December 14, 2001

This morning, our physics teacher walked into the room and started writing on the board. This quote is taken verbatim, with no emphasis added, exactly as he wrote it. I think this is a fairly perceptive assessment of the class, and of our teacher's condition.

How to get an "A" in Honors Physics...?!?
• Do not speak with others during class except during labwork in the line of duty.
• Participation grades account for about 25% of total - this is subjective: i.e., if you annoy me, your grade every 8-11 days is necessarily low, a reflection of my passive-aggressive psychosis!!!
• Impress me with your willingness to be on task. If you cannot do this, then sit down, shut up, hide from reality as best you can.
• Remember! The instructor is paranoid and also suffers from a Manic-Depressive Syndrome.

He finished by saying that his calm demeanor was just a performance to please the administration and the others that "run the asylum." He emphasized that "things will be harder at university by a magnitude of ten," and that we should try to "act the part", because "you don't know much, but at least you know how to do that."

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Thanks to fellow noders JediBix783 and LordNathan who were sitting in the same class and graciously allowed me to node this.

Do you ever stop and realize that you don't remember the last time you've been really happy?

Sure you've laughed, even honestly while sharing a joke with friends, or a cry of elation as you frag a friend in Quake III Arena. But what is happiness? Maybe it hasn't been felt because you don't know how to be happy. Does happiness really exist at all, or maybe that is what you're feeling all this time, and if so...

Is that it?

Do you ever try to reevaluate your life and realize that you've turned into an old man and missed out on all the good parts of life that you keep hearing about and reading about and seeing on TV? Did it all just pass you by? Or was that it?

OK, so the last week reminded me that life always changes and sheds new light. Bright and sparkly light finds the cracks and crevices that elude me all the time.

So imagine this..... two South Austinites, two club kids, and two guys from Dallas decide to play a game of dominos. What's sounds like a bad joke ended up being the setting for the other night. Let's add some more elements shall we? First off, marijuana smoke destroyed room visiblity as a swirling stick would in a murky creek. Alcohol slowly loosened the lips of each patron. And finally, cocaine spray painted everyone's brain in the room making them completely confident. Basically, I struggled that evening to prevent a fight from occuring in my kitchen. The shit talking mood dominos creates went a bit too far with awkward glances between club kids and the Dallas folks. Altercation was avoided, but lengths were taken to reach peace. The following morning, I woke up with a stupid grin confirming the previous night's events. When shit doesn't go down, you can appreciate the moment without serious damage. With genuine emotion(ok, not genuine but what really is most of the time?) I experienced a serious situation without regret or significant thought to follow.

Hanging on a curtain

It hasn't been a good few days but its been a good day overall I suppose. I've been down in the dumps to say the least, with my mom being unemployed now. I've been forced into a position in which I wish hadn't been placed until I was at least comfortable with my meager income. But today, with some indiscretions, I calmed myself down, but didn't hang around my buddies tonight.

I've been taking the bus a lot lately so I've had some time to think to myself. It always seems like its a scene from a movie. I sit by the window, not looking directly at my reflection but somewhat to the left or the right of it. I see the world passing by and it seems that I'm stationary in relation. Time passes by so quickly, and I seem to be not moving. It's not making me feel better, and recent developments are not helping. But seriously, its eemed like one of those movies, something that would like come out of Sleepless in Seattle or something. I look back and think that I'm looking like one sad guy, pining for the lost love of his life, when in reality, I just need to cope.

I've met two amazing ladies in my microeconomics class. They're absolutely cool to hang around with, in and out of class. One is absolutely gorgeous, while the other is attractive in her own right. We've gone out for a martini or two, even studied together (some people are still scoffing about that as we speak). But now, I find that I'm trying to accomodate to their schedule in the spring semester and wonder whether its simply desparation or making the most of a good thing.

Since my mom lost her job, I've been placed in a position where I have to take my place as the man of the house. Mind you, I love my mom and I adore her to the very ends of the earth and I don't mind doing it but I rather think that it will be hard for me to have some time for myself and accumulate the necessary funds to go to school and pay for the car insurance and part of the mortgage. Now I find myself cancelling plans with some old friends because I know I'll regret spending the money with them. I don't really want to lie but the truth hurts. I rather spare them the reality of my meager yet realistic existence at the cost of my own self-dignity.

I am planning to spend some time with some closer friends over the holidays. The earliest time would be on Monday, hopefully for another indiscretion. Tuesday would be another good day as I will see my good lady friend that I met through Tetrinet. Its been a while. But hey, its better for me to prioritize right?

