The lows are low, but the highs are home
Month
This is an article proposing that depression has not evolved itself away because it inspires a cycle of improvement to prevent depression in the future. vossk tumbl’d it ages ago, then vael reblogged it not long after I started my tumblr, and I didn’t want to re-reblog it so soon. So I decided to wait until later. And now it’s later!
However, over the many months that I’ve been planning out a giant post about depression, it no longer has anything to do with that article. It is absolutely worth reading, and many of the things it proposes (rumination being used to help you avoid the same problem in the future, depressed people having a hard time caring about things they deem as unimportant because they’re too fixated on their own pain, thinking analytically when depressed) are brilliant and should feel familiar to anyone who has been depressed. I just don’t really have anything to add to it, and I want my post to stand on its own. There are two quotes I would like to draw particular attention to, though:
“I remember one patient who came in and said she needed to reduce her dosage,” he says. “I asked her if the antidepressants were working, and she said something I’ll never forget. ‘Yes, they’re working great,’ she told me. ‘I feel so much better. But I’m still married to the same alcoholic son of a bitch. It’s just now he’s tolerable.’ ”
And also:
"We end up having to keep people on the drugs forever. It was as if these people have a bodily infection, and modern psychiatry is just treating their fever.”
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I would also ask you not to reblog or otherwise share my post until you fully believe it’s complete. I won’t call it finished until I’ve incorporated the input of everyone who has anything to say about it. If you’re going to reblog it and write about it, I would instead like to talk to you about it and improve it first. If I forgot to mention something, or simply didn’t know about something you have personal experience with, I would love your input. Questions and concerns, constructive criticism, hate mail, love and adoration… I will accept all of these things and more! I have MSN, AIM, and xfire listed at the bottom of my tumblr. Whether you use Yahoo or ICQ, send me an e-mail at my hotmail address and I’ll get a hold of you somehow.
The post should be up shortly, I just thought I’d take this part off because it doesn’t really belong with the main post anyway. It feels awesome to actually sit down and write for once.
I didn’t feel like writing at all yesterday afternoon, so I played Lost Planet instead. After watching Letters to Juliet and Eclipse last night, both of which are love stories, I feel like writing! I’ll discuss them briefly here, so that they don’t get in the way of the post I’m going to write about being depressed. If you see this before I finish writing it and would like to proof-read/review/discuss/whatever it with me, I have xfire, MSN, and AIM listed at the bottom of my tumblr. If you don’t use any of those, well, tumbl your alternative or e-mail either the hotmail or AOL account.
So, Letters to Juliet. Startling similarities, such as the main character being a perfectionist about her writing and dealing with a fiancé who eventually chooses his work over her. Notable only for a conversation where the girl admits to being a perfectionist about her writing, and her future-fiancé-replacement accuses her of simply being afraid to be imperfect. It’s not far from the truth, and it’s a noble sentiment (your writing is great, stop worrying about it), but I would instead say that perfectionism comes from insecurity rather than fear. Fear would mean fear of failure, fear of being imperfect or not good enough. You would look at what you’ve accomplished and think “I hope this is good, I hope people like it, I worked so hard on this so it had better do well.”
Unfortunately, perfectionists don’t really think about that. Rather, they tend to look at what they’ve accomplished and think “this is nothing, this is terrible, I worked so hard on this and it was a complete waste of time.” It’s not so much a fear of anything as it is not believing in yourself. You NEED those perfect marks/job/whatever you happen to be working for, but you don’t think you’re good enough, and ultimately time runs out or you get frustrated and you take something you aren’t personally happy with and hand it in anyway. Maybe it goes well, maybe it doesn’t. Even worse, when it’s something without a deadline, is when it goes unfinished because you simply don’t believe the finished product will be any good. I’ve got so many half-formed ideas for writing floating around, it’s more about deciding which to write about than actually writing. I wouldn’t be writing a number of posts I’m going to make if I wasn’t relaxing and avoiding “real life” at all costs.
One huge caveat: This is simply the kind of perfectionism I see often in myself and others in my academic classes. The people who take Advanced English and every science course available. I accept the existence of positive perfectionism, in the sense of someone who simply does their best all of the time and makes sure everything is perfect. There’s also neurotic forms of perfectionism, where there’s an obsessive compulsion towards working far too hard and never thinking anything is done. I’m simply writing based on personal experience, and likely for everyone person who feels perfectionism differently there will be several who nod and recognize the feelings I’ve described.
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Now, Eclispe is a complicated monster simply because it has a complicated place in an already complicated history of my complicated relationship. Essentially, it was chock full of similarities to myself and others, both in terms of character and situations. It’s not as clear cut as I’m x character and they’re y character, though, as there are bits of each of us in all of them. At any rate, these similarities were present situations rather than old-ish history when my girlfriend at the time was reading the books, and this created all sorts of depressing experiences. It was just a bad coincidence that the books came to her attention at the absolute worst time possible. Though I suppose reading them beforehand, or afterwards, would have been just as bad… It was just entirely unfortunate.
Oh, and as far as the characters in Eclipse go… I feel no empathy towards the horrifically beautiful things presented on that screen. They’ve taken humans and air brushed and sparkled them to nearly disgusting levels. Maybe that’s how some people imagined the characters in the books (I doubt it?) but it certainly doesn’t evoke anything in me.
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Anyway, I’m going to go work on that post about being depressed. It probably won’t be finished tonight, so you have plenty of time to contact me and offer your editing services or whatever help you feel you can give. Oh, and I suppose I should be clear, it’s based on being depressed in the past. It’s not meant to be my life’s story, either, but instead some exposition on something people either understand too little or understand far too well. For those who do not understand it, I’ll try to explain.
I can’t help but quote As I Am by Dream Theater here, because it’s basically what I would have said anyway, only I can attribute it to someone else and sound snazzy. Ho ho ho.
To those who understand, I extend my hand
I really can’t define it better than the article itself did, thus: “George Miller Beard diagnosed ‘neurasthenia’ as an ailment caused by modern civilization’s taxing effect on the nervous system, with sufferers experiencing headaches, fatigue, depression, insomnia, and more.” Essentially, the core feeling is one of restlessness. On a wide scale, I do often feel restless about my life and what I’m going to do. On a smaller scale, I’ll often sit uncomfortably in front of the computer and try to decide which of many things I will do, or get up and pace around without any idea of what I meant to do when I got up. I definitely think the idea is very relevant, and I also think it’s a deeper, more complex problem than the handful of symptoms described in the article. The list of symptoms there almost reads like an infomercial (“do you feel lost, restless, or shiftless?” Then our product is for you!) but I can definitely see the basic idea in myself and others. More important is the cause, and how to get rid of it. Let’s try and figure that out, shall we?
The article says that “Neurasthenia is back for the same reason it plagued our forbearers; our expectations have not kept pace with changing technology and culture.” Think about that - we have so many things at our fingertips that were once impossible, and yet most teenagers and young adults only have the dated wisdom of their parents to rely on. So they’re told to go to university, get a degree in something useful enough to land a job and interesting enough to go to work on time. We’re living 20th-century style in the 21st century, and it isn’t working all that great. With all the wonderful things out there, from governments that ensure everyone is healthy to guaranteed internet access, we get bogged down by timeless “necessities” like working to pay for our food, our homes, etc. and trying to find a proper girl/boy to bring home to Ma and Pa so we can be happy. It’s not that those things are no longer necessary, but that there are options these days that fit a lot better with our new way of life than many of the dated systems still upheld by tradition. By holding onto these old expectations and trying to make them fit with a modern life, we end up feeling empty and restless, waiting to fit the ideal our parents had for themselves, which they passed on to us.
“It is the gap between our expectations about the world and how we really experience it that causes our modern 'neurasthenia.' New media and technology has seemingly brought the whole world just within our reach. But we can never seem to grasp it.” We expect the “real world” of our adulthood to be exactly as our parents told us it would be, so we’re looking for that when it no longer exists. The world we really live in requires a different kind of thinking from what we’ve been taught, and it’s very individual. No longer do we need to follow the crowd to be “successful.” Taking positive steps forward and never stagnating due to uncertainty will, eventually, lead us all to our own ways of life. When we eliminate the internal conflict between our burgeoning ideals and the expected way of life, restlessness will gradually disappear.
On the smaller scale, uncertainty is the only cause for feeling restless. “Our anxiousness comes from standing in the middle of a decision. We know we don’t really want to do something but we feel bad letting it go.” Maybe you were told to keep your options open, maybe you have a broad range of interests but no dedicated hobby. Either way, not being able to decide on what you want to do right this second is a problem when you’re spread too thin, and that’s something that happens a lot these days thanks to the power of the internet. It really is better to restrict your options some and hope it doesn’t come back to haunt you than to flounder in the middle of everything and tell yourself it’s the most efficient way to live. By focusing on the things you really like to do and forgetting about the things you “should” do or “should” experience, you’ll have more time and enjoy yourself more.
