how it was such a... liberating? feeling? I suppose it's easier to look up at everything in the world when you're at the bottom, but I will say that I was pretty happy at that moment (and I was hungry to get my life going). I could focus on what I wanted. I didn't have to maintain anything...
As another tangent, I've been thinking about an earlier post I made, one about how houses are such a waste of money (I'm paying money to mow my own lawn and clean my house), especially when you have more rooms than you need (upkeep is painful). I've been wondering, "How can you stop the problem from even starting in the first place?" Of course, not making the mess is the answer, but I was also thinking about garbage, how everything is in a container that gets dumped, how it all costs money. Couldn't there be a way to get goods to consumers without the medium of containers? Couldn't we as a society improve ourselves somehow in this aspect?
Although, I must say I'm a bit of an anarchist. Kind of against the abstract ideas of "society", "government", "corporations", "ownership", and so forth. To believe in these things seems to be a fallacy on what reality is. Yet, I will continue to live this way without being bothered about it. These concepts have allowed me to be "given" things, have set an abstract "code" that is structured and easy to follow, and so forth.
Some things about these ideas are good, others are not so good. For example. Having to pay $25/month just to keep a waterline to your house - wouldn't water be considered a necessity? - without even getting one drop of water seems kind of wrong to me. "The pipes need to be maintained" is the reason. But, why doesn't government change it so that you pay a slightly higher price for water and start at $0 being owed a month? make it so that those that consume a lot of water pay more.
I suppose that if you didn't use water for a long time in the house the pipes might break, yet there would be no money from you to give to the water authorities, and that would be a problem. But, I don't know. Government is a screwed up thing like that.
One more thing about the water. Isn't it against the law to not use the public water line, due to sanitary reasons and so forth? If this is so, it's almost like there's a mandatory $25/month tax to live in a place!
But, who's to tell me to use their water? What right do they have? Apparently, this group of people who have legally monopolized the water market! And don't give me that nonprofit crap - just because it says it's nonprofit doesn't deter those who would like to make an extra buck doing what they do (who wouldn't like to make an extra buck?)
In a way, I'd like to, some day, try to live my life in such a way that I don't give any of these ideas to exist. Maybe pump my own water, grow my own food, etc? I dunno. It might be harder to do it myself than enjoy the benefits of specialization. And,
these concepts of "government", "corporations", etc. could be useful or even fun to deal with. See, I've always had this idea of these abstract things as "machines" you can use them to elevate yourself into powerful positions, but in return, as you get closer to the top, you are "obligated" to help the machine become more powerful. This constant counterweight is, to me, much like a car engine and the flywheel, or even the transmission. Converting limited ranges into one large range. When all works harmoniously, some fantastic things can happen!
Furthermore, I think it's in humanity's nature to stabilize from anarchy, anyway. I mean, assume an anarchial society. Everyone for themself! Well, those that don't starve to death are farming, so now we got people yielding crops. Now, A few of those farmers do really well and have a surplus. They use that surplus to convince some starving, not-so-well-off farmers to do things, like guard or attack other farms. Thus, we now have something along the lines of a monarchy or despotism (without the issue of religion inserted into the equation)
Overrall, this is just how I feel about this sort of stuff. For most all people, this is heavily controversial, and I'm pretty sure i'm quite alone on this ideology, but... this is all just me, and remember that I'm a hypocrite. Feel better now?
But, speaking of government, I'd just like to quickly mention that I'm writing a paper for a religious organization on why the draft cannot be tolerated in that organization.
In addition, I don't know if i'm going to be able to vote because my ballot registration process was a little bit weird, and I still haven't gotten anything in the mail...
I gots to go, but I'd like to quickly wrap up with whats been going on lately
my math class is going good. I'm enjoying doing equations that I wonder if any students get to see (IIRC one of them was y=x^sin(x), and y=x for predicting maxima, for example, as well as checking it on polar graphs and other fun, useless stuff)
Observational astronomy is great. Lots of female nerds, and I'm the know-it-all student in the class (I was obsessed with astronomy in 3rd-6th grade).
Japanese class is really coming along awesomely. The dictionary that I bought, The New Anchor is such a pleasure to read (with examples like, "I went to the Sting concert yesterday", and "When Professor Kagasawa came out of his house in his underwear, we were embarrassed to have knocked on his door", or "I don't give a fart") that I spend quite a bit of time reading it. My vocabulary is skyrocketing like MAD with that book, as well as the new nelson (the kanji dictionary), which is needed to decipher the japanese example sentences, is getting memorized as well.
Piano is coming along awesome. After some point in the class, I have just been picking up concepts so easily. I'm really flying through the book. Consequently, the teacher is really impressed, and is even devoting time after class to listen to me play, so he can have some sort of grip on where I'm at!
Oh, next Tuesday, Halo 2 comes out. I think I'm going to be ruined when it comes to schoolwork for a while, but i'm sure a lot of my friends will be, too.
Lastly, I'd like to state that i've been DDR'ing like mad at home (hey, when you got that 27 inch television, dual 12 inch subs in the rear, a 5.1 sorround system all around, and another television's speakers, you gotta use them on something, right?), and I've been getting REALLY good (better than ever), though I cut my foot on the mac that I found for free... Needless to say, I can't DDR till the wound heals up enough
D@MN YOU MACS!!!!
