Monday, August 23, 2004

Guess where i am?

It´s a city called Creel, somewhere outside of the Barranca de Cobre. (copper canyon for those not in the know ... btw, just ask dr know, there´s nothing he doesn´t!)

Anyways, we´ve been driving for a while now and we´ve seen a lot of cool things that i hadn´t really thought i would see during my mexico trip. I´ll try to post a link to pictures, etc. :-) NEways, just wanted to give y´all a heads up... but i´m typing in the lobby of a hotel where we decided to have a few beers ... ok, it´s a best western ... dammit. Anyways, i can´t really type a huge thing because this is technically a "guests only" thing, and this fucking keyboard is driving me in-fucking sane because all the keys are in different places ... not the letters mind you, but everything else, and that´s REALLY bugging me.

OK. Well. Lata.

.Christian

PS: We´re staying at the ¨Paraiso del Bosque" hotel, thus the issues with "guests only." ... thought i´d solve that mystery for ya ;-)

PPS: be back in the states starting wednesday... till then, kick them bedbugs for me - rather WITH me, cause they´ve been teamin up on us. Catch ya on the flip side, baby.

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Do you think?

Is it dreams that sometimes visit upon life? Or life that sometimes visits upon dreams?

.Christian

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Random

I guess this is getting really freaky with the 3 days in a row thing, but i was thinking about some random stuff today and it set those good ole wheels rolling. Between then and now i have played Tony Hawk (to beat the extra stuff and get all the fun toys) and taken a take-home test. Which was actually harder than the test i took today. ... 3 pages. 35 questions. i can't believe that class cost 3grand.

I was thinking about the 4th grade of all things. Can you believe that? How often do you start going through your head about one year of your life. And actually, i can't remember at all thinking about the whole year... rather it was just one day and a general feeling. That one day was the first time i fell in love. Cheesy, huh? Not something i'd usually share, but hey, you'll never meet her and i'll never see her again. Hell, i can't even tell if it was a dream or not.

There was this kinda park thing that my school did to celebrate the end of the year. My mom was one of the chaperones i think... i dunno. All i know is that this girl and i started talking and walked together... i think we may even have paddleboated... that's romance ;-) Anyways, the fact that i was (and am i think) a hopeless romantic isn't why i brought the topic up. The reason i brought it up was that i never saw her again... at least i think. See, as a kid, i had such a short, almost non-existent memory, that i couldn't remember anything about this girl by the start of the next week. Face, name, anything. I thought it might be Brooke or something, and i'm pretty sure she was maybe a redhead, but other than that, i remember as much now as i remembered then.

What does this all have to do with anything? Simply that that memory followed me until i reached around my senior year of highschool. I don't know if i've accurately depicted just what this memory of mine entailed... my entire life up until senior year of highschool, as far as i can recall, was a dream. How fucked up is that? I feel like i have no goddamn history because everything to a point, with very few exceptions, seems entirely made up one night in bed! And i'm not talking about the typical "been so long ago it seems like a dream" thing, i mean it quite literally. Anyways, i started thinking about why my memory would be like that. Why was it that when i came back from Brazil, i couldn't at all remember the kid that i'd played with before i left? Sure i was young, we're talking forgetting first grade by the end of third, but still, it's a little messed up, yknow? I mean, put it this way, i remember one time in second or third grade when i got on the schoolbus and ended up talking to someone that was reading "hitchiker's guide" and let me borrow it. You know what the problem was? I didn't remember that person almost the moment i stepped off the bus. I remembered i had the book, and that i'd borrowed it from someone, but i had no idea who! When the guy asked me for it i had that glazed "who are you?" look. I went home, got the book, and returned it to him the next day because by chance he saw me and reminded me again.

I don't know what to say - i have a huge thing that i wanted to talk about but Marianna and Henry and Matt just walked through the door...

