The lows are low, but the highs are home

Alright, so my speech is roughly ready, homework is all caught up, and now I’m ready to tumblr. This may be long, but I’ll try not to go overboard. One interesting link right now, more over the next few days or something. Then random thoughts.

http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/buzz_balls_hype/2007/03/titles_the_reso.html
http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/buzz_balls_hype/2007/03/titles_part_2_a.html

        Above links are about the importance of titles. In summary, because honestly there’s only the one interesting part in the entire article: a title must have resonance with the audience in order to work. There are two kinds of resonance: automatic, which evokes something already relevant to the audience. Can be hit or miss, but when it does resonate with someone, it will tell them instantly something about the book and draw them to it. A strong one for me is the song Hollow Place by Polar Bear Club, which has such intense imagery for me that it sends shivers down my spine every time I hear the chorus and I ran home to look up the lyrics immediately after I heard it while driving home from school.

        Come to think of it, I guess album, band, and song names rely almost solely on automatic resonance. The main exception would be concept albums, like The Power of the Dragonflame. Complete crap for a title, until you know what the power of the dragonflame refers to.

        The second kind of resonance is acquired, so you don’t truly appreciate it until after you’ve read the book. These are risky, because they don’t grab you right away, and only become instantly memorable after you’ve made it through several hundred pages of quality literature. When you have something that doesn’t need to fall directly into a specific genre to succeed, you can take more liberties with your titles because people won’t necessarily want the book to be completely explicit with its title (ie Aliens/Predator works better than “Scary Monsters Kill People!”). Acquired resonance is what gets people talking about the book, because it’s clever and deep and etc.

        A good example for this one would be the book Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. When I bought it, I thought eh, kind of a fluffy name, doesn’t seem to mean anything though… So I expected elves and gardens and unicorns on the moon. Then you learn about Moon’s Spawn, a giant floating rock that houses the dying remnants of the Tiste Andii, who live forever but can no longer procreate, so they just wallow in their misery and apathy forever basically. They’re extremely melancholy by nature, as they come from this beautiful, amazing world with no light, and they screwed up and got stuck in a crappy world full of bleh and brightness. Only the amazing tough ones can overcome their apathy and go out to do things, and every single one you see in the books is a major badass. When you see them from a human point of view, they’re intensely tragic because, in reality, they have no reason to be so utterly sad. When you see them from the point of view of another Tiste Andii, it just gets worse, because they connect with eachother on such a deep level of empathy that they know there’s nothing they can do to help. It’s brutal.

        Not all of that happens in Gardens of the Moon, but after you’ve read the book and as you continue the series, it just takes on such a huge meaning and becomes the perfect title, even if it doesn’t immediately grab your attention. I know I haven’t mentioned the gardens themselves, but just imagine what kind of a garden you’d get on a big, floating pile of rocks inhabited by perpetually depressed immortals and their giant ravens who feed on magical energy. They aren’t happy gardens.

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        Slightly unrelated topic: why don’t women use electric razors? I’m not exactly pro at shaving normally, because I get impatient after a while and rush it, but my skin gets pretty irritated for a few days after I shave and occasionally I’ll nick myself. My dad was home for the weekend, and I borrowed his fancy electric razor, and it was wonderful. I got a closer shave than normal (except on the curve of my chin, but a few millimetres there hardly matters), it took a fraction of the time, it was better for my skin, my skin felt better afterwards (shaving cream makes me feel weird for a few days) and there were basically no downsides. Is it because nobody has ever tried to sell them one? So they’re a manly man product, and not a useful product all around? When you see a commercial for some fancy razor, it’s always a tough looking guy with some girl rubbing up against him and appreciating his perfect skin.

        I’ve never shaved my legs, so maybe I’m just ignorant of the tools and technique required that electric razors couldn’t provide, but it’s worth thinking about. You’d think an industry built around telling people they need your products, or else they aren’t beautiful, would be able to better exploit its customers.

