Of course dinner is about to start.

Harumph. I feel bad for all those sorry bastards in Green Bay, sitting in the cold, freezing, watching the Packers lose. At least I had the opportunity to change the channel. Not that I was interested in the first place. In case you didn't know, my interest in football is strictly limited to USC playing when there is snow on the ground outside. Mostly because I watch the players huddling under fans and misters and get very jealous.

So I was going to write about something else...but I forgot about it while eating dinner. I did make dickerdoodles. And was almost disowned. Oh well.

...

I'm not even really sure why I'm here, trying to write about this in a quasi-public place. In fact, I don't know that I will. I just...It still feels rather surreal, that something like this could actually happen. You hear about how awful the economy is doing, but it comes off as just words on paper until something like this happens, and then even indirectly, you start to realize the scope of what's going on. This isn't the time or the occasion to muse about politics, but...yeah. If nothing, I'm suddenly much more thankful for my family than I've been in a long time--and I'm not passing judgment or anything like that, merely commenting that I'm, at least for now, trying not to take what I'm so fortunate to have for granted. I hope I never forget that, if nothing else.

Pests

Somebody has been tampering with my Wayfarer posters and I'm about ready to squish them, should I find out who they are. All of the emo-related posters vanished a few days after I put them up, so I printed more and stuck about 12 up on the same wall in the basement hallway. That was yesterday; by this morning they are all gone except for the writing contest guidelines. Somebody doesn't like them, apparently, because there were plenty of other posters on the same wall, all of which have remained, so it's not the janitors taking them down. Unless somebody in the administration is not a fan and ordering them to be taken down. Which could be happening. Either that or some angsty freshmen motherfucker is fighting a guerilla war against me. I'll put up more, later. Preferably a very large number right before the writing contest deadline next Wednesday. I'll have to do it all on Monday, I suppose, as I don't have any free mods on Tuesday. I may switch to black and white printing just to get them out fasters, but there will be a flood of these. Watch out.

About Putting Down Games

The best measure of a videogame is how you feel when you're done with it.

I finished Dead Space today, and though I'm glad that I don't need the tension/stress that it injected into my life, I'm quite sad that I'm done with the thing. I wish there were more, and I would replay it if I had time. I'll even continue to overlook the somewhat ambiguous ending. The very last bit of it, at least, fit perfectly with what the game is all about. Never mind the room that it leaves for a sequel.

I felt the same way about The World Ends With You--I didn't want it to be over.

With books I tend to feel satisfied and somewhat drained at the same time when I finish them, and I do get the same sort of feeling from very long RPGs, Final Fantasy VII in particular, but I'll ascribe that more to length and the time investment than anything else. But with games it's different; they're so delicious that I'm sad to leave the really good ones. Alas.

I should go try to beat Minesweeper on expert, see what that does for me emotionally.

