|
8/26/00 Me
Why not? I've written about many other things, now it is time for a look at myself. Maybe you'll get to know me better, and I can know myself as well. Starting from right now, and working backwards (more or less) I'll take an honest look at me. I'm gorgeous!
At the moment I am looking at the website of Julie, anime tutorial writter and an all-around good artist. I guess I'm an anime fan and I have tried some anime-style drawing, to various degrees of success. I don't own any anime movies, OAVs, or animation cells, my only exposure comes from Blockbuster, the Sci-fi channel's somewhat ellusive Saturday Anime, and the web. I think there was an anime club at my old prospective highschool but I could never make it over there. I suppose this is typical of my interests, a mild fan but not to the extent where I can/do exert any great effort to pursue my interests.
I say it was my old prospective highschool; I should explain this. Last year I attended a school. I canīt say which. A big, three-story building for just ninth-graders. Amazingly, they were short on lockers for the first semester of the second year of opperation. After attending this school, most people attend another high school, the parking lot of which is home to the freshman school. Instead, I am at as different highschool. My school is home of the district's magnet program: kids have the option to pursue their interests here in Law, Science, Art, Communication, or Theater. I picked science, however my interests lie more in computers than anatomy (my father's field of expertise).
I made the choce to go to the magnet last February when school sucked. Football season was over and the gruelling practises continued. That sucked. My classes all were boring, save biology. That was a great class thanks to my good teacher in Biology. Besides that, nothing else was too terribly interesting, although I atleast learned new stuff in Spanish class. By the end of the year, I somewhat regretted the move as my friends were quite dissapointed, I realised I would miss my companions, and I got used to boring school. But here I am, taking advanced courses (not the least of which being BC Calculus as a sophmore) and soon to be in Computer Science 2, having bypassed CS 1 with my vast knowledge aquired on my own time. No classes suck yet, although I don't look with fondness on making a map of my world. I barely know the street I'm on, much less the way to school.
My lack of local geographic knowledge is probably due tyo the fact that I really don't like it too much here. I'm not sure that my home town would be better (I'd still be in school) but atleast I grew up there. There are people and places here that have come and gone that are integreated into the memories of those around me, and frankly, I don't give a damn about this place. I'm bad with names but I made a go of it last school year and I learned quite a few. I don't think I really have much of anything against most the people I know, they just don't compell me to get to knwo them better. I see their sannoying qualities all to clear to want to get beyond that. It's better to have made friends when you were younger and less observant I believe. This city is a great mass of five million people or so. traffic sucks, we have red-level ozone days and months without rain on record. The weather sucks, school is school (the idea of school spirit is really stupid, they all are the same, honestly) and my dreams are unfufilled.
When I lived in Missouri, I really looked forward to going to my highschool. I hated the other school. I rooted for the local college team in all sports. I think I had pride then, before I could question it, or really define it. That is the only way to have it, or many beliefs: learn them before you know any better. But I did wind up here. It was ok back there. My dad found a better job in this cirty. Riding the edge of a blizzard (which delayed our furniture for a few days) we left after Christmas of '98, half-way through my 8th-grade year.
It was amazing, the stoicism I showed. It was as if the move involved no more than a nine hour car trip with a dog and some birds in the back seat of out pickup truck. My friends were more sadend to see me leave. I kept in touch with some. I heard other's moved away; it seemed like the group was breaking up. I arrived here and quickly got to know people. For a while, it was great; I was the new guy and everyone seemed nice and eager to meet me. I got asked out to the Valentine's Day dance. That was a fun time, I mean, I'm here for all of a month and hey, I've got a date to this dance. Thanks. I went to some parties, hung out with some people. Life was good. Life was new.
Then came the summer. Prior to the last days of school I had noticed neightborhood girl. She's cute and a nice girl. If I ever get a digital picture of her, I'll stick it on this site somewhere. I think I had a crush on her, still do. Nothing really came of it though, sadly. We're friends and we talk on AOL Instant Messanger everynow and then (She's got more of a family to share the computer with than I do). The summer was largely uneventful. I went to a family reunion in Nevada and some some of my cousins (I see them about every five years, or so I'm told). Nevada was fun, and the humidity was low which was absolutely fabulous.
I suppose I was half glad to enter school after a summer of inactivity; at least school would give me something to do (Nothing is sometimes preferable to something I soon learned). I played football and woke up early in the morning for practice. Practice sucked but at the start of the year, we all looked forward to an exciting season. The first few games were awesome, the greatest fun I'd had in a while. Then we got over confident and we lost a game. There could be no slacking of the workout or else the other teams would beat us. I began to wonder why I was doing it. I didn't give a crap about the school, the team (especially the assholes and slackers) or winning for that matter. It became a chore and I worked to get away from it, partly by going to my current highschool.
