Monthly Archives: December 2002

Dynamic

I’ve nev­er shak­en while watch­ing TV before. Yet today I shook, I trem­bled, I bit my nails. A spe­cial was on 31 today called Bushido: The Way of the Warrior. I’ve nev­er been much of a fight­ing fan. Boxing has always bor­ing, pro-wrest­ing isn’t fight­ing at all, and UFC just nev­er appealed to me. For some rea­son though, watch­ing Bushido sucked me in. They had the best match­es I’ve ever seen before, real or fake.

The final title was fought between two large Japanese war­riors, and it was the one that real­ly knocked the wind out of me. The match was extreme­ly close, with one fight­er being small­er than the oth­er. The small­er one took a lot of leg hits in the begin­ning so was injured from the start. This dis­ad­van­tage, as well as his size dif­fer­ence, cost him the match, but not before he pulled off a scream­ing, adren­a­lin rush­ing, sit­ting-on-the-guy’s-ass boston crab and injur­ing him. There was one point where he had the larg­er fight­er by the feet when the larg­er fight­er was bel­ly up on the mat. They were both try­ing to feel each oth­er out, the small­er one look­ing for a sub­mis­sion open­ing, and the larg­er one try­ing to antic­i­pate the direc­tion of the move. The hands of the small­er one were tied up with the leg hold­ing, so his entire head was open to attack from his oppo­nent, which he did. Every time the larg­er guy punched his face, he got psy­ched, and kept shout­ing for more. He man­aged to pull the sub­mis­sion off, but it was reversed and he even­tu­al­ly lost the match.

I always find it inter­est­ing to know that I can feel some­thing dif­fer­ent, that I can react in a way that I haven’t been known to before, that I can shake from a tele­vi­sion pro­gramme. There are always things that I enjoy find­ing out about myself, because it feels like I’m not a sta­t­ic per­son, that there is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of change in me. Sometimes I’m sur­prised at my own con­fi­dence, or even stunned at the cere­bral­i­ty I’ve been able to gain.

If only my heart could change as well.

Talking To Profs, Getting Drunk, A Cabin For Snowboarding

There’s always some­thing creepy about talk­ing to my pro­fes­sors. I feel like they have a face to put with my mark. As a num­ber, none of my fail­ures mean any­thing. But when I talk to one, I feel like I’m let­ting them down. I’m scared that they’ll know what my marks are, and that from then on they’ll rec­og­nize me as not going to class and fail­ing the mid-terms. Usually I can’t stand e‑mailing my profs. It has almost nev­er been a pleas­ant expe­ri­ence.

I actu­al­ly feel like I need to get drunk before going out this Friday. I’ve nev­er felt like that before. Apparently, it’s one of the signs of alco­hol abuse. I’ve only drank so that I could fall asleep a few times, which is anoth­er sign. It’s not a prob­lem though, so I’m not wor­ried.

Aaron showed me the cab­in that we’re rent­ing next year. It’s so damn sweet. The whole deal has been moved from read­ing week to some week-end in January, which should save us some mon­ey. Aaron’s going to let me bor­row his board, and hope­ful­ly I’ll be able to fit into Greg’s boots, so that all I’ll real­ly need to pay for is the lift tick­et, the cab­in, and the drinks, which should all be under $200.

A Gift Is Not A Comment

I bought Aaron an MD play­er today. He’s been need­ing quite a few things, like his TV fixed, an aquar­i­um, a new hard-dri­ve, etc. so I thought I’d make it eas­i­er on him since his Discman just broke too. I’m not real­ly sure what he’ll say though. I’ve learned a lot about gift giv­ing with­in the last year, and I know that some peo­ple are very sen­si­tive about it. A while ago, I nev­er could have imag­ined some­one refus­ing to accept a gift, unless there was a sin­is­ter pur­pose, such as a bribe. I always felt like it was rude if some­one refused a legit­i­mate gift.

I sup­pose it’s sim­i­lar to the idea of hos­pi­tal­i­ty. Can it ever be rude to refuse some­one’s hos­pi­tal­i­ty? Even if they spend an inor­di­nate amount of time prepar­ing for such a thing? I’ve come to the con­clu­sion that it would­n’t be rude to decline an offer of hos­pi­tal­i­ty. After all, it is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the host to make sure that the guest is com­fort­able. If the guest refus­es hos­pi­tal­i­ty for what­ev­er rea­son, then that should be fine. The host should be hap­py with what­ev­er the guest is hap­py with.

It’s only with this exam­ple that I’ve come to under­stand the gift-giv­ing idea as well. If some­one refus­es to accept a gift from me, I would be fine with that. I sim­ply want to make the per­son hap­py.

Which is why I’m not wor­ried to give Aaron such a gift. I won’t be offend­ed in any way, no mat­ter what his reac­tion is.

I can’t wait.

Stay Away

A few days ago I had a strange feel­ing. The idea that I was a virus stuck in my head. Anything I came in con­tact with became infect­ed.

It just seemed like any­one I’ve become close with has been hurt in some way. It felt as if all my rela­tion­ships always take a turn for the worse, and it’s my fault. I’ll find some tiny, for­giv­able trait, and turn it into a detestable prob­lem. I’ll close off. I’ll hurt some­one.

Sometimes I think that I hurt peo­ple to test my bound­aries, to know how much they care. Perhaps I’m so inse­cure in my rela­tion­ships that I need to be sure about how some­one feels about me.

It’s as if I try to be friends with peo­ple I want to offend, so that they will hurt me back in some way, like Travis Bickle. Perhaps I need to be hurt.

I con­stant­ly feel as if I don’t know how to love. It’s such a fright­en­ing­ly scary idea. I wish I loved more. So many times I believe that I am expe­ri­enc­ing love, only to real­ize that I’m not, that it was just a fleet­ing emo­tion. Perhaps I need to be hurt to know that I can love.

I’ve only tru­ly loved once. Perhaps it was so intense, so pas­sion­ate, that all oth­er emo­tions feel numb in com­par­i­son.

Perhaps I sim­ply don’t know what love is.

I just know that I don’t want to hurt any­more.

Unwanted Hurt, And Failure

Sometimes peo­ple say things that just seem to hurt. One knows that they don’t mean it, yet it hurts any­way. For some rea­son, it’s even more painful, due to the igno­rance involved. But what can one do in such a sit­u­a­tion? Pretend as if noth­ing hap­pened? I sim­ply become anti­so­cial. That hap­pens a lot actu­al­ly. When some­one upsets me in any way, whether I become angry, sad, or for­lorn, I’ll close up. I’ll dis­tance myself, and I can’t help but be tac­i­turn.

No won­der.

I got my cryp­tog­ra­phy mid-term back yes­ter­day, and it turns out that I failed it. That means that I failed more than half my mid-terms. I’m start­ing to wor­ry about my finals. I was actu­al­ly con­sid­er­ing my absence at Dougie’s LAN par­ty, but Aaron (rather eas­i­ly) talked me into going.