Every time I come home for breaks something I always love to do is to dig through my closet, my dressers, the drawers under my bed, and any random places on my desk (which are now mostly covered by my brothers' stuff, but if I look hard enough I can still find things of mine).
Lifting up piles of old CD's that I once adored but now lie dust covered in the top shelf of the closet where I can't reach without going on my tip-toes, dusting off the old boxes with the little pieces of red and green ribbon given to me by the ghosts of Christmas past, and opening old photo frames from high school dances when I didn't yet realize how cheesy paper frames were; these are all things which bring back a new (but familiar and dear) flood of memories. They're not very long, individually. A flash of a moment, a few precious seconds and words exchanged, words worth more than their infinite weight in gold.
I've written before about a certain rose made from two Hershey's kisses that was given to me back in high school: unexpected, unwarranted, and so hauntingly sweet that I've never been able to forget it. I looked on one of the shelves of my desk to make sure it's where I left it 4 years ago. I've always checked to make sure it's there. Thanksgiving break, winter break, spring break, summer break...every time I'm back, I always take a moment to reassure myself that it's still there.
And people will tell me that it's not the object that matters, it's the memories. They're right, of course. But when I come home and look at it, standing there in an empty can that once held juice from concentrate but is now home to pens, pencils, a screwdriver, and most importantly that chocolate rose, I can't help but think to myself that the existence of it, the fact that I can reach out and touch it and remember exactly the way she looked and the way she sounded when she gave it to me makes the memory so much more real. Touch the rose, and touch the memory.
And so it is with so many other things in my room. Boxes of glasses; glasses from a certain someone who waltzed into my life, lit it afire, then snubbed it out and walked away. Unwritten cards and letters unsent to a person who gave me all that she could (including the cards and stationary to write) but I left. Shotglasses and a stirrer that used to hold watch over my desk, given to me by a girl who fluttered by for two short works before we walked our separate ways. Cards from friends who cared enough and knew me well enough to know that I don't want to be given gifts carefully selected from the aisles of the mall (though every one given to me has a special place in my heart), what I want more than anything is a card written with care and honest emotion.
I found a watch my parents gave to me a few years ago. They gave my brothers matching watches too. I never opened it then; I left it in its case, put it back in its wrapping paper, and put it in a drawer under my bed. I noticed the other day that my dad was wearing his, one that's the same as the one he gave my brothers and I all those years ago. So when I found it earlier tonight, I left it in its case, put it back in its wrapping paper, and put it back in the drawer under my bed so that I can discover it again someday, and remember all the love and care that my parents have put into raising my brothers and I.
That's what I have in my room: love, scattered all about. Love lost and love remembered, love once but not again, all the kinds of love that you could ever hope for is hidden somewhere in here, tucked away in an almost-forgotten memory. And like a love letter I've rambled on about a bit and a piece of the love that remains and the love that I rebury to find again one day and with that I close with a wave and a wish that you, my dear reader, will also one day peer through your room and remember all the memories you thought you'd forgotten.
Every now and then I like to flush my brain by sitting here and typing out thoughts as they freeflow down the spinal column into my hands. Like now.
There is a guy who lived next to me last year, while I was in Japan. His name is Jon. When I first met him I thought he was one of the weirdest, most socially unbalanced people I'd ever met. Violent, angry, bitter, and about as pessimistic as you can get while still teetering on the livelier side of suicidal. What ended up being the most valuable interaction he and I had was that we argued incessantly about everything.
We argued about girls (usually me saying something like the girl who worked at McDonald's was hot, and him refuting everybody I named...I think he just hated women in general really)
We argued about politics
We argued about music (his tastes are kind of out there)
we argued about military ethics and morality (he was a big military nut)
We argued about movies (he hated a lot of movies, I was a lot more forgiving)
To the casual observer, it would seem like we didn't get along at all. In fact, it might even look like we hated each other. But we ate together at night, hung out on the weekends, went to the video store together, and played oodles of video games together.
All the arguing we did made him one of the most interesting and fascinating people I've hung out with (and one of the most infuriating at the same time). We don't talk too much now (we never talked much online), but it still feels like that if we were to get together and hang out it'd be ust like before, arguing about anything and everything...but also reminiscing about our time spent in Japan.