I wish it was a simple matter of 'do this, then do that’, to solve this problem. Unfortunately, thinking that everyone can follow the exact same route to success is part of what caused the problem in the first place. So I look forward to seeing your definition of success, or at the very least watching you work towards achieving it or discovering it. I’m still trying to reconcile my own ideals with the need to make money and maintain a roof over my head, but slowly and surely I’m pruning the unnecessary extremities of my life and focusing on the things that matter. I just have to figure out what all of those things are. I’ve got some, but it’s not perfect yet. And that’s just how life is!
Early morning: My teeth were stolen from under my nose last night, as well as my watch. I returned, frantically, to the house I found yesterday, and found them only after half an hour spent searching. Thankfully, it was not compromised before I left. The watch wasn’t worth nearly as much. Once that was done, I was on the road again, all by my lonesome. I thought as I walked, to help pass the time. I thought that maybe some people are just destined to be alone, because of the truths they think no one will believe… when, in fact, we all have similar things to hide. It’s fairly common to open up to someone, only to find they’ve had a similar experience or can relate for one reason or another. I walked for a few hours, and stopped in a diner around noon.
Noon: As I ate my lunch, an old man came to sit with me. I had never met this man before in my life, yet instantly I felt as though I should trust him. He watched me silently for nearly twenty minutes as I ate, looking into my eyes and seeming to read deep into my soul. When I finished, he reached out and took hold of my wrist. He put his index and middle fingers there, as though feeling for a pulse. Then he nodded, folding his hands on his lap.
“Young man,” he said, “I don’t pretend to know what you’ve been through. I don’t know who, or what, you’ve lost in your incredibly short life. Nor do I know the extent of your pain. Nor do I have some mystical reason for such unjust things happening to perfectly good people. The one thing I do know is that your heart yet beats. It is wounded, but strong. You’ll live.”
He smiled as if this was all I needed to hear, and nothing else he could say would be of any further use to me. Then he left the diner entirely, and when I followed him to watch him leave, he was already gone. I returned inside and paid for my meal before returning to the lonely road.
Late evening: A young man, clearly wealthy and with fabulous hair, drove me the rest of the way to my destination. We spoke about life, and I told him about my encounter with the old man. He told me he’d use that line for sure when trying to get a girl on rebound. I nodded absently and spent the rest of the long drive watching the grass fly by.
After arriving at my destination, I watched my contact conduct a symphony of destruction. It was equal parts the most beautiful and terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. The sounds and sights were glorious, and the screams of fear and pain seemed to only amplify the beauty of the song. Yet as he played, tears streamed down his cheeks. I wanted to touch his shoulder, to comfort him, but I was afraid I would throw off the music. What he was doing would wound his soul, and no one can talk that hurt away. Yet it was necessary. Entirely necessary. For the greater good, fitting sacrifices must be made. A sheep is born a sheep because it is not meant to be a wolf, and like the wolf, it must play its parts in the food chain.
Finally, the symphony ended. Our work was finished for the night. Good. The future won’t plan itself, after all.
(italics courtesy of Mortal Coils by Eric Nylund, a book I would totally recommend as a fun read)
10:23 PM: Stuck in the primitive wilderness, with only my dog and mosquitoes for company. My Friend Peggy is also nearby, but her loyalty is dubious. My family members, certainly, can no longer be trusted. My grandfather, my grandmother, my brother, and even my own mother… Surely they conspired together to trap me here. There is no internet, and the only functioning television needs rabbit ears to get any kind of signal. The water has yet to be tested, but assume it is not fit to drink. Washing is safe. Game is plentiful, but there are no hookups available. Food is also freely available, but I glance nervously at the oversized oven from time to time. No one would buy such a thing simply for ornamentation.
10:34 PM: A wild dog tried to breach the front door. I snuck as close as I dared and whispered that it should escape while it can, and it clearly misunderstood. Behind me, a seemingly benign voice called out and gently told it to shoo, calling it “Chester.” Then I was led back to the living room. I am glad someone managed to escape.
5:45 AM: Light streams aggressively through the window near my makeshift bed. Without doubt a bad omen. My head aches, and I wonder about the water I used last night. I took the time to shave as an excuse to be alone, but perhaps the water is worse than I thought… At any rate, the mosquitoes and the dog are ever vigilant by my side.
6:10 AM: My brother is complaining of an ear-infection, or some other such nonesense. Perhaps he drank some of the water as well. Yet this emergency could be to my advantage…
6:25 AM: I escaped the vehicle and ran. I just ran. My legs collapsed as I reached a large, abandoned looking house. A large boat sits outside, proof that no one has been here since the beginning of the summer, else they would have taken it with them. The first door was unlocked, but the second had to be broken in. I managed to guess the code for the alarm on my second try.
6:53 AM: I found an antique computer. Stained white CRT monitor matches aging mouse and keyboard. No USB ports, so my suite of portable tools is useless. I bring you this message at great danger to myself.
7:19 AM: The show must go on. All efforts shall be made to adhere to the agreed upon course of action. Arrival may be slightly delayed as hitchhiking and bartering will be needed to traverse such a great distance. However, I have faith in our plan. It is glorious.
It sucks trying to prioritize everything I want to do, or even think about doing. I have x hours today in between doing chores and etc. before we leave to go to Rhode Island (woo yeah) and I would like to finish Heavy Rain at some point (disconcerting), see a friend of mine (kinda important to me), write for tumblr (nice, but…), among however many other things… Tumblr just falls to the bottom of the list. I’ve got at least one post I want to write for the interest/benefit of everyone I’m aware of that reads this (you may or may not know it, but that does include you!) and I do intend to write them all. Writing just takes a lot more time out of my schedule than thinking about writing does. In fact, I do that all the time. I can’t help it. Keeps me up at night, gets me up early in the morning, keeps my mind busy during boring drives… So I’ve got a treasure trove of wonderful things to say, but no time to get them out.
Anyway, gotta go drive my mom to work and then go pick up our mail. Brb.
(edit: also I wrote this post in my head while driving to do errands yesterday)
I found this thing, seems pretty cool :3
(btw this is on Destructoid’s front page)
Written by Donnie Kicklighter, illustrated by me.
Damn that was awesome. I read it out loud for good measure.
I haven’t posted in a while! I’ve been busy! I shall walk you through what has happened! First, my family, the lady we’re staying with, my mom’s grandparents, and my dad’s mother went out to dinner before my graduation on tuesday. Then my high school graduation started at 7, and ended around like 11 pm or something. After graduation, at 11:30 pm, I went to Safe Grad - basically a big overnight party for all the graduates to make sure we don’t die. I arrived at home around 7 am on wednesday dehydrated, full of junk food, and deprived of sleep, but chose to tough it out and sleep at 10 pm that night. I slept for twelve hours, waking up at 10 am on thursday. Around 4 pm on thursday, my family and my grandmother went out for chinese food to celebrate my brother’s grade 9 graduation. This may seem weird, because in most of the world, 9th grade is the start of high school. Not so where I come from. Junior high starts in 7th grade, and ends in 9th, which makes more sense than 7-8 and 9-12.
Anyhow, pictures and descriptions of pictures follow. Oh, about my outfit for my graduation - I meant to have a plain black, button-down shirt and my standard black/red tie, only they got lost or sent away or something. So I had to wear the bow tie. When I told people I had no choice but to wear it, most of them assumed my mom had forced me to. It looks alright I guess, but the tuxedo shirt wasn’t exactly my favourite option.
My diploma being awarded, with two awards within - $100 for high academic standing (I think 90%+?) and $35 for top mark in sociology. Still have to get thank you notes for the people who donated those…
My father and a woman he grew up with, plus me and her daughter.
A friend of mine who often lived in our basement so he could get to work on the weekends.
My prom date and I, but now without any distinguishing characteristics. Graduation gowns make everyone equal!
The Matt Squared conglomerate, now with fewer essays to write.
AHA NO GOWNS FOR US - off to Safe Grad!
My dad wanted to get a picture of me with his friend’s daughter. We’ve been in various french classes together, and we had a study period together last year, but we hadn’t spoken much in a long time.
My excellent calculus teacher, and while I could try to make a math joke about him, I would only bring shame and dishonour to his good name and hit or miss sense of humour.
To replace the picture that never survived prom, we now have a picture of my english teacher and I for posterity. Huzzah!
