Ooops! Forgot a parting shot.

- Veracity Out -
"everything went numb from the money and the guns -

- and somewhere in the distance they heard something someone said:
HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?"

MEDIC!!!

It's been quite a while, far too long, really...I think I've mentioned that before, either here or in the Other Book...Either war, I've delved into why briefly somewhere, or at least thought about it in my head. In short, no emotional tension/need to vent=no real need to blog. Unfortunate, really, because I'd like to have all of these records floating around for my own future use. So...status update. I'm not even really sure how much has been logged either here or in the Other Book, so I guess I'll just jump in somewhere.

School's...well, I've vented my feelings on school. I really want to go to Stanford, as I'm sure I've voiced. Again, haven't really visited many other places, but there was definitely a feel to it, a sort of certainty that I would fit in there very well. It's hard to keep confident about that, seeing some of my grades tank and not really being able to do anything about it...It's just ridiculously frustrating...god.

In other news, I cracked Team Fortress 2 and really enjoy it, though I despise the chat features. I realize it can be useful for coordination and what not, but I'm not that serious about the whole thing, and I really don't like having some 30 year old fuck telling me what to do, etc. Funny, the exact opposite of what I usually end up hearing on PA and Kotaku and whatnot. Basically, the lack of voice support isn't an issue at all, and I would almost like playing on Live just to see whether the "brats" that everyone bitches about are really brats or just funny and immature. I polished off Episode 2 and enjoyed that as well.

I guess I don't really know why I'm here (blogging, I mean). I could be studying, but I think that I'm pretty well prepped for the calc test (physics not so much, but that hardly matters any more). I think that the Chem exam went well, but we'll have to wait...actually, he'd better have them graded by tomorrow now that I come to think of it. Dear God, that's going to be nerve wracking, but if I ace it, that boosts my grade significantly.

Basically, I'm very worried about school, I still, STILL haven't been able to clear my head/emotions, but I guess I probably never will be. Annoying, but at least I'm getting used to it. Katherine is fun, though I've been dragging my feet and it's getting very annoying. The fact that I actually listened to a certain little birdy and got burned for it still annoys me, and then the weather didn't cooperate, and then she was busy. So in essence this has gotten dragged out three weeks longer that I would have liked, but I guess I've already proved that holding out a little longer than necessary is better than being a little to quick on the trigger.

Feeling good about calc, I think it's time to go set some people on fire.

Failing/Flailing

Hrm, yeah, so...School's all chipper and whatnot, and the weekend was rather fun. But now I feel like I'm wading through an overwhelming sea of teh Awkwards. Hopefully I can just move past it, 'cause I'd really not like this to turn into a redux of 8th grade...God, but it definitely feels like it already. I hope not. But it still feels like it. Oh well, if nothing else I hope I can be a little more resilient than I was then. But I'm not worrying about that right now; I'm more concerned with getting past what I hope is just a little rough spot. Not even rough, really, just awkward. Or maybe I'm just blowing this all out of proportion.

- Veracity Out -
"and as you close your eyes for the Big Sleep, I hope you'll think of me"

Happy Birthday to Me

So, yeah....It's odd, the first time since about 5th grade that anyone is even aware that it's my birthday, and it seems that just about everyone that I'm even vaguely friends with knew about it. Nice, really, just not something that I'm used to. I'm certain you can blame Facebook for the vast majority of the awareness and thus the spike since last year. I didn't really need Nikki and Pablo assaulting my hair, but that's a small price to pay. The sign that Katherine made made my day, honestly. Dealing with the 19 (a lot for me) birthday-related wallposts was rather daunting, but whatever.

I made off like a bandit - tons of CDs that I will barely be able to get through by the end of the week, thus it will be a while before I can formulate a full opinion of all of them. The Treble Charger one is decent, and I like the Third Eye Blind CD. Beyond that, I haven't even listened to any of the others, but that'll come. I also scored the AoE III expansion, the Orange Box, World in Conflict, and Personna 3. The last one certainly wins that best box award - it was stuffed with an art book, a CD, and a massive manual in addition to the actual game. I was actually planning on playing it a little, but the internet and the plethora of Call of Duty 4 reviews/Facebook washed out any chance of that. I really ought to be going to bed soon...I like this whole being awake during school thing. Personna 3, interestingly, chews up 67 MB of memory...year, MB, as in megabites - ie, nearly 7x as much memory as a single PS2 memory card holds. I suppose PS2s with harddrives are available in Japan, but anyone in the US who doesn't have a PS3 is basically screwed. So, for this game, at least, I feel like the early adoption paid off. I put in a run as the Japanese on AoE III and enjoyed it, but it's going to take a long time to get a feel for any of the three new civs.

Oh, I suppose I need to scrounge up movie times, seeing as how I somehow didn't get turned down today. That was pretty much the cherry on top of an already excellent day.

- Veracity Out -
"my favorite blank spot :p"

Burn That Shit

To put it mildly, I'm rather annoyed with school. The whole concept of the thing in general. I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for a long time - the whole flawed high school education process, getting into college etc. It's just starting to crystallize and I might have to go and pump out an invective essay about it sooner or later, but not now. I'm just pissed, extraordinarily. Hylkema's BS is annoying me, and I'm just getting rather stressed out. Oddly enough, I feel less worried about the AP Chem exam tomorrow than I do about the Physics mid term. I suppose part of this is fueled by the Stanford trip, which has reignited my interest in college, Stanford in particular.

I was very pleasantly surprised by how nice that campus was. To some extent, the location felt...wrong, to me. Or perhaps it was that I felt out of place, but either way it was silly and perhaps fueled by a little too much Red Hot Chili Peppers than anything else. Regardless, the campus was gorgeous and the whole place has really gotten its hooks into me, perhaps enough to get me to apply myself in school, though not nearly as much as my resurgence in determination. Of course, that's been accompanied by panic at the way that (I perceive) my grades have been sliding in all of the classes that I can't really afford to pay attention to. Anyway, Stanford was teh awesomes and it would take a LOT to convince me to go somewhere else over it. I'm certainly still very interested in Duke and Penn, but both require that you apply to a specific college within their system, which I'm not a fan of, considering I have nearly no idea what I want to do/study. Of course, I have yet to visit either of those two, or any other colleges for that matter. Berkeley was nice, but it just didn't quite feel right. Too big and impersonal. Very, very pretty campus though, perhaps even more than Stanford's, though I was very cold at the time and I held that against the place to some extent. I suppose if I were to offer an early guess, I'd go with Stanford, but that's more a gut feeling than anything.

Yesterday was pleasantly surprising - I ended up talking to Libby via the gmail chat function for a rather long time. It was really nice to talk to her again, though now that I'm (somewhat) detached, I'm starting to formulate a less biased opinion of her. Nothing earth shattering, but she has a rather deep streak of school hate and general grumpy feelings. Granted, Katherine is the same way, and between the two of them and my own frustration with school...well, I think the difference is that I don't hate most of the people at Edgewood, I just couldn't care less about their existence one way or another. That goes for a good chunk of the people, and I'm rather friendly with everyone else. So, indifference on my part, coupled with extreme frustration with the system that is fueled perhaps more by pressure and stress than anything else. That's certainly where the flaw in the system lies - there's more pressure involved in getting into a top-flight college than the actual academics involved in the institution. Certainly classes can be expected to be challenging, but the need to break yourself in order to push your grade up that marginal half percent in order to get an A instead of an A- ceases to exist (or it would for me). Right, so as I have been trying to say, over the course of talking with Libby she mentioned that she applied ED to Stanford, mailed in everything a few days ago, and that was basically the hammer blow that solidified a lot of my desire to go there. Not because she is specifically, but simply because it offered me a tangible view of somebody who is probably going to get in, and on the one hand it leads to a carrot dangling in front of my nose, it's also discouraging. And not. She certainly doesn't have the high class rank that I do, but her test scores are sterling. Extra-curriculars are more or less on par, so it gives me hope that I have a shot at getting in. I'm just concerned that I'm getting too strung up on getting into Stanford, and if I don't get in, my reaction could be rather bad. I just don't want to not get in, and then end up being a grouch about it for the next four years of college, wherever I end up going.

I find it interesting that, a year ago or whatever it was when Mater started shoving these college overview books down my throat, I felt intimidated. These kids that were getting in were ridiculously smart as well as well-traveled and had simply done so many things that it was singularly mind-boggling. But now, I'm starting to come to a strange sort of realization - that I'm quickly turning into one of these psychos. I've certainly got the grades, and I feel (right now, though perhaps not really correctly) that I'm coming out of a brutally cut throat institution (which could help with a little freshmen year push at the start of college) whereas somebody like Seth or Libby doesn't really have to deal with that. All of a sudden I've been all over Europe, for Christ's sake I spend my summers learning for fun and I'm a three season athlete in addition to the Wayfarer editor. So perhaps my chances are a little better than I'm afraid they are.

So high school's a hellacious shit hole, what else is new?

- Veracity Out -
"by the way i tried to say i'd be there, waiting for you"

travel note

I've been in California since Thursday, visiting colleges, for the most part. Actually, I've done nothing but visit colleges, and study like crazy for the AP Chem exam that's looming on Wednesday. And prep for the Am Lit essay, and prep the AP Chem lab for Monday. And do the AP Chem quiz. Dear God, it's been a stressful few days. Not much to say, really. Stanford>Berkeley, certainly, but I was more or less expecting that. And now it's time to get not nearly enough sleep and spend a few long plane rides trying to study some more and tie up the last few loose ends that I've left lying about. Quite good fun. I really ought to write more about my impressions of Stanford, but I think I can sum it up quite nicely in that there was nothing about it that I disliked, and I would certainly like to go there, if I got in. I'm interested to see what my reaction to Penn is, though I think that I'm prejudiced enough in its favor that I will find plenty to like about it as well. The only thing that concerns me is that I feel extraordinarily out of place in California - specifically in Palo Alto/Stanford. San Francisco wasn't so bad, and the Berkeley campus itself made me feel much more at home, what with the greenery and such. The school itself didn't do much for me though - if I wanted to go to a bigger university type place, I'd stick to Michigan or Madison.

