...I'm not quite sure who it was that mentioned it before, but someone's commented before that odd events seem to follow me around. I think it's rather nifty, really, it keeps life interesting.
Today, I was sitting outside of Dwinelle Hall, where my Japanese class is. Every now and again my bus arrives early or I just don't feel like going to class quite yet (like today), so I sit around outside on one of the benches and veg for a bit. So as I was staring off into space not thinking any thoughts, someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around, to see this girl holding out a CD to me.
"Hi, do you remember me?" she asks.
*flashback*
About a month or two or more ago, I was working in the dorms fixing computers when I heard some Malice Mizer playing. Given that I know about 0 people in Berkeley who listen to Malice Mizer (and I can count the number of people who listen to industrial music here on one hand), it was pretty nifty to find someone who had the same sort of musical taste as me. So I wander towards the sound to see who it is listening to it (as it so happens, the song was "Beast of Blood"...somehow I'm able to remember that little detail despite being completely unable to remember what I've been doing in the past few hours). It turns out to be this girl who's about to run off to the shower, all wrapped up in her bathrobe and all, so we chat for a few moments before she skips off to her shower.
I hadn't seen her since then.
*back to the present*
She hands me the CD.
"It's Mana's new band's CD, it's just like Klaha-era Malice Mizer" she tells me. I say a word of thanks before she skips off to wherever it is she's off to, leaving me to sit there, staring at this CD in my hand, thinking to myself:
"Wow, Mana's new band's CD. Nifty. I'm surprised she remembers me. I wonder how she knew I'd be here. And to have the CD with her, no less. Hmmm that's kind of odd, people don't really carry CD's like this in it's own carrying case for no reason..."
And now I'm sitting here at work, listening to this CD (which is pretty good, which kind of sounds like the music from Demon's Crest, only it's more fast paced and doesn't have the same airy feel). What a curious thing to have happen.
Of course, one could launch a similar argument about how presenting oneself as an interesting person is just a variant on appearances, and is thus still trying to sell the superficial.
It's also interesting how some girls I know of will dress themselves nicely and look all attractive and then wonder why guys see them as sex objects. Certainly, that semi-revealing low-cut shirt wouldn't make a guy look at them as sex objects! No, for that sort of shirt obviously says "I'm an intelligent person who's witty and charming." There's a discrepancy between the way a girl will present themselves, and what they want to be treated as. Most everything they do says "look at me I'm pretty so want me" and as soon as you make that your basis for desiring them they say "don't go for me just for my looks, go for me for who I am."
Now what the hell is that?
To be fair, there are always exceptions to the rule. The girls who roll out of bed and wander off to class with their hair sticking up this way and that, in their plaid pajama pants with the odd color scheme and a sweater thrown on over a still-waking body, or the kind who don't bother with much grooming and so on so forth. The interesting part is that people tend to look at them and comment on how they're unlearned in the ways of society, and how they're just kids who haven't grown up yet.
So selling yourself is a part of being in a society; losing your identity is a part of growing up.
And so once the identity is lost, people become nothing more than objects, walking hunks of flesh in a global meat market.
So when someone wonders why I have a tendency to look at people as objects, consider first what it is they're doing with themselves.
And on a closing note, I would like to hear a counter argument for why I shouldn't look at people as objects, because doing it is rather depressing and un-fun. Lying to myself and saying "no, people aren't selling themselves!" isn't an option.
Last night, I finally came about formalizing a bit more of a particular neurosis (or so it's convenient to refer to, though given that I've seen a good number of other people with a variant on it, it seems to be quite normal) that's been bugging me for a bit.
Particularly, one on women (because women are the root of almost all my troubles).
There are occasions where I will consider a girl to be a nice person, and might make for an enjoyable dating experience. But I don't really ask them out. I have this tendency to have at once two sets of standards; one for a world in which I'm only concerned with me (which has relatively loose standards), and one for a world in which I'm concerned not only about me, but also about what potential children of mine and my children's children might turn out to be (which has much higher standards). The problem arises when a girl comes along who's good enough to meet or exceed requirements for the former, but don't quite cut it for the latter.
This leads to a rather problematic scenario.