I was having a hard time writing this speech, because I just couldn’t find the right way to start it off on a high note. It wasn’t until I was listening to music and trying to procrastinate one night that I found the perfect quote to get everybody’s attention. It comes from the song Light of Local Eyes by Polar Bear Club, and while I won’t sing it for you, Micah might if you ask him nicely. It’s meant to be about a small town, but I think the principle fits just as well for a high school like Three Oaks. “We lived life out of this place, we wore its map on our faces, to say the least, we left our trace, burned off the tips of our laces, when this city shined, from the light of local eyes.” Looking back right now, after prom and all the memories you have of the last three years, it’s easy to say how awesome high school was and how it’s been the happiest three years of your life. Like the town in Light of Local Eyes, we’ve left our mark here and made Three Oaks a part of our lives and it’s shining from the light of our eyes. When we’ve seen more of the world, that light’s going to fade. When you go off to UPEI, or Dalhousie, or University of Ottawa, the so-called “best years of your life” may not seem so great in comparison. You’re going to study or work in whatever field you actually enjoy, instead of having to take physics and social studies simply for the credits. When all you want to do is act or make movies, it’s almost a waste of time, because you’ll never use any of those things. Over the course of the next few years, you’ll start doing something that hardly feels like work, compared to the pointless busywork in your obligatory high school courses. You’d probably keep doing it even if you didn’t get paid. That’s when you’ll start to realize how silly it sounds to say you had fun checking your significant figures or memorizing that the volume of a cone is a third of pi-r-squared-h. When you find a job doing what you really love to do, you’ll get more out of it than anything else you might have done, no matter the salary.

            Despite the many false starts I initially had trying to write this speech, I find that words are my most natural talent. It’s up to us to use our talents as fully as possible, whether you’re good at art or cheering people up. I’ve always found that the right words at the right time can make all the difference, and I do my best to find them when the time comes. One of the more memorable opportunities I’ve had came when a friend of mine, Spencer, posted a link on facebook to a news story about a school in the States that had cancelled its prom because of a lesbian couple who planned to attend. I replied with a link to a story about a teacher at an all-girls Catholic school in Vancouver who was fired for being a lesbian. A shared friend of ours posted that they were right to fire her, as she would have a bad influence on the students. This happened a few days after we studied logical fallacies in English, so I decided to practice my debating skills with him. He claimed that he had science and other undeniable facts to back up his position, yet strangely he didn’t provide any examples. When I pointed out various flaws in his logic, he relented, and admitted that he had been prejudiced and never really tried to see things from an objective point of view. He agreed to be more tolerant in the future, and I found it very satisfying to find a practical use for something I learned in class. This just proves that anyone can make a positive difference if they make the best of their abilities.

            I know all too well that many of us often doubt our abilities, and I’d be lying if I said I’d never once worried that I’m not good enough, or that I couldn’t handle all the things life was throwing at me. It wasn’t until I was half finished that I thought I could actually write and give a speech. I’m no motivational speaker, and I just didn’t have time to practice as much as I would have liked. Yet here I am, with a speech written and mostly memorized, pretty nervous but mainly glad that it’s nearly over. Deep down, I know that I can do anything after I calm down and get to work. I know just as well that the same thing goes for all of you. So if there’s anything I’d liked to tell you, it’s to find and hold onto that same confidence, no matter what you’re doing next year, or even ten years from now. Don’t underestimate yourself, because you’ll rise to the occasion if you work hard enough. There’s no limit to your potential, and anyone who embraces life’s challenges will grow as a person, and as an intellectual. Failure comes only from a lack of effort, not a lack of ability. There’s no such thing as “not being smart enough.” If you believe the only difference between an A and a B+ is hard work, you’ll always get the results you’re looking for.

            We may not see it right now, but our teachers and classmates have had a huge influence on us over the past few years. When I met up with a friend after UPEI finished their classes, he told me I was starting to sound like Mr. Gallant, so I must have taken calculus as well as advanced math. He says it happens to everyone Mr. Gallant teaches all year, but personally… I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. Aside from making jokes about interrupting turtles and spiders doing push-ups against a mirror, we’ve learned a lot more than just facts and formulas from our classes here at Three Oaks. Some of those things were part of the curriculum – we were supposed to learn to think outside of the box, but some of us thought a bit too far outside of the box. Other things we’ve learned in class taught us about ourselves – for example, I’ve learned that I’m not exactly careful enough to be a physicist or an engineer. You’ll thank me later when your car’s brakes accelerate you at negative five meters-per-second-squared instead of positive five meters-per-second-squared. I can’t speak for every single one of you, but I’m sure each of you can think of a similar experience. I’d be pretty surprised if you could spend a full semester – or two – with someone like Mrs. Keough, Mrs. McQuaid, or Ms. Barrett without learning anything about yourself. We’re all busy trying to figure out who – and what – we want to be, and it’s people like them who spend as much time guiding us through that as they do teaching.