There was a back-to-school dance in the first few weeks of school and I saw many familiar faces. Two caught my eye especially: This one girl and another. Names withheld.. In the low light and quick glipses I got of her, she looked a little like the one girl, and cute. I'm not sure what I saw in her but I sorta liked her for a little while. After that I was single, and content, for a few months, up until November or late October, my memory fails me. At an after-school bug identification open lab (it was for a big project started over the summer) I met this one girl. She asked for my phone number, how about that? We wrote notes to each other and exchanged them between classes. We kissed in the halls afterschool. I think I was in love, to the best of my knowledge at the time.
That too was a fabulous time for me, for a while. The notes began to have more of a sexualy overtone to them. My girlfriend's past was revealed to me but I continued on with our romance. I, like an idiot, left some of the notes she and a friend of hers had written, lying in my room. One day my mom read them and my life sucked form that moment onward. She forbade me from talking to Victoria or seeing her outside of school. Of course I still wrote to her, and met her after school. I was in love and I didn't care. Soon came the Christmas dance and Victoria wasn't going, and I probably wasn't going to go, it would suck to be alone there. Some friends of mine were all going to go as a group and they invited me to go along as well. Victoria and I formed a plan that she would be at a friend's houes nearby and I would slip out of the party and meet her in a nearby park. We never talked of what we would do there, I'm not sure what would have happend had the plan gone through, but it did not. To her credit the friend who planned the whole group going thingy told her mom about the plan. Mere's mom called mine and I was found out. That was the day of the dance I believe. My parents were really, really pissed off. I guess my mom was real surprised that I had disobeyed her. She still seems to think that her values and ideas of right and wrong are the only the one could see or live by. Actually, I was not punished for this offense directly, although missing the dance and having my parents pissed really sucked, any more punishment would be overkill.
After that night, I talked to my ex maybe twice more. I recently heard that she cut her wrists in an attempt to comiit suicide but failed. I havn't looked into it and see no real reason to. I have fond me\mories of our early romance and bear her no ill will. I really havn't pursued many girls since. There are a few I wouldn't mind dating. Three really, and one back in Missouri. Long distance relationships suck though. I've got nothing against dating though, courting is the tough part. Maybe I'll give it a try at the new school.
Thats enough semi-reverse chronology of me for one night. I'll continue this in later installments
Back to the top.
8/10/00 - Seperation Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Yeah, yeah, I know. It's been a while. I have some good reasons for my absence: I was on vacation and I usually loose interest in things after a month. it was bound to happen. But I have returned. I'm not sure what I'm here to talk about, but we'll find out together.
School, that's a pressing issue. Only four days from now I'll be back in school. I'll have a different locker, and different classes, but it will be a school none the less. It's really a sad experience when you think about it. You're taking away at elast ten hours a day from these young kids and forcing idiots to work on things that don't interest them at all. 20,000 hours a year, and for what? So we can finally graduate and go to college to persue our interests as if we have any after the 4 year ordeal that is highschool. Depending on how you're school district is set up, you might have junior highs and middleschools too, hell, you might have an entire fresshman class in a single building (I did). However it happens, many of us survivem much worse for wear.
I recently spent two weeks with my sister's one year old daughter. It is truely amazing to see her. Constantly she is learning things. She just absorbs words, and plays with her toys. Everything is a game, everything is fun. Looking at the big picture, school is not fun. Sure, there are idiots who do not stop socializing and griping about homework, and they gain nothing from school. It's a waste of their time (so is breathing), it's a waste of people's money, and it's a waste of my time beacause the education systems is adjusted for them.
And what of me, is it a waste of my time? Yes, it is. The only things that school can teach me are the boring things I have no patience for. Sure I'd like to know C++, I've even bought a book. There is a lot to that language, not to mention the header files and other functions besides ANSI standard C++. You have to know API and many things to write good programs, not just MFC shit. Perhaps school could teach me that. I havn't the time nor the resources for it, and neither does my school I fear. If "Generation D" wasn't some invention of marketing, I might be proud. Yes, I am skilled with computers (PCs really), but not as skilled as I like. "Mafiaboy" might have been some dumb little kid, but he know's things. I seek knowledge. My journey may lead me to MIT or some great school like that, and I will probably have to go through many classes with many people who are not as interested or skilled as I, and they will drag me down. Public school must be designed for the public whose needs are not my own. I doubt what I need can be found in a school because I seek knowledge not found on any mainstream curriculum or syllabus.