I think macs are evil. So evil, in fact, that I was considering replacing my jack-o-lanterns with macs at the porch. I was gonna have a scrolling marquee (after dark... 4.0, anyone?) saying "Happy Halloween!" I'm sure nobody would visit my house for fear of the terrible curse of the MAC.
Then, gaining their evil spirit devil powers, the macs would jump to live and start smashing themselves a la kamikaze style into trick-or-treaters. And beware of the chords...
They like to cut people. Beware!
Ok time for bed.
(hollers) Bring out the quotes!
For four years George W. Bush has used the power of words to overcome insurmountable facts.
-The Daily Show Skit
George W. Bush: Words Speak Louder than Actions
The Daily Show
"In the words of TS Eliot: When Dealing with questions, Don't respond to what they have said; rather, answer what you would have wanted them to have said"
Robert S. Macnamara (well, roughly what he said. I don't recall the exact wording)
Sunday, October 31
Thursday, October 28
We Will Meet Again
Nergh!!!!
How shall I start this? It always gets so difficult to start one o these bloggies when I haven't blogged in a while. Kind of like how I don't talk to my mother. Not because I don't want to, but I don't really know where to start up because I forgot where we left off. And what's ok to say and what is not? To my mother (of all people)? Sometimes, I just wish she'd give me some motherly advice or something on the phone, but everything is so distant. The conversation always turns out the same: talking to a distant stranger whom I don't know anything about.
So I got out of observational astronomy pumped up, after watching a video that was basically a rehash of things I used to study in my free time back in 3rd grade -- astronomy, the space race, that sort of stuff. I still forget about everything in my life when I get entranced on that sort of material.
It was great, seeing this video on two nations flexing their muscles in an armwrestle of good vs evil (depending on which side you were on). After that, I left to go home. But, I popped in a CD that I hadn't heard in a long time...
Why is it that strong memories hit me when I'm tired and hearing something? A snapshot of my life flew through me. The ideas of the time reverberated through my mind and through my heart. The mournfully joyful song continued to play. A great turn to the unknown. A point where I had just finished working on the incredible days leading up to christmas in 2002. And, on christmas day, I had a break of 7 days. I flew back to Utah, and there, went insane from the lack of work to do. Furthermore, I had built quite an (odd) crew of friends that I revolved around, was quickly falling in love...
That brief snapshot of painful paradise was something I'd try to hold onto till the beginning of November in 2003. All in vain, of course. My god, what a low dip 2003 was! Truth be told, it was largely my fault.
But, before I forget the vivid memories of late 2K2 and 2K3, I want to write them down, here.
I remember experimenting with drugs. Not hard drugs (never!), just mainly alcohol. I remember I was on a buying rampage in November 2k2, and had bought some anime recommended by my friend Ian, how we went into my room and drank this large nasty @$$ awful whiskey (that he later claimed made him sicker than anything else); how we stopped watching the movie pretty quickly (couldn't follow the story line. I still couldn't follow it when I was sober); how I BADLY stubbed my toe on a weight, but didn't feel it though I exclaimed that it was going to hurt really bad in the morning (which it did).
I remember spending a lot of time reading an electronics book, staying up late at night all the time doing all sorts of things, making bread, researching on E2...
I remember falling over my first girlfriend. Though I was really shy, she was really aggressive, and once she overcame my barriers of screwed-up ideas about what women were, changed me.
I remember Will and the 17 or so other people that would all party on down in "the war zone" of Eureka, how they thought I was the coolest person, how I got this weird amount of respect from people I didn't respect at all (it was just... bizarre!).
I remember getting my new pair of speakers for my "new" car that I jokingly told my aunt I would own someday. I remember Will helping me install them. I remember the times I went surfing with Will, and all the times I sat in that f@#%ing golf cart on a rainy day to talk with him (and hydroplane/pop a wheelie occasionally)
I remember everybody spending their evenings at my house to play on my X-Box with sound system and sharp TV... It was sort of annoying but a badge of pride to come home after a hard day's work and go into my room to see... a group of boys sitting on my bed getting obnoxious over a game.
I wonder whatever became of James?
Fast forward to December of 2003/winter and spring of 2004. I was really social then, too. In many ways, that time period was superior to 2003. I had cast off the shackles of my naive utopian vision of 2002/3. There was no limit to where I could go... What could happen? A lot. I did so much during the 5 months of that "golden era". But, I felt so tortured. I mean, I broke up with 2 really close friends, Ian and Kyle, without even telling them to their face that I had decided to do it and why (even I didn't know at the time. In retrospect my only excuse would be that I had reached a breaking point of everybody trying to keep the group together and needed to get out. Though it wasn't really them that I needed to get away from. It was Jamie, who was breaking my heart over and over again.) I am not the best person. I know that. Sometimes, i'm just dramatically unpredictable. I would cut off my own hand if it tortured me enough.
