Tag Archives: Writing

Living in NC

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I have prepared an itemized list of the many facets of living here for the summer. Having spent 3 weeks here as of today, I feel like I can speak with some authority about the experience. Results may very as time goes on.

My Job: I’m not very impressed so far. I have next to nothing to do, due to software issues or only having one thing to work on for the group of three people. When this happens, my input is generally extraneous or unhelpful. We gave our first presentation Friday, but I got nervous and forgot to mention a lot of material. There were only 8 or so people in the room, which doesn’t bode well if I have to present this material at a) UNL or b) a conference next year. Part of the problem is that I speak best when I have complete command of the material, and I’m still not clear on everything with this project. Anyway, I don’t think it mattered too much.

I’ve busied myself at work by visiting “Project Euler,” which is a bunch of math problems you can solve by writing programs. This has proven a good way to practice programming with MATLAB, and review Java when that’s more convenient. I think the work will pick up a bit this week, but we’re already fairly far ahead of the game.

My Future Job: I will be an editor and opinion columnist next year at the Daily Nebraskan. I wouldn’t think much about it, except email correspondence from the editor-in-chief began this week. I also got a “welcome” email from the opinion editor. These messages are kind of nice, as they make me feel like less of a lameass for checking my school email every two hours, because I’ll actually get something from time to time.

I also have an assignment: writing two articles about abortion from the pro-choice and anti-choice viewpoints. I have to find good arguments for each side. The real problem is that it’s an argument with a dead end. Namely, there’s no reason for abortion to be illegal that isn’t based in morality. From a pragmatic point of view, legalized abortion is simply safer. There’s no real argument against it, but it’s also a little like flipping the table in a chess game (“I’ve got your argument right here!”). I’ll try to restrict my piece to the ethical dilemma. Anyway, more to follow.

(less boring items now)

The Shower: The shower is the nearest place where I can get nude and wear sandals. As such, I visit it quite frequently. I have already selected the particular shower I prefer, having used another one just twice. Every time I visit my shower of choice, there is a bug there. Not just any bug, but the same one. I’m sure of it. He sits around and only moves when the water splashes near him. Generally this move is to a drier place, but he still stays put. I have to wonder why he stays in the shower all the time. Is it where he lives or does he just like the scent of male BO?

Also of note is the septic stench that arises from the shower. It’s a little like sewage, and it comes in waves, so there is no constant smell but a whiff every once in while. It smells awful. Here are the potential sources of the odor in order of likelihood:

1. The Drain. There is a good chance that the warm shower water gets the drain smellier. I don’t know what the physics behind this involve, but it seems quite likely. It could be some kind of settling or warming effect, but either way it does not smell good.

2. The Nozzle. I’m slightly worried that it’s coming from the shower head. I doubt this is true, because the water doesn’t seem to have a smell, but it’s possible.

3. An Orifice. This is extremely unlikely, but since no one else has reported the smell it could be coming from me somehow. I’m really hoping I don’t randomly smell like sewage, though. There are no social prospects for the “sewage stench guy,” I assure you.

The Sun: The sun is a large radioactive ball of fusing gases. It is also the devil. I have realized that while throughout history the sun is often revered as a god or highly important object, it is actually an evil one. The sun does not care about you. It is trying as hard as it can to melt you with ultraviolet radiation, and the only thing that stops it is outer space. Space is the real hero.

The reason I mention this is that every day is full of sunshine. I hate it. My skin is constantly hot, which is really annoying. Also, I have learned that while I don’t sweat much from my armpits, the crevasse beneath my man boobs gets damned sweaty. This is kind of unpleasant when I’m wearing a light-colored shirt. Plus, sweat takes forever to evaporate. My back sweats, too.