I suppose I should be steeling myself for Monday/Tuesday, as the girls cross country team will likely castrate me if I don't get moving, but I guess we'll see how that goes.

Funny, I've been staring at a green dot for the past half hour, wondering whether or not I want to do anything, and I've actually resisted the temptation, oddly enough.

- Veracity Out -
"i'll be there for you"

PS - happy 100th post. took a while to get here, and i feel like i ought to do more to commemorate it, but i'm rather tired and i have to get up at around 3:30 in the morning...joy.

teddy bear

As mentioned in the Other Book, Homecoming was fairly fun, though I'm of the opinion that the dance sucked. I feel kinda bad about that, as she seemed rather bored and I sorta feel like it's my fault...Apparently interest in further activities is muted, which I suppose is alright...I'm rather swamped with school and cross country this week and likely next week as well, so until then I'm not singularly interested in dating or whatever.

I have stumbled upon the conception of that certain Someone as a teddy bear, partly as a result of minor references to that person during conversations prior to Homecoming. Why the image has stuck, I cannot say, and why I'm having a damn relapse, I don't know, but both are happening and it's rather annoying, especially considering that I have other things to deal with. Perhaps I need to give it more time, but I don't know that that would help much, given that this Teddy Bear has become my muse of sorts, at least for the LiZ Secondary Edition project, and I'm certainly not going to be finishing that any time soon. I really ought to get around to mapping out the story for it, it nothing else. Ah, I wish I could move on entirely from this, but at the same time my memories are far too fond and precious for me to let go of.

- Veracity Out -
"pull the curtain/begin"

Beyond the Realm of Fairness

For the record, I would like to state that the concept of homework over the weekend is satanic. Honestly, homework in general is distasteful, but I understand the need for it. I would also advocate a longer school year or simply a longer day in exchange for no homework whatsoever. Not only does it run contrary to how work and the real world work, it creates unnecessary stress and whatnot. Certainly essay-worthy fodder, but I'll stash this for later.

Cross Country for the rest of the season is up in the air, but won't be by about 1:40 tomorrow afternoon. We'll see how it goes; honestly, I'd like to keep running at least for this season, but if I don't get an A on the Chem Exam, I don't know that I really have much choice.

The great video game crunch is beginning, just as school is starting to get hairy. I've nearly put BioShock to bed, which will be a great help, but then God of War 2 is still waiting to be finished off, and Shadow of the Colossus hasn't even been started. Throw into that that arrival of Eternal Sonata, and the beast that I dare not name, and it's going to be an interesting string of weekends. Halo 3 has gotten an interesting mix of reviews that seem to divide sharply between nearly perfect and pretty good but not great. Understandable, given the hype, and my personal feeling is that I will likely fall in line with the more "meh" group rather than the Halo 3 praise band. I may buy it, eventually, but I think for now I may sit on my hands. I really don't have the time to invest in multiplayer of any variety, and hence I haven't picked up Warhawk yet. Heavenly Sword still needs to be polished off, but considering that it's supposed to be a rather brief experience, that shouldn't be much of an issue.

I've more or less given up on Ulysses, which is sad, because I really do want to read it, however there are two factors conspiring against the endeavor. One is the total lack of time to do any free reading, which is not a surprise (a side note: I have just realized for horrendous this year will get when we finally start reading novels in Am Lit). Only chewing on 10 pages or so every week makes it very difficult to keep track of what is going on in any story, and this is especially problematic with something as convoluted as Ulysses. Additionally, there is the edition issue. Easton Press books are very nice to look at, but not necessarily the most readable. The French dashes instead of quotation marks are extremely problematic in a book of this nature, never mind simply being annoying in the first place. I may try to get a normal version, but until then, I'll shelve this guy for now.

I'm thinking a vest would look rather nice for Homecoming, so I just need to secure a date...Hmm. Part of the problem, as I mentioned in the Other Book, is that I'm not feeling entirely up to it...At least my options have more or less narrowed themselves down to a single person, but nonetheless...I wish my skies were slightly more cloudy than they are at present. Honestly, I've been feeling rather crappy in general - dissatisfied with school, friends, everything in general. A weekend to completely relax would do me wonders, but that's never going to happen until, well, Thanksgiving, at least.

- Veracity Out -

Sam, focus!

Yeah, I'm supposed to be studying for Euro, have been "studying" for the last...Jesus, hour and a half. And by studying I mean flitting about teh internets and wasting ridiculous amounts of time. Well, I'm probably going to be up late as it is, and all I have to study for is that damn test.

In other news, I'm rather jittery, extremely energetic...Yeah, massive ADD attack, except for that whole I-don't-have-ADD thing. But that's not really that important. I've actually been feeling quite energetic all week - catching up on sleep over the weekend certainly helped. Cross Country has been going well too, and that helps. We did a rather beastly run that involved tortoises and hares, but I honestly enjoyed it - certainly more than any interval run. Which reminds me...we haven't run intervals in something ridiculous like three weeks. God, I love Cooper. Regina can still burn in hell, though.

And of course, Homecoming is only 2 1/2 weeks away, so everyone has to secure their dates RIGHT NOW. Caryn, Nate, Freddy, Maggie, Laura, and Josh don't seem particularly interested in actually going, which could prove very problematic. The bigger problem is who I'm going to ask, which I really ought to do tomorrow. No time to think up some creative, cute way to ask, considering that I haven't even decided who I want to ask...fuck. There's the safe bet that I don't know that I'm totally interested in, though it would be fun, the probably not going to happen one that I really want to pursue, and then the probably safe and fun but potentially problematic for other reasons one...Too many choices; I wish I could just ask somebody. I think Nate encapsulated it rather well, though, "You're only a junior once, go for it". And I probably will, I have a back up, if nothing else. I just...I feel like it could be a really bad idea, or it could be fine, I'm just not really sure. MaryKate's going with a freaking caveman, but at least she talks to him occasionally. Aw, hell, I'll probably go for it, and if that doesn't work out...oh well.

In the meantime, I'll pretend to study while carrying on a long online conversation with Eleana that involves repeatedly sending each other alcohol. Woo!

And holy shit, redox looks scary. I'd rather play with derivatives and find area under a curve (actually, I really do like doing that).

I'm also tempted to email Libby, considering that she appears to be online at present...but perhaps she doesn't want to hear from me, I don't really know. Ah, in my present mood I'll probably send her something if she's still online.

- Veracity Out -
why the fuck not?

Pushing Forward

Just got out of one hell of a week, managed to actually catch up on sleep this weekend in spite of having to get up at 5:30 or something ridiculous like that on Saturday to get to Mt. Horeb on time for the cross country race. The race itself was atrocious, as far as I'm concerned, but both my coaches and I have recognized that it's because I'm trying to run dHat's race rather than my own. I'm aiming for amending that tomorrow and actually being well rested ought to help as well.

Our coaches saw fit to castigate us about certain aspects of the race on Saturday, some of which was merited, and other portions of which were not. Put simply, they were rather heavy handed in dealing out blame, but tended to be moderate across the board in spite of the lack of accuracy. We know what we need to do, though the coaches certainly don't realize that this team simply lacks the requisite talent to perform on a high level.

I actually had a quite nice day today, though I'm not entirely certain why. The grade report was rather good - did moderately well on an AP Chem quiz and exceedingly well on an AP Euro test and DBQ - 48/45 and 25/25 respectively. Beyond that, I think that I just had more energy than I normally do and was in a good mood as a result. The Homecoming push has finally gotten rolling, which I suppose makes sense considering the dance is only three weeks off. So, people will start plotting this week, doing some serious asking next week, and then Homecoming week itself will be rather demure as every waits for the dance itself. Rather odd to think that I'll be able to attend three major dances this year rather than just two. I suppose I've been considering my prospects, though I don't know that I'm going to act on them until late this week or early next week. No need to get too antsy. Well, perhaps. Decker already got screwed, which really sucks considering all of the effort that he put into his plan for asking. I just feel bad that he was finally going to ask someone only to be stymied. I'll have to make certain not to fall into a similar situation, though I think that my confidence is such that I'd be able to ask other people should I run into a brick wall initially, especially if it's just an issue of that person going with someone else rather than blatant rejection.

Interesting fodder for thought. In other news, I've started work on my agonizingly satiric "Gamer's Guide for Dating", which I think is perfectly hilarious if not functionally particularly useful. I suppose if you were a total social shutin and moderately retarded besides, there might be some merit in it, but most of the advice would likely just offend anyone who actually needed to follow it. Doubtless I come off as an ass, but that's why it's something that will just sit on my laptop and never see the light of day, unless I find some expedient way of thrusting it forth into the public sphere.