But then again, I would try do it in the most indirect way possible. If surgery were available, i'd do it that way, though if I were stuck out in the woods (like that one guy in Moab) i'd do it myself if I had to.
Anyway, like a severed hand, I had a LOT (A LOT) of guilt, pain, and grief from my severance. To be honest, I got really upset whenever I saw either of them. And what would I do when I saw either of them? Avoid them.
Furthermore, you'd think that, without valid reasoning behind my decision that I would get back together with them at some point, right? Well, it gets a little complicated there. Jamie broke up with me, and because Jamie was linked with those two (in bonds that appeared stronger than with me) I was pretty much stuck not going back. Furthermore, because all the new activities that I was doing (my life was taking a giant leap forward), I didn't really care enough to come back at that point. Though the torment of what I had done still haunted me.
Furthermore, there was additional torment from not seeing my exgirlfriend. She broke off from me on Dec 21 and never spoke to me again. At least, until April. Here, I was still stuck on someone, someone that broke my heart almost daily, someone that I visited every day, and then suddenly never saw again.
That hurt.
For all the pain she dealt, I was still so stuck on her that I visited her blog everyday, until some time after we started talking to eachother again. What's more, I part of the reason that I put myself through so much work over late 2003/early 2004 was to buff up on knowledge and skills, sort of try and impress her if I were to interact with her again.
I changed over that time period in a big way. When we interacted together again, I found that she had not.
And that disappointed me. I had set these expectations of her that she was this person who she was not. Though, the memories of everything that happened over 2003, of her maturing, made me expect her to be different. She had changed A LOT over 2003 (though by the time she broke up with me she was barely the person I first knew her as).
Anyway, as we interacted together more and more, I found her to be jabbing my personality and who I was more and more. So I stopped initiating the conversations to her to see what she would do (which, as a side note, was interesting. She really won't do it on her own. I had a feeling it was an expectation of vying for her time).
She didn't talk to me for a long time. A few months down the road, she talked to me again, and this time I tried to see if I could just be friends, no, I was trying to see if we could establish basic trust (I trust you, you trust me). I was ready and willing to trust her, but what I found was (and this is from my point of view) that she was trying to catch me trying to set her up (in fact, she would out-and-out say "I can't trust you anymore". I knew it was all going to crash after words like that. It all begins with TRUST. If you don't have that, you have nothing). Almost like she was trying to find me guilty of doing something against her. Why? Again, this is my speculation, but it seemed like she had such guilty feelings for hurting me so much that she figured I was really angry with her underneath. She was always wary of that, and then she "pinned" me with something, I don't know what, that I wrote in my blog. To this day I don't know what "it" was that I wrote, but at this point I don't even care. She always presumed me guilty, just kept making the pain and agony reverberate.
And, at least I got to meet her a few more times. Enough, at least to feel a completeness in my process of mourning. I don't think about her everyday anymore. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. And, sadly (because I know she's a person who has a lot of potential), I know I'll be going much farther without her.
(and I learned an important lesson: don't get into relationships before you get through the gauntlet of college)
And thus ends that chapter. I feel pretty complete again, save for one thing.
Whenever I see her, (or anyone that's on a desist from interaction order), my heart leaps, and my body gets to racing. Sheer dorkitude, I know, but I also, at the science fair, saw her and not too much later got my blood pressure checked: 133 over 90. That's fairly high blood pressure. And I know it's not that high because I get it checked at other times.
My "enemies" are gonna kill me. Or, at least shorten my life span.
And it's so stupid. I mean, in the end, nothing really matters. Nobody really matters. We're all gonna die, all the same (yeah, I know, I should turn into a goth. Gloom. Gloom. Gloom). One human being to another, it's just so stupid.
When I say you're going to die, I'm trying to say that these people will not be your enemies forever. I'm not saying that when you die, that's the end of it (though that's certainly a possibility). I mean, most religions will show that people will have an altered personality when they go to wherever it may be. Your enemies may very well be your allies.
And, in the end, I really don't hate anybody. I mean that. In my life, there's only 3 people I still don't like and that was back in the 9th grade. (they made my life hell in 8th grade). I wrecked their social standing at the highschool that I went to when I would bounce whatever negative attack they made upon me by showing the rest of the school what kind of assholes they were. I made them REALLY unpopular. To this day, they move to a completely different aisle at the movies or avoid me at Wal-Mart whenever I see them during a visit to Utah.
But, overrall, I think they were just dumb kids at the time. Mainly, I believe there was a lack of understanding, and that if we talked in this day and age, we could solve the problems. Ninth grade wasn't an easy year for most people, after all.
But I've digressed. Back to my main question. Why is it that I avoid people that I have an imaginary "desist" order on? Why does my blood pressure spike? Why do I panic?
Could this all be linked to my abusive stepfather who I tried hard to avoid (though it was unavoidable. In his spare time, he'd manipulate us kids to do bad things to eachother to discipline us, as well as create all sorts of stupid rules that were brutally enforced)? Could this be that I was always the new kid? Could it be that I'm just a wimp?