It has rained twice here, both for periods of like 10 minutes. I did go outside the first time, but the second time I just sat around, like I always do. Anyway, this is the only place I know that is brighter and warmer when the sun is blocked by clouds. Clouds just piss it off more…

Nintendo DS: The DS came out in November 2004. Ever since then, I have been waiting to have the money to buy one. The aforementioned dull job has ponied up the cash to enable this. I’m thrilled. I promptly bought 6 games at Walmart and 3 at Gamestop. I intend to buy a few more on Amazon.com soon, to have them shipped here. Anyway, the 9 I have are: Brain Age 1 & 2, New Super Mario Bros., Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Elite Beat Agents, Professor Leyton, USA Today Crossword Challenge (I wanted Crosswords DS but there was a mix-up. It doesn’t really matter.), Drawn to Life, and The World Ends with You.

I’ve already beaten New Super Mario Bros, and I’m almost done with Zelda. I’ve also been doing the Brain Age games, although I’ll probably just play them once in a while after this week. In other words, 4 out of my 9 games are pretty much complete, and the crossword game is just for when I’m bored. I think my exhaustive supply will be worth the money. Plus, what am I getting paid for anyway?

Neon Genesis Evangelion: This show sucks majorly. I can’t believe it’s so popular. I was playing Zelda whilst watching it or else I would have died of boredom and annoyance. SUCKED. Lord, I hate mecha anime.

The Mall: This was fun. I took a trip to the mall Saturday to buy things. I spent a bunch on the DS games and some books by Kevin Smith and Vonnegut. I’d had them on my amazon wish list for a while, but I’ll probably read them while I’m here. I also have a bunch of “classics” I want to read, but those take me forever to get to. It’s heavy reading. Anyway, the bus is free for NC State students. I enjoyed the trip, although I ended up waiting for the bus for a long time. I blame the schedule online, which was clearly not right. Ah, well.

The mall is really nice, although I’m kind of lame and hate clothes. This meant that I only visited maybe 5 stores. It was nice to do something different. I might make this a weekly event if only because it’s free and gives me something to do. Maybe I should start buying some books or ordering them. Which reminds me, I ordered 2 from a nearby comic store that won’t show up for like 2 weeks. God, I hate brick-and-mortar stores. I thought, “hey, I’ll support this place,” but no luck. I also have some dedicated-deck card games I want, but no one to play them with so they’re low on the purchasing priority queue.

Other notes: The new episodes of Venture Bros. are terrific. All the plot details are kind of cool. They’re taking the series in a whole new direction, which is good.

I’m finally in the prime of my life (unless that happens at 23). This happened without much fanfare, which was good. My biggest celebratory action was the DS purchase. So worth it. I think it’s released all of my pent-up game-buying drives, because I’ve been unable to get all of the DS games for nearly 4 years. I was a junior in high school when it came out. It’s funny, because all of the games I want stopped being on shelves like 2 years ago. Here’s hoping I can get some bargains online.

Anyway. Not much else happens here. I hope everyone had a good father’s day. For the first time in like 25 years, my dad didn’t have one of his sons around. I feel kind of bad for him, but I honestly don’t think we would have done anything together if I had been there.

I thought for a long time if the sun would come out, it would make things better. I guess now I just want it to go away again. Life is strange sometimes.

Embracing Obstreperousness

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Looking over this, it is not only extremely long and very inane, it also rambles at the end. I was just writing what was in my head, seeing if anything interesting came out. It didn’t. I’m going to bed.

Also, this is 1324 words. I wish I could write that much about something interesting

I need a place where I can talk about all the things I can’t talk about. This is not that place. However, I still feel like cracking out a few hundred words only seven people will read, so here I go.

My classes are going well so far. I’m getting the hang of the MIPS assembly language, so that will make CS fairly straightforward. Japanese is the same old busywork. English is going to be English. I wish I didn’t have to read a textbook, but I think the papers will at least be fun. I would love to take an English class that wasn’t the same as all the ones I’ve taken before. Math is easy, even though it’s really abstract (it’s abstract algebra, and the title is actually quite apt) and not practical at all. That basically means that everyone in the class is a math major. Fortunately, I’m definitely at the top of the class, which is nice.