My parents took pity on my being-crushed-by-school-ness and decided that video games would be a good salve. Now if I had the time to play them...perhaps. I suppose it's a good thing that the first was Heavenly Sword, and the other was Oblivion, which I already have. The fact that, apparently, the Best Buy employee being questioned about suitable game ideas was surprised that I already had BioShock is depressing in the extreme. The game is a out of the park homerun and has a very good chance of running away with GOTY, though Call of Duty 4 will likely give it a run for its money. I refuse to acknowledge the possibility of Halo 3 garnerning the title, though it is certainly a possibility, though honestly I don't think that it will happen. Anyway, Heavenly Sword is delightful visually - on par with Gears, honestly - and the combat is decent. Better than Kingdom Hearts, but perhaps not on quite the same level as God of War. The game just feels very shallow, lacks puzzles of nearly any variety, and some of the cutscenes are genuinely fruity. I believe the evil king fellow offered 100 gold pieces and a bag of Doritos as a reward to his soldiers for killing me. The action-comedy mix worked well in Kill Bill because it didn't make sense at all and yet did, here it's just asinine. I didn't pay for it, though, so it's not that it matters much. I'll certainly pick up Eternal Sonata at some point this week. Whether I succomb and buy Halo 3 remains to be seen; probably not on launch day, considering how many other games I have still waiting on my plate and my relative disinterest in the series.

AP Chem awaits.

- Veracity Out -
"I hope you had the time of your life", really. Moving on is the hardest part, but I'm getting there, day by day. I wish there would be some cloud cover, and yet I don't know that it would help.

Hey, Mrs. Potter, won't you talk to me?

Kinda an interesting day. Had Kaplan for the first time today, and of all the people who should be in the class, Kristina was. Nice to see her, though I think we're both different enough now and not forced into WCATY companionship that we may not really be awesome friends or anything. Oh well, I'm getting used to that feeling a lot this year. WCATY definitely had some retrograde actions.

On a WCATY note, I'm actually feeling much better about the whole thing, especially the...meteorological aspect of it. For some reason, I had this little mental conversation with myself and ended up saying something like "Yeah, she gall durn spoiled me rotten" and for whatever reason, that's been making me feel better. Fingers crossed, but I may be finally getting over this thing. Of course, Eleana had to go and gripe about missing WCATY on Facebook, so that may kick it off again, but for now I'm doing rather well.

I started reading Ulysses last night, and though I've only delved twenty pages or so into it, I like it, and am not feeling particularly overwhelmed, though it'll be interesting to see how much of it I actually get.

Anyway, I have a delicious idea for an essay. Especially because I'm not an authority on the topic whatsoever. That's what makes it fucking hilarious, but so will the quasi-technical diction and rather blunt ways of putting things. "If she wants to go for a walk, your primary goal should be finding a bench or somewhere else cozy to sit down in the dark". "A lull in conversation is either a cue that she's bored and you suck and talking, or she really would like you to stick your tongue as far down her throat as humanly possible. Be warned, making her puke will not go over well and she will likely not want to go out with you again. Or anyone else for that matter - word will get out". Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I present A Geek's Guide to Dating. Specifically for guys, really, but I think it ought to be hilarious if I can muster enough creative ways of phrasing very mundane things like holding her hand and things like that. Should be fucking hilarious.

- Veracity Out -
goodnight

I's rather annoyed at myself.

So basically I was supposed to spend today getting all of the work done that I had for this weekend, but basically all I've achieved is doing most of my chemistry quiz. I still need to prep that lab for Monday, and get working on editing my Joy Luck essay. It's basically done, I just want to work on sentence efficiency and things like that - basically tightening the whole thing up and making it all perfect-like. That and I have to finish reading Death of a Salesman, which I just remembered. Lots of fun stuff to be doing.

Had another mini-relapse, though nowhere near as bad as it was last weekend. The fact that I didn't go and dig out the old WCATY yearbooks certainly helped...I think it was looking at pictures of everyone and realizing that I'm probably never going to see many of those people again in my entire life that was so singularly depressing. It would certainly be nice to hear from some people occasionally, but for the most part I haven't been doing much to keep up with others, either. Oh well. The vigil continues, as I expected it to. I'd really like to get something eventually, but if there needs to be some downtime for a while, I can certainly understand that. What with school starting and all, everyone's probably getting just as busy as I am.

Speaking of which...Calc is going well; rocked the test and whatnot, so as long as homework grades don't weigh to much, I shouldn't have much trouble. Granted, we haven't learned anything new yet, so there could always be some problems from that sector, but I'm not really worried about it. Minor hiccups in Chem, but I think I'll be able to take care of that as long as I'm careful enough when doing lab reports and what not. Just gotta make sure that everything is in order instead of making retarded math mistakes like I did on both the last lab report and the quiz. Am Lit is officially a breeze...the whole writing well thing that she's trying to teach us is essentially what I've known and been doing since, or somewhere about the middle of freshmen year. Granted, I don't always apply it when I ought to, which is part of the reason for going back and cleaning up the Joy Luck essay. Euro seems to be going well; I eviscerated our first Sherman, and the test seemed rather easy, though they're supposed to get a little harder. Physics, is, of course, a joke. Basically, nothing's going to be a bear this year, I've just gotta stay on top of everything and make sure that I don't royally fuck up.

I'm nearly done with the initial layer of my Korlinosk map, but I'm probably going to go back and color code everything, which I think should help reading it considerably, not that anyone other than me is ever going to read it. Nonetheless, it's pretty and therefore I like it.

Wow, how is it already nearly a third the way through September? Shit, that means homecoming is approaching much more quickly than I really anticipated...Speech! Speech! On a Mr. Regina note, we pretty much all skipped practice today and I fully expect heads to roll for it. I was going to run today, but...well, I didn't, what a surprise!

- Veracity Out -
"if you're the Queen of California, then..."

Pretty Fucking Pleased With Myself

Well, I got what I wanted, yep. Good fucking job for me. I wanted a resurgence in post-WCATY mopey-ness, and by hell I managed to stir some up. Sit around, look at old yearbooks, yep, good job retard. Dammit, I hate myself. Especially because I know that it's entirely ridiculous. Yes, WCATY was a blast, but there are plenty of cool people at Edgewood too that provide a similar level of fun. It'd help if I were better friends with Katherine, Sarah, Mary Kate, etc., but really, there's not that much difference between all of the different groups from Edgewood and WCATY as long as you ignore the jocks/preppy kids. Which I can. Of course, there's really only one person from WCATY that I really, truly miss. At least I'm honest enough that it's really the intellectual part of that that I'm longing for rather than all of the extracurriculars. So I'm not a total bastard. It's just...God, I thought I was over this, and then all of a sudden I'm not; by the way, that last sentence was only about 50% true. I...I just wish I could be more realistic about all of this, I wish that I could just let go, but I can't. Of course I'm not going out of my way to make things better for myself, but I can't help it...I thought I had laid this whole thing to rest, but I was quite obviously wrong.

- Veracity Out -
release me

Would You Kindly

Decent race, time was right around where I expected it to be. Felt really good on the first mile and easily ran it in under 6 minutes, but after that I lost a lot of steam, especially going up the opening hill for the second time. A good starting point, I'm satisfied with it. dHat sucked major wang and I sorta wish I'd had enough gas in the tank to catch him and beat him, but he's probably not going to be pulling ahead much by Thursday, so I can just take another stab at the whole beating him thing then.

I spent a good 5 or 6 hours this afternoon playing BioShock. I thought that I was already nearing the end of it, and then all of a sudden there's a boatload of additional things to do. A delicious surprise, really, though I ought to have seen it coming, I just didn't, being so engrossed in the game and whatnot. I'm moderately terrified by the prospect of playing through it again, but it'll be enjoyable. I wish that the two story lines would diverge sooner, but apparently only the ending is any different. If things split when you confront Ryan, then it would truly be a delicious experience, but the twist was delightful nonetheless. Of course I was caught off guard by it, but not entirely. There were enough allusions to Atlas by Ryan and others that I knew there had to be something more to him, I just didn't know exactly what it was. Fun, nonetheless.

Between BioShock and trolling through various Wikipedia articles, I'm feeling rather philosophical, and I think I might spend some time hammering out all of the bases that I want to cover with LiZ ed.2 before I forget all of them. It's turning into a depressingly large project, but I suppose that's to be expected. I still have no idea when I'm going to get around to writing it, but it could be a long time. The Warzone Project is officially dead, by the way. Not enough juice, nor planning, something that I'll have to keep in mind for LiZ.

I'm rather disappointed with myself. I'm slipping back into my Edgewood shell much more rapidly than I thought I would, but I guess that just hammers home the point: either you adapt, or you don't have any friends, and I'm a little too outgoing to be contented with the latter situation. Basically, I desperately need to finish that WCATY-Edgewood essay now before every last shred of my mopey emo-ness wears off. But it's not like I'm back to sophomore year entirely. My preppy tolerance has gone down, or at least I think it has. My dating standards have certainly risen, but that's really not a good thing for me. Very bad, actually; I might have to do something about that.

I have quite a bit of work that I need to do over the next two days, but I'll live. First I must finish BioShock, crank out those LiZ thoughts, and perhaps even play some Halo. For some reason I have a hankering to go back and revisit it, for whatever reason. I don't know why, but I'm terrified that I might actually end up buying Halo 3 after all.

- Veracity Out -
"hey, mrs. potter, won't you talk to me?"

Verona Tomorrow

First CC race of the season tomorrow. I really ought to be stretching and icing tonight, but I'm not going to. Not interested. Whatever happens, happens, and I think that the Reginator has a surprisingly chill view of the whole thing. As long as I'm under 20 I'm happy, under 19:30 would be excellent. Lower than that...I doubt it.