If I decide to pursue them and somehow or other defy the odds and manage to catch them, then we'd go along and have a merry ol' relationship. Oftentimes it's with girls that in all likeliness won't do anything to particularly upset me or do anything which would put them in bad standing with me (or vice versa). But then there comes a point where I think to myself, "This is fun for me and all, but what about future generations?" and I realize that continuing on my merry way without a consideration for what could come in the future probably isn't the best course of action. So then it leads to a breakup. Now if one or the other does something out of the ordinary, like cheat on the other person or some such, then it's at least understandable for someone to break up with them. If one says to the other "I don't feel the same about you anymore" then at least then there's a bit of a reason. But (and there's a particular case I have in mind) if I've already established that someone would be a great person to be with, but doesn't meet criteria for that sort of on-until-death relationship with child-bearing involved, that particular line isn't really going to do me very much good. Certainly, there are other things I could say, or not give a reason at all, or even lie. But that's not very honorable, especially towards someone I'd have some sort of attachment to.
So how do you tell someone "Sorry, but you're just not reproductively viable?"
...and sometimes I write random notes on my day because I just don't care enough to be amusing.
Today was like most any other day. I went to discussion, Japanese class, had lunch, went to my EE class, went to EE lab, and then went to Japanese office hour/tutorial session. Office hours were as they usually are (rather entertaining), when out of the blue a friend I hadn't seen in months randomly showed up. This friend, a particular fellow named John, was in the same Japanese class as me last semester. We'd both go to tutorial sessions and talk about random topics with the Japanese tutor, from how to say "that girl's a slut" to how they sell soiled panties in Japan to how the Japanese tutor (a girl by the name of Manami) was always tired on Mondays after drinking too much over the weekend (though it didn't really show, she was really thin).
The last time I had seen John was back in fall semester, when he, Manami, another girl in my Japanese class by the name of Jessica, and I went out to dinner, and then drinking (though Jessica couldn't make it to drinking). We arrived at the bar around 8, 9pm, and the next thing I knew it was around 2, 3am. We hit up a karaoke bar (the only one we could find that was still open), and I eventually got home around 4 or 5 am. Good times, good times. Hanging out with John is nice because it feels like he actually understands and can relate to the things I say, whereas some people might say they get it, but I can't help but feel like there's no real connection.
Which brings me to a curious question: why is it so many of my friends are older than me? In recent times it seems like it's the older people who can relate more, but sometimes I can't help but feel like the people who are older than me act much more like children than I do. And sometimes that's fine and all, it's only when it gets out of hand that's irritating. A good number of folks are 3, 4, 5 years older. John's close to 8 or 9 years older. Rather odd to think that when he was graduating from high school I'd barely made it halfway through elementary school.
Every now and then the thought "what if I were God?" strikes me. Sometimes it's brought up because people point to my buddy icon; sometimes it comes up just because lecture's boring. It seems that the word lecture has a bad connotation from day one, from parents lecturing you, to professors lecturing you, to your boy/girlfriend lecturing you on how you don't call enough (if you call at all), you don't pay enough attention to her (if you do at all), and how great you two used to be (if ever you two were great).
But back to being God.
Taking a rather cynical perspective, I think it would really suck. I mean really, think about it for a moment.
* You've got people all over the world hating you. Kind of like if you were that weird kid in elementary school, only now you have more articulate people hating you.
* You've got people blaming you for everything that happens to them. Parents died? God's will. Best friend shot? God's will. You'd be blamed for things that in all likeliness probably had nothing to do with you. As if you really have time to meticulously decide how EVERY person's life is going to go. That's violating your own rules.
* You've got some people who refuse to believe you exist. I mean really now, how would you feel if people all over the world were all saying you don't really exist? That's got to give you some sort of neurosis.
* You've got all sorts of crazy people doing things in your name. Crusades? Killing Indians? Hating gay people? Sure, it'd probably be neat at first, but after a while you've got people doing all sorts of horrible things in your name that you really didn't want, and that just sucks.
* You've got people who go to your house on Sundays even though they don't really believe in you and don't really care about what you say, and just want to find people to hook up with. It'd be like living in a brothel.
* You've got teeming masses asking you for favors all the time (and not just on the day of your daughter's wedding). Oh God let me pass this class. Oh God tell me that dumb bastard I've been going out with for the past two years even though I know he's not good for me but I stay with because I LOVE him even though I don't really know what love is didn't really get me pregnant. It never ends.