About Mr. Laurence Perrine

Mr. Perrine would contend that there are certain absolutes to poetry, and while that may be true, his search for a standard by which to grade his students has proven detrimental to the breadth of his interpretation of poems. Take Dickinson's four line poem about ships and flowers and sunsets (perhaps). Mr. Perrine is correct in so far as the sunset interpretation is better than saying Dickinson is writing about a meadow. But the meadow interpretation dails only with a limited imagination--or, again, one stunted by the needs for absolute answers in a teaching environment. The meadow interpretation is not incorrect, but merely less complete than that of the sunset, and the only way to make a definite conclusion about what Dickinson is writing about rests on the inclusion by her editors of the title "Sunset" and other circumstantial evidence in other poems that she has written--evidence that exists outside of the body of the specific poem in question and which, therefore, should have no bearing whatsoever on the poem's interpreation; I agree wholeheartedly in Mr. Dods in his call to seal off the work under examination (whether we should be examining poetry in the first place is another matter entirely) from all unrelated information. So while one may argue that the poem itself is flawed if clarity is the standard by which one chooses to judge it, one cannot fairly say that the meadow interpretation is categorically false. To interpret the poem as being about Martians would be beyond the bounds of possibility as laid out by the poem, and therefore such an interpretation is ridiculous. Thus I do not entirely disagree with Mr. Perrine on the matter of poetic interpretation, but differ by degree in terminology and the setting of bounds within which to examine the poem. Now, regarding Melville's The Night March...Mr. Perrine' interpretation of the army as stars, set in order by an absent God is perfectly vaild, but what is incorrect in viewing the soldiers as merely soldiers whose commander is dead but who fight on for the same cause anyway? Their archaic arms do not disqualify them from actually being soldiers; Melville has just as much right to write about medieval soldiers as he does about earthworms or as I do about goings on at a bazaar in Morrocco (where I have never been). To throw out this interpretation is close-minded and unimaginitive in the extreme. Indeed, whether one believes that the soldiers are soldiers or the soldiers are stars, it is quite easy to approach the question of the presence or absence of God from either angle, which only speaks to Melville's skill as a poet. To allow (at least) two equally valid and clear paths of interpretation to lead to the same conclusion is impressive and stands as a strong argument for Melville's purpose in writing the poem.
- - -
Now for something somewhat different...
Poetry, as has often been asserted, is about conveying an experience to the reader, and I do not agree with that, though I do believe that poetry can be much more than that. But to adhere merely to the realm of the conveyance of experience, I would like to delve a little deeper into the manner in which that experience is conveyed. Say I write a poem about being a bat, and forget all about tone and theme and meaning; maybe I like being a bat, maybe I don't, it's not important for what we're doing here. What is important is that I am not a bat, I cannot become a bat, nor will I ever be able to converse with a bat to find out what being a bat is like. Therefore, when I write a poem about being a bat, I am putting human feelings, senses, and whatnot onto the framework of what it is to be a bat. A bat, should it be able to understand English/the inner workings of the human mind (and not any human mind, but mine specifically), would not be able to make sense of what I have written because I made it all up. I came as close as I possibly could to being a bat in my imagination and then transformed that experience into a poem. But it was only imagination, and words can only partially capture experience, even fabricated, anyway. So the poem isn't about being a bat, it's about pretending to be a bat. It isn't a record of experience, but a very close (if I am succesful as a poet and have a good imagination and grasp of bat physiology) representation of the experience of being a bat. Poetry is not true experience, but the representation of experience, converted not just into human terms, but into the specific poet's terms. A skilled poet draws closer and closer to the truth of the experience (if there even is such a thing), and here I feel math allegories are relevant: think of limits to infinity. Never truly obtainable, but if your approximation is accurate enough, you can perform complex calculations and send probes whizzing past Pluto. Humans may have more in common than bats do, which facilitates some level of empathy between one another, but no human is exactly like another, and thus the lense through which we view the world is inherently different than everyone elses, thus interpretations of poems and songs and movies will vary, as do religious creeds and understandings of science and mathematics. But then the question arises--if poetry is a form (albeit a glorified, intensified form) of communication, then is all communication merely a close approximation of some greater or more true truth? Perhaps. To believe so would be very platonic, but I'm not particularly interested in pinning down whether such a thing as absolute truth exists or not. To be honest, I think it's pointless--an unproveable point, and one better decided on an individual basis. Perhaps I will rant about this later, but not at present.
Anyway, digressions aside, poetry, I'd like to think, strives to be an ever-more-perfect representation of experience (among other things), but should not be confused with things as they actually are. Indeed, it is critical to understand the distinction for any proper interpretation of poetry (should you want to descend into such a nasty past time); it is only with the acceptance of the fact that poetry is not real but rather true that we can begin to pick greater meaning out of the core experience. Poetry can, thus, never be about absolutes, or absolute interpretations, though I find myself dangerously close to making absolute pronouncements. Oh noes.
I may pick this up later and continue, we shall see.

About Reunions

I wasn't extremely enthused about going to the reunion at Eleana's house; I was definitely more interested in sitting on my butt and playing Sins of a Solar Empire, but I went, and after the initially awkward I-don't-know-most-of-you-people bit it was fun. Apples to Apples is a wonderful icebreaker, though I do suck at it. Apparently handcuffs can't be as sensual as friction. Boo. Anyway, it was fun, and I'm glad that I went, and to some extent I'm sad that I didn't go to WCATY this summer, but I think I'm feeling more nostalgic about that because it's been so long since I actually was at WCATY, whereas Terra was still relatively recent. Nonetheless, there's something to be said for WCATY; mostly that WCATY was serious nerd camp, whereas EPGY (at least in Terra) people were intelligent, but not nerds in the traditional sense. Everyone was far, far to outgoing to really be a "nerd", properly speaking--not to say that's a bad thing. It's not even that surprising that all of the writers were the most sociable of everyone, and given how little contact we had with all of the other houses, I can't speak for the overall nerdiness of EPGY. I'm not really sure where I'm going with this post...
I guess what I'm trying to hit at is that when I think about the dorm at St. Norbert, I really, really miss it, in all of its shitty/scuzziness. Terra, not so much. I sorta feel bad, because we had so muc fun, and I think the more removed I am from it, the more I will remember it fondly, but still. That deep-seated ache isn't there. And it's not there for the first year that I was at WCATY either. I think that there was just something special, for me, about that second year, and I can't really say what it is, but I keep thinking about the courtyard and missing it pretty badly.

Hmm...

I'd write something intelligent here, if I were feeling intelligent, but alas, I am not.