After such a good experience there, every day spent living here brings me one step closer to losing all taste and passion for life.
What I wanted to say more than anything tonight (or this morning, seeing how it's 5am and I'm only going to get an hour of sleep before I head back to Cerritos), is that opposition is one of the best things you can provide to someone as a friend. There's a time to support them, to be there at their side and help them out; but there are times where it's your duty and responsibility to take a stand opposite theirs.
When you argue with someone, you give them the chance to elucidate their own thinking, to see kinks and holes they might've missed otherwise, and forge their thoughts into wrought steel. As time's progressed I've found that the number of people I know who can be both a friend and someone who can stand on the opposing line is, during good times, countable on one hand.
A blue moon rose tonight, and I took my trusty coat down to the laundry room to be cleaned.
After making sure I knew what "tumble dry" meant (via a quick look on Google and a clicky clicky here and there) I threw my coat in with a fair amount of detergent, set the washer to delicate (for skin so sensitive it burns) and let it do its thing. A (not so) quick cycle later, I was ready to throw my coat into the dryer and "tumble dry" (that's such a weird term).
So my coat tumbled, and it dried, and got just ever so warm by the time the dryer ding'ed and I pulled my coat out in a big bundle of black (it's actually more like dark brown at this point, kind of gross). An eventless shamble up some stairs, and I was back in the comfort and safety of my own room.
I grabbed my coat by the collar like a misbehaving schoolboy and shook it like a British nanny to un-bundle it in preparation for its hanging and closeting. Around this point, I noticed the familiar semi-transparent white of the fabric softener sheet, and next to it, a not-so-familiar tiny bundle of red.
Upon further inspection, I discovered I'd somehow absorbed a pair of red panties (the g-stringy type I think, though honestly I don't know...women's underwear isn't my forte).
So here I am, sitting in my room with a pair of red women's panties sitting on my dresser. What do I do?
* I could put it back on top of the dryer, where I (and others) leave clothes that have finished drying...but would you trust a pair of your panties (just one pair) sitting on top of a dryer? If it was bundled with another set of clothes that'd been just put on top then that's okay, but one pair?
* I could keep it and tell everyone that I parade around in women's underwear on the weekends when nobody's looking and all the lights are turned off...but I don't think that's going to help improve my sex life any.
* I could give it to my aptmate, but she's already turned it down.
* I could give it to my other aptmate, upon whose head I would put it.
* Or I could keep it for myself as a hat. Or a jury-rigged sling in case I ever break my arm.
On a side note, a size M pair of Express panties are fairly well sized. If I lost an inch or few I bet I could squeeze them on.
Not that I tried, of course.
I guess I could throw it into the midst of somebody else's laundry when it's in the dryer...that'd be kind of nifty, pass along the surrealism. I'd sure be surprised if I found another guy's underwear in my clothes...or any underwear in general really.
I can vomit on command.
I remember learning way back when I was a wee scrap of a kid that you can't throw up on command. You could stick your finger down your throat, you could have someone smoosh your stomach, you could run around in circles like a headless chicken possessed, but you couldn't vomit on command.
And so for the longest time I was baffled by my bizarre and unlikely ability to vomit on command, but I think I might finally have an idea of how it works.
I went to play dodgeball on Sunday with the rest of the Residential Computing folks here at Berkeley. We were playing against Stanford's analog of us (the inferior analog, of course), with the trophy being the Big Disk, a bolted arrangement of hard disk platters (get it? ha ha). After running around for 3 hours throwing balls and having balls thrown at me, we the fine people at Berkeley's rescomp won.
And since p implies q, this means that the next morning I was sore as hell.
My right arm was dead, my shoulders were dead, my back hurt, my legs were completely shot, and what little ab I have was caving in on itself (not even abs, just ab...).
So as I was brushing my teeth tonight I tried to spit out whatever nasty little things were living in my throat, going all the way back to the back of the back (I do this every night; be glad you don't live in intimately close quarters with me). It's a pretty neat thing to do, like pushing myself to the edge riiight before I throw up.
But tonight, my ab was so sore from the previous day that I had trouble doing it!