            In Light of Local Eyes, there’s a section that goes “I sat down and thought, what of here makes me proud? Proud to not dismiss this place, and hold it all, from gold to gray.”  Graduation is the perfect opportunity to look at the last few years and see the things that actually made your time here great. The things that make you proud to have been here and that you’ll cherish even as the golden light from our eyes fades to gray. Three Oaks was just the place where it happened, not the reason it happened. Your teachers and friends, and the memories you made together, are the things you should remember fondly. The best part is that even though you’ve finished high school, and you can never get that back, the friends you’ve made will never fade away. Some of them might be going with you to university; others may be staying here, or moving a dozen hours away. Realistically, there’s no longer any difference. No matter where we are next year, we’ll be able to keep in touch… for better or for worse.

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Yeah so there we go. It’s not done yet. Subject to improvements from the recommendations of you lovely folk. Still have to read it out to time it, as well as test it for awkwardness/wordiness. Still, feels good to have it “done.”

edit: first update done, may possibly change the facebook paragraph to be vaguer

My valedictorian speech is almost done. I just need to finish my current paragraph about how anyone who really tries can succeed and conclude it decently, and we’re good to go. I’ll post it up if/when I get it done tomorrow, because it won’t be perfect, and I’d totally appreciate help looking for things you wouldn’t say in a casual conversation. Things you wouldn’t say colloquially, which is not nearly common enough to be colloquial. I don’t use if I can avoid it.

        It’s been making me think, though. Finally, with two weeks left of school, I’m actually confident. I know exactly what I need to do: finish this speech, prepare my razzle-dazzle for my propaganda presentation on monday, and study. Certainty and predictability are very good for me. When I know what needs to be done, I can plan for it. If I knew that x amount of research could fill y amount of words, and would take z hours to write, I could pump out papers and projects like you wouldn’t believe. It’s the uncertainty that kills me, that makes me panic and stress out until I’m nearly done, and then when I’m done I get stressed about the things yet to come. With two weeks left, I’m now safe from that, because I’ve worked at it, and done so early. I’d probably be done already if it wasn’t for this damn moving thing. Not nearly enough space for us at my mom’s friend’s house, but oh well.

        Going to university is predictable. I’m afraid of the stress and the misery that will likely come with it, but I’m far too stubborn to lay down and die. As much as I might want to, I’m sorry to say that I probably couldn’t give up, no matter how bad it gets. I’ve made it this far, anyway, and I’ve managed to swim by trying not to drown. Once you learn, you don’t usually forget. I told Ms. Barrett that she’d taught me how to study and do research properly, which is true, and I know I’d make my way through whether it took four years or fourteen.

        The question remains as to why I would do that, though. What do I gain? A good salary, of course, but… what else?

        Not going to university, however, leads directly to that uncertainty I fear so much more than unhappiness. I don’t know how to make myself a life, I don’t know any of the things you need to be a responsible adult. Well, I can fend for myself as far as sustenance goes. I don’t know. I’d keep going, but my rambling has been interrupted, and I need to vacate the vicinity so someone can sleep here. Will continue later if I’m still feeling vulnerable, maybe.

Lessee… Link dump first. Found a group of people doing music reviews on Destructoid and found some stuff, thus:

http://www.myspace.com/periphery

http://www.metalsucks.net/2010/05/11/periphery-mastermind-misha-bulb-mansoor-talks-the-future-of-the-music-industry/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Corrigan

        First link is obvious, and I think I like them. I’m not sure. I think they’ll go into the same category as Lostprophet’s first album - something I like to listen to, but that I can’t in good conscience call “good” or tell people to listen to.

        Second link is an interview with their main man, who recorded the album in his apartment, which doesn’t show at all in the music. Then he takes it to the record labels and says “hey, I’ve got this here album, want to distribute it for me? no? fine, I’ll find someone else” and ends up signing five different record deals without any bullshit attached. Seems like a pretty smart guy, though he does say that “all of this is affecting the music industry in ways we can’t even predict because of all the ripples that it causes.” What an empty sentence.

        Last time I read a useless sentence like that was reading an article about Tim Hortons basically getting screwed out of a bunch of money by some wonderfully opportunistic businessmen. “‘We consider the uncertainties surrounding this announcement to be a negative development,’ Peter Sklar, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said in a report Friday.”

        We consider the uncertainties to be a negative development? Thank you. Your eloquence astounds me.

        Third link: Someone, somewhere on the internet, recommended this. I skipped through the first volume or issue or whatever and could not understand why. On every given page was something that made me depressed. One features our sad, middle-aged protagonist going to the grocery store in the middle of summer with a heavy coat, and teenagers accost him saying it’s “too warm for that fucking shit!” He feebly replies “but it gets cold in the grocery store…”

        Anyway, back to my post, which consists of things I completely forgot from my last post. The other thing making life horrible was a cold I got from my grandmother, who sounded like she was dying for three days then got better just as I started getting sick. But then I got better last night! Exercise and plenty of fluids seem to have cured me.