We'll keep this brief i guess: the point of what i was coming to is that the one thing i remember about my whole life is how much time i have wasted doing nothing or playing video games. If i had spent one hour of that time doing something else, something productive, i could have accomplished so much by now! But the most disturbing thing is that i don't feel like if i had known that it would have made a difference. Not because i would have been too lazy to change (though that would most certainly have been a factor) but because i feel as if i have gotten to the point where i am today as a result of my past, which is starting to seem so much like a fantasy that i have trouble defining just where i am in the first place! If we are defined by our environment and history, then what happens if we find ourselves without either? Granted such a discovery would eventually mean molding from that point forward, but what if no molding occured? What if all that was left was an unshaped mass? an uncarved block of wood. I know i didn't come up with that one, that's part of Taoist dogma... what is it though that drove that thought? Maybe it's the same inspiration... maybe everyone has these kinds of thoughts at one point or another and some create a belief system out of it.

The big difference is that in Taoist belief the idea is to become that uncarved wood. To become one with your nature, surroundings, existence, and the world ... but not in the same sense (or with the same finality) as death and samsara in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and pretty much every other world religion. The idea is that you're still alive, but you are no longer ... a mask ... you are no longer wearing a mask. Wouldn't that feel good?

"I am an opera singer" - Cake

We all wear them, so maybe we all need/want to be liberated from them... maybe the idea of becoming an unmolded being is attractive to everyone on some level. Who knows. I just keep thinking about what my life would be like if i had just ... payed more attention. Would i have spoken up about my opinions in terms of where to move or if we should at all? Would i have been able to stop dad from drinking? Would i have gotten better grades? not kicked out of Kent? Would i even have been anywhere near the situation where i find myself currently? I mean you really have to wonder if something as seemingly insignificant, which everyone takes for granted ... if something like your memory or attention span would have made any difference, maybe even all the difference in the world ...

I wonder sometimes if what i feel like i'm holding out for is an idea of who i am and where i want to be ... and if ultimately that's what's missing from my past .... the memory of me. ... Maybe the biggest problem of all is that i can't remember my dreams - and so i've dreamt up my life. Fuck. That's a little too deep for 8:30 on a wednesday after all those finals.

Shit. I just realized what i typed last night. "All we see or seem..."

Huh. At the time it was a kind of abstract reference that didn't totally fit the analogy ... now i wonder if maybe i'm my own dejavu. ... I guess that's a whole nother question in and of itself.

KTBB

.Christian

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

So

Two in a row. Wow... i guess that's pretty impressive ;-) I was actually just kinda killing time because i'm not really tired and i just beat tony hawk underground... i suppose i might try studying for the test that i have tomorrow, but we are allowed to bring in whatever notes we want, and so i am bringing a very convenient sheet with some very convenient definitions.

Man, what a blowoff class. I totally thought that this was going to be the one that was really gonna suck me in and help me figure out what i want to do with my life ... turns out that the class that helped me in that area was (dun dun dun) ACCOUNTING of all things! I can't really explain it other than to say that today during the exam, i didn't so much feel as if i were taking a test as playing some new kind of mentally challenging game that i actually understand. Mind you, that's not to say that it was easy, but it was most definitely enjoyable to a certain degree. Heck, i took my time to the extent that i went into "overtime" this time instead of finishing in my usual 1 hr or less timeframe.

::Sigh:: Project Management? Ops Management? Accounting? Marketing? Religious Studies? Who the fuck knows, huh? I mean really though, almost all of those tie in except for the one very obvious deviation. But who knows anyways? As Dennis Leary once postulated: You could be standing on a street corner in NYC when all of a sudden "yipYipYIpYIPYIP!!!" someone's pet poodle plummets straight down from the 32nd floor of their apartment STRAIGHT onto your head. You are therefore known as Bob, the Poodle Guy. "Yeah, I knew Bob, he hated fucking dogs!"