I think I spent most of my effort and intellectual points on revising Videotape today when I perhaps should have been paying attention during AP Bio. Oh well. I'm at the point where I'm fighting with myself over specific word choice, which I figure is pretty good for a story; if it were poetry, we'd be in another area, but we're not, so this is good. The last big thing I've got to deal with is shifting verb tense. I don't want to go entirely present-tense with this, but all past seems a bit dull too. I slip into present naturally in a few areas, and then drop out of it again, so I'll have to zoom back a bit and assess the whole thing to see where I want to go with that. Good lord, the writing contest deadline is getting quite close.

Amusing Commentary

This is why I really enjoy Achewood. it really is unfortunate that I never take the time needed to catch up with the comic--a task that grows increasingly more daunting given its fucking ridiculous update pace--or even try to keep pace with it. Oh well. I'm also rather annoyed that somebody pulled down my Latin notecard, which I put this on. I might need to make another one of those and some point. I suppose we've got more important things to be worrying about at present. I hope Ms. Blinson is doing well.

Philosophizing, Part 1

[Cave: I like Camus and Fight Club too much for this to really count as original thought, but rather a re-examining of the sciences through glasses that others have constructed. I'd shudder to call it philosophy, but rather musing. And none of this is concrete belief, either, but merely the following of logic trains to their inevitable conclusion. The acceptance of that logic is another matter entirely.]
The fundamental reason that I don't like biology, especially cellular-tissue level biology is that i reduces human action to a mechanical string of reactions that fools itself into thinking that it is self-aware and self-determining. A cute trick, certainly, but a little disheartening. You kiss someone and think that you love them, but it's nothing more than a (theoretically) predictable and certainly uncontrollable string of chemical reactions in your brain that ramifies and feeds back to the other person. It even makes individiuality a moot point, since we trigger all of these back and forth reactions. What are our bodies and senses of individuality but arbitrary divisions, pieces of the greater biomass that think we're special just because we can't see how interwoven we are with everything else. It you have such a big impact on me, and I on you, but neither of s has much real control over "ourselves" or "each other", then why even make that separation? I have no control over the chemical reactions that compose me (more on that at a later date), but my reactions greatly affect yours and vis versa. Indeed, I could be said to have more control over you than you have over yourself, and vis versa, again. Unless you reject science wholesale, there can be no true, meaningful individuality. Not that that's a bad thing. Though it does make all of the nasty things we humans do to one another all the more grim.

From a biological perspective, the end goal of life is to beget more life. That's a sort-of purpose, and some hope can be derived from that. Humans can reconcile themselves to an endgame of that variety. Chemistry, on the other hand, seems much more pessimistic (or something like that). The chemist sees the universe without pourpose, but merely a trend toward ever-greater entrpy. Everything that we make and do will eventually be nothing but lonely atoms and ions drifting through space, increasingly more spread out and isolated in the infinite expanse of the universe. Even life, then, is merely a slowing of entropic growth, and the whole institution must eventually expire. Now you could go a step lower to the realm of physics and argue that maybe other universes tend toward order, but that's little comfort for us. You could also throw out the whole thing and go live in Alabama, but personally I'd miss hockey too much for that. So what then? Well, not much. You can take that half-step and accept the quantum mechanist's hope that the increasing disorder of our universe is vital to the maintenance of theoretical order in another theoretical universe that may or may not (theoretically) contain life. Or you can simply give up hope, embrace that hopelessness as liberation and exult in your present existence, stop worrying about a future that doesn't exist and which you cannot reach.

At some later point: free will.

A Manifesto of Some Variety

Twenty minutes ago I walked through airport security with chapstick in my pocket. Last I checked, that constituted a gl and an immediate threat to national security that could only be resolved with the 3-1-1 plastic bag policy. More worrying, the guy ahead of me was stopped and had his bag searched because he had a GameBoy in it; nobody noticed the lighter he had tossed on top of his coat as it rolled down the x-ray conveyor belt. I suppose the illusion of safety is nice, but when we can’t even maintain that illusion, something is wrong with the system. Or is there?
Almost every aspect of air travel is absurd. My iPod will in no way ever endanger the operation of the plane, emergency exit procedures are more or less a joke. That airlines keep up the pretense that flying as an isolated act of enjoyment is hilarious. But it’s not air travel, not as a singular system; the absurdity is endemic. Why on earth is TV littered with ads that I don’t process, let alone acknowledge the existence of? More worryingly, why do enough people pay attention to ads to make them worthwhile? Why do we as a country spend more money fighting terrorism when far, far more people die in traffic accidents every year? The whole world is utterly absurd, illogical (and who would’ve thought my favorite subject would be an attempt to systematize the fundamental chaos of the universe? Yeah, I love chem. And if you want more ammo for te absurdity argument--well, there you go).
Okay, so we’ve established that nothing really makes sense, but why? Surely we could regulate and modulate every aspect of human reality. Take love, for example; so messy and awkward, so many false starts, ruined reputations, hurt feelings--all for the sake of making babies. Come on, we could build factories to do that. Of course there’s more to love than that--but that’s all gravy from an efficiency/evolutionary standpoint. Dead weight, really. Absurdity, if you will. But it’s more fun that way. Why be grumpy about what is intrinsic to your very existence? No, I prefer to just chuckle quietly at the absurdity o this nonsensical construct we call society and reality. I pretend that I take airport security as seriously as the guy operating the x-ray machine so vigilantly while he also reads Candide. On the inside, I’m amused, but I play along and pretend not to see anything. And occasionally, I’m rewarded and run into someone with a similar outlook. As we strapped ourselves in and got ready to take off (as I began this essay, in fact), our flight attendent announces: “In the unlikely even that we land in the Arctic Ocean instead of Omaha, your seat cushion may be used as a floatation device. After you have paddled to shore, you may keep them, compliments of Midwest Express, the best care in the air.” Or something like that.