And so it was that I discovered that the source of my ability to vomit on command lies in abdominal muscle control, enough to jab into myself at the precise angle to induce a retching experience of bile-y goodness.
I'm putting this on my resume.
It's funny how we try to convince ourselves that what we're doing isn't really bad.
Ever since I've come back this year, it seems that laptops are a bigger deal than they ever were before. Before I left for Japan, I'd see at most one laptop in a given lecture. Nowadays, even in a class of 10 students I see about 4 laptops hanging around. Usually, the people who have said laptops aren't doing anything remotely close to being related to what's going on in lecture. They're checking email, talking online, and placing bids for that missing Boba Fett action figure (not "doll") that will complete their set of 1987 Star Wars figures.
In a given class, I'm almost always guilty of the same crime.
The funny thing is, I'll try to at least pretend to be interested in the lecture and make a passing effort at making it look like what I'm doing is related to what the professor is saying, be it through mimicking the motions of note taking with all the natural grace and style of a deceased canary dancing a jig, or by trying to make it seem like I'm following the lecture slides up close even though the projector amplifies the information tenfold already.
Of course, this is all just when I play the student role.
I'm not sure how many people who read this blog know, but I also teach a system administration course with an emphasis on web serving (though we who teach these courses are not officially "teaching at Berkeley," we're just "leading courses," whatever that might mean). When I'm the one in the front of the classroom, looking at a sea of faces (some confused, some mildly interested, some trying to pretend to be awake while actually sleeping, most unabashedly sleeping), and I see a sea of laptops, I imagine they're not actually doing anything relevant with their laptops. I'm almost sure of it. So why do I even try to pretend to use my laptop for course-related purposes in my classes when I play the student role when I know that laptops are hardly ever used for relevant purposes when my teacher hat goes on?
Mostly because I don't want to hurt the instructor's feelings. It's hard, being up there talking for an hour (sometimes more), trying to keep people interested while still communicating useful information. Being a good lecturer is rough. Be nice to your professors; they're people too.
On a side note, ever wonder how you can tell if a given Powerpoint slide was made by an engineer? Look for lots of text and very few images, gimmicks, and bells and whistles; it's the sure sign of an engineer. If you see the opposite (little text, lots of images, gimmicks, and bells and whistles) you're probably looking at a proud graduate of the Haas School of Powerpoint, a.k.a. the Haas School of Business here at Berkeley.
Moderating comments sucks. I took off moderation. I'll deal with comment spam on a case by case basis.
If you need any suggestions for penis enlargement, texas hold em, or shemale porn let me know and I'll forward all my comment spam to you.
Real quick before I get back to working on homework: in an effort to reduce the amount of spam comments that get through here, I decided to make comments to my blog moderated. This means your comments won't show up until I get around to clicky clickying and set them to display, so you don't need to post them more than once.
I wish I had a better solution, but I don't at the moment. Maybe I'll hack something up later.
In the meantime, my stance on comments doesn't change: if it's automated spam it'll get deleted, but if it's anything that's written by an actual person than I'll let it go through regardless of whether people support my view or not.
I meant to write this earlier, but better late than never.
American Democracy is a broken system.
Democracy is dependent upon a few key assumptions: that your citizens are intelligent, educated, well informed individuals. It doesn't even matter if they're good people or not, since we don't even meet the basic requirements.
It's too late in the night and I have too many things to do to make a formal argument, so here are a few things you can think about that will hopefully amuse (and at the same time, horrify) you:
Think about the most average person you know. Think about how intelligent this person is. Consider how educated and well informed this person is. Take a moment to appreciate how stupid this person is. Then realize that half the country's dumber.
Take a look at the political party divide states exhibit in this election. Think about the places that are traditionally associated with intelligent, college-educated people. Reflect upon the locations that are traditionally thought of as back water hick towns. Look again at the way the states are divided.
We live in a country where people are too busy living their lives to be well informed about all the issues. Even if you're an intelligent, educated person, you're probably too busy dealing with all the things life demands of you to take the time and read the propositions, the stances, and the statements thoroughly. You're then thrown into a position where you have to make a decision when you don't know all the factors, don't know all the background, and don't know all the likely effects.