Mostly uneventful day. I'm getting concerned that all of my classes are just going to slip through my fingers. I've got a lock on Am Lit H now, and I don't think that Euro will be that bad, but we haven't had the first major round of tests yet. Chem feels good so far, but I'm waiting to get our quiz and lab back before I pass judgment on the class. AP Calc is what concerns me...sort of. I can't really figure out what I need to do to get decent grades on homework, but at the same time I don't know what a decent grade level is in the first place. Hylkema doesn't have anything about it on his website, though he did make allusions to the fact that percentages are going to be slightly lower than they would normally. I doubt that it's on the level of Chem, but I'd like to see what it's really like as well as find out what I need to do to get a good grade on my homework. The group project/test today was very easy, and I feel pretty good about the test that we took yesterday - I certainly know the concepts, it's just a question of whether I handled the actual math well enough. The last Latin quiz was atrocious, but I think I'll be able to get a handle on things as long as I don't mess up too much between now and when I relearn all of the grammar that we were supposed to have learned last year but didn't. So it's really not all that bad when I look at it like that, but I still can't help shaking the feeling that I'm losing my grip on my grades, and at the same time becoming emotionally shallow and derelict and whatnot. Not gonna dwell on that last point a lot, but I feel like I ought to be more...I don't know...upset about past events, and I'm not. It's not that I'm over them, I've just got a really cool attitude toward them and it kinda worries me.

In other news, the WCATY-Edgewood essay is progressing nicely, though it takes me three and a half pages to get to my main point and I still really haven't driven into it that much. Part of it is just that there really isn't a whole lot that I feel like I need to say about it; I don't want to labor the point - I'm going to come off as a huge ass anyway, no need to exacerbate that.

So now time for sleep and then running...Ugh.

- Veracity Out -
running on empty

A Preferably Brief Commentary

Ran sissy intervals today, but we did them relay format which caused some real competition and thus real exhaustion. Though I think that had something to do with 30 minutes of weightlifting 8th mod and an hour of ultimate after school and before practice started. I'd really like to play, but I'm not sure how well it'll mesh with my other activities, especially this fall. Still bought a frisbee with "Edgewood Platypi" written on it. For five bucks, it was definitely worth it.

Made further progress on my rambling WCATY-Edgewood essay in World Religion...ah, what a wonderful class. Corey and I figured out what's going on with our Joy Luck project, and I think it's going to turn out very nicely. We actually spent more time talking about lacrosse than the actual project, which is fine with me. He's actually a cool guy, and much like Devin, if you can get him away from his usual group of friends, he's much more intellectual than he seems.

Interest is starting to take off on the whole lake trip thing, so hopefully the weather/lake level will cooperate.

AP Calc test tomorrow...I don't think it's going to be that bad, after having looked at the tests from the last few years. Nothing diabolical, and the concepts themselves are manageable.

So I'm tired but not overworked (thank God), and feeling decent, not mopey, but not better than indifferent. Which is alright. It's cozy.

- Veracity Out -
"...but she don't flow to me."

U-235 + neutron = ur town is SO pwnd!

Such was the conclusion of an hour and thirty-five minutes of AP Chem. Amazing what we get done in that class. Still, it's more than we managed to achieve in Euro, Calc and Physics all put together. Apparently the Hessian is nuts to an extent that I never imagined - if you want to know how a neutron is turned into a proton, you'd best bring your lunch, perhaps even a sleeping bag and a tape recorder. Delightful, especially 'cause Pantano was just like "Yeah, it just happens...I don't really know how, and I don't care. Go ask Hessler..." Fun stuff, most certainly.

Rather odd how school has been nowhere near as difficult this year as it was last year. Of course the largest part of that is the lack of 60+ pages of reading every night coupled with a monstrous quiz on the material the next day. There's a little of that in Euro, but not much (certainly not in terms of number of pages), and the quizzes aren't that bad, or frequent, for that matter. So the workload is lighter, but we've yet to enter the first wave of quizzes and tests (coming up around the end of this week and the start of next), so that's going to be the first major hurdle. Physics has been more or less written off, I won't be able to say for certain until I get my first Am Lit Hnrs paper back, and Chem, Calc, and Euro are going to be defined by the difficulty of the tests, but I can handle that. Cram for a few days before each exam, it's something that I can handle. The take-home quiz for Chem is easy (so far, though I've only done the first page, front and back). Supposedly all of the questions are from AP tests, but I get the feeling that they're the easy, warm-up problems that clutter the first page and keep you busy before you get into the real meat of the test and the true blood-letting begins.

Practice today was miserable in large part because of the heat, but tomorrow will doubtless be considerably worse unless there is a dramatic drop in temperature. I'm not sure how the race on Saturday will go, but given that my relative speed on the time trial yesterday was a minute faster than it was last year, I'm hoping to shoot for the 19:30 barrier. I'll see how it goes.

On a more personal note, I'm feeling rather conflicted. On the one hand, I've been suffering some major WCATY withdrawal, and the fact that nobody else is in school yet is making things worse. But the big thing is that I'm stuck in something of a middle ground. I'm not over it entirely, yet, but I've achieved a sort of numb, detached (I'm tempted to say indifferent, but that's not the right way of putting it - I certainly still care, I'm just not feeling anything, no sensation) state, very much like the passive, patient, waiting points that I hit earlier this summer. It's not the same, but the feeling (or lack thereof) is similar. The difference, of course, was the perception of hope, the knowledge that I hadn't been stymied yet, I was just being confronted by silence. Now I know how things stand, with no questions or doubts, and it sucks, but I've managed to detach myself from it. It's odd, because I feel like I should either feel more, be more wrapped up in this, or else be over it and ready to move on. But for now I'm stuck in No Man's Land, and it's a rather awkward position. It's fine, so far, and I think a nudge of any variety would get me moving elsewhere, but the thing is, I'm not really in any hurry to get anywhere, so I don't know that I even need to do much about it yet. Later, perhaps, but for now, I'm stuck in a comfortable rut, and I think I'll just remain here for a while.

I've decided that the worst part of this whole thing is that I got addicted to intellectual companionship. That was the core of the whole thing, what I really enjoyed as much as all of the additional things put together. I'd like to try and maintain that, somehow, because I got the taste for talking with someone who was easily as smart, if not even more intelligent, than me, and now I'm more or less hooked, and I don't have much of a supply either. That's the real problem. Even if there were people like that outside of my grade (there certainly aren't within it), I don't know that it would really be the same in a school environment where you're noticeably more segregated by age than we were at WCATY (despite being split up by block and whatnot, the distinctions between age never really took as much as they do at Edgewood). So it's frustrating, and I might even be willing to make further pilgrimages for the sake of that, either that or descend into the terrifying realm of Warcraft/Guildwars. It would be worth it, as far as I'm presently concerned. Even though Warhawk, Blue Dragon, BioShock, God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, Heavenly Sword, and Rainbow Six still need my attention. That's already a laundry list of games, and the holiday season hasn't even hit yet. Dear God, somebody save me.

So anyway, it's been clear skies, but I'm not expecting that to change until this weekend at the very least. If there isn't some cloud cover by then, I'll probably send a little message wishing luck at school, but I'll hold my silence beyond that for a while. If breathing space is needed, then I'll keep quiet for a few months.

- Veracity Out -
"How does it work?" "Black magic and voodoo, bitch!"

school, i hope you die. in a fire. slowly.

So tired....Got most of my work done; everything, actually, and then some. With the exception of Calc, which I actually was supposed to do for tomorrow. Doesn't really matter, considering he doesn't collect it until Friday. I'll do it, eventually. But I seriously got up at 8, started working, and didn't quite working until 6. Then it was BioShock binge time. Plowed through a lot more of the game, and I'm on the last zone. Weird, cause it feels kinda short. Relative to something like the singleplayer for Gears, it's long enough, time wise, and in terms of the amount of places there are to move around and do things, but the world still feels smaller than it ought to, there isn't quite as much to do as you'd think, other than messing around with the gazillions of different plasmids. But really, there's so much more infrastructure in Rapture (or there should be), I wish I could go run around the engine rooms of the place, things like that - prowl through abandoned apartment blocks and stuff. It'd be both creepy and add a lot of space. I guess I feel like it should have all of the open space of an RPG, rather than the more shooter-like confines that it does have. I just wish there were some non-story related areas where you could run around and do things, the sorta stuff that I didn't really care about in Final Fantasy, et al., but here, with the combat far more entertaining (though still not spectacular), I want more to do. I guess I'm not done, yet, but still...Of course I'm going to have to play through it again on Hard so that I really have to mess around with the way you fight Big Daddies and whatnot, but it's just kinda feeling a little shallow right now. but again, I'm not done yet and there may still be a bunch to do. Great game overall, though.

Anyway, I was going to start working on an essay about WCATY and school and the differences between them, but I'm rather tired and I think I'll just go to bed instead.

After I make a brief Other Book entry, that is.

- Veracity Out -
the pillar of davidson

The Irony is Deliciously Crushing

So I fucked up, what a surprise. It's not even that I messed up really, there was just a communication breakdown. Whatever, it was still fun...Just not the way I wanted things to turn out. I understand, certainly, but our respective situations are different, and I guess I felt compelled to give it a try. I'll blame the Reginator for that - instilling a "Why the hell not?" attitude in me about everything. It's not really a bad thing, most of the time, just not this time, necessarily. I feel bad more about the fact that it must have been terribly awkward, but I guess I just haven't had time to dwell on other things. I'm a little concerned about my social future, now, but that can't really be helped. Back to the bunker, more or less...I don't know that I ever expected or wanted to get a whole lot more out of Edgewood, but it also makes me realize that a college with less than 2,000 people would be oppressively small, in all likelihood. Last year I kinda adjusted to the size, but I'm feeling it rather noticeably now. There was certainly some retrograding as a result of WCATY. Yeah, so I'm stewing...This really isn't content for this space, so it's off to the Other Book.

Oh, NB: this school year will be miserable in the death-by-at-thousand-cuts sort of way as opposed to being squashed under one miserable class. I don't know which I prefer, but they both suck.

So a bleak outlook for school...fuck, I need to cheer myself up somehow.

feeling quite contrite,
Veracity

w00t!