Life is a series of curve balls, and if you keep swingin at every one, you'll be too tired or struck out to hit the straight, slow pitch that comes right down the middle. (refraining from "balls" jokes and metaphors)

I beat Tony Haw... hmmm ... i think i told you that already. Lemme .. yep ... yeah there is is, line two or so... "just beat Tony Hawk Underground" ... ::sigh:: an old Robin Williams skit comes to mind. I'm starting to feel a little under the weather. Not sure why of course, just know how i feel is all. I guess the big thing is that i don't feel like i have a good enough idea of what i would do if fate came to me, skipped knocking on the door, and just said "Hey yo," (fate's cool like that) "what's it gonna be, Willis?" (fate also apparently watched Different Strokes ... or causes them! Hah hah hah ha ha he heh ... heh heh ... right)

What would you do? Everything you know and feel is challenged to the utmost degree in one moment. Everything that you are, were, and will be hangs in the balance between the two unknown paths which must forever be decided in one moment in time. One moment. You know, in Japanese Buddhism (it's perhaps unfair to leave it at Japanese, but for the most part this is where this particular belief exists) there is a Buddha... Amitaba? Something like that ... this Buddha resides in the "West", or "West World" (no friggin 'best of the west' illusions here folks, this is an 'unreal' place, as in not this plane of existence) which he has created to help human beings who are worthy attain enlightenment. How do you get there? How do you contact this wonderful Buddha? Pray, or recite his name, for 5 moments ... i think. That or 3. Short amount of time, right? Who knows... that's the problem: a moment is, or can be, defined as anything from a quadrillionth of a second to a million years. A moment is, strangely/conveniently/whateverly, undefined.

Do you know what a kulpa is? I think that's how you spell it... A kulpa, as I understand it, is a long time. A very long time. It is the amount of time which it would take you to wear down a mountain with a silk scarf. ... Assuming that A you didn't die first, B the scarf lasted that long, and C there were no save-the-mountain activists impeding your progress.

What if it's a kulpa? What if a moment is a kulpa? What if everything that is, was, and will be in your life and the world around you was challenged and changed over the span of relative eternity?

What if it was, instead, done in a 'quadrillionth of a second?'

I've often wondered about the relative constituency of the universe in terms of 'elements.' Not just physical or material elements mind you, but spacial and temporal as well. There are several theories which have come to my attention of late and intrigue me to no end. (or to a kulpa ... yay sat words)

Fuzzy Logic) There's a lot to this, but the part i find interesting is the theory of how the "fuzzy" composition of matter and reality causes the relative inexistence of any defined forms beyond electrical charges and densities of unnamed, ununderstood (there's a fun word) matter. Essentially, what i find interesting, is the idea that if you were to stop everything right now and leave it for, let's say ... heck, why not? a KULPA ... then eventually everything would become one and the same. This isn't really the interesting part... assume the constancy of a specific applied force, most easily assumed gravity. Two objects under different relative strains from a constant force, when placed in opposition of each other to the degree wherein one impedes the others progress, will eventually pass through each other. Put simply: if you put a bottle cap on a wooden table and leave it there for 'the longest time' the bottle cap will eventually pass through the other - or will at least seem that way. What actually happens is since nothing exists without forces which are not controlled by "nature" as we know it, the bottle cap and the table actually swap energy and 'matter' to the point where the 'matter' is no longer being 'inspired' by the force(s) of gravity.

... simply put: gravity, bottlecap, table, relative non-existence of matter-based reality.

String Theory) The world as we know it is more connected than we could ever understand through a series of 'strings' of spacial and temporal energies and realities than we as spacially and temporally limited beings could ever understand. Imagine each of your fingers as a person. Imagine a cat's cradle in your hand. Pull back a little and you see your other hand, also with a cat's cradle. pull out further and you see four other pairs of hands with cat's cradles. Look again and each of those hands is a finger on a pair of hands with a cat's cradle. Try to imagine this multiplication to the number of humans on this earth, then imagine the fingers as electrons instead of humans, and take that to the number of electrons on the planet. Now take all of that, and imagine it is the composition of a grain of sand or dirt. Apply the cat's cradle to everything in the universe and what you may find interesting is that when you take away everything else that makes your mental vision crowded and confused, it is all ultimately just a bunch of string which goes between and links everything in a cat's cradle you made in your hand. That's a pretty bastardized version of the basic concept, and i don't think i even explained it right, or even know it for that matter... but there you are.