Standing on the Edge

There's a pervasive, skin-wriggling awareness that it's Election Day, that something monumental, something completely expected and anticipated is going to come to fruition today. I'm not speaking entirely for myself, though I am entirely swept up in it. Indeed, before today, I was just glad that this two year long circus will finally come to an end, and yet I can see that this trial--of the media, the candidates, and the American Public--has been vital in grinding down the possibilities to the very best available options. It is unfortunate, really, that something like this didn't happen four years ago (not that it would have made much of a difference economically speaking--that die was cast by one Ronald Reagan and his compatriots). In any case, there is now the expectation that this is not an election, but a coronation, that what was meant to be for so long has finally come to pass and we are merely going through the motions. Though there is still anticipation, anxious worry that some disaster may occur, and God forbid it should; there would be riots, perhaps--certainly something far greater than the outcry after 2000. I would almost be concerned, if I really felt that there were any possibility that some disaster may occur. But my usual blitheness has kicked in, and now I am merely enjoying the moments as we move closer to kicking out one circus animal and blocking the path of another pack of them before they do any considerable damage.

More Frustrated Than Anything

Well, I was going to be writing about writing and some of my thoughts on the process, as influenced recently by reading Neal Stephenson's Anathem, but I've more pressing things to vent about, and will have to return to my thoughts on writing theory at some later point.

The gist of my story is as follows: I talked to Pantano, and he has my letter of recommendation completed, but has yet to submit it and was unsure as to whether I wanted a copy to mail, or if he should submit it electronically. So I was a little miffed that he had forgotten that we decided to send it electronically, but the vast majority of the fault is mine. Just how I thought I could get away with not telling him my exact due date is beyond me, but I suppose that when he told me he would have it done by last Wednesday, I assumed that he would send it. Bad assumption. I've been making far, far too many of those lately, especially with such a complicated and important process as this. This is all coming off as rather dry, but I really am quite upset with myself. At first, I somewhat feebly tried to defend myself, and the fact that Mother Dearest went on the full offensive only made me more prickly, and for a while I managed to convince myself that if the recommendation were a few days late, it would not be a big deal. But after poking around the Stanford site, I'm absolutely terrified that something awful will happen. That I won't be in the Early Action consideration pool, that I won't get my application bumped to the Regular Decision pool. Something. God damn it, I've been working on this for three and a half years, and to see it jeopardized by one (admittedly large) screw-up on my part seems unfair. Of course it's unfair--it's happening to me and by default must be unfair, in my mind. In short, I'm very frustrated with myself, and this has more or less ruined my entire night. Joy. I would try to write some, but I ought to call Jane shortly. Maybe after that. We'll see. I'm sure she'll find some way to cheer me up, being fantastic and all, but this is going to be hanging over my head for a long time.

Far Too Many Conversations, Ideas, Et Cetera

A new story idea (perhaps short, but easily expanded to something longer):

We have a Fellow, who shall fill the lead role of our experience; think something along the lines of Edward Norton in Fight Club, a office rat, rather dissatisfied with his existence despite having attended a good college, having done well, and having then secured a quite good job with Blank Corporation X. Nonetheless, he is unenthusiastic about his existence, his relationships with others deteriorate rapidly as he begins plumbing the depths of archaic video games and the internet in search of some sort of ancillary reality that has more meaning than the one that he inhabits. Our Fellow's side quest starts to chew up more and more time and we watch as he loses touch with his friends, girlfriend, family, in exchange for a more perfect, digital world with new, more perfect digital friends. Eventually, Our Fellow moves into a run down shack in some unpleasant corner of town and slowly integrates himself more fully into his digital existence that comes to be far more important than the real world.