Great success. Very nice. So yeah, I got around to it and everything panned out very nicely. Actually ended up having a long conversation about colleges/parental expectations, crap like that. Quite delightful, and the most delicious part is that now the parentals are backed into a corner. Ah, the irony is so sweet - bear in mind, mater originally asked if I was going to follow through on this whole thing, and I himmed and hawed and didn't really do much of anything, and once I start making noises about wanting to go visit, she started getting a little worried but hoped that I would never have the organizational skills to get anything put together. And now there's a date and she's stuck and pissed and I'm reveling in it. Just as much as that 30 minutes conversation about colleges, though that was quite fun just on its own.

So there's the daily report for you - all goods, yezzir.

- Veracity Out -
50DKP MINUS!!!

Bioshock/Procrastinating

So the Gamespot review of Bioshock was not as glowing as others. They encountered a little bug that was annoying, but their main beef seemed to be with the gameplay. That's part of the problem that I have with their decision to eschew catergorical numbers that feed into the collective score - in the old days they would have slapped this thing with tens for all categories except gameplay, and it would've been a high 9 in aggregate, but now they can be much more subjective about the process. They certainly didn't need to give it a 10, but I feel like 9 was a little low. Part of it is just that they're obviously a staff of hardcore shooter fans, and Bioshock doesn't fit that bill, but it really shouldn't be expected to, though it certainly will. So, Gamespot is really just reflective of the gamer market - Bioshock is a great game, but its commercial success may be somewhat muted by the fact that the Halo whores may not be that interested in it. If nothing else, it'll end up being extremely important, if not succesful.

So, yeah, I was gonna call her - should call her...but I'm dragging my feet.

First day of school, in other news. Didn't do anything, and I'm kinda curious to see which classes are going to end up being hard and which ones will be easy. Physics is gonna be a breeze, as will Latin 3 and World Religions, but beyond that...I'll have to see how it goes. Mertens didn't really appreciate my work on our summer project. It wasn't bad, but I was shooting for higher than a B+...oh well. I was afraid calc was gonna be hard, but we'll see how it goes - the homework tonight was actually quite easy. I think Chem will be the best, most thorough of the APs, cause Pantano is hellbent on making it so, and Euro may actually end up being one of the hardest ones, or not. Rothering is threatening daily quizzes and promising that they're not that easy, but I'll believe it when I see it. They're all multiple choice, and as long as he's not an asshole about the wording like Reginator, it shouldn't be that bad.

We basically led an open rebellion in CC today, appointing various new captains and whatnot. Quite delightful, though it did go a little too far when someone threw a nut @ el capitan. Oh well, he's a whiny bitch, so I'm not particularly concerned. I have to say, I really enjoy the fact that we are doing different workouts every day - I think we can credit that to Cooper, and the infusion of fresh ideas into the program is definitely going to help us, I think.

So, 30 minutes or longer after my original self-imposed deadline...Well, now or never (or tomorrow)...

- Veracity Out -
for some reason I think "definitely" should be spelled "definately", don't know why, but I always do - I think it's a more phonetic, sensible way, but that's just me

Dammit

School. Somebody please shoot me.

Normally I'd try and write something profound and reflective here, something that I could look back on when the year's over and either laugh at myself or nod here and there respectfully, but I think I'll avoid that. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all of the things that I really care about aren't connected with school in anyway at this point. It's weird how I really enjoyed WCATY the first time through, just as much the second time, but this year I look back on the whole thing much more fondly, even though the first year was pretty much better in every way, except for the one thing. But that's kinda big. Like huge, actually. Still...This year I wish I could substitute WCATY people for the entire EHS population with a few exceptions, last year, not so much. Weird, but that's just how I'm feeling right now.

Spent the whole day watching movies - Crank was funny, though it wasn't really supposed to be; Hot Fuzz was good, and then I watched Hero while playing Chrono Trigger. Mmm, delicious.

The vigil continues.

- Veracity Out -

a brief note...

I will very likely explode when I finally get some new mail...

BIOSHOCK!!!

- Veracity Out -

BIOSHOCK!!!

Patience is Virtuous

I guess I'm more or less alright with saying that I'm back to that neutral state that I hit a while back. I'm sure I mentioned something like that yesterday, but reinforcing it doesn't particularly hurt. Not to say that I wouldn't like to jump forward into that ecstatic phase if things go the way that I want them to, but I have at least convinced myself to stop worrying about it. Now, a negative reply would create some issues that would take a while to get over - so it's not so much a matter of being over it as simply being able to be patient and see how things turn out. I've made friends with silence and sky-blue. A good place to be, for now, I suppose.

Finished that damnable AP Calc packet after spending most of the day working on it. What was frustrating about the whole thing was that it was essentially based on all of the concepts that we had learned in Pre-Calc, but taken to another level of difficulty that wasn't appropriate for a summer review assignment. There were one or two concepts that were completely new, but for the most part I felt like I knew what the problems were based on, I just wasn't entirely certain how to proceed from where I was. So that's the last of the homework pile except finishing that final paragraph for Joy Luck. Should be a nice, relaxed day tomorrow, though I believe I may end up getting screwed into volunteering at the hospital. Won't that be just a delightful way to spend the end of my summer.

I've been more or less addicted to Underclass Hero and The Bottle & Fresh Horses over the last few days - though I do like the latter more as it avoids the blatant politics of the former and at the same time has a rambling, Southwest flavor that I enjoy, oddly enough. Certainly nothing that will engender a liking of country, but this...flavor (a good word for what I am trying to quantify, I find) appeals to me, not as a genre but merely a layer on top of the general rock that adds a certain something to the music as a whole.

Bioshock...I don't really know what to say, other than I wish it weren't coming out the day after school starts. Jesus, my grades are going to be hobbled right off of the bat with that thing devouring my time. In all honesty, I doubt that will happen, I just will end up drooling over the box while not actually having any time to play. That is going to suck royally. It's bad enough people already got copies early, the fact that I might have to wait even longer to really get into it is agonizing. Depending on what happens next weekend, I may have even less time to play, but in that situation, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Played a good bit of Chrono Trigger tonight, and I still really enjoy it. It's also not turning out to be horrendously long, which I really appreciate. I might even be able to finish it tomorrow, depending on how much time I end up sinking into it.

Rented several movies today. Jackass Number Two, Hot Fuzz, and Crank. Watched Jackass and really enjoyed it, though I think I enjoyed the first one slightly more given its greater focus on painful stunts and less on guys with their pants off. I'll watch the other two tomorrow, and probably Hero, the Last Samurai, and possibly V for Vendetta. My movie binge for the end of the summer. I'm looking forward to it. Oh, perhaps House of Flying Daggers as well, though I'd have to track down the tape, wherever it got to. Wow, I really want to watch Hero now...

So, a truncated version of my planned rant for yesterday about school. The TIME article was about how schools fail to meet the needs of exceptionally intelligent students (I enjoyed the reassurance that there are plenty of people out there who are significantly smarter than me, now if only I could convince other people of that...). Essentially their conclusion was that schools ought to let students skip grades when they needed to, but that doesn't really address the root issue for many of these students. It's not that they already know what's being taught in their grade, it's simply a matter of learning it much faster. It's not that the system needs to allow them more movement, it's that the system is fundamentally flawed in its very pacing, but rectifying that is difficult. An honors track of any variety would have made the last two years significantly less painful, but that would have broken with Edgewood's desperate attempts to homogenize and socialize every incoming student. It's an understandable goal for a school in its position where students come from a large number of feeder schools and cliquishness is a problem even as things are now. Nonetheless, serving the educational needs of the students trumps trying to integrate all of them socially; the social issue is easier to ignore at a larger school where there would be enough accelerated students that they would form their own subsociety within the greater one of the school. Now the issue with the honors program is that Mommy and Daddy's Little Billy is just as bright as everyone else, and why can't he be in the special classes? He's just as smart as those other kids who have been reading Shakespeare as long as Billy's been able to dress himself. Well, Little Billy's a stupid shit, but Mommy and Daddy certainly aren't going to admit that if they even realize it in the first place. Apparently that was more or less the situation in Fort ten years ago and the end result was that the Honors track was lowered so that it was essentially a regular track while "regular" classes became remedial ones for the truly stupid kids. So the parents need to be kept in line, but something needs to be done to accelerate the pacing for the students who need it. Use standardized entrance tests for the honors track and weed out the students who don't keep their grades up high enough. At a smaller school like Edgewood, it would be more difficult to implement as the honors kids would already be somewhat set aside from the general population, and being in different classes would exacerbate that, but in a larger public high school where you have at least 2000 students in aggregate, there's no reason that something like that would not work - put all of the truly gifted students in an honors track, at least for the classes where they excelled. Doing so would create a fairly tight-knit group of intelligent students who would, granted, by somewhat ostracized from the rest of the school population, but in a school that large, there would be enough students in the honors track that it really wouldn't make much difference.

Well, that ended up being longer than intended. I was going to fire off a few emails about the iFlag group, but I think I'll save that and others for tomorrow during my movie binge. I'll certainly be calling on Monday if I haven't received anything by way of reply before that point.

BIOSHOCK!!! BIOSHOCK!!! BIOSHOCK!!! BIOSHOCK!!! BIOSHOCK!!!

- Veracity Out -
"Why would you put that in a lollipop?"

argh

Stymied once again. Ah well. It's actually getting rather late, and though I had intentions of musing on the American education system and its inherent flaws, I think I'll save that for later. Inspired, of course, by the TIME cover article for this week, but I have a slightly different take on the whole thing, more a view on society in general. I think Frank Herbert saw something in society and translated it into the Bene Gesserit distinction between humans and animals (though both are homo sapiens).

Um, so yeah...I'm over it, though there's not really anything to be over yet, and I may not actually need to be.