I am going to steal my sister's microrecorder. I'm usually the type to mumble my greatest thoughts to myself when I'm not trying to remember it and I would like to know what I'm thinking. Maybe I'll figure out something about myself. I am usually the type of person where I would write something in my journal or even this daynode and read it the next day and not remember a word. It feels like I'm meditating and gone to the astral plane or something. Cheezy but true.

The song of the day is Wonhago Wonhangmanjyoh by As One. Another soft ballad, and again dictates the mood I'm in. Lovely. Maybe tomorrow it will shift to something more up tempo. I doubt it simply because Alana is leaving and I can't go to her farewell party. Damn it. I'm going to sleep. At least I'm sure to not feel anything then.

Okay, today I'm not going to bitch. You'll notice the lack of <rant> tags today. Today is too nice a day for me to be antagonistic. Hey, I just got a free jelly snake. It's bright and sunny today, luckily I'm in a nice air-conditioned office. Having said all this....

<rant>

I'm still pissed off. Why? Oh, same old reasons. Customers bugging me. Hey, just had an original. "I'm having problems connecting to the Internet. I think my password might be wrong. It keeps saying that Internet Explorer is not installed."

But this is not what I have to bitch about. I have a new pet peeve. Taxi drivers. Now, I often have to get a taxi from home to work and vice-versa. Usually, this will set me back approximately $15-17. Sometimes this is necessary as I often sleep in and do not have time to get public transport to work. This morning one of those incidents occurred. I call the taxi. The taxi shows up. I get in, and we're off. Now, without boring you with the geography of my area, let me just say that this taxi took me on a giant horseshoe ride, with the net effect that it actually took me ten minutes LONGER than the train would have and set me back $25. And there's nothing I can do about it.

There is a Victorian Taxi Directorate that states: All taxi drivers must take the most direct practical route unless the passenger specifies a specific route. This is all well and good, but the problem with this is that it lies in perception. "Oh, I thought that WAS the quickest way..." Yeah, that's what they all say.

You know what else is pissing me off? Software companies. I have a QuickTime movie of my last gig, that I have spent the last three days trying to view. I've decided that a dual-boot system is the only way to use Linux. Why? Because it seems that a lot of Linux developers are FUCKING STUPID! Go have a look at CrossOver (www.codeweavers.com). Now, this is a Linux browser plugin that allows me to play QuickTime movies. It also has a version of Wine to run the QT player. Quite aside from the fact that I can't get the plugin to work, when using either the plugin or the QT player, I get a 'friendly reminder' to register that covers the entire video window. This 'reminder' shows up every thirty seconds and stays there for twelve seconds. This doesn't make me want to buy CrossOver. This makes me want to head down to Codeweavers with a sawn-off. I mean, look at Opera. The ad-version has a quiet little unobtrusive banner ad. This is why I bought it. Because it didn't try to force me. I think someone's missing the point of open source (but I admit that it may well be me).

The moral of this story? Make love when you can. It's good for you.

</rant>

_{NOTE: It is in fact Apple and Sorenson who are the arseholes here, for not making the QuickTime format open. Or, it could be my music teacher who's the arsehole, for not burning it as an mpeg. Or maybe it's me who's the arsehole for bitching all the time. Yep, definitely me.}

It wierd today is the aniversary of the World Trade Center being finished. The cap was put on the top floor today 37 years ago. I wonder what the people that built it think when they see it today. I mean who would ever think that happened would have happened. It must be like seeing your child hurt or even killed. Just think of all the people that are still alive that helped build the two towers?

On another totally random subject, I was reading my copy of Rolling Stone that came in the mail (campus mail is always slower then real mail) and noticed an ad for MSN search stating that it was the most popular web search out there with a little * next to. So I read the fine print, which said acording to such and such survey group (I think it was Johnson or something like that, I don't have the add in front of me) in a category defined by Microsoft, it had won as the Most Popular Web search.... Let me think about this again, as defined by Microsoft. I mean you better win a catergory that you define. I don't understand why that would be your key selling point.

D'you know something - I've got this really weird feeling. Just something crawling out of my hindbrain that seems to say "today will be good". I've had this since ~3am. Curiously enough, it's a fun little vicious circle. I think something good will happen, therefore I feel in a good mood, then the cycle gets repeated and re-inforced.

Just something in my bones.

I mentioned this to a friend of mine (Mr. White, a non-noder to my knowledge), and his response was simply "Good man, positive attitude recursive feedback loop!"

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Ack, Mozilla is pissing me off today. D/l'ed the latest build last night, and over-wrote the previous stable one I liked (0.9.6 sucks ass). This one isn't stable, and I'm now using a week-old semi-stable build. Which f'ed up trying to use the E2 scratch pad so I'm back to using IE for a while..... *grumble*

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Update: Build 2001121403 is stable! Yay! No more IE! (On other news, yesterday was mixed. Housemate managed to pull someone off my course, and the rest of us spent the night stopping her asshole supposed friend from still trying to pull the person she'd just pulled. Mike, if you come anywhere near my house *ever* again, I'm going to make your life as uncomfortable as possible.)