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Here’s a run-down of what we do for Safe Grad: the teachers take in $25 (or $40 for late people) per person to cover costs, and put out a call for volunteers and food donations from parents to help out with stuff. After graduation, everyone gets a name tag and gets checked onto a bus, then the list is checked to see if anyone who was signed up hasn’t shown up. If they aren’t there, their parents are called. We go on a half-hour bus ride out to a lobster supper place, from which there is no escape until it’s time to leave in the morning. Also, no students are allowed to drive themselves there - buses only. Anyhow, we get there and eat subs and pizza, as well as drink way too much pop and not enough water. Chips and assorted goodies are also available.
After about an hour, a casino is set up in the lower level with poker, blackjack, a couple kinds of roulette, and maybe some other stuff I didn’t notice? Anyway, you get ten $100 things to start off with, and at the end of the night, whoever has the most money won a TV. Whoever came in second got an iPod speaker station thing. If you run out of money, you can get $1000 more, but are no longer allowed to win anything. This means that you can get more money multiple times and funnel it towards the greater good, as long as one person in your group doesn’t go back again. I didn’t play anything, but other people did and I lent them money and scouted out the competition and generally just tried to stay busy.
Casino is closed for about an hour around 3 am for karaoke with randomly drawn prizes given out in between songs. We continue to gorge ourselves on junk food and drink pop, again no easy access to water for some strange reason. Casino opens again, and shortly before 4:30 am coffee is brought out. Then we collect all our stuff and hop on the bus to go to a local amusement park for an hour and a half.
There’s not much there - one small rollercoaster, bumper cars, bumper boats, a ferris wheel, some spinning stuff to make you sick, and go carts. There were only a few people working because it was 5 am, so if you wanted to go on a ride, you had to get people to line up so they would shut down attraction X to open attraction Y. Go karts were popular and I didn’t do it because the lineups were long and I lost people so I didn’t really want to compete with strangers because that’s less fun. I went on the rollercoaster once, bumper cars once, didn’t want to get soaking wet on the bumper boats, and aside from that just talked to people and debated what we felt like doing.
We got on the buses from there and went back to the school, where we had a continental breakfast. My grandfather and my mom were waiting for me, so I grabbed a croissant - it was awesome - and left because I knew I wasn’t hungry, just dehydrated.
Then I spent the rest of the day working at getting 100% on Rathcet & Clank: A Crack in Time. I really love those games, and I had completely missed out on the optional mega puzzles the first time through. They’re really neat and excellent, and I had a lot of fun doing that.
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So my brother’s graduation, he was meant to wear his own pants and jacket with the black shirt and tie I was supposed to wear to MY graduation - but since they were lost, he also wore my tuxedo shirt and bow tie. I got a black t-shirt with minimal stuff in the chest area and threw on my own jacket and called it a day.
My brother and I after exiting the intensely hot gym of his (and previously my) junior high. Traditionally, the graduation was held in the gym of the high school, using the same set up used for the high school graduation - however, since ours was done at the local sports arena place, that wasn’t an option.
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Anyway yeah that’s what I’ve been up to. I’m not dead!
I didn’t sleep last night, but I’m hoping things will be better tonight. It’s muggy out, and I’m sticky and sweaty, and that’s terrible. I’m more tired than I was last night, but not as much as you’d expect after not sleeping. At least, I don’t think I slept - I felt like I was up all night thinking. Maybe I fell asleep at some point without noticing. When I had nothing to think about, I couldn’t close my eyes. When I started to think about something, I got tired again. It was brutal.
The main thing is being conscious tomorrow night, as I’ll be up all night and stuff. I’ll probably have some pictures of myself in my graduating gown and whatnot, and possibly pictures I was subjected to from people I haven’t known for years. Ah well. Won’t see them again after tomorrow. Little bit too late for them to decide we’re friends.
After several weeks, I’m finally typing up my thoughts about the RSA Animate video The Secret Powers of Time about time perspective. I sent myself an e-mail with some notes so I’d remember what I wanted to say, and I think I’m good to go. Now that school’s over, I’ve got plenty of time :D
Speaking of school, yes, I am graduating from high school next tuesday. My last exam was yesterday. Of my friends on facebook, 24 of them are in my graduating class. One girl, intelligent and likely with plenty of great things ahead of her, made a status update about being glad to be done. A middle aged man commented to say that she may change her mind about that in a few years.
Really? I mean, seriously? Being a teenager and being in high school is lame. There’s nothing about that anyone sensible wants back. You can hang out with friends, relax, and have fun at any age. The fact that you’re a sad old man whose life peaked after winning the big football game is not a fact of life, it is a fact of your life. It is so simple and so essential that we refuse to accept the idea that the future is a terrible place where we will all be miserable, because it will become a reality if we don’t. If we allow ourselves to go to waste, jump into marriages we’ll regret, and generally just wait for happiness to magically come to us, yes, high school will in fact be “the best years of our lives.” If your life is on a downhill slope from the minute you accept the responsibility of being an adult and taking care of yourself, you have failed. I’m not going to sugarcoat that because I take for a given that anyone who reads this is not going to accept defeat and intends to go places with their life.
After seeing that message, I went looking for similar comments by similarly downtrodden people. I was scared that everyone would have a sad old man (or woman, but it’s typically a male sentiment) telling them not to be happy, and that they’d better get used to pain and suffering because nothing they do will amount to anything. Surprisingly, very few people had even mentioned being done of school, and there were no other comments spouting “the best years of your life” bullshit. That’s pretty good, and I didn’t really expect it. It is a pleasant surprise, at any rate.
Now, the RSA Animate video mentions two forms of past oriented people: past positive, and past negative. The man who tells his children that high school will be “the best years of their life” could be nostalgic for his past, or fixated on what went wrong in his life to bring him to the terrible miserable life he lives now. Neither of those is particularly healthy, when taken to the extreme that any possibility of progress is ignored and the thought of improving one’s own life is impossible. An appreciation for what your past has taught you is good, and paying attention to your mistakes so you can avoid them in the future is also good. If you spend your life living in the past, you will never find your way to the future. Then you’ll be forty, maybe fifty, years old, you’ll be well on your way to losing the metabolism that kept you fit and attractive as a young man, and you’ll drink beer and watch football and blubber about the good old days. You don’t want that.
From the age of five, I have been raised to always be oriented towards the future. At the age of five, parents in Canada have the choice to put their children into french immersion (or english immersion, in places where french is dominant) or leave them in regular classes. Basically, if you are an english speaking family, your child will learn french for free and gain access to the bilingual jobs you wish you could have had. At the age of five, we don’t make these decisions on our own. Our parents, looking to give us the best life possible, have the choice to unlock a very large number of opportunities for us. Of our graduating class of roughly three hundred, only fifty or so are in french immersion. There were perhaps 60-70 in the very beginning, but that essentially tells you who looks out for the future of their children and who doesn’t.
That sounds unfair, but the effect becomes more profound as you get older. The people in french immersion mostly keep to themselves as kids, so I know most of “us.” Later on, of course we made friends with people who shared our interests regardless of whether they were in french, but that didn’t happen much when our classes were almost exclusively in french. When we got to junior high and only 3/7 of our courses were in french, we went out and made friends with plenty of people. In high school, where only ¼ of our classes each semester were in french, you would think we would almost lose the tightly knit groups of purely french immersion people. This was not the case. In junior high, there was no choice of classes. You were shuffled randomly into the required courses and went on with your life, hoping you happened to land in a class with a group of friends. In high school, suddenly we got to pick our courses, and if we wanted to be with our friends, we could make it happen. As frightened young teenagers, picking courses was something we had no experience with. So we turned to our parents for guidance once again.
What do you think the wise future oriented parents of french immersion children said? “Keep your options open. Take all the science classes, take the extra math classes, just in case you need them or find you really love them.” The “english kids,” who never actually thought of themselves that way, are a mixed bag. There are perfectly intelligent individuals whose parents never forced them to learn french, and likewise there are individuals who made poor choices after their parents chose to give them a chance at awesome bilingual jobs and ended up being not as intelligent. I can name each individual in french immersion who didn’t follow the model path their parents set out, yet I can also name the individuals outside of french immersion who took every science course, calculus, advanced english, etc. without giving up.