Layer/Path Theory) Imagine a stack of pancakes. Imagine they're frozen, and you flip them on their side so that they are vertical. Each one of those pancakes is a moment in time. (we've already discussed 'moments') Now take a knife and cut the stack straight down the middle. For each moment in time, you have, at the very least, a binary decision. Yes/No, On/Off, etc. these are binary decisions. Example: you can have a salad or a sandwich for lunch. Easy, right? Good. Now, you choose the salad - caesar or house? Take the knife, and cut the pancake halves in half. Eat now or take home? Cut them in quarters. Drive fast or slow? Eighths. Depress gas quickly? 16ths. All the way? 32nds. Infinity. Each moment in time has an infinite amount of choices associated with it, to the point that the pancakes must be infinitely large, and in infinite number. (taking into account our definition of a moment as being infinite, or, in this case, 'instant') It is at this point that it becomes a little easier to see this all as infinite layers divided into infinite paths. But why does each "instant" have infinited choices associated with it? If you had chosen to eat there, you never would have had to decide about the gas peddle, would you? But you would have been in the same pancake, just on a different part of it ;-) Have you ever seen a slice-by-slice disection of the human brain? I think the first one was made from the donated brain of a convict ... but i digress. The point is that if you applied this analogy to this slice-by-slice you would notice that ultimately each slice was like a pancake. What's interesting to note is the shape which is created ... ultimately, no matter how you slice it (forgive the pun) the shape is always the same. What was that old qoute? Is all we see or seem just a dream within a dream ... something like that. What if choice and its repercussions exist, but will always shape us in the same manner regardless of the path we choose?

I guess the real question here is this: "Where are you going, where have you been?" - DMB

"I woke up and I drove to work on the wrong side of the road." - Ben Folds

"When we dance, angels will run and hide their wings." - Sting

"I'm just a curb-side prophet with my hand in my pocket and I'm waiting for my rocket to come." - Jason Mraz

"There is no place I can run, there is no place I can hide." - Nine Inch Nails

"Time is on my side." - Rolling Stones

"Whatever I fear the most is whatever I see before me. Whenever I let my guard down, whatever I was ignoring." - Toad

"KTBB" - Me

.Christian

BTW

If ya wanna check out summa the stuff i've written for the T-Bird newspaper, go to http://www.dastoronline.com

.Christian

Monday, August 16, 2004

The Bees Sneeze

I was checking out the infamous Penny Arcade tonight when i found a link that struck me for some reason. I can't explain why i thought it should be linked here, but hey, there it is, right up in your upper right corner. ... wow.

Finance test today. That sucked. It wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be - i'm even convinced that i probably pulled away with a solid B, but i'm always convinced of that ;-) Tomorrow is bound to be fun, though - accounting my friends, accounting. I don't know why human beings create such new and innovative ways to torture themselves and each other, but the gods of masochism must be smiling down upon Dr. Invented A. C. Counting right now. ::sigh::

Had one of those "what does the future hold" conversations tonight. Like that's what i'm thinking about right now - i've had all i want with Futures thank you. (and forwards, and options, and swaps) I really just want to see where life goes right now, yknow? It's too hard to predict anyways... anytime that you think you're standing under a lemon tree, next thing ya know you have to figure out how to sell "limenade". ... that might be good actually ... and i wonder what would have happened if i had been standing under a lime tree...... ... ... ... ok, that's enough thinking about that one. Seriously though, there's so much out there, and a whole world to explore and experience. I don't want to see everything or go everywhere, but it would be nice to feel like i could let life take me there if it wanted to. Ah, who am i kidding, that's always who i've been ... wherever i go, there i'll be... that kinda silliness.

I was actually thinking about that kind of thing as i was running along the other day (btw, almost back up to 5 miles a day) and i realized that there is not one single thing that i would ever change about where i am or how i got here. The only thing i even considered was if i could convince dad to stop drinking ... but if he had and things had been different i might never be here now, which is where i think i'm supposed to be.