I need to contract 6 honors hours by the end of the semester or lose my books scholarship for next year. My plan is to contract CS and Math, the two subjects I should be able to annihilate. Both instructors seem perfectly fine with my doing that, so I just need to figure out what extra work I will do. I’m also applying for upperclass scholarships, although I’m not all that sure I’ll get one (there aren’t a whole lot of scholarships for the UNL Math Dept.)

On the employment front, I still have an extremely small chance of grading for the CS department (highly unlikely, Riedesel implied it’s only going to happen if one of the grad students doesn’t want the job), and I applied to be an RA next year. The interview is in mid February, and I think I’m a solid candidate, so I should get an offer (knock on wood), but I don’t know if it will be someplace nice or not. If it’s not a good place, I will probably just try and get a TA position in the math department again. Except I’d want one with “responsibility” or I’ll be bored out of my gourd. Maybe I’m too picky. Hm.

I’ve been exceptionally bipolar lately. It’s odd for me, because I’m in a good position with respect to classes, but I still have the same stuff that always bothers me. So I get in a good mood over school stuff, only to have my mood crushed by everything else. That’s the opposite of how it normally works. I’m also finding my usual solaces are crumbling, and that doesn’t help anything.

The big thing occupying my last few days is applying to do math research somewhere this summer. I’ve applied to 6 schools (UNL, Central Michigan, Univ. of MN-Duluth, Hope College, NC State, and Rutgers) to do 8 weeks of work through June and July. It would be nice to get out of the house for a break, and the stipend is around $3000 for most of them (sometimes less). Thank you National Science Foundation for including math in your funding umbrella. My advisor said I am a good candidate, although I’m not sure my personal statements were helpful. It’s hard for me to write what I want to do with math because I have so little experience. I’m not a bad writer, I just can’t talk about math that way. It’s unfortunate, because there’s a good chance I’ll have to write about it in later life.

All of my technology is breaking. Apple is in the process of replacing my out-of-warranty iPod because the effective battery life is around 1-2 hours. My laptop’s battery light is blinking a lovely orange-orange-orange-orang

e-green pattern at me constantly, although Dell’s advice was basically crap (Try another battery. ‘I don’t have another battery.’ Too bad.).

I’ll have to borrow Alan’s battery sometime, just to see if my battery is what’s causing it. If so, I’m screwed because the warranty on Dell batteries is 1 year (same as the iPod. I got both before I came to school and they’re already broken. I fucking hate technology. Built-in obsolescence is a horrible practice. Apple especially feels the need to employ it, and as someone pointed out, their motto is “don’t make it cheaper, upgrade it and keep the price the same. You don’t pay less, we give you more!” If you get that reference, you get an ‘A.’ Unless you’re Mark.). If it’s not the battery, I’m screwed because it’s the motherboard (there’s some battery-related component of the motherboard. Who cares, it’s all hardware. Software is where it’s at, bitches.). I might still have that under warranty, though it could only be the accidental damage one. This is pretty damned accidental, I guess (I sure as hell didn’t do it on purpose and it started at a random time).

I got a bunch of homework assigned today, and tomorrow I need to wash my T-shirts (haven’t done that since I left for home. That means nearly 6 weeks or 42 shirts. All stone sexy.), so I’ll have to do stuff in the afternoon. Tuesday is the best day of the week because I only have 1 hour of class and then 23 hours of free time. In a row. Although the last 9.5 hours of that is Wednesday. So I guess that Tuesday is, strictly speaking, the day where the majority of my largest span of free time within the working week occurs.

I reread my favorite book, House of Leaves, last week. It is an amazing book, and I recommend it to everyone. It is very complex and cool. I have a bunch of movies I want to watch, and I suspect I will persist in renting them weekly at least to burn through the list. There are a number of items on there that I’ll have to watch alone, because there’s no chance anyone I know would watch them with me (everyone hates on drama for some reason).