Taking advanced english is a very good indicator of just how hard you’re willing to work for future benefit. Further, taking Advanced Placement English for university credit is the epitome of being future oriented. To put it bluntly, none of the thirty or so people who signed up for it were intelligent enough to survive advanced english. The twenty four people exiting that classroom, after much effort and an admirable amount of mental breakdowns, are finally intelligent enough for advanced english. Those who couldn’t handle the prospect of improving upon their failures (or couldn’t be bothered to read books) dropped the class, and instead took an easier english course where they might have received better marks. I’ve got a photograph of our class and those who elected to take AP English, and here’s the breakdown:
Nine out of 24 in french immersion doesn’t sound like much, but that’s nearly 1/5 of the french immersion students. However, seven of those nine students took at least 2/3 science courses this year and last year, as well as advanced math and calculus. There are, of course, students in french immersion who also did the science and math but not advanced english, and off the top of my head there’s… nine or ten people who did all the science but not advanced english in our french classes. That makes 16 of 50 french immersion students “keeping their options open” and overloading themselves with work for future benefit.
Yet the RSA Animate video even says that a future oriented person must be able to trust that their decisions will benefit them in the future. Some people can’t trust that future benefit will follow their decisions because they are ignorant of the possibilities, and those are the people who never become future oriented. Of those who are, when we become disillusioned with the life of a model citizen, we crash. When we no longer trust that taking all the hard courses in high school, then university, will give us the perfectly happy (and also rich) lives we were promised, we doubt ourselves. We doubt the system itself. Will the degree I signed up for today be worth $20,000, even $50,000+, in the future? Will I be able to pay for getting it in the first place? Will it land me a good job so I can provide for the little munchkins who will one day follow in my footsteps?
This is where I am now. I don’t know if I can run off to spend an exorbitant amount of money on learning about a field that I can’t guarantee will bring me either the joy I want or the money (and thus freedom) to find it. So I’m thinking about skipping that whole process. It’s possible that I will go to university to take something practical and tell people I’m smart so they’ll hire me, but that’s to be determined by my financial situation. If I either have far too much money or far too little, I’ll go. Maybe I’ll become a teacher and inspire a future group of kids much like those of us who took smarty pants classes like Advanced Placement English… Looking at this picture of us with Ms. Barrett, I can almost see it happening. I’ve never wanted to be a teacher, because it’s a mediocre job and I’m not very good at teaching people things, but I mean, I’ve got the perfect name for it. Sure, they’d laugh at first, but it’d be endearing after they realize how awesome I clearly am.
Now I’m off to run through my daily routine of browser based games for future oriented mice like me who crave some immediate reward with their long-term plans. A character I’ve been playing for something like two years is almost the strongest among his class :’) He’s all growed up, and soon I’ll get to turn him into an immortal powerhouse. Aww yeah.
Four page article, so it’s not super important to read, but I thought it was worth the time. Essentially, one of the designers for Red Faction: Guerrilla talks about how they built the game to take advantage of player freedom rather than worrying that the player might destroy something important or kill someone before they’ve served their purpose.
One of the interesting things was the cost/return ratio of time spent building missions compared to building things for the player to do. Building a mission is expensive - you have to have dialogue, an intro part, an end part, an objective, etc. Players sit down and blow up that building because they have to. On the other hand, creating a building, marking it as an important enemy base or something, and rewarding the player for blowing it up costs a fraction of what a mission would cost. Rather than doing a mission because they have to, if someone wants to blow up a building, they’ll go for it and enjoy it a lot more.
So instead of saying “this is what you’re doing, this is why you’re doing it, now go do it” you say “here’s some stuff you can do, I’ll pay you if you do it” and they run around to their heart’s content keeping themselves busy without any need for writing a big script and stuff. It’s a smart idea, and I know it works, because nobody wants to spend an hour collecting widgets because they have to - if you say collecting widgets will get you a cool ability, they’ll spend as much time or more doing it.
I feel like I haven’t said much recently, so here’s how the week has been:
Presented our sociology project on monday, did pretty well. I was going to write up a post discussing all the stuff we said, then I realized that this article has all the information of all our sources combined, so you may as well just read it instead. Monday was also my brother’s birthday, so in addition to the books I bought him we went out to lunch.
We got out yearbooks wednesday, so I signed those and got mine signed by people and the cool teachers I’ve had over the years. They’re really nice, which explains why they cost $50. I also went to check my mark in english, and found out that I got 95% on the final exam. Not sure what my overall mark is, but I expect I’ll be proud of it. I worked pretty hard to earn it.
Thursday was the real exam day for sociology, so I sat there and listened to the last of the presentations while doing calculus review. Later, I took up half a page of my friend’s yearbook telling her how much she means to me, her friends were confused and a little bored because they had to wait for me to finish writing it. We all went to a buffet for lunch, and I paid for most of it, but it wasn’t too bad. Afterwards, I bought BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad and some headphones, because I’d heard nothing but good things about both. I also accidentally stole a birthday cake because it was forgotten in my van.
Friday I bought Settlers of Catan and the 5-6 player expansion for $60 and as a gift to the intended recipient of the cake, and delivered both along with a couple of friends. When the four of us got sick of the cake, I traded it for half a bag of Sunchips and confused the hell out of everyone nearby. Then they realized the cake kinda sucked.
Today, I let my brother spend $40 on Pokémon cards because people are starting to play it here. In a bit I’m going to study chemistry with a couple of guys, then after that I’ll probably keep playing The Last Remnant for PC. It seems pretty cool so far. Before today, the last (and only) time I had played it was july of last year. That’s how long it’s been since I had time to sit down and fully devote myself to a PC game, which is a bit more of an investment than a console game because it cuts off my ability to talk to people.
Are you now satisfied!?! Good! I shall now commence preparing the studying subroutine and hopefully do an alright job of helping review chemistry. I’m notoriously bad at explaining things.
Was hanging out in the Bowser’s Castle channel on Kongregate again, which seems to be the regular haunt of a couple of other cool dudes. We’ve had some pretty awesome discussions, but tonight I felt like sharing this part.
LunacyVII: There are probably samples you can get online set up for FL, and you can record your own stuff, so it’s not like you can’t make excellent music for it.
Fnar3221: But can I? I doubt I have the talent.
Fnar3221: I guess it was just a silly aspiration. Who am I kidding? I’m not a musician.
Fnar3221: Thanks anyway.
LunacyVII: Best bet to become a musician would be to take some classes in an instrument that interests you. Kinda like the first step to becoming an artist isn’t to buy a How To Draw Manga book.
NihilistMachine: Fnar, you can do whatever you want man. You know the scene, the sound, and you have the will.
NihilistMachine: Don’t listen to these people.
Fnar3221: But I don’t have the time nor the tools at my disposal, if you will.
LunacyVII: Soulja Boy made a ton of money making music with FL, and I doubt he learned much about music beforehand…
Fnar3221: I think if I start making music, I won’t be able to appreciate some of the bands I enjoy listening to.
Fnar3221: Kinda how any meaningful endeavor kinda ruins the area for you…
LunacyVII: Nahhhh. Even if a band is less than stellar instrumentally, you can still enjoy it for how it sounds. Not everyone has to be Yngwie Malmsteen.
Fnar3221: Have you ever paid attention to the comments for any of Mt Eden’s songs?
LunacyVII: I disagree about hating something because you’ve worked with it. I like to write, and it’s only made me appreciate books more.
Fnar3221: I don’t want to end up like that.
Fnar3221: I don’t want to be one of the mates who realize that Mt Eden is pretty err… basic, when it comes to music and you could probably make the same in a half hour if you really tried.
Fnar3221: Etc, etc.
LunacyVII: If we’re talking meaningful endeavours of any kind, likewise helping people has only made me appreciate the beauty of life.
Fnar3221: True…
LunacyVII: I don’t know what kind of music Mt Eden plays, but consider the subgenres within metal (ok, maybe not your thing, but it’s where I have the most experience) - there’s super complex genres and you could never copy them if your life depended on it…
Fnar3221: I’ll think about it some more then.
LunacyVII: and then there are bands who are just as good to listen to as the most basic atmospheric metal band.
LunacyVII: As long as it sounds good, it’s good to listen to.
LunacyVII: Nobody hates on Mozart for being plainer than Bach.
LunacyVII: (if that’s incorrect, I apologize profusely, but who really cares)
Fnar3221: Aye.
Fnar3221: I guess when you know all about how the music produced and see a guy who has over 17 million hits because supposedly it’s unique and “filthy” etc just to find out that’s pretty generic… Isn’t that bit of a let-down?
LunacyVII: Maybe, but that only means there are similar bands for you to enjoy, and even better than that, there are bands who probably knock them out of the park.
Fnar3221: I didn’t see it like that before, Lunacy… Thanks for the enlightenment.
LunacyVII: It’s like if you thought deathcore was the greatest genre ever, only to find out about progressive death metal. Sure, your old sacred cow isn’t so special, but you’ve got something new, maybe something better.