From there the ending is murky, perhaps he goes all in and constructs some sort of device that permanently locks him into digitality, or perhaps something draws him back to the real world, some binary friends draws him into a chemical, physical reality. Either way, the message is essentially the same--there is no real worth in our world at present, and perhaps the digital escape that we create is no better, either way, meaning is instilled by humanity, and what we as individuals deem worthy of our time is then what is worthy of our time, end of story.

Perhaps something for the Stanford docket, or it'll just have to sit and gestate for a few more years.

Red Raincoats and Rifles

Hrm...rather aggravated mater today, because I don't see the need in memorizing precisely how many undergraduates most of the schools that we shall be visiting have. I'm sorry that it is unimportant whether Duke has 5,000 or 6,000ish; the difference is minimal and the only thing worth remembering is that it is in the same range as Stanford and company, whereas NYU is much larger. My interest in Reed is dead, Pomona having supplanted it, and at present it would appear that NYU is on lifesupport; perhaps the visit will resuscitate it, but I'm rather not counting on it as the place seems like another larger-ish university, rather than the overgrown liberal arts school that I'm looking for. Pomona has become the second runner, more because I would prefer California over the East Coast, so the reasoning is less than sound, though Pomona's chemistry program is quite good; the lack of engineering is annoying, and I'm rather expecting Penn to be enticing; Columbia not so much.

In other news, I started writing, got a whole two pages out, and then was distracted by...something, I don't remember what. Facebook, in all probability, which is utterly stupid, but at least I kept the same tone and cadence that I've been striving for during the entire project, so the layoff hasn't negatively affected the continuity or anything. All's well, in short. I keep vacillating on whether or not to proceed with reading Ulysses, and I have reached the Circe episode, written in play format, which ought to progress more quickly than the last few bits have. Now that I understand that the Odyssey episodes do not fall in chronological order, I understand that aspect of the work far more thoroughly and everything has more or less fallen into place; a little refresher ont he Odyssey helped as well. At the same time, I've realized that I am not nearly literary enough to understand or appreciate the complex parodies and such that fill a large part of the work; certainly it is a piece of virtuosity that only Eliot can even come close to, and if nothing else I can grasp the first layer of references and such, those being the Odyssey-related ones. Beyond that, I'm willing to let things slide. The ending is inevitable, the message already one that I have heard before, but I'm going to see the thing through, given how much time I have invested in it.

In other news, I'm thinking of taking a break from thinking...well, not thinking, but at least communicating with L or making determinations to do so for a while; letting that little thing slip into memory where it belongs. That would be my only other issue with going to Pomona; I would be forced to interact with L and that would be utterly disastrous for Holy is Thy Name, if the project is not completed by that point. I wish I could say that I would be done with the writing, but I know that I won't be, though the storyboards have been helping. I rather like having fluff demons, I think, and it would be a shame to do anything to get rid of this one, though I want to at the same time.

--Sam'ich out--

Poke Poke Poke (repeat as necessary)

Just finished 1984, which leaves Jane Eyre as the only real book left on the summer reading list; should be able to finish that and Ulysses while flying to, driving about, and returning from the East Coast (ick), and then I'll have a week to write the 1984 essay, and a while after that for the Jane Eyre one, though I might just get 1984 out of the way now while it's still fresh.

SAT on Saturday and I'm annoyed with the whole having to study for it deal, which is silly given that it's supposed to be an aptitude test, though clearly fails in that regard as studying does help. So, I shall continue to throw monkey wrenches into the system so long as the system requires that I take a test that is four hours long and consists of first grade math, useless grammar rules, and obscure interpretations of even more obscure prose passages.

Anyway...deep breath, deep breath...

Posted an inordinate number of pictures on FaceBook the other day which as precipitated a near flood of photo comments, though I suppose that is my penance for flooding all of the people in the pictures with notifications that they have been tagged in a picture. Blargh. Kat got cranky [kranky] about one bad one from prom, and I deleted it...eventually.

Funny, finishing 1984 has taken all of the desire to write out of me, which is perhaps a little worrying, but I've had studying and Rock Band and Grant Theft Auto 4 to keep me preoccupied (the last having only just managed to establish a foothold in the realm of my attention, and only because several of its missions entail escorting a stoned Jamaican fellow about and shooting a large number of vaguely unscrupulous other fellows).