Well, I know I wasn't always a wimp; At least physically. Because, definitely, I was a mean mother at school when I was younger. I fought a lot. I was stuck with the wrong crowd of kids (and, later on when I got thrown into a wayward boys home when I was older, found them there and at worse places). I used to cause fights just for fun. But, overrall, I was the cool kid that did what nobody else would. And, for that, I was respected.
And then came my stepfather, who broke me and everybody else down. People ask me and my brother why we're so well behaved, and I usually point to my stepfather. That man has taught me well what the wrong way is through his horrid actions.
To amplify it all, moving around didn't help me much, either. Always being the new kid made me the one to be picked on. I gained a high tolerance for that... but as time wore on, and I went through more schools, I found a way to just observe people without interacting. I'd rather be left alone (and lonely) than picked on.
But now the times have changed, though the imprints during my childhood still linger.
And all of these things combine to create this individual who hides his dark side, who flees when he sees something that he has convinced himself he doesn't like, and so forth.
And he doesn't have to feel that way. He makes himself feel that way.
Anyway, it's late but I'd like to make a note here. I sure do talk about these people a lot. Why?
I'll think about it for a while.
But now, it's time for the story of Paul.
Paul always hung out with me, my bro, and Erin. And, I've noticed that, over time, he has drifted away to his crew buddies.
And I would applaud him on this. I'd like to see him grow, be independent, whatever. Whether I'm in the equation or not doesn't matter to me. But, this group of people is starting to affect him in ways that bother me. He is becoming like one of them, yes, but that's what I'm not liking.
This group of people... they're "elite", cocky, drug using people that expect certain sorts of entertainment -- and above all they expect to win whatever they're doing.
Now, I think that it's cool that they're all 18 year-old physics majors, taking 6 (and more, for some!!!) upper divisional classes, all being half to 3/4 the way to getting that bachelors (I keep thinking that I should go sit in on some of their lectures just for fun). I applaud the fact that they work out HARD when they go out and do their crew meets.
But, It irks me when they always play to win, and when they're not winning, they're not happy (what happened to just having fun???). I don't like how they have to hit a whole slough of parties on weekends to have fun, and I don't approve of the obsessive amount of alcohol and caffeine tablets that gets taken. Above all, I hate how they can't be bothered with people who aren't as "smart" as they, (not that I get rounded in the group), and how they tease such people. Good god!
I am a champion of the loser I suppose. Paul and his group like me, and I'm welcome to attend whatever they're doing, but I really don't enjoy their presence; they're too stuck up and full of themselves. And that's not good.
I dunno. My mind is always dynamic. I'll always find a way to disagree with you.
I have had more (alleged) enemies than ever these days, and it's not that I did anything hateful, it's just that I stopped bothering to talk to them. Granted most of these people came back and are my friends again, after saying they hated me, but I wonder what's going on, or is it just my apathy towards everything?
My relationships with women are receding, and I just don't care. I don't bother to talk to them sometimes. The ones I used to talk to regularly and entertain (enter guacamole face!) get upset when I don't communicate, and the ones that care about me at school seem to have given up now. I cared about them, but i'm so apathetic now. I dunno...
I was once a crazy socialite, and now I'm a recluse. I'm such a swinging pendulum of torrential chaos...
I just want to do my schoolwork now. I'm working on finding a way to just be a student, hammer out the degrees, get to japan, and do what I want to do(I have figured out what I want to do with my life FOR SURE. It's been the same these past 3 months. I KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO! YAY!) No more bullshit work. That's the VOW i've taken. I will find a way.
All the crap I bought over the past 6 months has done nothing to help me, and I got plenty of stuff that doesn't cost anything to enjoy myself with. It's time to quit working hard for this worthless stuff.
As for the morning, me and Evan are learning to make turkey. Should prove interesting (I've heard of one person that puts the turkey in a plastic wrap, seals it, throws it in the dishwasher, and has moist turkey in the end).
Ok. I've been awake 20 hours and I'm dehydrated (which is why the writing has been bad as this article gets longer)
Off I go.
There's something to remember, and something to forget. As long as we remember, there's something to regret
How shall I start this? It always gets so difficult to start one o these bloggies when I haven't blogged in a while. Kind of like how I don't talk to my mother. Not because I don't want to, but I don't really know where to start up because I forgot where we left off. And what's ok to say and what is not? To my mother (of all people)? Sometimes, I just wish she'd give me some motherly advice or something on the phone, but everything is so distant. The conversation always turns out the same: talking to a distant stranger whom I don't know anything about.
So I got out of observational astronomy pumped up, after watching a video that was basically a rehash of things I used to study in my free time back in 3rd grade -- astronomy, the space race, that sort of stuff. I still forget about everything in my life when I get entranced on that sort of material.
It was great, seeing this video on two nations flexing their muscles in an armwrestle of good vs evil (depending on which side you were on). After that, I left to go home. But, I popped in a CD that I hadn't heard in a long time...
Why is it that strong memories hit me when I'm tired and hearing something? A snapshot of my life flew through me. The ideas of the time reverberated through my mind and through my heart. The mournfully joyful song continued to play. A great turn to the unknown. A point where I had just finished working on the incredible days leading up to christmas in 2002. And, on christmas day, I had a break of 7 days. I flew back to Utah, and there, went insane from the lack of work to do. Furthermore, I had built quite an (odd) crew of friends that I revolved around, was quickly falling in love...