Anyway...

- Veracity Out -

to the very best at all of the worst times

Yeah, I don't really know what that's supposed to mean, but I've been rather grouchy today because of a certain color that is permeating a certain area, and I've covered all of this ground before so I'm not sure how much I'll say. Honestly, even in The Other Book, saying the same thing over and over again is both difficult and not particularly cathartic. It would really help to talk to someone, or something like that. It would be even better to get a little color change, of course, but that's not really going to happen for another two days. Holding out and holding on. Oi, this sucks. I just hope this thing isn't going to turn into the monstrosity that that other thing was. Just this week, I hope. Saturday can't come soon enough.

I wonder if Saturday has any relation to Saturn? (ed: it is)

Watched American Pie 2 today. Funny, and yet it still has that tenuous thread or morality and stuff amidst its antipode. Odd how that crops up, but it seems to be a rather common thing in those type of movies, at least by the time you get to the end.

Spent the whole day (sorta) working on my paragraphs for Am Lit, and I'm almost done though I don't know if I'll entirely finish. I certainly have time to, but my motivation has died and my mood has headed south rather sharply. I'll probably put it off for tomorrow, which will in turn roll back the calc stuff...shit. I really hate that I have to spend the end of my summer doing all of this shit, but at the same time I certainly wasn't going to just chip away at it for an entire month. What happened to this month anyway? Jesus. Oh, right, it's only halfway done and the whole run to the Twin Cities chewed up time, plus there's this week, and hey, that's pretty much the whole month. It'd really be nice to have a day or two to completely unwind and not think about school or anything like that, and I guess it'd help if I got those fucking paragraphs done, but I don't know that I have the spirit or writing quality to work on it now. Most of the rest of them are of questionable quality as it begins, and being pissed off and tired as I am...I might just go to bed early instead of wasting 40 minutes staring at my computer. I'm not feeling a Chrono Trigger session.

CC is getting easy already, which is really nice. Of course that's going to change once races start, but the fact that the practices have already hit about the hardest they're going to and I can handle it is rather nice. Had a decent, civilized conversation with Hatley, though I still want to shave off his fagtacious goatee.

Wow, I'm a lot more angry than I thought I was...kinda worrying, really, but I guess I've got this all bottled up in me right now and don't have much of a method of releasing it. CC certainly isn't an escape valve - the whole point of that is to numb yourself to all of the physical pain and just let your mind rove where it will. So...Gears? No, not quite what I'm going for. It's not a brutal, violent angry, just more frustrated than anything else. Oh noes! This isn't supposed to start until a month or two into school. Well, I've had assurances that mod 2 will be the best class of my life, but I'm just kinda listless and uninterested at hearing that. I'm gonna be real pissed if this whole thing blows up and I end up being shoehorned into the anti-social slot again this year. Fuck, this could be a big, HUGE problem...but again, I don't know there's anything I can do about it. I'm pretty much at the beck and call of my emotions right now, and they're saying that I'm not going to be getting friendly with anyone right away. God, this sucks.

I'm just worried that I'll be rather bland when school starts and more or less shoot myself in the foot socially. Funny, cause I spent the whole second half of last year trying to amend my social standing, and even at WCATY I was rather determined not to regress, even though I was kinda under pressure (actually, no, I perceived that I was under pressure) to do so. And now I've gone and done it all on my own. Damn it, I don't want to be Mr. Grouchy-I-hate-you-all this year, but I very well could be. Shit, I need to get an answer on this thing definitively pretty soon. Yet, I can't bring myself to be blunt about it. Alright, fingers crossed for Saturday.

I was chastising myself earlier for being so hopeful for a color change, telling myself that it's really nothing to get all excited about, but thinking about it again, now, that's completely asinine, cold, mechanical. Wait, so did the two halves flip flop? A little, perhaps, but they're still in their original positions too. Ooh, this is getting all confusticating and fun. Except I'm still grouchy. But seriously, a little white streak would jack my mood meter up about 354256426456 notches, assuming the composition of that cloud were positive. If not...well, at least I could start moving on from here. God, I wish there were just some easy way to firm up the situation. But, of course, that would be too easy, and then there'd be no fun/agony in it.

Umm, yeah, kinda lost my train of thought there...Good point for a reboot.

Materbus has been a royal bitch about the whole Lady Jane movie thing, but I guess I'm not helping with my whole grouchy "I don't give a flying fuck" attitude toward it. I'm really quite willing to write off however many points get tacked on that, but I don't know that it'll be that many. It's just annoying that we have to watch a bad movie that is over 20 years old and can't be found at either the library or the video store, or purchased anywhere. It's not that I haven't tried, it's just that this is so ridiculously obscure that it's not worth the time. I guess it is worrying that I'm already willing to start sacrificing points in a class before it's actually started...could be a bad sign of things to come, but this is gonna be a tough year. It'd be so much easier if I had some competition, but as it is, leading a race is hard as hell, especially in the motivation department.

So there, I've pretty much drained myself for the day, much like that lovely spider bite video. Jesus, that was possibly the most nauseating thing I've ever seen, and yet I've watched it like 4 or 5 times.

I might fire off my own cloud streak, or maybe not. I'll have to ponder it; either way, it's too late for more work on Joy Luck.

- Veracity Out -
"but she don't flow to me..."

5 days

Oi, we did intervals today. I remember the days when we didn't start intervals until the second or third week of practices...Honestly it wasn't that bad, really - we did two 1/4 mile sprints, then three 800 meter runs, and then the two 1/4 again. Did a lot better than I was expecting to, and I own dHat's ass on the last two sprints, but he's a slow sprinter, so that's not really that much of an accomplishment.

Started working on my paragraphs for Am Lit hnrs, but I didn't even get done with the first chunk cause I had to leave for CC early to drop off me hermana and I had a dermatologist appointment in the morning that chewed up a lot of time. Didn't help that I spent the whole evening playing Chrono Trigger - finally got done with that annoying future level. I liked it, though - the level layout is quite good and despite how little dialog and whatnot there is, you get a good feel for what the world is like, appropriately dystopic and whatnot. I'm leaning in Action Button's direction - it may well be the best JRPG ever. FF12 would be close, if it weren't for the fact that the story is absolute detritous and the combat gets a little sleepy except with the harder bosses.

So, the vigil continues with little in the way of results. Of course that is understandable, but it is grating nonetheless. I think I'm starting to numb to it, so the cycle is closing in on a repeat of itself. Kinda easy to see where this is going, which should be good. Of course there is a point of divergence - go up or down, went up last time, if it's down this time, then I guess I'll live, I'd just rather not go there in the first place. So, in two or three days we ought to see how this all turns out, though I was considering alternate modes of communication today, but because of my procrastination and mater not being home early enough, I didn't try. It was rather late too, but unless information was bad, I needed to wait until it was late anyway...Yeah, basically I just procrastinated. So it really ought to be tomorrow at the latest, but I need to broach the issue with the parentals in the first place - basically it's probably going to be the secondary date instead of the close one. Kinda sucks, but it provides some breathing room.

I'm getting all tripped up in my own thoughts here so I'm just going to stop for now.

- Veracity Out -

NB - will rant about the path of social divergence tomorrow, though I get the feeling that once school starts, the issue will be decided for me.

high maintenance

other shit that be freaky

was gonna say something else, but i forgot

never let go

all hail that...i don't have the heart for that right now...

it's raining, and i'd really rather not go to cc practice cuz that'd just be miserable

i think 3eb is really just making things worse at this point, but i guess i feel like stewing in my feelings right now, so there's nothing for it but to mope. and of course moping is ridiculous, or so the rational part of my brain tells me. busy, busy, a legitimate reason...but it still doesn't help, doesn't assuage the patent distress at that endless sea of sky blue. i really ought to be utilizing the other book for this sort of rumination, but...ah well.

i hope you take a piece of me with you

what really concerns me is the possibility that there may be no resolution of this before school starts. if the connection persists, i can cling to that and get through the year feeling like i'm on the outside of things at school, and i would be, really - for better or worse. probably worse. no, definitely worse, but if there's even the vaguest possibility i would never be able to pass on it, not now. funny how i thought it was over this and then all of a sudden it's got a deathgrip on me that can't be broken. and if it's bound to fray and just fade away...that's gonna suck, quite a lot. i'll get over it, eventually, certainly, but the beginning of this year is going to be rough.

but what really amuses me is that initially it was the irrational part of me that was being hopeful while the rational part was chastising, finger wagging, no you can't have that, stop being stupid. now it's the irrational part that's reading into nothingness and getting strange ideas out of it, feelings of bereavement where there was nothing there in the first place. and now it's up to the rational part of me to assure the other half that no, there's really no cause for concern at this point, actually, i ought to be rather chipper about everything except the start of school, that there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about (...yet, is the awful, persistent addition of the irrational half). it's sky blue, nothing more, there is no significance in it, and yet there is, there is such a screaming emptiness there that it is impossible to overlook the myriad possibilities that blossom and self-immolate into a singular, inevitable conclusion that leaves you standing in front of a door with the certainty that this is going one way or another, with no middle ground, no hope in waiting because the waiting is agony that rends you into a thousand disparate hopes and realities fading into emptiness while the world stands still. the silence is scathing, but the answer may be worse.

- Veracity Out -
catharsis indeed

hmm

CC got a lot better - Luke and Jeff showed up, as well as a kid in the grade below me who ran rather well for the first 2 1/2 miles or something like that before he died. So it doesn't seem like it's going to be a total loss this year, but I'm still not loving the whole idea.

I'm really getting into Chrono Trigger - the combat is nice, and it's possible how it evolved into something like FF12. I really like the pacing, though - it moves along quickly and doesn't have the grinding feel that a lot of the FF games have.