* You've got people making up all sorts of crazy things to explain how the things you did weren't really done by you. How did the universe begin? Bunch of matter that came from nowhere exploded.
All in all, being the modern God would suck. If I were God, I'd be the cool one. The kind that rains plagues down on you when you piss me off. The kind that'll burn you down in fire and brimstone when you piss me off. The kind that will send down a bolt of lightning to light up a bush just to say "Bitch, you better watch out."
Yeah, I'd be that God. You know, the one who's so delightfully....evil.
I was walking around with Tammy to a class of hers after lunch the other day, when we came upon the topic of whether or not there are any good looking guys/girls at Berkeley. The general opinion of most folks is no, there aren't. My general opinion is no, there aren't. It seems intelligence and appearances just don't like going hand in hand. Maybe there's some sort of proportionality gene in people that keeps track of how much has been invested in appearances and how much has been invested in intelligence, and adjusts each so that they add up to a constant. But then that doesn't explain stupid AND ugly people (which I shall not name explicitly, though I'm sure we can all think of at least one), or the rare few who are both intelligent and attractive. So maybe there is no logic or reason behind it all, or for that matter behind anything.
But we'd all like to believe that there is some sort of causality, for if there were no reasons things happened we'd go nuts. Maybe being a good person has no bearing on whether or not good things will have on you. Maybe being an evil person is the way to go. But if there's no such thing as good and no such thing as evil then why even bother with classification?
Back to the previous topic, whilst walking with Tammy and gauging the appearances of folks who happened to be walking in the opposite direction, I came to the conclusion that I've become a lot harsher in my judgement of who's attractive. As it is, I can think of friends of mine that, at one time, I had thought to be very attractive people (as other people had as well). But as time's progressed, I've noticed that more and more I look at people and don't find any of them particularly physically attractive. There are always flaws. Face is a little too fat, hips a bit too wide, fingers too thick, unproportional feet, a bit of a belly, a nose that's a bit too bulby, etc. etc.
I wonder if anyone's thinking "what right do you have to judge, you don't look that good." The humor of that statement being that they're questioning my right to judge when they're judging me. I love it when people make silly statements like that. I can be mean and rub the foolishness of their statements in their face. Except nowadays, I'm too apathetic and lethargic to even do that.
This is a person I know.
I met her during orientation for my work at Haas, the business school here at Berkeley. I didn't get to know her very well then. For that matter, I have almost no memories of her during that time. But that's how all things start; we have no memory, only the room to make more. As working days went by, she seemed like a quirky kind of girl who had an off-beat sense of humor that could match mine. She had an evil little laugh that she'd let loose with from time to time, a bit of a sniggering "nyahyahyahyahya" that sounded exactly like the evil giggles you'd expect a little red devil with wings and a horned tail would sound.
This is a girl I know.
She didn't talk too much, though she would never shy from conversation. She'd have a laptop in the back of the frontdesk, where she'd have a sly ethernet cable running to the business school's fast connection to the campus' intranet backbone, running Kazaa. Neama and I would randomly download some questionable materials from time to time, just to add a little surrealism to her life. One time her friend Jeanette came by to have her laptop fixed, and I took a look at it as well (but alas could do nothing for it). As one can imagine, she wasn't always concerned about work, which made me glad; I'm never really too concerned with work. Sometimes we'd sit around and play tetrinet to pass the time. One time she had a friend of hers join our game too. I'd thought of myself as being not all that bad at tetrinet before, when I played more. Her friend slaughtered me.
This is a coworker of mine.
She had some overlapping shifts with me; we'd sit around and chat or play games from time to time, or harass the business students a little bit. She was really good about taking care of things, and would oftentimes give me the easier share of the work (or, at the least, a lighter load). I remember one day seeing her working on some research project of hers; she was seeing if this particular tree smell would repel ants of some sort. Or something like that. I didn't really follow what exactly her research was on; I didn't even know ants smelled the trees they were on. I had always thought a tree was just a tree to an ant. But I guess not. Today I was looking through my email, and saw an unusually high number of emails in my work email account. I opened it up to see that last Thursday, she had an aneurysm. She was put in the hospital in critical condition. The doctors say that she'll be okay, but then when they say someone's "okay" that can mean anything from they'll be back without a scratch to they'll be back but won't ever be the same again. Regardless, she'll be resting and recovering in Orange County, where she lives.
This is a girl named Amily.
This is my friend.