Anyway, reading 1984 for the second time in only a few months was not particularly enjoyable, most of its potency being lost; O'brien's last rant was rather dull compared to the first time I read the book, and most of my mental energy went into picking apart aspects of Ingsoc thought that we will likely never end up discussing in class because we will likely never discuss the book at all, it being a Mertens class. The conclusion that I reached was that Ingsoc will fail for the same reason that power hungry groups have been falling for the entirety of human existence--the most flagrant sin of all, blah blah blah--hubris. Their problem is that they do possess near total power and are working toward making their grip on that power permanent, but in so doing they are setting the stage for their own destruction. If the Party does succeed, as it plans to, in creating a Newspeak language where there is literally no capability to think improperly, then there is no mental language with which to describe deviancy; with the mind being as malleable as the party wishes it to be and reality as viewed by the citizens of Oceania similarly subject to the will of the Party, it follows that eventually, the Party will succeed in temporarily eradicating all resistance, at which point the Party will have achieved a perceived lock on power, assisted by the full use of Newspeak. Thus the Party will have eradicated the disease, but become utterly vulnerable to a recurrence--the Party will have willingly destroyed its ability to perceive any deviancy and will believe that their world is perfect insofar as they want it to be; persons who do no exhibit proper behavior will simply be glossed over by Party members, beyond the members' perception, existing in nearly an alternate universe. From there it is only a matter of time before a handful of intelligent Proles emerge or the Party conditioning process fails ever so slightly in the raising of a child, and then those liberated individuals could conceivably walk into a Ministry and massacre its workers with a machine gun and surviving Party members would fail to see that anything had occurred. The flaw lies not in the Party's failure to grasp power, but in their impulsive use of it; for the Party, it is not enough to have power, it must be exercised in some feeble attempt to assure themselves that they really are in control. It is not really necessary to alter the mind and soul of every deviant, but rather just to have the power to do so. The exercise is totally unnecessary, and by continuously exercising its power, the Party ensures that it will eventually seal itself off from concrete reality and while within the collective mind of the Party the Party will have total control, it will in actuality have only succeeded in blinding itself to any sort of resistance, sealing itself off into a ball and a state in which it is totally vulnerable to assault, not of verbal or logical means, but physical force should suffice. Though there would be no real need to do so as the Party would be effectively blind to all free persons and those liberated individuals need not bother themselves with a few million people living in rundown slums in London.

I could go on about other things, Winston's pseudo-betrayal and such, but I don't know that there really is any need to. That is merely picking nits with Blair's logic, and the end result is more or less the same. If there is no choice, then there is no culpability, but Winston and Julia are estranged either way. More interesting, perhaps, is whether or not Winston really could have withstood the rats, or if he was merely told by O'brien that he could not and therefore became predisposed to believe what he was told, at which point the action became involuntary. Either way, Winston had no choice in the matter--if we remain with Blair's established rules, that is--and thus cannot truly be blamed for what he did.

Blargh...enough academic ranting.

O, HAI!

"O rly?"

"Ya rly."

"No wai!"

Dude.

Stuff

Busy, busy, busy. Lacrosse twice this weekend, and between that, Kaplan, and the play, I'm pretty much fucked if I want to get anything done. And I do. Oh well. Got into my writing class at Stanford, which is exciting. Latin Day was ridiculously boring, but it was a good opportunity to catch up on sleep. PS, apparently da Vinci is an impressionist...Oh, and Plaza Burgers are pretty yummy, but I definitely don't want to know what the secret sauce is made out of. Gmail is borked, or I might be wasting time on that. As it is, I think I'll just go to sleep as any chance for getting work done has officially disappeared.

Frustrated

So I've spent the last 5+ hours or so working on corrections for my AP Chem exam that we all bombed terribly. I just hit the point where I stopped caring about whether it was right or wrong, because it wasn't so much an issue of not having enough time to get it done, I just didn't understand half of the stuff that was going on. Some of that ties into having missed class, but looking back on the notes that I have, there were definitely a large number of things on the test that had very little to do with anything that we had learned, and most of what we had learned was only a tiny, simplistic version of what ended up being on the exam. Very frustrating. At the same time, I understand that we are pressed for time, and that doing practice problems in the book would have been immensely helpful as it has been in the past, but I've just been so busy that I haven't gotten around to it. Fuck Kaplan. Fuck Kaplan bloody silly I fucking hate that class and how it demolishes my weekends. As much as it would suck, I'm sorta starting to entertain ideas about quitting lacrosse. Probably will never get around to it, but it would be nice to not have that to deal with. Actually, now that I really think about it, it would be rather nice to not have that around...It would more or less be a cross country type situation, except I wouldn't have the second half of the semester to put things back together. Yes, this is starting to sound like a very good idea. Maybe, if I'm not scrambling to hold everything together, I could try playing next year, but for now, it's just another burden that I have to deal with.

In other news...my jacket smells like Indian food 'cause that's what we ate on Saturday night before spending four fucking hours playing rock and at Mary Kate's house...God...Eventually we hit this point of despondency where none of us were really capable of playing properly, and we all dumbed down the difficulty level considerably. Which is saying a lot, 'cause rock band is noticeably easier than guitar hero 3, at least the guitar parts are. That actually got rather boring after a while as most of it consisted of mindless strumming portions. The drums were amazingly fun, though extremely hard (for me). I'm tempted to get the standalone drum set and play that. It would be rather entertaining, though I've been sinking plenty of time into guitar hero as it is...I'm about halfway through career mode on hard and am finally starting to get a hang of the whole shifting frets dealio.