Finished all of my Euro write-ups, though I still have to watch some retarded movie or something like that. And then there's Am Lit (tomorrow), and AP Calc (the next 4 days...Jesus). Party.

And now I'm feeling kinda bummed. Silence. Scathing. I'm quite sure I've used that line before, but it's still as true as it was then. I'd be kinda interested to see how long ago it was that I wrote that; feels like forever, but I'm sure it's not nearly that long. Hell, it's probably been like a week or something ridiculously short like that. Nonetheless, despite our best efforts, troop morale is failing, Sergeant. Something must be done to address this.

- Veracity Out -
"the sky was gold..." actually it was night, but never mind that...

sigh...

OMGizzle - 3 post in a day, nay in a few hours? Ridiculous, especially cuz that last one doesn't really count much (read: at all)

Mmm, yes, feeling in a sighing mood. Busy, I'm sure. I might have to try alternate means of contact.

So anyway, oblique references aside, I started playing Chrono Trigger. Not sure about it yet, but it's not knee-deep in a bunch of hardcore fantasy shit yet, so I'm still sticking with it. The impetus for it, of course, was poking around on Action Button again. Funny, the site never seemed to merit being bookmarked, but I still stop back there every now and then and spend inordinate amounts of time reading ridiculously long "reviews". I say that with quotes 'cause they're really not reviews, so much as rants somewhat loosely affiliated with a game that the "reviewer" might have played at some point recently, or not. It's a tenuous connection in many places. A lot of it is excessive crap, but I never visit there because I actually want to know whether or not to get/play a game. That's for more mainstream sources. No, Action Button serves more as a thoughtful look at games, especially those of the Japanese variety. The review on Chrono Trigger was glowing, and I certainly like how there isn't a jarring shift from the world to the combat zone - so props for that. That said, the very things that purportedly make this the best JRPG ever may end up making me hate it. Tim Rogers may despise FF7, but I love it...to an extent. The same goes for X, but with even greater reservations. The combat is vaguely interesting in 7, not so much in the latter. X is hurt even further (this really was my biggest problem with the game) by the totally linear nature of it. Absolutely no open spaces, compared to 12's ridiculous amounts of roaming room (which made it feel much more real). I like the story of 7 quite a bit, poorly translated as it may be. Now, I am led to understand that it isn't singularly original, but that's fine with me, really. The assault on the Shin-Ra headquarters will forever be one of the greatest, most powerful dungeons that I've ever played through. All of the weird music and pixelated blood was honestly disturbing and set a great tone for the level. And shortly after that...they get out of the city and the story's cohesion falls apart until the end game. Granted, some of that is needed in terms of getting you to new places and opening up sidequests and whatnot, but I really have to wonder what would have happened if the whole story played out in Midgar. I'm going to be keeping that in mind for LiZ 2nd Edition (or whatever I end up calling this big, ugly mess). Funny how my interest in the whole love story thing is fading, and it's all because my inbox is devoid of white stripes. Ah, my moods are ever mutable and fickle. No fear, 3EB will fix that nicely.

So, on to the focus of my thinking over the last hour or so. Somebody needs to murder every person associated with JRPGs - fans, producers, everyone. Might as well loose lions on the entire freaking country for what I'm proposing. The problem is that, twenty years ago, the SNES couldn't handle anything other than incredibly simplistic, turn-based combat. The games were superb, and that bred a large fanbase that hasn't been able to get it through it's collective skull that there isn't a reason for turn-based combat any more. The 360 and the PS3 are more than capable of something other than hideous, boring number crunching. That said, TB is just interesting enough to keep players from ripping their eyes out and drowning in their own inner agony, but when you compare it to any reasonable shooter, the quality of the gameplay just dies. As pointed out on Action Button, the combat in Gears is exactly the same throughout the entire game, with only slight variations in terms of weaponry. You are doing the exact thing for 10-15 hours, it is extremely simple (in concept at least), and it never gets boring, never becomes a grind. TB combat, on the other hand, loses it's charm before you ever start playing the game. I'm not saying we need something as watered down and fruity as Kingdom Hearts, and I have high hopes for FF13 and all of that rapid command entering nonsense. I'm also interested to see what happens with Eternal Sonata - the combat looks like it might just give this realm a shot in the arm. On the other hand, I'm not advocating something like the fighting in Odin Sphere, which is only marginally better than, say FFX. It is just as simplistic, but the level design makes this so much more obvious than in Gears of War. No, perhaps a much more fleshed out system, a grown up version of what is going on in Kingdom Hearts, where you are inputing specific attacks in order to make your character pull off all of his/her ridiculous attacks. Whatever it ends up being, it must be something that can finally replace turn-based combat. Nobody stuck to the little tree-shape tiles because that was a core aspect of the genre, and there is no reason to do the same with poor gameplay. Now the cliche fantasy elements are another rant entirely.

Glad I've got this to take my mind off of other things. It's not that I think that things are heading downhill or anything, it's just that even the most fleeting contact every now and then is...reassuring, not in the sense that it allays any fears (there aren't any), it just engenders warm, fuzzy feelings, which I find I like. Sigh...
It'll be interesting to see how this all pans out. I really hope it works, I honestly do, but...Again, we'll see.

- Veracity Out -
"wait and see"

The village church yard is filled with bones weeping in the grave,
The silver lining of clouds shines on people Jesus couldn't save,
You want to know how deeply my soul goes, Deeper than bones, deeper than bones

6 mile

Oi, 6 miles today. What a bitch. I actually did rather well, considering I never ran more than 3 during the summer. Stayed with Hately for the majority of it and only dropped back when he took off on the last 4 or 5 blocks. Felt terrible, though, probably should have drunk more water before I went running, but that's alright. Abs were super easy, though, but that's a small consolation prize.

Parents actually started being cooperative, sorta. So I guess we'll see if any of those are viable. Spent most of the rest of the day working on AP Chem work; almost done with the packet. Not much else to report, but I'll probably add more later.

- Veracity Out -

uber sappage

Busy day. Got a bunch of school supplyish things, which no longer has the same sort of excitement factor that it did way back in the day. Probably because buying a ton of notebooks, pens, and nothing else isn't really that interesting. Oh well. Let's see...not a whole lot else, volunteered, which didn't really suck that much, it was just really boring. And then had dinner with grandma - also boring.

I should have run today, considering that cross country practice starts tomorrow...oh well. Last year, I felt bad when I didn't run over the summer, not the same thing this year, not even close. So, this year could be bad, but that's just the thing, as far as CC goes - I just don't care. I've got other things to worry about.

So, cue sappiness -

Ummmm....yeah. Basically, I'm just feeling all sentimental about WCATY. Probably considering school's about to start and whatnot. Not just a particular facet of it (though that is a large, large part of it), but the whole thing just kind of shines now. I'm a little worried that I'm gonna sorta bummed going through the whole school year now, but I think that Calc and Chem are gonna be so much fun (at least in terms of who's in the class) that that shouldn't really matter all that much. Still, with school approaching and whatnot...I'm just spending a lot of time mooning over WCATY in general. Ah, fun times, even if the class sucked balls. Funny thing is, if I could take Arabic in college, I probably would. Still, the majority of it really is that one thing. Ah, well...

Mater is funny. First she's supportive, until she figures out that I might actually be serious. Then she's just like "Well, are you sure you really want to...?" Funny. I guess I may be the only party still interested, I hope not, but it wouldn't really surprise me if it were. Oh noes! Doubt is creeping back, mixed with boundless hope and exuberance, granted, but nonetheless, it's starting to naggle at the back of my head. I guess I just need to pin down a date, and after that it's just a question of finding out if an appropriate level of ambiguity has been reached.

I really should work on a lot of the summer work that I've got lined up, but I might just play Gears (just have to kill RAAM to win), or maybe brainstorm some more stuff for LiZ.

Oh, on the note of LiZ, I've decided that in the primacy it's going to be a straight up love story between Peter and Leah, of course there's going to be other stuff going on, but that's beside the point, really. Yes, that's a hint.

- Veracity Out -
"but I wanted a Ferrari cake!"

back from civilization

So we're back from the Twin Cities. Sad couple days, but at the same time it was nice to see Uncle Tim & Billy as well as Massagara (SP?). Anyway, we're back. Got a lot of reading and stuff done while we were there, and I'm over halfway done with Joy Luck (thank God, though it's not as bad as I thought it would be).

Had a little blip of spontaneity that didn't quite pan out so well, but whatever. I'm still hopeful the whole thing will turn out well eventually, it's just a question of getting my parents to let me start driving more than fifteen minutes away from home witohut needing to be in almost constant cellphone contact. So that might take a little work, actually, a lot of work, but whatever.

I also think it's hilarious that Pantano likes Billy's music. Small world, I guess.

- Veracity Out -
"did subject, like, totally love you, man?"

silence is scathing

Not so much, really. I'm just bored, so I have this ADD need to be social, even with people I wouldn't necessarily communicate with much. It doesn't really bother me so much as it is just a little vexing, but I think I've gotten past a lot of the initial round of doubts and whatnot that probably won't resurface until the pilgrimage. Wow, this is funny how roundabout and oblique a lot of this discussion is, yet, if anyone were to actually read this with some semblance of an idea of what I'm talking about, I could be in trouble. I might need to reign my musings in a little; I do have The Other Book for a reason, I suppose. So anyway, I kinda like chatting with people that I normally wouldn't be friends with, just as a sort of good experience thing. I still wish Edgewood was composed entirely of my friends from there as well as all WCATY people.

