My mind feels like it’s going in eight directions at once. I have so much shit to think about, exams, failing courses, registration, projects, holiday planning, that it’s hard for me to keep track of where I’m going. I eventually had to force myself to forget about everything except for my exams and my final project.

I spoke to a prof about a final project today. He didn’t give me a straight answer, but suggested that I think about it first. He seemed a little put down by the fact that not many people choose him as a supervisor. I imagine that it’s because he really makes his students work for the project, instead of recycling old projects, causing him to be feared, instead of revered.

All my rides are working out perfectly for the holiday. I’m getting a ride down with Thom, and a ride up with Aaron, instead of John. John’s going to be coming up on the third, and going back on the seventh. I can’t FUCKING WAIT.

I watched Human Nature with Aaron. I enjoyed it. A lot. Charlie Kaufman never ceases to amaze me. I felt the actors each had the perfect look for the movie, from Patricia Arquette’s unique beauty, to Rhys Ifans aloofness and demeanour, to Miranda Otto’s perky face, and to Tim Robbin’s stereotypically curly hair and facial features. It’s not quite a movie that I’d purchase, but definately one that I’d like to watch again, if not for the subtleties of the monologue/dialogue, then for the complexities of the relationships involved. I don’t think Spike Jonze could have done a better job at directing it than Michel Gondry.

I just found out that I failed my last algorithms mid-term. It just seems like no matter how hard I try, I always end up failing. It seems so worthless, all the effort I put into my schoolwork. Even all my studying for my cryptography exam will all be for naught.

It pisses me the fuck off. I feel so angry just thinking about it. This is my worst term to date. I have a good chance of failing three of my five finals.

Sometimes I feel like I need this. I need to fail completely, so I can learn to not do it again. Normally, I need to fail my midterms so that I don’t fail my finals. It creates a pressure on me to do well, and the pressure works. But this is pressure on a much larger scale, because it could get me kicked out of the program.

It feels as if I need this bigger pressure to get on with my life. I really need some kind of change, some kind of incident to happen that can galvanize the static that seems to be controlling my life.

Oddly enough, I seem to have a back-up plan for every failure possible; I can take another course to make up for failing cryptography, I can take algorithms at Carleton if I fail it this term, and I can appeal my second failure of networking to the dean.

And yet, everything feels so hopeless. I think I just need it to happen. So that I can move on. So that there can be change.

So that I can get better.

I feel so damn tired. My fingers aren’t working correctly. They feel like they’re sticking together. The LAN party ended sooner than expected, since everyone was feeling so damn tired. Aaron had to leave early because his ride left early (around 3:00 in the morning) so he got in a few good hours of solid gaming. I ended up leaving around 8:00 am, and I was able to stay awake until 11:00 am. I slept for about six hours until I awoke from a phone call. I’m hoping to stay up for as long as possible, then crash out of my bed so that my system won’t be too fucked.

I’m questioning whether the entire party was worth it, since I think that the two days spent at the LAN and recovering may make the difference in passing and failing my last two finals. The whole thing ended rather unsatisfactorily, due to the untimely departure of four people, so the momentum of the energy died down. No regrets.

I found out that the cabin that Aaron and I were going to rent with some of the guys in January is under new management. They have a new policy that doesn’t allow renting to people under 25. We found another cabin that will be more expensive, but it has an indoor pool, jacuzzi, and full kitchen. It’ll end up costing about $170 alone, but it’s probably worth it, since I’m expected to be too sore to do anything after one day of boarding.

I just watched Contact again with Pita. I came to the realization that what Ellie (Jodie Foster) experienced allowed her to understand the grounding of Johnson’s (Matthew McConaughey) beliefs. Johnson was a person who had a faith in God from his experience. He had experienced something God-like first hand, giving him his faith. Ellie could never understand the way he arrived to this belief, since she hadn’t experienced the same thing. To her, everything was just a delusion.

Yet by the end of the movie, she experiences communication with another life-form. No one believes her, because she has no proof. She is put in the same situation that she puts Johnson in; the question of faith based on experience. And as she had no proof of the experience with extra terrestrials, much like Johnson has no proof about God, she is mocked.

It is understandable that Ellie was skeptical about Johnson’s belief. In the end, however, she comes to the understanding about the way people arrive at their beliefs. That no one can truly challenge them, because not everyone has been through the same experiences.

I used follow Ellie’s beliefs in the beginning of the movie. Beliefs such as needing empirical evidence to believe in God, and that God does not exist because there has been no evidence. Now I have come to understand that although I haven’t experienced him yet, it doesn’t mean that I won’t in the future. I now believe that I have no idea whether God exists or not, and that the answer may be revealed to me later on. It’s not atheist, it’s not theist, it’s not agnostic. It was something that took me a while to understand.

And yet I understand nothing.

I finally got my Security in Computing exam out of the way. Basically, every line that I read in the textbook was worthless. There were only four long answer questions on the final, and each one was a practical, as opposed to theoretical, question that we never learned. I had to learn how to do all the math right in the exam. At least it was open book. For some reason I started getting fucked up answers when trying to find the modulus with my calculator. Calculating the modulus of anything about 10^100 results in inaccuracy, I’m guessing. At first I thought it was my calculator giving me some odd values that didn’t correspond with my written ones. When I got home, I checked Pita’s calculator, and got the same answer. Then I checked the built-in calculator on my computer, and it came to the same answer as what I did by hand. So now I have no idea if any of my values are completely fucked. Whether I pass or fail depends completely on how lenient the giving of part marks is. I’m slightly worried, something that doesn’t usually happen when I finish with a course.

I traded in two games, and used two EB gift certificates yesterday, to pick up The Legend of Zelda for my GBA. It ended up costing me $2.50.

I’m getting all psyched up for the LAN party tomorrow. The attendance is supposed to be around 10 people, but Thom’s processor fried yesterday, so he might not be able to go.