Hopefully I was there at the right time with the right words.
Ever noticed how much more tempted you are to get three games you didn’t want, and one you did, for a relatively good price? Ever wondered why? Psychology has the answer! Three Reasons Why We Buy Those Crazy Steam Bundles over on Gamasutra.
I finished Slum Online, and one particularly interesting thing to me is that everyone in the book considers their online characters a persona they assume solely for going online. It’s not “I threw a low kick and chained into a dash-throw,” it’s “Tetsuo threw a low kick and chained into a dash-throw.” They see their concerns as solely those relating to outside of the game, and their character’s goals are their own. Tetsuo the street brawler (main “character”) wants to be the strongest fighter there is, whether recognition comes with it or not, and Hashimoto the ninja wants to investigate the mystery of Ganker Jack. Etsuro, the protagonist, wants to spend more time with his charming classmate and attends classes he hates just to be with her. Hashimoto’s player, by contrast, is a complete shut-in who won’t even respond to his mother. Hashimoto’s player plays the wise ninja as a way to escape his life, but doesn’t believe he’ll gain anything from Hashimoto’s growth as a character.
Hashimoto tells Tetsuo that “their characters are not them, they are enhancements of their personalities… while they may become friends online, there is no guarantee they would be friends IRL.” Hashimoto’s player doesn’t want to connect his useful online persona to his “useless” identity as a social shut-in. In the end, though, he’s wrong: his player, Jun, used to be friends with Etsuro. They reconnect outside of the game after working together to solve a mystery, and Jun looks like he’s going to develop a healthier life outside of the game. By adopting the persona of Hashimoto online, Jun did grow as a person and re-established an important connection with a friend he had given up on.
All of this just reminds me of the approach Persona 3 and Persona 4 take to this theory. There, a person’s persona is a deeper of themselves that creates (or evolves because of) conflict in their life. By misunderstanding or completely missing their true feelings or desires, problems arise for the characters you meet throughout each of the games. Your party members, who fight as you do with their personae, become stronger as you work together to help them understand themselves and solve their problems. The non-combat party members don’t consciously recognize this change in themselves, though your main character can tell and grows through their connection to all of the people they’ve helped. When your social links (the game’s representation of your relationships) get maxed out, that means they’ve come to terms with themselves and resolved the conflict in their lives. It may not be perfect, but after conquering their pivotal problem, nothing else can really hold them back.
Which brings me to my whole connecting point with this: how our online personae and the relationships we make online teach us about ourselves, and how it helps as much to consider them as separate from ourselves as it does to simply be ourselves. First, words typed online have no less meaning than words spoken out loud. The difference is when instant messaging (or e-mails) is a way to avoid potentially awkward conversations, or it’s a message that takes guts to deliver. I prefer to have important personal conversations in person, because it’s more intimate that way and it proves a point to go out of your way to connect with someone and have the courage to speak your feelings out loud. Aside from that, there’s no less value in a relationship that communicates based on usernames rather than given names.
I don’t think people make less personal connections online than they do in person. I couldn’t really say, either, if choosing the level of anonymity and being able to pick and choose what someone knows about you encourages close relationships. What I do know is that by acting like someone else, we can make friendships and form relationships online that we wouldn’t have the courage for, or otherwise be able to make, in person. Whether or not those relationships get closer, and move beyond the online personae, depends on the people adopting them. When we do choose to be someone else online, we do it for a reason, and developing relationships with others with that altered personality reveals things to us in much the same way the main character in Persona ¾ reveals the truth to the people he meets. Children learn things “they” couldn’t have learned otherwise by imitating others and playing roles, and doing the same online is a similar experience for an older child. Everyone and everything I’ve been online has contributed to who I am today, and it’s strange to imagine who I might be in an alternate world without the internet…
I have a hard time justifying all of the effort that goes into a truly complete role-playing experience, because I’m just not creative enough on a regular basis to become someone else entirely. When playing games, though, I do fall into the usual psychological trap: I consider one of the characters to be “me.” I’ll raise “my” agility, or train “my” skill with daggers, and then if I control a party, the others take secondary importance to my “main” character. They usually get to be their own characters, perhaps less developed than “my” character, but they’re unique and serve whatever purpose they need to for the success of the party. It’s an opportunity to learn things about yourself when you role-play your characters, but generally I go for role-playing lite and converse and make story decisions based on my own beliefs and values.
When it comes to the usual fantasy/sci-fi RPG, it’s a bit hard to “be yourself.” But this is where the recent Persona games come into play. They’re set in a modern setting, and when someone has a problem, it’s a run-of-the-mill problem normal people might have. I played through both Persona 3 and Persona 4 playing the main character as myself, and acting how I would act in that situation, even if it didn’t get me the best in-game results. Oddly enough, Persona 4 in particular showed me things I had no way of experiencing previously: Naoto’s struggle with her gender identity and Kanji’s struggle with his sexuality have been surprisingly useful to me. By considering myself the main character, I got to test myself in situations I’d rather not screw up in. Of course, a live human being is almost guaranteed to react differently than a scripted character in a video game, but it’s the experience that matters. A lot of people panic when they run into a situation they’re completely unfamiliar with, or feel uncomfortable, and at least thinking about what I might do in a situation like that left me well prepared for the future.
Bonus thought: “Like magnets: opposites attract. People are the same. Everyone has their flaws, their quirks. Rub them together, you get friction. It’s the places where they’re different that locks them together.” You ever meet someone and just click? Maybe it happens right away, maybe it happens when you aren’t looking over the course of a few months, but I like that as an explanation for it. Comes from Slum Online like all the other quotes here.
It’s not so much about opposites attracting as it is about why some people stick together and others don’t. It’s like velcro, or anything else that works using interlocking pieces - similar pieces rub together and only create friction, while different pieces lock together and form an intense bond. You don’t need similar interests or personalities to get along with someone or make a relationship work - you just need something to lock together and make that connection.
So, I took my brother to look for a birthday present (today is his birthday) and ended up taking him to the bookstore. Got five volumes of various .hack manga and Little Brother and For The Win by Cory Doctorow. $10 for each of those 400-page books. As much as I want to read a 400-page book in .txt format… Nah, I got my money’s worth. Plus, For The Win was hardcover, which is like super amazing value considering the average new release in hardcover is like $30 minimum.
Total: $90.
Anyhow, french presentation went well, and I realized there’s no point in me typing anything up about it because it’s basically all in the Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids article. So, read that.
“The cat’s blue. The one in Shinjuku. If you find it,” she said with a smile, “all your dreams will come true.” … If you sold that smile in a hamburger shop, it’d sell better than the fries. That was what it looked like to me, anyway.
That’s from Slum Online, and I’m liking it a lot. It’s pretty short, a little over 200 pages counting the 30-page “Bonus Round,” and I’ve read about 90 pages in the past couple of hours. The main character’s a pretty good player of an online fighting game, and he’s trying to work his way into the top four players of the game. Then he starts talking to a girl who shares a few classes with him and getting to know her. It switches between extremely detailed accounts of his fights online and investigating a character called Ganker Jack who managed to beat two of the top four players without anyone knowing what he looks like, and his time with her in class and around Shinjuku. I don’t know where either of those stories are going (well, except the part where clearly there’s some kind of confrontation with Ganker Jack) but I like the writing and the length a lot. The main character refers to anything he hears in “RL” as sound effects, and online he describes what seems like a pretty accurate version of competitive fighting games. Cancelling out of moves for specific animations, dodging just a few pixels out of the way, break throws and air combos and all that whatnot. If nothing else, it keeps your attention in much the same way a military novel is still interesting if you’ve never been to war.
I’ll finish it off tomorrow I suppose, and hopefully finish the second Dragon Age book as well before school ends. I don’t think I have anything else short enough to finish before school ends. I’ve done my part, anyway!
Some more random links this morning. I question the authority of this writer if they think The Pirate Bay is somehow a deep, hidden part of the internet, but I’ll start with the funny article.
China sensors Garfield, Paris Hilton, and more in an attempt to block porn
The Dark Web/Deep Web/whatever you want to call it: cool in theory, terrible in reality
The Pirate Bay is fearless and evil and lol
How cute :3 He thinks torrenting is some secret little club.
Woo. This is good news, in the United States anyway.
You’re welcome.