I've got other things on my mind, but I'm a little to intellectually (and physically) drained to properly vent on that right now. Basically, I'm just turtling until spring break hits, and then I can recharge my batteries. God, I'm fucking exhausted. More in my head than anything else. And I need to write. Oh Christ do I ever need to write something...well, only three months until I can...fun. Fuck me.

-_-

Been a Bit of a While

So, of course, the big news was our trip to state in hockey...god, that was a party. Almost enough to make me want to go to hockey games on a regular basis next year. Indeed, I'm almost positive that I'm going to. The game against Appleton was fun in that terrifying sort of way...God, when they tied it 2-2 I was absolutely horrified that we were going to let it slip away, but then our little freshmen buddy made everything okay. The state final was more or less predictable...they were so much bigger that it was pretty much impossible to make any other assessment of how one team stacked up against another, but I'm damn sure Cody had better hands than their Mrs. Hockey fellow, but he's so small that he just gets smeared whenever he tries to penetrate the offensive zone. Our guys had a lot of heart, and to give them credit, they never gave up despite being pretty soundly outplayed. It's one of those games that you know you shouldn't win, but you're just close enough to the other team that if you get lucky, things might turn out in your favor. They didn't, but we hit the post early in the first and with about six minutes left in the third, so if either of those (or both) had gone in, it would've been a totally different hockey game. Hell, if just one of them went in it would've gone from being "domination" to being a "slug fest" where "heavy blows were traded"...it is quite obvious that none of the hockey reporters for the papers know what the hell they're talking about. Okay, I will concede that I am biased in favor of our guys, but it was a tight game, they just had a noticeable edge that carried through the game. Our cheering section was nuts, though, and we most certainly drowned out the Eau Claire kids during the last minute of th game. Honestly, when Cody finally did score, we were all as happy as if we had won the game. I feel for our guys, though - that had to've been such a frustrating game to play, just judging by how frustrating it was to watch them put so much effort into it and get so little in return.

Anyway, hockey rants aside...err, wait. Briefly, I'm rather disgusted that the Gophers let their first game against Anchorage slide, but they won the next one, and while we certainly aren't going to have home ice for the first round of the WCHA playoffs, if we hold things together well enough, we're in position to go to the NCAA tournament. Funny, given that we're seventh in the WCHA, and eleventh nationally. I think that says something about the strength of the WCHA (that and the four or five WCHA teams in the top 10), as well as how much stronger our nonconference schedule is than Wisconsin's (haha).

So, properly breaking away from hockey, I procured both Sins of a Solar Empire and No More Heroes. Haven't played a whole lot of the latter, but it's fun and bloody and the controls are good, for the most part. The lack of camera control gets annoying, but you can blame that on the shitty Wii controller. That whole one analog stick thing is a bit of a problem. And by a bit, I mean it's a huge problem that they should've foreseen, but failed to for some reason. Not every game for a console is a shooter or a party game, Jesus. Sins is a blast, and extremely elegant in terms of how it works. The strategy involved is almost excessively simply - it's all about choke points and spread your forces to cover as much of your territory as you need. Even when you're attacking an enemy, it becomes an issue of pincering their worlds so that they can't rebuild behind you, or else taking over the worlds as you clear them. Either way, it's very fun. I'm having a few issues on larger games where my video driver crashes when I'm zooming out while ships are entering or leaving phase space...not sure whether it's the game, my video card or drivers, or whatever, but it's not a deal-breaker and on the small maps it's rarely an issue. I might just need to update my video drivers at some point.

There was supposed to be some meat to this somewhere, but I don't know that I'm ever going to get to it. First base is comfy, and I don't really feel motivated to move beyond that; I'm also moderately ticklish, apparently.

School's getting to be a bitch, but the Am Lit research paper is almost done, which is going to offer a nice reprieve and a chance for me to get Chem in order. Calc and physics are going fine, we're almost done with editorial stuff in Wayfarer, and Am Lit should be just dandy when this research paper gets finished. Billy Budd is a fucking twit and I'm happy that he died, though the fact that Sarah is in love with Claggart only serves to reinforce my conviction that she is the devil in miniature human form.