That brief snapshot of painful paradise was something I'd try to hold onto till the beginning of November in 2003. All in vain, of course. My god, what a low dip 2003 was! Truth be told, it was largely my fault.
But, before I forget the vivid memories of late 2K2 and 2K3, I want to write them down, here.
I remember experimenting with drugs. Not hard drugs (never!), just mainly alcohol. I remember I was on a buying rampage in November 2k2, and had bought some anime recommended by my friend Ian, how we went into my room and drank this large nasty @$$ awful whiskey (that he later claimed made him sicker than anything else); how we stopped watching the movie pretty quickly (couldn't follow the story line. I still couldn't follow it when I was sober); how I BADLY stubbed my toe on a weight, but didn't feel it though I exclaimed that it was going to hurt really bad in the morning (which it did).
I remember spending a lot of time reading an electronics book, staying up late at night all the time doing all sorts of things, making bread, researching on E2...
I remember falling over my first girlfriend. Though I was really shy, she was really aggressive, and once she overcame my barriers of screwed-up ideas about what women were, changed me.
I remember Will and the 17 or so other people that would all party on down in "the war zone" of Eureka, how they thought I was the coolest person, how I got this weird amount of respect from people I didn't respect at all (it was just... bizarre!).
I remember getting my new pair of speakers for my "new" car that I jokingly told my aunt I would own someday. I remember Will helping me install them. I remember the times I went surfing with Will, and all the times I sat in that f@#%ing golf cart on a rainy day to talk with him (and hydroplane/pop a wheelie occasionally)
I remember everybody spending their evenings at my house to play on my X-Box with sound system and sharp TV... It was sort of annoying but a badge of pride to come home after a hard day's work and go into my room to see... a group of boys sitting on my bed getting obnoxious over a game.
I wonder whatever became of James?
Fast forward to December of 2003/winter and spring of 2004. I was really social then, too. In many ways, that time period was superior to 2003. I had cast off the shackles of my naive utopian vision of 2002/3. There was no limit to where I could go... What could happen? A lot. I did so much during the 5 months of that "golden era". But, I felt so tortured. I mean, I broke up with 2 really close friends, Ian and Kyle, without even telling them to their face that I had decided to do it and why (even I didn't know at the time. In retrospect my only excuse would be that I had reached a breaking point of everybody trying to keep the group together and needed to get out. Though it wasn't really them that I needed to get away from. It was Jamie, who was breaking my heart over and over again.) I am not the best person. I know that. Sometimes, i'm just dramatically unpredictable. I would cut off my own hand if it tortured me enough.
But then again, I would try do it in the most indirect way possible. If surgery were available, i'd do it that way, though if I were stuck out in the woods (like that one guy in Moab) i'd do it myself if I had to.
Anyway, like a severed hand, I had a LOT (A LOT) of guilt, pain, and grief from my severance. To be honest, I got really upset whenever I saw either of them. And what would I do when I saw either of them? Avoid them.
Furthermore, you'd think that, without valid reasoning behind my decision that I would get back together with them at some point, right? Well, it gets a little complicated there. Jamie broke up with me, and because Jamie was linked with those two (in bonds that appeared stronger than with me) I was pretty much stuck not going back. Furthermore, because all the new activities that I was doing (my life was taking a giant leap forward), I didn't really care enough to come back at that point. Though the torment of what I had done still haunted me.
Furthermore, there was additional torment from not seeing my exgirlfriend. She broke off from me on Dec 21 and never spoke to me again. At least, until April. Here, I was still stuck on someone, someone that broke my heart almost daily, someone that I visited every day, and then suddenly never saw again.
That hurt.
For all the pain she dealt, I was still so stuck on her that I visited her blog everyday, until some time after we started talking to eachother again. What's more, I part of the reason that I put myself through so much work over late 2003/early 2004 was to buff up on knowledge and skills, sort of try and impress her if I were to interact with her again.
I changed over that time period in a big way. When we interacted together again, I found that she had not.
And that disappointed me. I had set these expectations of her that she was this person who she was not. Though, the memories of everything that happened over 2003, of her maturing, made me expect her to be different. She had changed A LOT over 2003 (though by the time she broke up with me she was barely the person I first knew her as).
Anyway, as we interacted together more and more, I found her to be jabbing my personality and who I was more and more. So I stopped initiating the conversations to her to see what she would do (which, as a side note, was interesting. She really won't do it on her own. I had a feeling it was an expectation of vying for her time).
She didn't talk to me for a long time. A few months down the road, she talked to me again, and this time I tried to see if I could just be friends, no, I was trying to see if we could establish basic trust (I trust you, you trust me). I was ready and willing to trust her, but what I found was (and this is from my point of view) that she was trying to catch me trying to set her up (in fact, she would out-and-out say "I can't trust you anymore". I knew it was all going to crash after words like that. It all begins with TRUST. If you don't have that, you have nothing). Almost like she was trying to find me guilty of doing something against her. Why? Again, this is my speculation, but it seemed like she had such guilty feelings for hurting me so much that she figured I was really angry with her underneath. She was always wary of that, and then she "pinned" me with something, I don't know what, that I wrote in my blog. To this day I don't know what "it" was that I wrote, but at this point I don't even care. She always presumed me guilty, just kept making the pain and agony reverberate.