You might recall that just a little while ago i posted something which seemed to contradict that. Something about not feeling like i was where i'm supposed to be? Well guess what? It wasn't contradictory at all! Think about it, if i was where i "was" supposed to be, then i wouldn't realize that i was supposed to be there, thereby causing an almost inescapable paradox wherein i would ultimately end up right where i am, thinking i should be somewhere else. It's actually a little bit like economic theory about progression through monetary systems. You might recall (or not, that's ok, i learned this less than 3 months ago) that the idea of socialism was that it was the ultimate result of the progress of an organized economic system through a series of reforms and stages, including capitalism. I liken the afore-mentioned paradoxical results to the doomed system of the USSR which was ultimately a victim of shortsighted longsightedness. They saw the future, but in trying to attain it, failed in a manner... however, it can be seen that there is likely to be a resurgence of this manner of thinking in the future, and that the nation which once failed in the process may be the leader in its resurgence. ... Basically, you learn from your mistakes.

I guess you can think of it in old MacBethian terms: if the witches had never said anything, would their prophecy still have come true? Is self-fulfilling prophecy a reality? If the prophet had told Neo that he was the One, would he have defeated Agent Smith? ... ok, i guess for that one we can at least still ask the authors on their opinions of the matter. ;-)

We are where we should be, to be anywhere else would be blasphemy.

Against whom, you ask? To each his own, i say. The only thing that i know for sure is that i've officially been typing for over 10 minutes after 1 am on the night before my Accounting final, and Dr. Counting would be very displeased. I guess y'all 'll just have to wait to hear the rest of the crap that's been running through my head ... if i remember, that is. After all, tomorrow IS another day, and you never know just what will come your way.

.Christian

PS: Fuck the bedbugs, kick those damn mosquitos, kick em with your friggin' foot.
PPS: Then catch me on the flipside, baby.

Tuesday, August 3, 2004

Futures and Forwards

Aren't just for economics anymore.

Happy Blog Birthday/Anniversary Thing. Crazy how time passes.

.Christian

PS: the official day is the 13th, thus the futures/forwards joke... yeah, i know...

Funny

It seems like it's so easy to get really passionate about something so trivial and obscure as a feeling deep in the pit of your stomach, and then it's so easy to just let it go and start tugging again at the bear trap you stepped in as a child. This morning i was still hungover from watching "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", but now it seems like weeks since I saw it, and all the feelings of doubt, regret, hope, and sorrow have disappeared almost completely, leaving barely enough to write this blog about something that I can't even describe.

BTW, i filled out my profile. Joy.

I really have to wonder sometimes if i'm where i'm supposed to be... those of you who have actually been intrigued (or bored, whatever) enough to read this blog from the beginning will doubtless note that this is not the first time i have posited such a question, and it is doubtful that it will be the last. I really wish that i could somehow explain away the strange and convoluted feeling deep in my heart, but i really just can't, it's just a feeling. I can't even really discuss it further because as past experience has dictated, this is no longer the forum for that... i am once more relegated to pondering the impossible on my own or not at all.

Well, suffice it to say that not at all won't do.

NEways.

I'm feeling really good lately. Ever since i've been here in mexico i've been walking to school (bout a mile) every day, and recently we (a group of fellow students and I) have been running pretty frequently, to the point where i'm really starting to feel like my body actually may not lag behind my soul for much longer. It's a horrible you know? Feeling like you are in someone else's body, wearing someone else's skin. It's not just a looks thing, it kinda relates back to what i was sayin before, which we've already decided not to talk about on-line. I'm glad that things are feeling a little better though, it's nice to feel healthy :-)

I wonder how many people actually take the time to read this damn thing anymore... maybe it IS safe to talk about stuff again. I gotta say, i hadn't really expected to find out that it had proliferated so successfully throughout my friends and acquaintances, I almost feel like EdTV. Honestly, this was just supposed to be some "if people could read it, but i know they won't" kinda thing... then i put the address on my IM and it just kinda... blew. It was nice for a long time when it was a peek into my thoughts, but then it became a place to find answers, and a place where blame was cast. I guess it's hard to stop writing about your emotions, but i think i'll be transfering a lot of that off-line.

