Yearly Archives: 2002

Getting Things In Order

I just fin­ished the bulk of my mid-terms, though prob­a­bly not unscathed. I hope that I can pass all of them, but I believe that I only passed one or two so far. I only have one left to go, but it should be much sim­pler, as I have the week-end to study for it. I believe that the prob­lem this time was the fact that the three hard­est mid-terms were bunched togeth­er in three con­sec­u­tive days. That, and the fact that I should pay atten­tion in class instead of try­ing to res­cue Baby Mario from Baby Bowser. Quite the excuse.

I get to go out for lunch tomor­row at a place called The Black Tomato, as a co-work­er is mov­ing to a dif­fer­ent divi­sion office in anoth­er city, and the work­ers here want to say good­bye. This means that I should be able to get an extra half-hour off work, and hope­ful­ly I can get drunk before con­tin­u­ing for the rest of the work day. I’ve only actu­al­ly been ine­bri­at­ed at work twice before, both times from a drink­ing lunch as well. I hope they have Strongbow or Double Diamond on tap.

Louise asked me today how I can walk with my pants so bag­gy. I told her that walk­ing was easy, because it feels like you’re not walk­ing with pants on at all, which, I imag­ine, is a good thing.

I felt unkempt for most of the week, until today, after I was final­ly able to get a hair­cut, wash my dish­es, clean my room, and just gen­er­al­ly get things in order.

Tell Me I'm Right, Baby

There’s some­thing about a girl that apol­o­gizes. It’s like it makes her more human. I’ve always been one who likes girls who have their off days, instead of look­ing like a mil­lion bucks all the time. I guess it lets me know that they aren’t just super­fi­cial all the time, that they know that looks aren’t always impor­tant.

But when a girl apol­o­gizes, man. It turns me on. They know that they’re flawed in a way, and they have the “con­scious­ness” to under­stand it.

It shows that they’ve reached the third lev­el of under­stand­ing, as out­lined below, the first lev­el being com­plete igno­rance, and the fourth lev­el being com­plete enlight­en­ment:

  1. I don’t know that I don’t know
  2. I don’t know that I know
  3. I know that I don’t know
  4. I know that I know

Not only does apol­o­giz­ing show that one is at a cer­tain lev­el of self-aware­ness, it shows that one is mature enough to admit this to one­self. And, as we know, matu­ri­ty is fuck­ing hot.

It’s the admit­ting to one­self that I find is much hard­er for peo­ple. So many peo­ple that I run into have such closed minds that they refuse to believe any­thing that goes against what they’ve believed for most of their lives. Sometimes, when one admits one was wrong, it inval­i­dates a huge chunk of ones life and world­view. It’s a hard thing to do, and it takes strength, open-mind­ed­ness, and intel­li­gence.

Of course, apol­o­giz­ing is noth­ing with­out change, with­out learn­ing. Someone who learns great­ly from their mis­takes, and who isn’t afraid of mak­ing them for the sake of learn­ing, is just amaz­ing.

It all adds up; almost every­thing that I look for in a girl is encap­su­lat­ed in one sim­ple act of apol­o­giz­ing. It cer­tain­ly makes things much sim­pler.

Yet more com­pli­cat­ed at the same time.

Mid-Terms And Conditioner

I think I’m com­plete­ly fucked for my mid-terms. It usu­al­ly takes some fail­ing at the begin­ning of the term to tell my brain that I need to get my ass in gear. So usu­al­ly I’ll fail the mid-term, then do fine on the final. It’s like I need to know that I’m fail­ing to pres­sure myself to do bet­ter. I’ve cer­tain­ly got the first part down well; I got a 18.5% algo­rithms assign­ment hand­ed back to me yes­ter­day, and 45% project pro­pos­al. I hope to do bet­ter. It is NOT a good time to get addict­ed to Warcraft 3.

I bought some Infusium 23 for my ter­ri­bly dam­aged hair that Natalie rec­om­mend­ed to me, and it’s amaz­ing. It real­ly is as good as the con­di­tion­er that comes with hair dye kits.

STFU

I found out about a book called Soul Mountain by a man named Gao Xingjian. I read the sum­ma­ry, and found out that it had won a Nobel prize for lit­er­a­ture in 2000. I was very inter­est­ed. Apparently it’s an œuvre in which he explains many facets of his life, which I imag­ine has much to do with per­se­cu­tion in China. I would very much like to read it, but I still have Moby Dick to fin­ish, and the Moonstone to start. I’d also like to get through The Glass Bead Game, which is also a Nobel lau­re­ate, but a book I once found too dense in vocab­u­lary to com­pre­hend. Many of the reviews I’ve found about the Glass Bead Game say that it’s a book which has changed peo­ples lives, and from what I can tell, it’s a book which not many can sort through (i.e. pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­als can’t use it as a phan­tom sym­bol of their supe­ri­or knowl­edge).

Speaking of intel­lec­tu­al poseurs, I was in con­tact with one just the oth­er day, though on friend­ly terms. She did­n’t say any­thing that made me think of intel­lec­tu­al super­fi­cial­i­ty, but as I had­n’t spo­ken to her in a while, and her being one of the few that I know, I was remind­ed of this strange com­plex. I feel com­pelled to write about it.

I’m not quite sure what it is about this aspect of a per­son that makes me go mad with frus­tra­tion. Perhaps it’s the fact that they don’t tru­ly under­stand things which I may find beau­ti­ful. All I can think is, “You’re miss­ing the mes­sage!”, or “Who did you get that opin­ion from?”.

Of course, I under­stand that peo­ple may see beau­ty in dif­fer­ent ways, and inter­pret an artists mes­sage quite dif­fer­ent­ly than oth­er peo­ple. I sup­pose that it’s not in their opin­ion that I see shal­low­ness, it’s how they come to that opin­ion.

Take American Beauty, for exam­ple. The pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­als that I know enjoy that movie because they find the sym­bol of the ros­es to be so deep. The think that the image of the plas­tic bag is so mean­ing­ful. They don’t real­ize that all of the sym­bols, all of the imagery is just hand­ed to them. All they see is a char­ac­ter who thinks intel­lec­tu­al­ly in the film and they think, “Wow. This movie is so deep”.

I guess it’s bet­ter than an igno­rant per­son say­ing, “I did­n’t like Magnolia, it was try­ing to be all weird and stuff”. At least the poseurs are try­ing to be smart. Of course, I even know com­plete idiots who say that they enjoyed American Beauty because it “made them think”.

I sim­ply wish that a pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­al would try to actu­al­ly com­pre­hend some­thing, instead of using pop­u­lar opin­ion, or believ­ing that some­thing is mean­ing­ful sim­ply because there is a mean­ing­ful ele­ment. Or that they would have no opin­ion on a piece of art they don’t under­stand, instead of dis­lik­ing it for the fact.

Of course, I would­n’t appre­ci­ate the tru­ly intel­lec­tu­al peo­ple I know with­out them.

I’m just not sure if it’s worth it any­more.