Two weeks later, I’ve realized I may as well post about prom and then repost the extra pictures whenever I get a hold of them. Woo. Speaking of yesterday’s post, you know how I said I go looking for books to buy? Went to a bigger bookstore today, spent $60. Got: Mortal Coils by Eric Nylund (twin children of Lucifer have to survive three temptations and three heroic trials, Max read it but his aunt’s dog ate it, so I bought my own copy), Slum Online by Hiroshi Sakurazaka (published by the same guys who translated Battle Royale and about a boring college kid playing an MMO and stuff? I’ll see when I read it), The Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (my brother says it’s good, from the 50 pages he read in the car), The Prodigal Mage by Karen Miller (first of a second trilogy in a series I liked to begin with, should be good - fantasy with a heavy cultural/political leaning, so there’s plenty of attention to detail), and finally The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (I’ve actually avoided knowing what this book is about, because I wanted to find out for myself - I’ve heard nothing but good things about this book, and I’ve finally decided to buy it). Moving on!
Our house, unfortunately, was never really a looker. Gardening and other pretty things were never our strong points. So, when it came time to take pictures for prom… We borrowed the neighbour’s yard. They’re retired, and the husband spends practically all of his time cultivating his gardens. So it was pretty good for taking pictures. Before Brittany, my date, and her friend Lindsey got to our house, my mom got some pictures of me around their yard and a few around our house.
When they arrived, we got some pictures in front of the house before moving on to the neighbour’s yard. First we got some pictures in front of a flower bed and near the flower bed. Then we got a picture with our moms, her mother being the one I don’t have my arm around. Then they got my boutaneer thing on me, and we crouched down in front of the flower bed because my mom thought it would look nice. Then we moved over to a little white gate thing they had and got some pictures there.
It was starting to get kinda late, and she was going to get some pictures with the guy who got her hired because he was moving soon, so they started to got meet him before he got off work. Then my mom surprised Britt and Lindsey by asking them to turn around for a picture, and then we got a few more pictures in front of the house of the two of us.
So I don’t have any pictures of us at prom, because nobody offered to take any or wanted any with us together (my friends aren’t into that, her friends only wanted pictures of her) so I’ve got nothing for that until I get the couple of pictures that did get taken from other people’s cameras. Still, to summarize: we made our own way there, I tried to make my way in through people because she was already inside, I finally get in, we hang around and talk before eating. Food comes in, turkey dinner, couple of things to be said by people, thanks given to the people who organized everything. During dinner we watch a 20 minute preview of our upcoming Grad Video, desert comes in, some more announcements. We wait outside for an hour while they clean everything up and get the dance ready, the niece of the woman we’re staying with (I only found this out later) gets a picture with me because her friend bet her that he was the only one wearing a bow tie.
Dance starts, Britt and I hang around ‘cause neither of us can dance and we didn’t think we should slow dance together, Ms. Barrett was making her rounds because she was one of the people who spent many hours putting prom together for us, and I got a picture with her. Then we left at 10 (supper started at 7, ended at 8, dance started at 9) because Britt and Lindsey had plans, then I went home and went to bed.
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Exciting, wasn’t it? Anyhow, I just thought I’d invite any of you reading this to get a hold of me somehow if you don’t already have a way to IM me. My contact info is at the very bottom of my actual tumblr page, but likely any of you that have a tumblr won’t see that, so my xfire is starvalddemelain and my e-mail address for msn is mapleleafdude[at]hotmail and I’m sure you can figure out the last bit. Unless you’re a spambot! I’m generally always available through both of those, so whichever you prefer is fine by me.
Guest post, courtesy of my wonderful friend Maxwell who typed up a great big seven-week exercise guide for you guys that takes up more space than I want to use here. And, really, if you want to exercise, you know to do whatever you can manage. When you can do more pushups than last week, you win. Yay for you!
Wide arm push-ups: Just what they sound like, spread your arms as far away from each other while maintaining the push-up position, and then do the push-ups. The farther apart, the harder it is. Just imagine your pinning that hot chick between you and your locker, except the chick is really fuzzy and smells like your carpet.
Triangle Push-ups: These are hard. If you can do these no problem, then you need to add on a ton more push-up exercises. In order to perform this streneous task, one must first construct a triangle (pylon?) with their thumb and index finger, while in push-up position, with your hands lined roughly with your chest. Then begin hating your life.
Spider-man Push-ups: They do not make you shoot web from your hands. They make you wish you didn’t follow that guide that you found on tumbl'r. To perform these, assume the position (and clear that dirty mind of yours |:) go down like a regular push-up, but bring your knee up to your elbow each time you go down. Of course you want to alternate knees each time, unless you want to become that soccer freak with that one ripped leg.
Alligator Push-up: This push-up would make Steve Irwin proud, if he was alive that is. To perform this wonderful exercise doesn’t take much effort, but it is suggested that you focus more on speed because you just want to finish the damned exercise. You assume the regular push-up position, except you slide one arm down to about where you hip is, and slide the other one around where your head is. You should be slightly bent at an angle, kind of like a alligator if it was crawling, then you do your push up, and then slide your other hand down to your hip, and the other one above your head, and repeat until you finish.
Kelly Keith Push-ups: Don’t ask who he is, for all I know of him is the fact that he is a machine and these push-ups are named after his iron-clad body. You must assume the push-up position, but when you do the push-ups, do them with your elbows tucked against your ribs. When you go down, your elbows should point towards your feet, and you will want to stop all this forever. Then repeat.
Some assorted stuff today. Again, I would have finally typed up my prom post, but I un-gave up on getting the other pictures I was missing because my english teacher said she’d want a copy of the picture I got with her, so that will come SOME DAY MAYBE OR MAYBE I SHOULD JUST MAKE A POST WITH WHAT I’VE GOT, I DON’T KNOW. I guess if I don’t do it tomorrow, it’ll be so late as to be useless. Two weeks late is a bit much. I’ve already got today’s post planned out, so oh well!
First is an interview with Polar Bear Club, which is cool because they discuss how they’ve been helped by the advertising power of the internet, rather than hurt by music piracy, but the real highlight for me is this story:
Your new album is coming out on Red Leader Records this month. Where did the name “Sometimes Things Just Disappear” come from?
We were in the studio and having a really tough time coming up with a memorable/cool/meaningful name that we could all agree on. Actually, pretty much the only thing we EVER agree on is that Taco Bell rules. So we were well in the midst of a competition amongst ourselves that we affectionately dubbed the “Taco Bell Challenge,” during which we all tried to eat one of every single item on the menu over the course over our studio time. As you could probably guess, no one finished and we were all pretty miserable for having tried. But one of the days when some of the guys went to order some tacos, they had a really huge order and were a little short on money, and they had a pretty awkward encounter with a really slick 17 year-old manager guy in a suit who turned out to be one of the best individuals any of us have ever encountered. Our old bass player, Greg, was trying to order his Mexican Pizza and was surprised at the price, and told the manager he was short…to which our hero replied, “you know what? Sometimes things just disappear…” and proceeded to take out a mysterious card and swipe it, giving Greg all of his food for free. Manager dude…if you read this, we love you, and sorry if this gets you fired.
I wish I could be slick 17-year old manager guy who’s comfortable enough with his job that he can do whatever the hell he wants. I do not wish to fail to have that job, however, and so I won’t go looking for it.
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Next up is an article about how pirating books hurts the industry. In the middle, when she mentions what happens when a publishing house loses money, that scares me. Not having money means they can’t continue to make money, which basically means bad things in the future unless they get really lucky, and I don’t want that to happen to any of the series, authors, or publishers I really like.
Then the part about the money she actually makes scares me, because it makes me terrified about the prospect of ever living off of my writing, which I never honestly planned to do, but it was nice to think I had the option! She says she “wrote rough drafts, then did edits (in one case, grueling edits), copy edits, and final pass edits. I wrote back copy and front copy, and acknowledgements and dedications. I maintained a website, I blogged, I did copious interviews, I ran contests, I travelled and spoke at whatever convention would have me. I Tweeted, and Facebooked, and paid for a launch party, swag, and postage for review copies and bookplates.” For $25,000. Three books, if you have never in your entire life read a book, is a lot of writing. Many authors I read release at most a book every year, though perhaps theirs are much longer than hers, and perhaps as well their niche is a much stronger one.
I can’t imagine I would magically become a Steven Erikson or a Robert J. Sawyer overnight, and from some of the other things I read the day I found this about how brutal it is being an author who doesn’t sell hundreds of thousands of copies (have I posted that stuff? I don’t even know, man) I find myself no longer considering writing novels as a career. Writing as part of a greater project, where my work is part of a whole and I’ll still get paid relatively well if nobody buys the product, is still an option, but you can’t just stumble onto those jobs and unfortunately my chance to be Anthony Burch has already passed.