What is it about that voyeuristic glamour? You almost feel as though your words have more importance because people are reading them... like a rush. It makes you say things in the most honest and upfront way you know how, and then you find out, remember, whatever, that honesty is not always the best policy, and that people prefer the truth to a lie, but more importantly they prefer their version of the truth over anything. It's selective typing that kills you - telling people what's on the forefront and not letting them see the whole picture because you're too tired or strung out to finish writing everything that's on your mind - even if it would take all of eternity. But then i guess it goes both ways - reading what you want out of it and not reading the mind between the lines of text. What? You mean you can't guess at every thought in my mind from the few paltry words i haphazardly toss on these virtual pages of emotional release? Pish-posh.

"So close your eyes and kiss yourself goodbye, and think about the times we spent and what they meant." - Greenday

God that's always a bad sign, qouting Greenday in a blog about emotional disclosure. ::Sigh::

Alright, on that note i should go to sleep and leave all the best unsaid, and all that's meant unheard.

"And in that sleep, what dreams may come?" So sure it's a different sleep, but hey, people still say "wherefor art thou?" when their asking for directions. Dishwater Entropy my man, and curdled goat's milk.

KTBB

.Christian

PS: Catch ya on the flip-side, baby.
PPS: God that felt good to say ;-)

Monday, August 2, 2004

The Exchange Rate of Asparagus

You know, there is something that i'd never really noticed before which seems to be an almost inescapable truth: People never actually leave highschool - they just live the rest of their lives in a virtual classroom huddling together in their "cliques" with their "cool" friends and talking about people that they don't know, don't like, or don't care about behind their backs.

Oh wait, i'm sorry, they do talk about people they like and care about too... hmm, I guess they just like talking about everyone! Behind their back! What fucking fun!

Why am I peeved? Let me count the ways: 1) My group spends a shitload of time (and frustrating time at that) working on a project to present to class 2) Because everyone's pissed at one of my group members, they tear us to shreds 3) When anyone else presents, their all buddy-buddy with them if they like them, or totally silent if they don't. This fucking school is bullshit. My guess? The business world is just like the world i thought i'd graduated from: a bunch of immature, self-righteous, conceited asshole jocks and cheerleaders determined to stay on top of the popularity dogpile. What a bunch of dickwads. DICKWADS I say. I might as well use highschool terminology to describe these people.

The crazy thing that i've finally started to figure out is that this is just like Tisch all over again. Everyone looking out for number one while clinging to their "friends" who would more than likely turn on them if given a good reason, claiming "kill or be killed" as their reason and assuming that that's a valid fucking reason. I might as well have just shot myself coming here - at this point i'm just keeping my head down long enough to get the damn degree and get out of here.

Did you know that one of the presenters actually said "a damn" to describe that which contains water? What the fuck? These people probably didn't even work together, let alone put any serious efforts into their slides.

URRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. WHAT THE FUCK?! I really hate this bullshit! I have no desire to be a part of this crap. And don't tell me that that's just the way of the world, and if i want to be in any type of business i'm going to have to deal with it, cause that's bullcrap. These people don't rule the fucking world, they're just responsible for making it seem like the shithole that they would turn it into if they did.

I just hate this. I'm so tired of dealing with all this self-serving "who's cool" bullshit that rules the minds of these assholes. I swear to God, man. Is it maybe because i want to be in the group and i'm upset that i'm not? (which would be the first question that i was thinking of if i were reading this) Actually no. The fact is that i got over that desire to be "cool" a long time ago, and i'll be damned if i go back. I just can't stand being around people like this, who talk about each other behind their backs and seem to scheme and plan their own success (implicitly over the dead bodies of others) at full steam ahead. I don't like it. Never have, never will.

I'm just done with this bullcrap. I'm going to graduate, get the fuck out, and never talk to these people again. Networking? Might as well be making friends with sharks. I'll make my friends and contacts elsewhere, thank you.

.Christian