And, at least I got to meet her a few more times. Enough, at least to feel a completeness in my process of mourning. I don't think about her everyday anymore. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. And, sadly (because I know she's a person who has a lot of potential), I know I'll be going much farther without her.
(and I learned an important lesson: don't get into relationships before you get through the gauntlet of college)
And thus ends that chapter. I feel pretty complete again, save for one thing.
Whenever I see her, (or anyone that's on a desist from interaction order), my heart leaps, and my body gets to racing. Sheer dorkitude, I know, but I also, at the science fair, saw her and not too much later got my blood pressure checked: 133 over 90. That's fairly high blood pressure. And I know it's not that high because I get it checked at other times.
My "enemies" are gonna kill me. Or, at least shorten my life span.
And it's so stupid. I mean, in the end, nothing really matters. Nobody really matters. We're all gonna die, all the same (yeah, I know, I should turn into a goth. Gloom. Gloom. Gloom). One human being to another, it's just so stupid.
When I say you're going to die, I'm trying to say that these people will not be your enemies forever. I'm not saying that when you die, that's the end of it (though that's certainly a possibility). I mean, most religions will show that people will have an altered personality when they go to wherever it may be. Your enemies may very well be your allies.
And, in the end, I really don't hate anybody. I mean that. In my life, there's only 3 people I still don't like and that was back in the 9th grade. (they made my life hell in 8th grade). I wrecked their social standing at the highschool that I went to when I would bounce whatever negative attack they made upon me by showing the rest of the school what kind of assholes they were. I made them REALLY unpopular. To this day, they move to a completely different aisle at the movies or avoid me at Wal-Mart whenever I see them during a visit to Utah.
But, overrall, I think they were just dumb kids at the time. Mainly, I believe there was a lack of understanding, and that if we talked in this day and age, we could solve the problems. Ninth grade wasn't an easy year for most people, after all.
But I've digressed. Back to my main question. Why is it that I avoid people that I have an imaginary "desist" order on? Why does my blood pressure spike? Why do I panic?
Could this all be linked to my abusive stepfather who I tried hard to avoid (though it was unavoidable. In his spare time, he'd manipulate us kids to do bad things to eachother to discipline us, as well as create all sorts of stupid rules that were brutally enforced)? Could this be that I was always the new kid? Could it be that I'm just a wimp?
Well, I know I wasn't always a wimp; At least physically. Because, definitely, I was a mean mother at school when I was younger. I fought a lot. I was stuck with the wrong crowd of kids (and, later on when I got thrown into a wayward boys home when I was older, found them there and at worse places). I used to cause fights just for fun. But, overrall, I was the cool kid that did what nobody else would. And, for that, I was respected.
And then came my stepfather, who broke me and everybody else down. People ask me and my brother why we're so well behaved, and I usually point to my stepfather. That man has taught me well what the wrong way is through his horrid actions.
To amplify it all, moving around didn't help me much, either. Always being the new kid made me the one to be picked on. I gained a high tolerance for that... but as time wore on, and I went through more schools, I found a way to just observe people without interacting. I'd rather be left alone (and lonely) than picked on.
But now the times have changed, though the imprints during my childhood still linger.
And all of these things combine to create this individual who hides his dark side, who flees when he sees something that he has convinced himself he doesn't like, and so forth.
And he doesn't have to feel that way. He makes himself feel that way.
Anyway, it's late but I'd like to make a note here. I sure do talk about these people a lot. Why?
I'll think about it for a while.
But now, it's time for the story of Paul.
Paul always hung out with me, my bro, and Erin. And, I've noticed that, over time, he has drifted away to his crew buddies.
And I would applaud him on this. I'd like to see him grow, be independent, whatever. Whether I'm in the equation or not doesn't matter to me. But, this group of people is starting to affect him in ways that bother me. He is becoming like one of them, yes, but that's what I'm not liking.
This group of people... they're "elite", cocky, drug using people that expect certain sorts of entertainment -- and above all they expect to win whatever they're doing.
Now, I think that it's cool that they're all 18 year-old physics majors, taking 6 (and more, for some!!!) upper divisional classes, all being half to 3/4 the way to getting that bachelors (I keep thinking that I should go sit in on some of their lectures just for fun). I applaud the fact that they work out HARD when they go out and do their crew meets.
But, It irks me when they always play to win, and when they're not winning, they're not happy (what happened to just having fun???). I don't like how they have to hit a whole slough of parties on weekends to have fun, and I don't approve of the obsessive amount of alcohol and caffeine tablets that gets taken. Above all, I hate how they can't be bothered with people who aren't as "smart" as they, (not that I get rounded in the group), and how they tease such people. Good god!
I am a champion of the loser I suppose. Paul and his group like me, and I'm welcome to attend whatever they're doing, but I really don't enjoy their presence; they're too stuck up and full of themselves. And that's not good.