        Now this part is kinda weird. Thursday night, when I managed to fall asleep by accident in between blowing my nose and breathing through my mouth, I had a dream that I was hanging out with a handful of french immersion people. We all pretty much know eachother from different classes over the years. Many of us are in french immersion because we have smart parents who push us to be smart and have opportunities and stuff, and so we’re in all the science courses and advanced english and etc. So these are the people with lockers beside mine, who talk to me about our teachers/homework/whatever, who are freaking out about their grades and scholarships and spending $20k a year on some local bullshit “elite” university, all that stuff. As far as I’m concerned, they can have all the scholarships I’m busy not snapping up because I’ve already got plenty of money.

        So I’m hanging out with these people I’m not really friends with, but that I’ve always kinda known, and I’m acting like I usually do to make sure people like me because that just makes life easy for everyone. We’re walking around and hanging out and stuff, and that was cool I think except it was like a fast-forward music-less montage. Near the end of the dream, we’re at an intersection that basically leads to nowhere, except a really, really, long road that kinda leads back to my place, or a different long road that circles around town and has an ice cream place on it. We’re waiting for a few cars to go by, and this really attractive, outgoing girl turns around and says “you know, Matt, you’re pretty fake.”

        How exactly she would notice that during our brief conversations at our lockers and whatever happened during the dream was completely beyond me, and so it took me entirely by surprise. Normally I’d agree, because clearly I wasn’t being myself since that might not go over as well, but it surprised me so much that I kinda stammered and said that I’d better head home and went up the long road home, while they went off the other way for reasons unknown. If we wanted to guess, the dairy bar would be a good reason. Then I wake up.

        Remember how I said it was kinda weird? Yesterday in calculus, a friend was telling me that he was going to go see The Undertaker this weekend, and I asked him what year he thought it was as a joke, and he told me The Undertaker was undefeated at something or another three times in a row or something, so I laughed and told him it’s all fake and planned out anyway. The bell rings, we get up to go, and what does he come back with?

        “You’re fake!”

Things to do:

• May 17th: Calculus homework (a few questions), chemistry homework (a few questions + some notes to take)
• May 21st: Typed summary of our 20 minute presentation (as if we’d actually stick to a script, or ever manage to write one 20 minutes long… honestly, I could talk about this for 20 minutes, but I can’t write it all out)
• May 22nd: Prom
• May 31st: Presentation about propaganda in the People’s Republic of China, move out of my house and live who knows where for a month. Packing everything up goes before here, somewhere.
• June 1st: Surprise awesome things for our english teacher, if anyone has the time to do something awesome for her
• June 2nd: Mock valedictorian speech to serve as our english exam
• June 14th: Calculus exam. Studying goes before here, somewhere.
• June 15th: Chemistry exam. Studying goes before here, somewhere.

Net effect on me: fear that time is running out, feelings of inadequacy, panic, stress, etc. So, basically, the usual.

Who’s up for another four (or more) years of this? Anyone?

Iron Man 2 was everything Transformers 2 wasn’t. It was good. Robert Downey Jr. makes a wonderful Tony Stark.

Go and see it, if you were thinking about it. It’s worth it.

I’ve mentioned my english teacher, Ms. Barrett, a number of times here already, and I guess after doing the AP exam is as good a time as any to write about her. At the start of the year, when I wasn’t taking english seriously, my marks were pretty bad and I got super discouraged about my skills as a writer. Now that I’ve learned more about writing and my marks are better, I’m a lot more confident and kinda inspired by the fact that I can get 80-90% on a university level grading scale.

        I’ve got a lot of admiration for Ms. Barrett, or whatever you want to call the grown up version of kids who have a crush on their teachers in first grade. I only really know one person in our class, and I’m usually the one helping him, so I’ve got nobody to check over my stuff and validate my effort except for her. When it comes to class discussions and everybody is just throwing their ideas out there and I don’t want to interrupt anybody, I end up just telling her things directly and if it’s insightful she’ll repeat it to the class, or if I missed the point she’ll correct me. Which really goes against the idea of a class discussion, but I feel really awkward when I’m surrounded by people and they’re all looking at me and stuff.

        It’s like, I don’t want to stare at my desk and mumble and be obviously aloof, but I can’t just stare off into the distance because then people think I’m staring at them. Given that I’m not close to anybody in the class, that’s weird.

