original content

Sleepless evening

It's funny when these things hit you. You get into bed and think it'll be a simple matter of closing your eyes and being in your serene moment. The moments you remember that calm you, and lift you away from everyday life. Some nights are that easy I guess. I like to think of various bike trails I've been on. The moments inbetween having to fight the wind and endure crappy roads - the perfect moments when it's just me and my bike, and every effort has a direct translation to the distance I travel. Moments when I don't feel the weight of my bike or the rattle of my chain..the speedometer says 22...23...24...

Then there are other nights when your mind is racing. The nights when you can't shut yourself up. Tonight I was thinking about Stanford. I'm sure a lot of you know my love/hate relationship with Stanford. For the record, I'm glad I'm not there. I probably would be a worse person than I am today (if it were possible). I'd probably have destroyed myself in one way or another (moreso than already). I don't think a lot of people understand that. I sense it comes from straddling the line between elitists and plebeians. A sort of excellent mediocrity. I don't know what the hell I mean so don't ask me; frankly in the short and long term, I couldn't give a fuck.

But I can't deny the allure that was there. And tonight the memories of Stanford as I remember it poured in through the cracks of my consciousness. I remember walking barefoot into the dining hall for the first time with my brother's card in hand. I remember that lady's toothy smile. I remember dishes and plates littering the halls of the dorms. I remember Garry's roommates, and the shock of having walked in on my brother making out with his girlfriend (shit, I was kid, cmon - I still believed in cooties). I remember how cool everything looked, how big it all seemed.

I remember going to the library and watching Blade Runner for the first time. Yes, going to the library to watch a movie. I remember walking through the massive stacks of shelves, the large halls.

I'll still never know if it was real or not, but I remember holding a gun for the first time and asking my brother's friend if it was real or not. Then them just laughing and taking it away.

I remember the Phi Kappa Psi house and how cramped it all was - and yet how it all seemed to just fit. The giant buffet style dinner they had that night. I even remember the chef, and the giant kitchen, and the Xbox that I played well into the night while Garry was at a lab. Yes, it was Halo.

I think to my time here at Davis, and I wonder why the memories aren't as fond as the ones I have with my brother at Stanford were. If it was somehow, something Stanford offered that Davis didn't. Or was it age? Does being older somehow inherently change our impressions? Is it circumstance? From having moved so quickly from the dorms to my own apartment? From working? From having a barrage of obligations? Maybe it's everything, maybe it's something else. I wish I could ask you for your description of college. But it's inherently different from mine, and I will never understand yours.

Anyways, this post has run it's course, and accomplished it's goal. I'm am now sufficiently tired to sleep. Usually what happens is I read over this piece of shit, deem it a pile of shit, and delete it. But, I guess it'd be a shame to waste the memories.

Loading mentions Retweet

Ruminations - 16 Facts, Books, and other Scattered Ideas

Here comes another scattered brain dump. Beware!

16 Facts About Me
There seems to be an interesting phenomenon of these '16 Facts About Me You Didn't Know' notes on facebook. I've been tagged in a handful of them, usually people considering me to be their 'close friend' (and how I can really be close to anyone completely escapes me - but that's a different post altogether). I'd love to see a psychology journal article about these facebook phenomena (hint hint Kevin H?). It'd be interesting to see how these things come about - why people do them, why people participate. What are the psychological causes and consequences for these things? Moreover, how is it affecting my generation's socialization? How is it affecting how we interact with one another?

I ask these things because a generation earlier calling people on the phone was the norm. With the digitization of life - we saw the shift to email, instant messaging, cell phones, texting. Texting really doesn't make sense to me (I don't have a plan and will forever refuse one). It's inbetween an instant message and a phone call - and it seems like people use it because they're too fucking scared to use a goddamn phone. Is it just me, or do we all seem to be getting more and more distant from one another? These things claim to bring us together - but are they really? Or is it just giving us that illusion? I'll let you in on a little secret friends (and strangers) - these days I feel more isolated than ever. Is it because of the digital age - or am I just a fucking nancy (Thomas, don't you fucking dare respond to this).

Hence why I wonder about these 16 Facts stuff. Are we really reinforcing relationships by creating them? Or are we watering them down? Kevin, solve this fucking question (you're damn right I'm calling you out on this - I also want numbers, not anecdotal shit) and get back to me on Monday.

Books vs. Movies
I bought a book for $8.69 today. A movie costs $10.50. What the fuck. When the hell did this happen? Was this always the case? Here, I bought a book that I can read and enjoy and that will keep me pretty enthralled for a good week or two - at the same time it'll keep my imagination going. Hell, I might even learn a few SAT words in the process. Maybe even learn to write better blog posts (nope).  On the other hand there's a shitty little movie that'll keep me brain dead for about 2 hours of my life. Hell, if I'm going to consume meaningless bullshit, I better get my fucking money's worth.

Charities
Along the lines of the 16 Facts stuff (notice 16 Facts sort of sounds like 16 Candles? Correlation?) here's something I've been realizing recently. If you know me, you probably know me to be a little weird about my money and time. I'll drop $20 on something if I feel like I'm going to get some good use out of it. But you ask me to spend 2 hours working at a charity and then you've got yourself an issue. Probably ending in me ranting about how all charities are a scam and how I believe people should raise themselves up from poverty.

The weirder thing is that if someone working for (or at least claiming to - fucking thieves) a charity comes up to me and asks for a donation. I'll probably give them $5 or so. Today there was this boygirl (its gender was ambiguous to me) who was going around Barnes and Noble asking for donations for some village or some shit in Africa. Something about buying food or medicine or something else that's so damn noble and just (in my defense, I didn't claim to have any real desire to help people - I just donate for purely selfish reasons).

Anyways, I wasn't really sure whether I should be donating to this kid. I mean hell, he was laying it on pretty thick. This kid was Japanese (or Korean, and I can't tell). He spoke very little English. Got down on one knee when he was talking to me. Showed me a somewhat legit looking information sheet about what his charity was doing. Was pretty good about making eye contact. I was well on my way to give him a $5. Woops, don't have $5. I'm also not about to give my a check or my credit card information. Sorry karma, next time.

Posterous and Essays
I've come to the general realization and posterous has absolutely DESTROYED my essay writing capabilities. Every essay I've attempted to write thus far ends up sounding like some terrible terrible brain dump - not too unlike this one.

Loading mentions Retweet