I dunno. My mind is always dynamic. I'll always find a way to disagree with you.
I have had more (alleged) enemies than ever these days, and it's not that I did anything hateful, it's just that I stopped bothering to talk to them. Granted most of these people came back and are my friends again, after saying they hated me, but I wonder what's going on, or is it just my apathy towards everything?
My relationships with women are receding, and I just don't care. I don't bother to talk to them sometimes. The ones I used to talk to regularly and entertain (enter guacamole face!) get upset when I don't communicate, and the ones that care about me at school seem to have given up now. I cared about them, but i'm so apathetic now. I dunno...
I was once a crazy socialite, and now I'm a recluse. I'm such a swinging pendulum of torrential chaos...
I just want to do my schoolwork now. I'm working on finding a way to just be a student, hammer out the degrees, get to japan, and do what I want to do(I have figured out what I want to do with my life FOR SURE. It's been the same these past 3 months. I KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO! YAY!) No more bullshit work. That's the VOW i've taken. I will find a way.
All the crap I bought over the past 6 months has done nothing to help me, and I got plenty of stuff that doesn't cost anything to enjoy myself with. It's time to quit working hard for this worthless stuff.
As for the morning, me and Evan are learning to make turkey. Should prove interesting (I've heard of one person that puts the turkey in a plastic wrap, seals it, throws it in the dishwasher, and has moist turkey in the end).
Ok. I've been awake 20 hours and I'm dehydrated (which is why the writing has been bad as this article gets longer)
Off I go.
There's something to remember, and something to forget. As long as we remember, there's something to regret
Sunday, October 17
Revise the Grade
Creaky noises make my skin creep. I need to get some sleep. I can't get no sleep.
Ugh. So tired. Lordy lo, how long has it been since I last posted? No matter. Blogging insanity shall be made, under qualifications of fun fun insomnia.
I've been getting up really early in the morning, every day at 5, for the past 2.5 months, and I've found that... (drumroll please?) I'm just not a morning person. I can't seem to wake up and be wide awake for the rest of the day. This makes sense. My parents are night owls, and, over my midteen years during summer, when I didn't set my alarm, didn't have a care in the world, just me and my computer games (such an addictive thing), I noticed that my body would naturally wake up at 6 in the evening, and break down at about 8 in the morning. This tiredness, combined with the stress I have put on myself has really taxed me.
This semester I've been trying my hardest to study study study, to not miss class, to do all the things that a successful student would need to do. Yet, I find I make frequent mistakes due to fatigue. I was going to reassure myself with this semester that putting forth the effort would yield a big return, but I am disappointed. Academically, this is the worst semester I have ever dealt with (though I can easily still be in honors).
Almost everybody I deal with that is going to school is taking a whole whopper of credits. This ranges from the crew team (most of them finishing up their physics degrees of all things, doing 6 upper divisional classes in one stroke of a semester) to your "lowly" CR student (I do not consider them lowly however. A degree is a degree is a degree. For example, Sacramento's community colleges' course offerings are no harder than CR's). I want to join these people. I want to get through school. I know what I'm doing. I know where I am, I just can't seem to put the pressure down hard enough. I need help.
Of course, as they say, recognizing the problem is the first step. I will find what I'm looking for in time.
In the meantime, what am I to do? Well, to get myself more alert, I decided to just get rid of my speech class, and take it over the summer. Between the Jesus Freaks (who only do 1 minute speeches and try to persuade me to convert to their religion when they're only supposed to inform me), the odd ducks (people who spoke on things like how to pluck a turkey, how doing their research paper taught them to value speech, even one person who talked about death (granted, she's a mortician), and the lady's gossip corner (serious overachievers that are actually not doing very well in the class because they're overehearsing, yet seem to throw the class into some sort of emotional discord with their crap...)...
I don't want to give a speech to people who don't care about what I want to talk about. Yet, I will. But, I want to spend as little time as possible. Here comes the summer!
Secondly, I'm looking for a different job. One that pays more as well as is later in the day. If I can just get my circadian rhythm in balance like it used to be... performance will be up. (I'm still getting up at 5 in the morning for work, but I'm not as tired)
Lately, I've been saving up for a car as well as buying ridiculously frivolous things. Example: the past week I bought a 27 inch television (I've never had something that big! Mainly because I would move so much) that was 160$+tax=$200, and a $40 briefcase that was supposed to be $200 for my japanese crap (I have too much japanese crap). Considering that my paycheck is small (7.00$/hr these days) I think buying this much stuff each week is pretty crazy. Add on top of that saving up for that car to replace the current one when/if it dies and... (well, the savings thing may very well go to a trip to japan to teach there. Hopefully my car lives long enough to do that. Though i've spelled doom on it for the past 1.5 years, I think it'll make it. Murphy's law will make it break now that I finally changed positions) I'm doing pretty well.
In short, with my behavior as of late, I have been diametrically opposing myself and my values. But, whatever. I don't care anymore. I'll get it together sooner than I think. And, when this wave of irresponsibility for everything subsides, I will initiate a plan that I've been working on to keep everything stable (hopefully) for a long time to come.