I've been hearing marginally more from Libby, recently, which is to say I've actually been hearing from her. We chatted a few weeks ago about nothing in particular, and then proceeded to talk shit on Friday night about the state finals. Kinda annoying, 'cause apparently she's not into hockey at all, but I imagine there had to be an underlying joking nature to the whole thing; anything else would seem a little out of character. Either way, it was nice to talk to her, though I'm getting the impression that, unfortunately, she didn't get into Stanford, or at least got wait-listed. The fact that she brought up being a national merit finalist but not Stanford when I asked for life was going seemed to seal that one, at least for now. Eh, hopefully in a month I'll get some big-texted, obnoxious email about how she got in; that would make me smile. It really has been nice to hear from her and Nat every now and then; it provides me with that little bit of special conversation that I don't get enough of at school. I guess you could question my mental fidelity at this point, but I don't really care; my thoughts are inviolate, as far as I'm concerned, and so long as you don't act on them, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Finally, I'm reading Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is amusing, and I've very slowly been getting back into the writing groove, which makes me very happy.

>>Sam'ich out<<
"She's [still] on fire"

Grades and Such

Well...progress reports dropped and things were less than spectacular. Bs in Physics and Calc, though the latter should be doing better once I get corrections in and when he gets around to grading our last little test, 'cause I did well on that. And I've got this Physics unit down, too, which should help. A- in Am Lit, but the whole research paper thing should jack my grade up nicely, as will the Dickinson Essay, inshallah. Hrm, well, everything else was cheery, though my Chem grade will likely take a bit of a dip after our first exam. Multiple choice was alright...if I guessed well on a few key questions I think I'll have come out quite well; lost a few points on the second free response section, but overall that was good too. First free response, though, ate my lunch. If I'm lucky, I'll get around half points for that section total, in which case my grade wouldn't be awful, really, but that would be a best case scenario, and, well, we saw what happened last time I was hoping for on of those.

Finished Assassin's Creed today (finally). Enjoyed it. The fights with Robert de Salle and his goons were annoying, though throwing him around and then stabbing him in the throat when I was on the verge of getting killed myself was exhilarating. Haven't thoroughly enjoyed a game and played through it so completely since BioShock. I'm not sure I'm totally down with the criticism of the ending...it was interesting, and yes it was a cliffhanger, but it's setting up the rest of the series nicely, and I'm looking forward to more good stuff in the future. What else...played Guitar Hero quite a bit and I've got most of the stuff on medium down pat, but hard is beyond me...the whole having to move your hand thing is just asking too much. Oh, and I am quite looking forward to getting Sins of a Solar Empire. It always looked interesting and has turned into quite the RTS darling, apparently, so I am quite excited to throw away countless hours on that (read: terrified).

Let's see...and then there's that other thing...Most certainly not something for even accidental public consumption, so check out the Other Book if you can. If not, well, then don't worry about it.

Tata, now.
~Mr. Sam'ich
"it's raining blood!!!"

Achy

Hrm...Latin Convention was most certainly interesting, for a number of reasons. Primarily, because everyone was well behaved, which was actually quite enjoyable - it is entirely possible to have fun hanging out and playing Halo, Guitar Hero, and the like (we quite seriously had about 4 or 5 360s spread out throughout the juniors and seniors). We all displayed some vague modicum of school spirit, which was quite nice, though it did involve me doing a lot of yelling and now my voice is rather raspy, though I think I shall describe it as "sultry" as that is more amusing. I have also justified not buying eitherHalo 3 or Call of Duty 4, for several reasons. I also perfectly understand the "tightness" of the Halo 3 controls and why reviewers love it so much - I just don't. If nothing else, the grass visibly popping in constantly is maddening. I hate CoD4 for all of the reasons that make me love games like Team Fortress 2. Guitar Hero was interesting...I was very bad at it, but it was also intensely entertaining, and I am very tempted to purchase it. I won first in some category...derivatives, I think, though I thought that I heard that is was Greek derivatives, which would be very odd as I didn't take that test, but at the same time the odds of me checking the wrong test bubble and yet having an answer pattern that was perfect seem close to nil, so perhaps I just wasn't paying attention. We also won (as a school) second in the overall qualitative category, which was both very surprising and entertaining.



I feel like perhaps I would like to write something moving or personal or whatever, but I don't know that I have the words for something singularly eloquent at present. Suffice it to say, I have found that I am still in love with some of my memories, quite specifically, one of them. I was thinking about it on the way home from Convention, and then reading Eliot's minibio for my AmLit research paper seemed to crystalize a lot of these feelings as he seemed to do the same sort of thing, though for entirely different reasons. Frustrating, yet interesting and perhaps not entirely unexpected, yet its still something that I have to deal with. Well, its not so much the attachment to the memories as it is the implication that that attachment brings with it. But I've already resigned myself to that sort of thinking, so perhaps its not so bad.

Tried to get started writing my new story; not sure how it's going to come out, but we'll see.

I'm hunting around for summer writing programs and have found one at Stanford that is very interesting, but also rather expensive. As I said, interesting, though, and I really would like to do it. Though part of me would worry about the whole getting attached to a place like that before I get in. I would provide good motivation for that last semester of high school, though. If it matters.

Tata.