It's a wonder we haven't imploded upon ourselves already.
The only thing worse than knowing that you're uneducated about the issues is thinking that you are. Reading a two page discussion on why a proposition should or shouldn't be voted for doesn't give you the background you need. It doesn't give you the faculty of reason you need to analyze the real effects it's likely to have. You can't see it; the modern society is too complicated and convoluted for there to be any clear correlations between any given issues.
To think that the common citizen is well equipped enough to make a good decision is a fallacy.
Knowing that the fools and idiots dotting, filling, flooding the country are making decisions about what will happen to me for the next four years is horrifying.
Knowing that the people around me who don't have the necessary information to make a sound decision about what changes are made in the city I live in is terrifying.
Knowing that, despite all of this, I still cast a vote for issues I don't completely understand and can't see clearly is worst of all.
It looks like Bush is going to win, so as a pre-emptive statement (much like pre-emptive strikes):
Congratulations President Bush. No matter what people may say about you, you truly do stand for everything America does: stupidity, ignorance, greed, arrogance, and violence.
We couldn't be more deserving of you.
I would I could I should tell you about the voices in my head that speak when I close my eyes at night and try to find a moment of peace far from the maddening crowds. The voices that speak and request and demand and beg and implore that I take a moment from my day and close my eyes, sitting here in front of my monitor injecting me with its radiant life taking glow, and put down a few of the words and sounds they want heard.
One of the things I trained myself to do when I was in elementary school was typing with my eyes closed. I've gotten better at it over the years. The speed I type at when I don't look at the keyboard is the same as when I do; sometimes it's even faster because my eyes don't need to keep up anymore and I can just shut down the brain and let the body keep going. It was around that time that I discovered how relieving it was to open up a document and simply type type type into it, key stroke after key stroke, turning the flow of electrons in my brain into a flow of electons in my fingers into a flow of electrons into a flow of electrons in the computer. Now that flow turns into another flow of electrons through the net, into your eyes, into your brain and mind.
And so it is that these sounds and noises in my head that posses neither shape nor form yet have substance and weight command me now,
I with my eyes closed sitting prostrated here with fingers moving without the intervention of a brain that tries to put meaning into senseless forms and without the inconvenience of a cognition that tries to break things down down down to analyze and study (for these things were not meant to be broken down and picked apart word for word but instead felt and caressed and loved and embraced for their feeling and their essence and not their form).
It's a disease.
A malady.
A vague discomfort of the body and the mind that lets it know that somethings is wrong; something is missing and despite all the things you have that you think make you complete you're still not whole you're still lacking you're still just not good enough.
So let go of the mind and the rationale that wants to understand and just let the words flow before your eyes and absorb into the sponge of your brain, feel the rhythm and the flow of the syllables and tones that weave in and out of your eyes and reverberate in your ears and heart.
You know these voices. They've been with you by your side since you were born, waiting for you to stop talking and for once in your life to just shut up and listen.
The voices borne from within. The ones you raise and nourish with your passions and memories, the precious moments of your lives that you know are distinctly and uniquely yours despite the millenia of existence that have come before you. The voices that mature and flower into a visage of beauty and grace that look at you with still-wondrous eyes, looking at the world unfold before them with awe and wonder, eyes that still see the splendor of the world without its pain and cries that are stifled into tear stained pillows when the lights have gone out and nobody's there to watch anymore. These are the voices that entice you with their movements as they sway to the rhythm, the ebb, and the flow of your life. The ones that pull you into their bed while they drape you in color and broken fragments of a sentence that only becomes more precious with its incompleteness. The voices you hold dear and love and create new life with. The ones you grow old with, the ones that don't leave you even when you lie on your deathbed and wonder what ever happened to your children, the ones you spent so much energy and emotion on.
There's no ending, because things aren't over, and it's been a long time since I've really understood what sort of relation my titles have to my entries. The more I think about it and the more I write, the more I realize that it really doesn't matter if there's a positive correlation, a negative correlation, or if there's any correlation at all; if all you're doing is listening to the beginning of the sentence and formulating what you think the rest will be then you've already closed your mind and heart.