I've been thinking. A lot of people want to get up high in the social structure of our society, want to become important individuals, and want to do this through hard work. Our society rewards hard work, and it's possible to become a somewhat famous person through this hard work. But, I was thinking, what about those who work hard but have no talent? How hard is it for those that have plenty of talent to rise in society? Do they even want to participate in society? Is it useless to try to put in as much effort as possible if it's known that there are others who can easily do it?
Thinking the lazy man's way (cuz he knows how to do it best) it would be best to let those that are gifted do the work for you...
Anyway, as I said before, i'm really tired. Time to go crash... (I remember, when working SO hard at WinCo, how my bed was the most comfortable thing in the world. I went to heaven every night when I fell on that bed. In a way, I miss doing mindless physical labor. It was good for my body, I could think about whatever I wanted because I didn't have to be focused the whole time, etc.)
Ugh. So tired. Lordy lo, how long has it been since I last posted? No matter. Blogging insanity shall be made, under qualifications of fun fun insomnia.
I've been getting up really early in the morning, every day at 5, for the past 2.5 months, and I've found that... (drumroll please?) I'm just not a morning person. I can't seem to wake up and be wide awake for the rest of the day. This makes sense. My parents are night owls, and, over my midteen years during summer, when I didn't set my alarm, didn't have a care in the world, just me and my computer games (such an addictive thing), I noticed that my body would naturally wake up at 6 in the evening, and break down at about 8 in the morning. This tiredness, combined with the stress I have put on myself has really taxed me.
This semester I've been trying my hardest to study study study, to not miss class, to do all the things that a successful student would need to do. Yet, I find I make frequent mistakes due to fatigue. I was going to reassure myself with this semester that putting forth the effort would yield a big return, but I am disappointed. Academically, this is the worst semester I have ever dealt with (though I can easily still be in honors).
Almost everybody I deal with that is going to school is taking a whole whopper of credits. This ranges from the crew team (most of them finishing up their physics degrees of all things, doing 6 upper divisional classes in one stroke of a semester) to your "lowly" CR student (I do not consider them lowly however. A degree is a degree is a degree. For example, Sacramento's community colleges' course offerings are no harder than CR's). I want to join these people. I want to get through school. I know what I'm doing. I know where I am, I just can't seem to put the pressure down hard enough. I need help.
Of course, as they say, recognizing the problem is the first step. I will find what I'm looking for in time.
In the meantime, what am I to do? Well, to get myself more alert, I decided to just get rid of my speech class, and take it over the summer. Between the Jesus Freaks (who only do 1 minute speeches and try to persuade me to convert to their religion when they're only supposed to inform me), the odd ducks (people who spoke on things like how to pluck a turkey, how doing their research paper taught them to value speech, even one person who talked about death (granted, she's a mortician), and the lady's gossip corner (serious overachievers that are actually not doing very well in the class because they're overehearsing, yet seem to throw the class into some sort of emotional discord with their crap...)...
I don't want to give a speech to people who don't care about what I want to talk about. Yet, I will. But, I want to spend as little time as possible. Here comes the summer!
Secondly, I'm looking for a different job. One that pays more as well as is later in the day. If I can just get my circadian rhythm in balance like it used to be... performance will be up. (I'm still getting up at 5 in the morning for work, but I'm not as tired)
Lately, I've been saving up for a car as well as buying ridiculously frivolous things. Example: the past week I bought a 27 inch television (I've never had something that big! Mainly because I would move so much) that was 160$+tax=$200, and a $40 briefcase that was supposed to be $200 for my japanese crap (I have too much japanese crap). Considering that my paycheck is small (7.00$/hr these days) I think buying this much stuff each week is pretty crazy. Add on top of that saving up for that car to replace the current one when/if it dies and... (well, the savings thing may very well go to a trip to japan to teach there. Hopefully my car lives long enough to do that. Though i've spelled doom on it for the past 1.5 years, I think it'll make it. Murphy's law will make it break now that I finally changed positions) I'm doing pretty well.
In short, with my behavior as of late, I have been diametrically opposing myself and my values. But, whatever. I don't care anymore. I'll get it together sooner than I think. And, when this wave of irresponsibility for everything subsides, I will initiate a plan that I've been working on to keep everything stable (hopefully) for a long time to come.
I've been thinking. A lot of people want to get up high in the social structure of our society, want to become important individuals, and want to do this through hard work. Our society rewards hard work, and it's possible to become a somewhat famous person through this hard work. But, I was thinking, what about those who work hard but have no talent? How hard is it for those that have plenty of talent to rise in society? Do they even want to participate in society? Is it useless to try to put in as much effort as possible if it's known that there are others who can easily do it?
Thinking the lazy man's way (cuz he knows how to do it best) it would be best to let those that are gifted do the work for you...
Anyway, as I said before, i'm really tired. Time to go crash... (I remember, when working SO hard at WinCo, how my bed was the most comfortable thing in the world. I went to heaven every night when I fell on that bed. In a way, I miss doing mindless physical labor. It was good for my body, I could think about whatever I wanted because I didn't have to be focused the whole time, etc.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)