Speaking of drama, there is certainly a lot of it. Everything seems to upset someone lately. It makes my neutrality hard to maintain. I am a lot more listless about the things that are important to me, which should never happen. I can’t tell what’s happening around me (socially), but I can tell that it’s leaving me too productive. I don’t want to go down that path; it’s not pleasant.

It’s going to be cold tomorrow. I’m upset with the weather right now. I wish not having a heart gave me superpowers, like the fish guy from those pirate movies. I want to write something people will read. I haven’t properly cooked since I was in high school. The closest thing was last year, when I made cookies. Cookies are my favorite food. I also like mozzarella sticks and a properly cooked steak. I’d like to have all three, but I can’t.

I want to donate blood now that my heartbeat is acceptable. It’s not fair that I’m on a ridiculously strict diet and what is essentially heart medication at age 18. I love vegetables. I’m always tired but it takes me 45 minutes to fall asleep.

Human beings are immensely complex. You will never understand yourself, not even physiologically. But more importantly, you won’t even understand your own emotions and motivations. Sometimes, they just are. I have realized that this complexity makes it almost entirely impossible for someone to understand anyone else. There is just too much to understand about yourself; it’s impossibly hard to even try to figure someone else out. No wonder selfishness is so fundamental. I can’t remember what having a heart was like.

I hope the sun is out tomorrow.

Books vs. Movies vs. Television

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Today I finished reading “Timequake,” by Kurt Vonnegut. It was pretty good, although he definitely wrote his best work when he was younger. It was almost like the unfortunately deformed progeny of his fiction and nonfiction. But that is immaterial. What is significant is that in one chapter, he bemoans the fact that the printed word has been forgone in favor of television and movies. And it started me thinking about it.

Here is my conclusion: Mr. Vonnegut, a brilliant writer, is wrong. I am no stranger to the wonderful world of reading. I have read thousands of books. I have also watched several hundred movies and dozens of television shows. Hell, I even play video games (that would be back up to hundreds, I think), and as I rot my brain out, I have often dwelled on the idea that one might be better than the other.

I’m not old, so I don’t have the bias towards things that existed when I was younger (as Mr. Vonnegut doubtless had in 1996). Perhaps I have a bias towards new stuff, it’s hard to tell. In any case, here’s what I thought.

Books are fascinating things. They can turn what is essentially just words into realms of the imagination. It is really terrific. If you can imagine it, someone has probably written a book about it. You can read books on any topic you want, although if you want a good book, it does narrow your choices significantly. Of course, not everyone likes books, and as Vonnegut points out, only recently (in the scope of human history) have large numbers of people been able to read anyway.

The most popular books, as you might know, are romance novels. If you’ve never read one (that includes me, actually, I’ve only read books that were romance as well as some other genre), then you probably think of the following things: Fabio; the phrases “well-muscled,” “rippling,” and “passion;” and sex scenes, as read by housewives. Not generally the best of literature, as a whole. Now I could be mistaken (unlikely), but I refuse to believe there is much good in the vast world of romantic fiction. Even the few good ones (which probably do exist) are dwarfed by volumes of crappy ones.

Movies are pretty cool too. They take a lot of work away from the imagination (admittedly), but are still quite fascinating, and the good ones should make other parts of your brain work. A good movie can accomplish a great deal, even where a similar book might fail miserably. People who complain that “the movie wasn’t as good as the book” (I raise my hand sheepishly here) probably didn’t want what the movie was offering. It might not be how you pictured it, or maybe some small detail is wrong, or maybe it’s a crock of shit under the guise of a good book.

There are excellent, excellent movies out there. They will use their medium well, and capture your imagination. They might make you think, and you can talk with your friends about what they mean. You could show them to people who are important to you, because you want them to feel the way you did, and to understand something, and talk about it. It is a cool thing.

But the movies that do the most business are plot-free, thought-free piles of action sequences and CGI effects. They have huge budgets, and often top-named actors, and lots of investors. I like lots of top-named actors, but it doesn’t mean they have to be the ones in the movie. Tom Cruise is a terrible actor, but he’s bankable so he gets lots of roles. I have no doubt there are poorer actors who could act circles around the lunatic.