Then there’s how getting paid an advance actually works. “For keep in mind that an advance is just that: an advance on royalties. So I won’t make another penny on my first three novels until I pay back my advance.” Got that? You get paid with a loan. Then, some day, if you become rich and famous, you get some actual money of your own. Until then, you will sweat blood and books for your masters. However, the internet, as shown by the Polar Bear Club interview, offers many wonderful opportunities for alternative means of success. Perhaps I could sell e-books of my novel to generous strangers until I make enough money to print them off out of my own pocket and make something of a profit. Perhaps I could give my books away and ask for donations. Maybe a major change to the publishing industry is looming on the horizon, waiting to be unleashed the day I get the freedom to write for a living. Who knows?
The ordeal involved to become a famous author only gets worse, according to the rest of the post, but it’s all there if you want to read it. The main subject is, vaguely, piracy, and so my responses to what she’s said follows.
I’m one of those people that will go into their local bookstore and actually look for books to buy. I’ve spent many hundreds of dollars on books, and I don’t regret any of it. I don’t expect much for my $15-30. I want, essentially, 2-4 hours worth of entertainment. It’s what I paid for. Generally, I get more than that. That’s awesome. I often buy random books and continue to read everything that author writes until I accidentally forget they exist. I bought The Sleeper Awakes by H.G. Wells because a couple of songs I have reference it, even though Project Gutenberg has it for free. In the future, I plan to read through the “1001 books to read before you die” and, if I can, own many of them. I also plan to have a somewhat impressive collection of books with which to intimidate future acquaintances.
I have, however, pirated two series of books. One is the Haruhi Suzumiya books, only a few of which are translated officially, and I get the impression they’re not amazing anyway? I’d have a hard time tracking them down and a harder time reading them in public because they’re all fluffy looking. So I suffer through a terribly translated .pdf and it’s ok because I don’t know if I’d get $10-15 worth of neat out of them. The other thing I’ve downloaded is all of the Discworld books, all 30-something of them, and like the Haruhi books they’re pretty short and stuff. They’d probably run me like $10 each - nearly $400 - for like 100-200 pages each I think? Maybe 300, I don’t know.
But I can get a trilogy of Drizz’t books for $30, which is easily 1000+ pages - i.e. a fair bit more value. If I were buying books, Discworld would be at the very bottom of my list. Like all the music I’ve pirated, I likely would never have paid any money for those things. I don’t need them, and in fact I haven’t read through any of the books I’ve downloaded. I don’t have an ebook reader, and I have a hard time sitting down to read a 200 page .pdf file in front of my monitor. So the fact that I downloaded those books just shows a slight interest on my part, and if it turns out that I’m wrong, and these books are books I would be proud to own and display - I will gladly go out and buy them, no matter how hard they are to find.
Despite the cool things you can do with bombing people and showing them awesome and interesting sites using DP cards and Portals, I think Missions and puzzles are probably the greatest part of The Nethernet.
Here’s the basic set-up: a Mission is created by any player, usually a Pathmaker, who has something to show or teach people. It’s created by linking a number of Lightposts together, and I don’t believe there’s a maximum limit… You leave a message about the page connected to the Lightpost, explaining briefly why you brought them there. You click a button to go to the next post, or back to see one you just visited. You can stash puzzle crates to make people research the site you’ve led them to, and later (level 7 as a Pathmaker) you can create Puzzle Posts that require the player to answer a question correctly in order to proceed through the mission. I don’t think you should overuse them, but you can use them to highlight an important point. Out of a ten-part mission, make the last a Puzzle Post and ask something to check if they really paid attention.
You can teach someone how to play a game, or their class, correctly - show them the game’s homepage, then the game’s page for that class, then maybe a post/guide on gamefaqs and some youtube videos of high-level PvP with helpful notes in it. You can show someone your top ten ultra-deathcore bands, although those missions never did very well because the people who made them were just advertising their favourite bands rather than trying to make an awesome mission.
You could also tell a story with a Mission. Write up a story, use the Lightposts to guide them from page to page - don’t give them the option to change pages on the site, and don’t name it page1.html and page2.html. Add puzzle posts to make a point, add puzzle crates so they research interesting things you’ve mentioned.
Some people will roleplay their Nethernet characters, and there’s a lot of cool things you can do with that too. You can be a vacant minded Seer, gleefully hopping through portals at the first site of a glowing blue vortex. Or you can be a righteous Vigilante, out for revenge. Maybe you’re a wise Pathmaker, eager to share your knowledge with others. I had an idea once where I’d make a number of puppet accounts and stage a big story on The Nethernet’s forums and through the game itself. I was going to make cryptic posts and riddles with various accounts, and use puzzle crates and more to lead (or confuse) people. I didn’t have the time back then, though, so maybe some day soon…
Here’s the introduction mission for the game, to give you an idea of how to create a decent mission. Careful about switching tabs or taking Portals or otherwise losing track of the mission, because unfortunately the game isn’t perfect about picking up on these things… There are a number of missions created as part of a contest to teach the game to newer players showing the dos and don'ts of different classes, and those are also good to give you an idea of what you can do with the game.
Remember the metaphorical reason behind using Lightposts for missions: you’re lighting a path through the dark reaches of the internet, illuminating a safe path to guide and enlighten.
Edit: Start from here for a cool chain of Portals that recites the poem about the Jabberwocky from Alice in Wonderland.
Whatever you were just doing, or just about to do, cut it out. Right this second. I have something much more important. This, my friends, is a glorious day. Words cannot express the pure beauty of this project, which has been resurrected from the dead, so I must stress that you check this game out. I was going to do my maximum once-per-day tumbl about my prom, which was two weeks ago this saturday, but this is EVEN MORE IMPORTANT.
The Nethernet is a steampunk RPG played through firefox. The Internet is the game’s world, and it is glorious. You leave puzzles, bombs, quests, portals, and more on webpages to mess up/enlighten anyone who happens to find the page. I could put a bunch of money on my tumblr, and leave a bomb on your tumblr to mess with you or your friends. I could also leave a portal on your tumblr to take you to my tumblr and enlighten you with something or another.
Now, the one caveat here is that in order to interact with the things other players have done, you have to have the toolbar installed at the moment. A bomb isn’t going to damage a character who doesn’t exist. Nor can I go around rickrolling anyone who happens to go to google, because they won’t see the portal if they don’t have the game installed.
I honestly can’t say anything to convince you if you haven’t already convinced yourself. If you can’t think of possible uses for The Nethernet, I’m afraid you can’t be saved.
We read a couple of articles about “deliberate practice” in Sociology today, which I’ll link to as a formality, except they’re in french so they’re probably no good to you. They’re interesting because it’s a bit of philosophy as well as a how-to guide for success. Essentially, the articles are a study of how great people become great, with a nod towards education in Ancient Greece. Deliberate practice is my own direct translation, so it doesn’t sound very natural in english, but if you’ve got a better term, feel free to suggest it. It’s a philosophy of self-improvement based on a desire to improve, much like education was for the Ancient Greeks. The improvement is guided by a strong mentor, voluntary, extremely intense, and requires constant effort. The core requirements for deliberate learning, based on a study of successful people, are:
This isn’t a definite list, merely an example of various people and a list of their common characteristics. Note the bold requirement, as it is essentially the key. If someone forces you through all of those things, and you don’t have any personal desire to produce extraordinary results, you simply won’t be able to maintain the strategy in the long term.
Looking at this list, I would actually say Ms. Barrett (my english teacher) has served as a mentor figure for me. I haven’t surpassed her (my average is ~90%, hers was 97% 0.0) but I know I’ve improved and grown a lot. This just means that the mentor figure doesn’t need to be a coach or otherwise regular influence, so it’s probably the vaguest requirement. I suppose you could serve as your own mentor.
Note, however, that nearly all of the characteristics are personal. No one can make you a better writer, or make you work out and eat well, or otherwise improve your life or hone your skills. The impetus to overcome your limitations must come from within.
I would have Insomniac’s babies. No matter how many eyes or how much fur they might have.
Spoilers: The president of Insomniac called a guy, at his home, for making a youtube video about how awesome Insomniac is. Insomniac is that awesome.
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.
I guess vossk was right. My overabundance of smiles for pictures recently has crushed the skull of an innocent bear cub from miles away, then carried it here to plant on the road and scare some old guy.
In other news, my grandmother called the other day to check how my mom was doing packing up the house, and to help lower her stress, she sent my grandfather over here to help out. He stayed the night and he’s leaving this afternoon, taking our dog with him because she wuvs him and we can’t bring her to stay with us. While he was here yesterday, he did the following:
Basically, he spent the day doing everything he possibly could to help my mom and lower her stress levels. My mom offered to pay him for the vet and the dump and stuff, and he refused everything but a heartfelt thank you. Now that his work here is done, he’s going home like it was no problem. Swoops in, fixes everything, leaves nothing but good behind.