I need a mentor, someone who would convey all that they know of computers, as much as they can tell me. I need someone to answer my questions with authority, to direct my interests and show me new areas, new interests. When my quest goes beyond their knowledge, we would learn, side-by-side. Perhaps I will find such a mentor at a public school, but I would wonder why they are there, and not in a place to make money, or produce things. Perhaps they had money, and they saw something better: a chance for someone else who shows the promise they demonstrated at a young age. Perhaps they are waiting for me somewhere along the road. Until then, I will continue my quest, under my own direction. Perhaps one day I will be waiting to meet a person like me. Perhaps I will reach the top of the hill, only to see wonderful things ahead. Perhaps.
Back to the top.
6/1/00 Girls
This rant has be requested by a dear friend of mine and I aim to please. Pleasure, that's a good topic for this time of year. The birds are chirping and the lone squirrels are now in pairs. Many of my friends, however, are not. This is truely tragic. Most of them have at least one redeaming quality (maybe even 6!), yet they may go heirless and be forgotten in the generations to come. That's too bad. I refuse this fate however. What really bugs me is that the females are not making it very easy. In the Great Biological Order of Things; it sucks to be without children. Life started with replicating molecules and it has continued for billions of years due to replication. The meaning of life is to pass on genes. These genes allow more life and the cycle continues. Careers, computer games, and painting are all little extras that we have thrown in along the way. I'm not demeaning anyone when I say this: Women and Men, you are nothing without each other. Now, if you have decided not to have kids, by all means, reationalize your existance. And the rest of you, have two kids, maybe three. Dogs have litters, people have babies all right? And don't have kids when you're really young. It's gonna be a pretty damn shitty life if you have kids at 15. In the United States, the food is pretty well locked up. The standard of living is high. Fifteen yearolds don't even have legal rights. In hunter-gatherer days, the amount of "work" done was minimal and survival skills were innate. Obviously things are not as they were. Somethings have stayed the same however. One: Guys still like girls (I'm living proof). Two: Girls like guys (yes, you). It seems that this would work out pretty well except that a given pair will not always like the other. This really sucks. For whatever reason, life has developed such that most of the time, males have to court females. And they really hate to fail. I say, let them have a chance, maybe you will like them. Guys, try to make it as easy as possible for them to say yes. Talk to the girl you're trying to ask out. People say that you should ask her around her friends, so that she won't say no, or maybe it's around your friends, naw its the first one. Try going to a movie. Everyone loves movies. (Except you, you freak.) And above all, try not to take it too seriously. Be a player, you'll never get hurt. Consider this, most women have one baby at a time. You'd figure this child is pretty important then right? Well to her it is. One kid, one chance. For a guy, it is different. He could have 101 women all pregnant at once. Think about those chances. That's why guys are players, some of them. It might seem like they don't care and I bet most of them don't. And what do you expect? At the young age of 14, 15, 16, maybe even at 18, I'll bet a lot of people are not ready for an actually relationship, some never are. Just know that when you're dating or thinking about your girl/guy, you're both pretty damn silly. Incidentally, if you're gonna be in the Dallas area, gimme a call.
Back to the top.
5/31/00 A Word on Tetris
I believe the apeal of tetris and techno meusic is the simplicity, the false simplicity, which leads to a letting down of one's thought barriers. One tends to concentrate, or rather not to concentrate, on the tetris or the music, or the two at once. Together, one's consciousness can be liberated so that it can perform tasks free of the body like play tetris, or the body can do things free of the consciousness, such as play tetris
Back to the top.
5/19/00 Technology - A whiney rambling
Technology is advanced for military and economic gain. What can possibly be more important than having a better army than the next guy? It's a matter of life and death. And who wouldn't love more money? Of course there is such a thing as humanitarian efforts and philathropy but I'd wager there's more philandering (I love Dr. Seuss) going on. Now there is a lot of consumer pressure driving the high tech markets and computers and associated things are being developed very quickly. Processing power doubling ever 18 months. Prices dropping while the computers ship. I love this but I have something against who they ship them to. I know people who do nothing except use AOL Instant Messenger (40 million people can't be wrong! *sarcasm* I gotta spit to get the tast out of my mouth). 
Ewww. Now then, I know plenty of people who do do things with their computers (Aaron, Scott, Joe, feel free to take a bow) and they need the technology. 800mhz will really help cut down on compile time. These guys know stuff about computers, they're pretty cool and you should help them out (I'll pass along any financial contributions). What bugs me is when the computer illiterate get computers, sure you have to start somewhere but it shouldn't cost $3000 for you to learn. Audio takes power, video takes power, 3D graphics takes power, chatting doesn't. I demand everyone who reads this to compare specs with me, if you dont know yours, I'll make you hunt them down (It's called Control Panel people) and if you have a better computer, we'll trade. You have to justify every thing you have on there or else it's mine. If your computer is slow, I'll take pity on you and you can keep it. I consider my computer slow so sub-350mhz is safe. 400mhz isnt enough to justify shipping but at 600mhz, I'll come and get your computer.