Got a good bit of writing done today, actually. Nothing tonight, but I can blame the internet for that. Seriously, I need to seclude myself in the basement where I don't get WiFi access if I ever want to get much done. I'll have to keep that in mind where homework is concerned next year. So, the story isn't dead yet, just on the verge of collapse. I'm gonna rework where the group travels to make things more varied and interesting. The problem is I'm about to dive into the big moral part of the story, and I've hardly thought about that until now. Hmm, possibly problematic...

So we're going to the Twin Cities tomorrow and the day after. After that, we're going to be at the cabin, which ought to be fun. And I've gotta go on hajj somewhere between then and the start of school. Hmm, I guess I'll have to do some nudging and arm twisting of the parentals.

Not much else to report today.

- Veracity Out -

PS - I lied, the whole commenting issue on Kotaku last night kinda ate at me. So I was a little off topic, but it wasn't the flagrantly out of line, fanboyish thing that the Zune fanboys seemed to think it was. Ah well, I atoned with some insightful, levelheaded comments tonight.

Fanboys suck.

she storms and he wonders

Mmm, interesting day. Seriously spent hours trying to fight through the last scenario in Act 3 of Gears, and eventually got through it. Taking down the very last Guard was ridiculously nerve wracking, considering I got shot in the face with a shotgun and barely survived, then missed him with no less than 7 torque bow bolts before I finally blew him up. Then the next set-piece was nearly as bad, and I kept thinking "Okay, these were just two tough scenarios, it gets easy after this"...and it hasn't. This last act is gonna be a bitch, but I guess that's to be expected; it had to pick up sooner or later.

I actually got some writing done, but I'm getting the feeling that unless I start to mix up what's going on in the story, it's going to get extremely repetitive and boring. I just wish I hadn't crafted this big, complex journey for them to go on, cuz not that much really happens for a lot of it. I might actually go back and edit some major bits so that there's more interaction with the natives - that ought to make it considerably more interesting, I hope. I guess I'll keep working until school starts, but after that...As usual, we'll see how it goes.

Didn't really do all that much today, now that I think about it. Wasted a lot of time, and...yeah, party.

Wow, that's actually really depressing - how I manage to waste vast amounts of time getting nothing done. Kinda pisses me off. Scratch that, it really pisses me off.

- Veracity Out -
i don't wanna wake up, no

woo latin!

m/o
s
t
mus
tis
nt

Very jolly fucking lovely day. The response was good, and I imagine that the definition of "hanging out" is sufficiently loose. I certainly did my best to make it come off that way. So basically it's an issue of parental consent. They certainly aren't going to be letting me drive there by myself, but hopefully they won't put up a total brick wall. I guess we'll see how it goes. Mater might actually be sympathetic, or not, we'll see.

Again, failed to write. Started playing SoC, loved it. Finished the Diamond Age, the plot sucked, big surprise. Got some good wakeboarding and tubing in. Woo, fun day. Now how's that for terse?

- Veracity Out -

[SHIFT] + [i]

Holy crap, that was an ordeal. Kinda helped that I started out with something general and then got around to what I was meaning to get at. Funny thing was, despite hesitating for a good 5 minutes before jumping into the last couple lines and then analyzing them repeatedly after I was done, the actual writing was easy, casual, and I think it came off alright. The best part was that, while I was writing at least, I had this feeling that everything was going my way. For the first time I kinda had hope that maybe I wasn't being completely retarded or out of line. Granted, that feeling has since faded, and I guess we'll see how it goes from here, but I'm still clutching at that small, slippery tendril of hope. I'm just ready to let go if I need to. So basically I'm at peace with this whole thing now, I think. I guess we'll just see how it goes.

Tried writing and completely failed. I kinda wanna do a little short story ditty, no more than a few pages, just to get myself in the mood. Might actually try that before I go to sleep tonight.

Busy day. Ran a race in the morning. There were six people in it total, and only one guy could hang with me, and that was just for the first mile. The race sucked, it was really hilly, and the whole thing was one pavement, which just beat the hell out of my feet. But I won and got a sweatshirt out of it. Even better were a pair of sunglasses, which I later found out were both very nice and very expensive, so I got $100 out of the deal - very nice considering I wasn't trying to make any money and the state of my finances as the holiday game wave approaches.

Made even more money mowing the lawn and doing other stuff, chores, mostly. Busy day. Even did some AP Calc stuff - extremely easy. I even got some volunteering hours in at the hospital, which sucked, but I've gotta get 'em done if I wanna be in NHS next year, so I really don't have any choice.

Played a bunch of Gears, too - finished the tail end of Act 2 and got through all of Act 3 except for the very last fight. That one's always been hard for me, whether I go with the slow torque bow sniping run, or jump in with shotties and the lancer. I've gotten so close only to get my face bashed in by one of the last guards twice now. Very frustrating, but I stopped so that I could write, and then that never happened.

Well, I got that big load off of my plate now, which is nice. I'll see how it goes from there.

- Veracity Out -
"well I guess it all depends...on your garments"

aw, hell

Dammit, I just figured out what the orange status dot thing means, I think. Damn it, damn it, damn it. And now a wonderful opportunity for me to drag my feet once more, and read into tiny intricacies and details that likely mean nothing but add to my growing sense of insufficiency barreling toward an overwhelming, general self-loathing. Woo, fun shit.

In other news, I read a ton of The Diamond Age, and now have only about 100 pages left in it. Also watched Romeo+Juliet, well, part of it anyway. I don't know that I've ever watched the whole thing from start to finish, though I guess I could catch the last hour if I wanted to. Always love watching just little bits of it. The fusion of the hilarious visual style with the equally hilarious dialog is just delicious.

Went to the cabin for a little while today, and also got very close to the end of the second act in Gears. Still haven't touched Shadow of the Colossus yet.

Mater molestus est. Big time, holy hell.

Ran a little bit, but I'm worried about how the race is going to turn out tomorrow. I guess we'll see. I just don't want to get up early for it.

Can't really bring myself to write much, which is frustrating, as is the realization that I really ought to start working on that big, huge pile of summer work that's looming overhead. God, this sucks.

So, yeah, I think I fucked up big time. Well, maybe just missed an opportunity.

- Veracity Out -
prick love for pricking...lol

i'm so close to just firing it off...but it is 12:20, I can barely keep my eyes open, so, yeah...I think it'll just be a relief to get this off my chest and move on from there.

hat in hand

Did a boatload of acquiring of articles of clothing materials today. Mostly shirts, but I grabbed a pair of pants as well as some dress shirts and ties, a book bag/satchel, and a jacket and tweed hat that were exorbitantly expensive. Good thing I didn't really notice until after I had bought them...wait a minute, that's not how it's supposed to...Damn it. Whatever, the hat is amazing, as is the jacket though it's far to hot to be traipsing around in a fleece-lined thing, what with it being 95+ and all the last few days. It actually rained today, but it was so hot that most of the precipitation evaporated immediately, producing copious amounts of steam. Quite lovely, especially when you're trying to drive through it. Just peachy.

Additionally, I bought the new Sum 41 CD which I really enjoy. They seem to have succeeded in their pop punk/metal fusion in all of the places where Does This Look Infected failed. So Long Goodbye really resonates with me, more than any other songs that I've tried to assuage certain feelings with lately. The whole album is delightful, really, even the fruity little French ditty. I think there were references to pants, but that's just based on a sketchy understanding of Spanish and no French whatsoever.

While I was at Best Buy I also picked up Shadow of the Colossus when I saw that they were basically giving it away for a paltry $20. Haven't started playing it yet; I think I may like to get further in Gears and God of War before I start in on yet another game. We'll see. The third item of purchase at the remarkable store of superior commodities of an electronic nature was 300 on Blu-Ray. Just watched it, actually, and it was delightful. Seeing the whole thing in uber-HiDef was toe-wriggling delicious.

So that concludes my shopping exploits. Did I mention I procured the most amazing hat ever? Indeed I did, but the point bears repetition.

I really ought to get working on the Warzone Project again, or it really might never get done. Time's awasting, dear God, only 3 weeks of liberty left. I've been cooking up some lovely ideas for LiZ, though - mostly to do with city layout and whatnot. The biggest change is that the characters aren't going to be running around together all of the time. They'll cross paths, especially Kami and Zal, but otherwise, they'll just run into each other, making weaving the different stories together both more interesting and difficult. But that's off in the future.

I was thinking of having a rambling outpouring of thoughts on the divide between the individual's feelings and those that society/culture preprograms onto that individual. Sort of a head vs. heart thing, but at the same time, it's neither and yet both. Very ephemeral and whatnot, but I don't know that I really have the mental will to go diving into that pool at this point.

Funny, I think I've nearly given up the ghost, really feel like it, and now all of a sudden I feel like inquiring, whether out of curiosity or genuine desire, or something else...I don't know. I might just do it, though. I guess...Well, there really isn't much to lose, but I guess there is the problem of success. And therein lies another problem - that I would have a problem with getting what I alternately think I want and think I don't care about any more. Well, I suppose I'll just have to brew on this for a little longer. Since I've gotten my fingers all warmed up, I might just take a stab at writing something, while I'm sitting here hoping my sister and her compatriots don't descend on me like a plague of ravenous savages (read: teenage girls).

- Veracity Out -
you can see a million miles tonight, but you can't get very far

i'm done...i think

so...yeah. about that.

in other news, we ended up losing in the "championship" game, but whatever. added some more scrapes, bruises, et al. to the collection, got crosschecked in the throat...yeah, party. not much else. some people who may or may not be affiliated with the regular team may potentially have done something incredibly stupid and gotten kicked out. yeah, geniuses.

So...slow day, basically. I don't know if I'm feeling a writing session, so it might be time to get back into Gears and see how much more of it I can get through.

- Veracity Out -
but...what if I wanna be a mailman when I grow up?