Like all of my mom’s family, he lives a three hour drive away from us, so he hasn’t had a big influence on my life. Despite that, I think we’re pretty similar.
I haven’t listened to Deadsoul Tribe much yet, but the first song of their 2005 album The Dead Word came up on shuffle, and I decided to listen to the whole album through. I’m glad I did. I could have picked any song from the album, for musical content or for the lyrics so feel free to check out the rest of them on darklyrics. They’re a progressive metal band, and Some Sane Advice is a ballad so it doesn’t really represent the album very well, but at the moment it feels the most relevant to me. So that’s why I’m posting it, specifically.
http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/deadsoultribe/thedeadword.html#5
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So here I am, packing up stuff to get it shipped to Ottawa, telling people I’m going there just because I don’t have a better idea of what will make me happy. Maybe if I’m feeling brave I’ll throw an “I dunno though…” at the end. Logically, I can plan out the “best” life for me right now: going to Carleton, getting my fancy shmancy degree, finding a job with it or maybe doing awesome research (likely not in Canada, there isn’t much money here for research right now… could be different in 4-6 years though), then marrying someone or otherwise finding myself a purpose in life after becoming “successful.”
Emotionally speaking, I simply cannot plan out the happiest life for me. I don’t know what will make me happy. Right now, there are a handful of people who make my life an unquestionably better place, but there’s only one I can see myself living with… Unfortunately, neither of us is really comfortable with that kind of dependence given our current relationship, and she doesn’t want to make this decision for me. To make matters worse, she’s planning on leaving here when she can afford it, which would mean I’d work somewhere and save up money for however many months, then have to choose between: whatever crappy job and apartment I’ve got, or following her like a lost puppy. We could look at that in a more forgiving way, but it still leaves me with the same problem: what am I going to do with myself forever? I might be happy as long as we’re supporting eachother, no matter where in the world we might be living, but I’d still need work, and money, and essentially all of the logical things offered by university.
The reason I only mention people as a source of happiness is because I don’t really have any talents or hobbies I could make into a career. I like to write, but I just don’t believe I could be a professional writer. All I really need is something that wouldn’t have me leaving work at 5 pm and collapsing onto a psychiatrist’s chair so I can cope with the stress. That’s not really something you can evaluate a job on, although a broad generalization would be to assume that most jobs I get from a university degree won’t lead to super-happy-fun-times.
The more I think about it, the more I want to wait it out and make a move when I find out what I truly enjoy. The more I go with the flow, the more I want to get it over with and just go to university. Until I flat out say “ok, I am going to rent an apartment here and see how things go from there” and disappoint everyone, I won’t stick with it. Now’s not the time to be making that decision public, but time is running out to make it… Course registration is June 24th.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Time is running out.
Propagandhi is a Canadian punk band, though “some might argue” that they’re getting a little metal in their old age, but some people also like to spend all day arguing the specifics of genres, and frankly I don’t think their opinions matter. This song, Resisting Tyrannical Government, is from their 1996 album “Less Talk, More Rock.” “Some might argue” that this album is “classic” Propagandhi, and I would agree I guess, except for the part where that implies that “new” Propagandhi isn’t as good. They’re smart guys, and their lyrics show it. Very political, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/propagandhi/resistingtyrannicalgovernment.html
Why don’t we plant a mechanic virus and erase the memory of the machines
that maintain this capitalist dynasty?
And yes, I recognize the irony that the very system I oppose affords me the luxury
of biting the hand that feeds.
But that’s exactly why priviledged fucks like me should feel obliged to whine
and kick and scream- until everyone has everything they need.
Yoshinori Kitase (director of Final Fantasy VII)
As featured in the song Adrenalyne Kyck from FF VII: Voices of the Lifestream.
Fucked Up sounds like the kind of band you probably don’t want anything to do with, but they aren’t. Despite the name, they won the 2009 Polaris Music award (it’s a Canadian music award) for their 2008 album, The Chemistry of Common Life, and of course people were angry about that because they’re intolerant. The band used the prize money to record an album, the proceeds of which went to charity. If I remember right, anyway, since someone took that out of their wikipedia article o.0
This song is called Crusades, from their 2006 album, Hidden World. Check out the lyrics (seems like they have errors, but that’s understandable), even if you don’t like the song:
http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/fuckedup/crusades.html
Ruderal roots tulleric shoots in cahoots
Making life out of death chthonic breath meristem,
Jubilee, I am free, so I rise from debris,
Other seeds who are weak need a spur so I speak,
Every word like a burr, so hoist my voice and rejoice,
Just a spark from the dark ignites a thousand to march
So we embark on a drive to split from the stem,
Divide out of the clade, a parade to invade,
Crusades
I had to take the bus to school this morning, and promptly missed it, so I walked to school. There were a few songs I really got into, so I’m going to be posting them over the next few days maybe. I probably shouldn’t. But I’ll lose the desire if I don’t do it soon, so, I will.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internaut
So anyway, plans for prom and where I’m going to live and stuff are coming together well. My english projects are not. The french presentation is taken care of, and at some point in mid-June I’ll make a post summarizing everything so you don’t have to read the same article six times (unfortunately, there’s only so much info to go around when one single woman is doing all the research) and that’ll be cool.
Though I have found a costume to go with my presentation about propaganda in the People’s Republic of China (fun fact: the Chinese word for propaganda has no negative connotations, so they have a Propaganda Department and everyone’s cool with that) and that’s great. The valedictorian speech has yet to start existing. I might start it by finishing the following sentence, for which I would welcome suggestions: Grads of 2010, I’m really happy for you, and Imma let you graduate, but…?
We read this after learning about logical fallacies in english class, when we were doing Animal Farm and wanted to pick out bad logic. I’ve got a big sheet of them that I’ll tape next to my computer if I ever find I’m getting into a lot of internet arguments. A guy in our AP group was telling me about how he used that sheet to rip apart some guy’s youtube video about how gay marriage is wrong and horrible.
I sent it to vael and he liked it a whole lot more than anyone in our class did, so he told me to tumbl it and now I have. Yay!
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://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:
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?
Depth Charge - Stand Out Riot
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! I present to you, the eighth wonder of the world! A terrifying fantasy, from the most twisted of imaginations! I give you the Carnival Militia!
Have we really dropped that low, that we spend our Friday evenings watching Z-listers making fools of themselves? And what about this kinda time, a racial slur or tart opinion, will make a mega-star and gain a fond fairwell.
When did we become a nation of idiots, thinking yogurt has magical properties? I think it’s about time we found some self respect.
Depth charge, the moron revolution. Before I explode, the media confusion. This attitude has got to go.
Have we really dropped that low, that we spend our lunch break reading about who’s dieting, and who’s gotten fat. And 60 useless things, for 60 hard-earned pence, and this is what you’ve got to say in your defence: “And now I’ve got my face, on the cover of some fancy magazine, the tears and tales of death-threats are all part of the routine.”
When did we become a nation of idiots, thinking yogurt has magical properties? I think it’s about time we found some self respect.
Nutrisse doesn’t mean nourish, and grease ain’t the word I’m looking for, a consonant Carol, this one’s a ’D’ for…
Depth charge, the moron revolution. Before I explode, the media confusion. This attitude has got to go.
We’ve reached a stage where fashion dictates, and overweight makes profit from their mistakes, my conscience is a ticking time bomb. We need a world where passion negates; a statement of our tolerance, where greed depreciates.
Don’t believe what you’re told!
Really, really, really liked Stand Out Riot’s album, Carnival Militia. It’s fun to listen to, it’s smart, it’s aggressive, it’s well worth the $7 I paid for it. Let me know if you’d like the whole thing.
I feel like my post about Iron Man 2 yesterday was inadequate, so here’s a bit more information. The plot is pretty simple: there is a bad guy, he does what Tony Stark does (science, building things, hitting people, tricking people) pretty well. The action is cool but never over the top. The dialogue is great, especially everything Robert Downey Jr. says. There’s a sexy spy, and of course she takes off her clothes. Tony Stark has a briefcase that unfolds into the Iron Man suit. He also insists that “he is Iron Man” repeatedly, but curiously, the song Iron Man never plays. I don’t have complete knowledge of Black Sabbath’s discography, but I don’t think there’s any of theirs songs in it at all.
If you watched Transformers 2 hoping for a cool movie where robots fight eachother, then you’ll want to watch Iron Man 2. The bad guy uses electric whips, he builds drones to fight Iron Man, and they’re pretty sweet. I don’t regret spending money to see it, and I doubt anyone would unless they just don’t like action movies.
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.
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.