I DO NOT HAVE CERVICAL CANCER!!!!

I am doing some super happy dancing, some super goof ass dancing, some funny happy silly laughing. Some tears came out and were thrown away!! Some sun came out in my heart, which is glad and much lighter. There are no other words for this, but I wanted to tell everyone who was worried about me that I think your loving kind words healed me.

THANK YOU ALL!!!

There is a particularly nice feelling. After gym, after a shower, standing in the private courtyard, buck naked, dripping. The air is cool but my body is still heated from the shower. The sky up above is blue. Almost perfect. All I could want is sunlight, but it is seven pm and the sunlight is brushing the tops of the trees. I can hear the highway breathing behind the wall. I see my half-reflection in the glass door, and turn and move to see how I am looking. Not bad. Not Charles Atlas, but not Elvis either.

Minutes later I am clad, driving on the highway, rocketing home. Then I take time to water the grass verge. It’s done well over winter, with planting, weeding, fertilizing, mowing. Now all I have to do is keep it alive until the end of February, when the great irrigation system in the sky starts up again.

Endorphins calm me, that’s one of the reasons why I work out so much.

The sex in your soul will damn you to hell, damn you to hell, damn you to hell.

Today, like the past few days, really hurt my faith in modern high school society.

To set the background, we had bomb threats at our school Friday of last week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. During a bomb threat, all students and teachers have to evacuate the building and go to the stadium. Naturally, the weather frowned upon us and we had to stand outside in the rain for hours while the police searched the building extensively. On Monday it was really pouring, so we got to sit on the school buses that were parked on the far side of the lot. So, rather than being wet and miserable, we were cramped and miserable.

People have occasionally used such bomb threats at my school to get out of class for a while. The more sadistic ones lay out of school and call in their threats from a pay phone on a rainy day to punish their classmates. These recent bomb threats were mostly notes dropped in the hallway. Friday's was jotted on a bathroom wall. Of course, the administration has to take all of them seriously.

Today there were rumours of someone "going Columbine" during the first lunch period. Some people even talked about a hit list with all the athletes on it.

There were armed police officers standing at all corners of the cafeteria. I heard some students later recounting harassment by these cops. One officer put his hand on his gun when a student wearing a trenchcoat got out of his seat.

Of course, first lunch went by without incident. All the paranoia and rumours amounted to nothing.

The park across the street from the rental house is filled with trees, now bare against the winter sky. If you stand on the sidewalk by them you half expect to hear a creaking/moaning type of sound but they are silently forlorn.

At night they stand like long dead sentinels, at attention. Cars zip up and down the street and send beams of light up and around their lines.

Someday soon the wind will change and snow will fall. It will settle into their hollow spaces and squirrels will race up and down their trunks, looking for forgotten food. When Winter turns these dark forms will be full of life, briefly.

Till then, they are just shadow against darkness.

the trees that reach up toward darkness silently lay the framework of the evening...and beyond them christmas lights blink monotonously... -Damian

First snow of the Toronto year. It's about goddamn time.

I am celebrating by drinking frozen beer in a warm house while wearing bermuda shorts, much to the amazement of my roommates.

Ever since I brought them a typewriter, though, they have been much more accepting of my unusual habits. I provide one piece of scrap paper per day, stealing it away in the wee hours of the morning to read the perverted nonsensical ramblings of bored, tired professionals. I figure that if I will never get to be one of them, I can at least allow myself to peek in on their spontaneous musings. So far, I have learned that "shawn likes bananas", "pete is a jerkface," and on top of all this, "shawn shagged pete's mom and she loved every minute of it." So far, Valerie has been silent, Valerie the writer. Perhaps she is too good for the typewriter and I will have to lure her with strategically placed jam on the keyboard.

We'll see.

It is really really cracking me up how many geek nodes there are. Kinky geeks, gay geeks, lonely geeks, girl geeks, fat geeks, skinny geeks... It seems as though everyone has written about it... Why can't they all just be happy and realize that everyone else, or atleast someone else, feels the same way? They talk about how they can't get girls, but all their geek friends can... Its just a matter of time. Someday some girl who's been in love with you since Junior High will finally work up the courage to chase you down. Giving you frantic calls and collages. But, really, you probably won't feel any better.

I don't really have any advice for these kids... You're just going to have to figure it out for yourself. I was just noticing a really high number of these types of nodes. Of course, well, I was reading them. But, I'm a bored geeky college girl. So... mmm, no, I guess it really isn't any different.