Back to the top.
5/13/00
.I've just watched "Ghost in the Shell" today. It's taken me a couple weeks becasue Blockbuster always seems to have it checked out (ok, so I've only checked twice before today). I, for one, rather, with many, find it a very cool piece of work. The visuals are great, even if the colors aren't as vibrants or clear as more recent productions like Pokemon (shudder) but the story was interesting and the lead character was naked (be honest with yourself, that's always a plus). I want, no, I need to create something like that. When I was younger I suppose I always liked destruction, like fire and the likes, but I also like creating things, like lego buildings. I never melted a G.I. Joe with a magnifying glass or microwaved a fork to see the sparks, not to sound like some great peace-bringer but I was always creative. I have grown out of legos but I still have them, but no space in which to play with them. Perhaps they are a metaphor for my life, then again I'm not in to metaphors really. I have a finger painting, whose meaning is lost to me, again, possibly it's a greater statement of my life as a whole that I can no longer understand the art of my youth. I believe the halcyon days of youth are gone. Speaking of halcyon, "Halcyon & On & On" by Orbital is an awesome song. I'd like to mae a movie like that song. It's dream like and soft at first but very compelling by the end, and overall, extremely beautiful. I honestly don't know if I'll ever get to create something of such greatness/magnitude/impact/coolness or something so enveloping that someone out there finds it and is changed forever. Now, I kinda doubt it. And since that is my only dream, my only purpose (besides reproduction but that's hardwired in anyway), I don't know what I'll do now. My dad says I need a different attitude about school and he's probably right but before I change my attitude and essentially become more ignorant I must say that I will be thouroughly disappointed if I remember this dream on my deathbed and it has not be fufilled
Back to the top.
5/10/00 30:00 minutes
Schools these days are not preparing children to into the job market, they're keeping them out of it. I know full well that in one year's time, productivley spent at Interplay, Westowwood, Squaresoft, Electronic Arts, Nintendo, or any such company, I could be as skilled and productive as most people there. However, in one years time I will have completed many assignments in school, most (99.9%) will be thrown away after the folder check or in, most cases, before. The skills I have (see my other pages) are not taught in school because what is taught must be fitted into a cookie-cutter education for millions in the country, thousands in the district, many in the school, and not for me. I can convey my thoughts, I can survive in the world (probably), I can read write and figure big numbers in my head (Pre-cal in 9th grade, that's two years ahead, three for some). Maybe I can't name all the symbolism and puns (ohh, there are some beautiful ones) in Romeo and Juliet which we are reading in class but given a chance, I would read it, I would seek out other who have read it, and I would be greater because of it. Maybe school has taught me where to put commas (here) but these deatails (the atomic weight of 117 on the periodic table for instance, by the time you read this they will have made it I'm sure) are insignificant compared to skills which many of us have to work productively. But alas, there are those who can work well but they are still stupid. Maybe they will be secreaties, board chairpersons or bums. These are the people who may be well adjusted socially (too well adjusted to social gathering that they wont shut up when there are two or more of them, despite repeted repremands, to be quite) but they are just screwed up somehow else. You won't find these kids or a March of Dimes poster, oh no. They'll be in the year book, most with the graduating class, a few not, and no one will cry for them because to the vast majority of the public (or their peers, I've only delt with the peers) they will be perfectly average people. Sadly they are average. There are people who talk all the time and don't do their work while some people can manage the two (if you examined the quality of either one, you'd see they are not very good). Some people are slacer pariahs and don't seem to perform either task well. Then there are people who can do the school work and who do not socialize constantly. I fall into the latter category, I perform well in school (99.95 average, 23th in the school. Taking math with seniors brought down the average) but I don't talk constantly, actually I am rather quiet. I choose being quiet until something deserves to be said than talking when nothing is said. I have friends, more than I can name (really, I'm bad with names) and I am generally liked by everyone, no kidding. I just dont find the need to talk to people constantly. Maybe I can't think of the right thing to say, or maybe I don't share a lot in common with whatever person I'm situated next to, or maybe they just have a better friend close to them (I bet it's this one). I am at school because I have to be, not because I want an education (I'm taking programming at a community college this summer so I can find some people who know the difference between C and C++, let alone have seen code). I have a dream, a vision, to create an experience. Movie, book, painting, sculpture, art, computer game, a MUD, anything that immerses people, that makes them forget, even if only for a short time, that there is a world out there where stupid people graduate, where school is Juvey Hall with more constrants and where I must waste my time, like dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of others (none better, faster, stronger, smarter, maybe but none better, nor worse) kids whom I bear a passing resemblence to. Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Back to the top.
|