Larry Miller remarked once that Hollywood could always make 10 movies that cost $10 million apiece, or 1 that costs $100 million. Assuming they get a capable cast and crew, if two of the first 10 do even moderately well, they will have made their investment back. The other eight will flop and can be called “cult films” in 20 years. But they don’t, for some reason. They make an “Evan Almighty,” which costs tons of money but tries too hard to appeal to everybody and ultimately fails.

TV is the hardest to defend. It’s good and does lots of things well, but Jesus, is it ever full of crap. First off, there are ads, which are destroying our youth. Then, there are reality shows. There are often a few good shows each season, and most get canceled, or changed to appeal to a different audience. There are realms of bad TV, and way too much of it gets watched.

And here, the misanthrope makes a conclusion. It is not the medium that inherently softens brains, but rather people who beg for softer brains. Great literature has been written for a few thousand years, but the romance that makes people feel slightly better sells so much more. Great movies can make you feel anything great books can (I’ll defend that statement), but blockbusters sell much better. TV is about 90% shit, 7% shit by-products, and 3% good. The 90% has good ratings, though. The other 10% gets canceled.

No, TV and movies don’t make people dumb. But if you want to make that argument, add books in there as well. Because they easily do it just as much. I prefer to think of people as doing it to themselves. So, don’t watch “Dancing with the Stars.” Don’t go see “I Am Legend,” or “The Golden Compass,” which will no doubt take all the ideas out of two truly good books, in the interest of visualizing the cool scenes for people with no imaginations. Read the books instead. Or better yet, any book that contains ideas and doesn’t have Fabio on it. If they make you think, though, please don’t blame me. I’ll be busy playing video games.

That is officially 995 words. Including this aside, that makes more than 1000 in a half hour. In case you’re wondering what that looks like on paper, it’s about 3.5 pages double spaced. I rule.

Regret

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I’ve been thinking today mostly about the concept of regret, for some reason. I realized that for me, regret is not about past actions. I actually am somewhat at ease with my past, and am reasonably certain that it will lead to a decent future as well. For me, regret is a little like worry that’s too stupid to die. I regret things that happened three days ago, and feel perfectly fine about similar things that may have happened 18 months ago.

Like right now, for instance. I’m sitting here at the end of the weekend, and I have accomplished absolutely nothing. Not that I had anything to do anyway, of course. But I basically sat around and watched videos online and on DVD for two straight days, sniffling and coughing (I’m a bit sick. On a related note, NyQuil gives you terrific dreams). It’s not that I particularly think that’s bad, but I wish I had something better to do with my free time. I spend so much of it just doing nothing, I’m not even sure I’d know what to do if I actually accomplished something.

The only time I left campus this weekend was just now, when I went to McDonald’s for two McRibs. They were pretty good, but the whole experience was kind of depressing. For one thing, I had Fast Food Nation facts and stories going through my head the whole time, and I was also sort of “drafting” my FFN form of the visit in my head. In fact, here’s a vague recollection, for your enjoyment:

“On the way in, I followed a Hispanic woman and her obese child, both of whom had trouble understanding the cashier taking their order. After the son got his drink the first time, he spilled it all over the counter and floor, and tried to get me to tell the cashier, who had already noticed and took care of it shortly afterwards. I had to avoid the spill as I got my own drink and napkins. As I ate my McRibs alone in the corner, a feeling of bleakness sank over me, and I couldn’t help but be a bit depressed. Things of note: I asked for no pickles on my sandwiches, but got no onions instead; a sign on a temple across the street which reads ‘Jesus Only,’ a phrase that only confuses me more every time I see it; and a McDonald’s worker taking a nap while sitting in a booth in another corner. When he’s awake, he often looks either at me or something behind me. I can’t tell which.”

et cetera. I can’t help but wonder what else I could be doing with my time, and why on earth I haven’t tried to do it yet. And so, I regret my present, but in a few scant months, I won’t mind anymore.