        To get back to my original point about her, rather than english class in general, she’s really casual with us, rather than just being a teacher. Let’s see… Last week, we spent an entire class telling her where we were going for university and getting her to guess what she thought we’d do for a living. Yesterday, we spent half the class talking about her life in high school and trying to guess the name of the guy she liked when she went here. By the time she decided we should get back to work, she couldn’t remember how we even managed to start talking about that stuff in the first place.

        When we went in for our AP exam this morning, she left us all cards, although I’m not sure if everyone had something different on theirs because nobody wanted to share theirs. At a guess, I’d say she did write each of us our own personal notes, but here’s what mine said:

        “Matt,

        You are in good hands - your own! Do you best, because you are brilliant. Take your time and show how much you know. All the best today; you don’t need luck.”

        I was super touched. I think I did pretty well on the multiple choice, but the essays were a bit iffy. I wrote the third one in about 20 minutes, and the rest probably aren’t wonderful either. Passable, but not going to win any awards. Apparently, I can’t say any more than that, because I’m under a legally binding agreement to never tell anyone anything about the test, or else they’ll nullify it XD We weren’t supposed to tell Ms. Barrett anything either, but she came in with pizza for us when we were finished, and of course we spent half an hour talking about it with her. She also bought us cookies and pop and stuff to drink during our ten minute break, as well as supplying us with pens, sharpened pencils, and water bottles.

        The problem with AP english vs other AP subjects is that there’s no set curriculum. In AP biology, they know they only covered about 10% of the material, so their teacher told them they’re going to fail. With us, the goal is to know some stuff well enough to be prepared for anything. Anyone can write an essay in two weeks, but it takes skill to sit down and pop one out in forty minutes.  Unfortunately, you can’t study for that. You can do practice tests, and you can think about strategies to do better, but that’s about it.

        Yeah so I had to leave in the middle of making this, and I forgot everything else I meant to write. Five hours away can do that. I did remember my original motivation to make this post, however, and so we have another story!

        It was one of Ms. Barrett’s fancy dress-up days, so she was all decked out in heels and a dress and all that good stuff. She doesn’t need to make a good impression on us, though, so she’ll just take off her high heels and go barefoot because who cares? So we’re taking notes and she’s just explaining stuff, then the principal comes to ask her something and she’s like uh oh I don’t have time to grab my shoes! So she’s standing in the hallway barefoot having a chat with her boss, then she comes back in and tells us how embarrassing it is to have your boss catch you with no shoes on.

        Kinda tired now so that story doesn’t seem as funny anymore. It was great at the time though.

        I’m going to bed.

Grandmother: We can make macaroni casserole with this sauce here.

Me: Nope, that’s salsa. You’d want to use something more like this.

*I grab a can of spaghetti sauce*

Her: Oh, ok.

*she grabs a handful of raw hamburger with her bare hands, and I know she won’t be washing them*

Me: Actually, I think I’ll microwave one of these things of rice, since I don’t need to save them for work anymore.

Excessive cursing reduces the meaning of a sentence for both the speaker and the listener.

Translated from my Sociology book. This section seems like it’ll be pretty lame, despite the incredibly interesting possibilities available for discussing linguistics in the context of socialization and culture.

So anyway, I’ve gotten all my supplies for thursday.

• 2 L of cranberry juice
• Vector protein bar things
• Milk chocolate
• Gum

Ideally, these things should keep me awake/focused/able to remember things. Now I just need to sleep well and not freak out. I got an 8 on my free response answer, which is like a 90-95% mark in university, which is very good. Didn’t do as well on the other two (6 on a poorly organized essay about some religious allegory poem, 7 on a decently done essay about a girl on a farm looking at cows), but I know what I did wrong so I’ll avoid it on the real exam.

In other news, I’m kinda re-considering this whole university thing. I dunno. I’d like to be happy, and I don’t know if I’ll be happy there.

In other other news, just as a plan was being concocted to kidnap me and get me incredibly drunk at some party after prom, plans have been made expressly to keep me safe from that. Hooray!

Apparently the AP exam is harder than most of what you’ll see during your entire undergraduate degree. This is wonderful news, because I believe I’m quite prepared for it and will likely keep the good habits I’ve gained forever.

At first they would say it’s a bit tougher than first year university, so of course you’re super worried about second year… And now it comes out that they really make you earn those credits. Wonderful.

Still, I’ll probably refer back to it a lot when I’m writing up a summary of my presentation for Sociology class. Look for that sometime early June or so.

In other news, looks like I’m spending the banquet part (and likely the dance part, too) with women (friends of my friend) and their dates, rather than dudes (friends) and their dates. They may be upset about that, but eh. I also have an excuse not to go to their party and get drunk afterwards, so that’s a bonus.