In Which I Bitch

Hey, that rhymes.

In other news, I’m happy. I’m also in a good relationship, and more or less doing well in my classes.

So why, dear reader, have I been having stress issues lately?

Nothing major, don’t get all worried-like…just trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, as well as clenching my jaw.

It’s bizarre.

Potential sources: school, lack of focus, lack of sleep. Changing seasons/weather.

School
I haven’t really been having PROBLEMS with school per se, but it is stressful — there is always something I should be doing or learning, especially with at least 1.5 tests/quizzes per week.

Lack of Focus
Closely related to the above. I don’t actually have a ton of work, but my attention has been even more divided than usual lately. In the middle of my biology test, I continually spaced out into the design on the floor and almost freaked myself into a panic attack or something like it (i’m not entirely sure why…). I can’t concentrate. It’s just kind of a reality i’ve been putting up with for a while.

Lack of Sleep
Positive feedback loops annoy the shit out of me sometimes, especially when they involve my own well-being. I slept badly the night before I got here, as I had to get up way early for my flight, and this could all be a result of that one night.

Changing Weather
It’s always kinda fucked with my body. Nuff said.

Reasons to be slightly perplexed (paraphrased from an IM convo):
1. It usually EITHER takes me a little while to get to sleep every night, OR one night every so often when i’m up till the wee hours, not both.
2. It’s pretty damn rare that i wake up in the middle of the night, or before i’ve had enough sleep, for a reason other than  an alarm or having to pee.
3. It’s probably nothing to worry about healthwise, as i’ve always had kinda low blood pressure, but dammit i don’t LIKE getting a bit woozy and disoriented nearly every time when i stand up.

In conclusion, if this keeps going, i’m going to really start on a quest to get to the bottom of my random symptoms. All of them. I mean it.

Grawr.

Innovation

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-from-macworld-2007-steve-jobs-keynote/

This macworld review is currently leading to worldwide geekgasms. Anyway.

The way I see it, Apple has always been good at innovation. They look at what the public needs and produce a sleek and shiny version that is easy
to use.   As a company, they have a large and extremely loyal fanbase. They are successful.

Not all visionaries are.

My father, for example, has been struggling to get a company of his off the
ground for years. I’ve sat through this company’s inception — from idea development during dinnertable conversation to bug-fixing with the web development team spread across the middle east. His idea is a good one. To the
best of my knowledge, he has done everything right so far. So why is business not
booming?

He claims that the industry is not ready. Doctors don’t want to use computers. Hospitals don’t like change. The idea is easy to steal.

These are most definitely all excuses. Possibly valid ones, but still.

The problem of being ahead of one’s time is a strange one, but common. It comes with a conundrum, though: once it is time for a product like yours, once there’s truly a niche… wouldn’t it be already filled?

Being at the right place at the right time isn’t only a good idea on the physical level, it’s also a crucial idea on the idea level.

There’s an often-used quote cited in the engadget review posted above, roughly that “You have
to be where the [hockey] puck is going to be, not where it is.” To be successful at innovation, you have to be where the puck will be at the time you get there, not where it will be in half an hour, regardless of whether you have the necessary resources and technology already.

Over the last ten hours, I have been extremely zen.

I’m doing my chemistry homework, and we’re going over basic organic compounds. While working, I realize I’ve seen the structure of isopropyl cyclohexane before in a social diagram, demonstrating the friendships in a
group. Turn the people to carbons, and it is exactly the same. Though the middle carbon in the propyl chain seems like it’d be the worst to get rid of, removing the unit connecting the ring to the branched chain  would actually be the most disastrous.

Everything is interconnected.

Means of understanding and learning, most of all.

I Can’t.

My knees creak, my wrists grind, small bolts of pain appear and vanish in my knuckles.

I lay on my bed, attempting eloquence, ending sentence after sentence with disappointed punctuation and unpunctual finishes.

The assignment with its details calls to me, poking and prodding with its details: 12pointTimesNewRoman1inchmarginsMLAworkscited4-6pagesdoublespaced.

Change of scene

attempt at functionality

potential distractions abound.

Poetry. Again.

Today I tried to molt
split my skin
to let my body emerge
through the back
My hands dug lightly next to my spine
interlocking fingers forming an edge
creating small red inflamed lines
arranged in sequence

I have slipped back into feeling that it is time for a change
time to begin again, to create, to find some form of expression

The itch to move, to wriggle through and break out
is taking over

But I am afraid of what this metamorphosis will lead to
and I am nearing the point
where there is no turning back

Yet still, I reach behind myself
and lightly scratch out perforation lines
in preparation for the split.

I I I’m I I I’ve I I I’m I’m I’m me me me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my friendships here, and next year and beyond, and I’ve decided that really, i’m not quite sure about anything.

I’ve been making connections here, but they’ve been fairly scattered all over the place. I certainly have friends, and certainly have enough of them, but I’m going through a social awkwardness miniphase where I can’t quite figure out what the hell I need, and, more importantly, where the hell I need to be.

I’m second-guessing everything because it’s 4 in the morning, but I need to get this out. My ADHD (let’s go ahead and assume i have that one, o nonexistent readers) has gotten crazy worse since I got here, but I still don’t think it’s quite enough to really interfere with my schooling.

But maybe I’m just making excuses again.

My vague unease and uncertainty with everything is creeping back, and I’m slipping back into i-should-be-happy-land. I hope that my mind won’t twist things again and force things with jeff to go the way of things with roman. I really need to not connect bad feelings with people that they have very little to do with. In short, I need to be honest from the beginning.

That being said, though, I’m not sure if I’m more honest with myself when I’m exhausted, or my perceptions get warped. I know one of those options is true, but I can’t tell which. Ever. Makes for an interesting life.

Poetry. You can’t see it. It’s mine.

Our bodies fit together well
really, that’s all it is
a push and a pull
a set of interlocking pieces
I don’t have anything to say
but i dearly
desperately want to

and i wonder,
am i imagining this puzzle
this fit and flow
like nesting russian dolls
or do you understand?

Restored Vision

    Metafilter recently posted a link to an article about a man who had his sight restored at middle age. The entire article is impressive and worth reading in its entirety, but a specific point that was brought up was the huge number of imperfections only noticable through vision.

    Virgil, blind since childhood, worked as a masseuse. His sense of touch, therefore, was highly developed. A point specifically brought up in the article is that he was newly disgusted by imperfections in the skin of his clients that had previously felt smooth. Comments of this type have been made, in fact, by most people who have had sight restored to them after being blind for a long time; previously unnoticeable imperfections bother them, such as cracks in paint or graffiti.

    While I am nowhere near blind, my vision is rather terrible; I will always need to wear some sort of corrective lenses. I am just blind enough, however, or maybe just empathic enough, to know exactly what is meant by these people. Imperfections noticeable by touch bother me much more than imperfections noticeable by sight. Life quite literally blurs around the edges when I remove my glasses, and though I am not able to read or bring in new information, it is slightly comforting to see no imperfections, only rounded, feather-edged pieces of color, light, and movement.

    There is a certain kind of disillusionment that comes with sharper perception. In vision, it does not have a name. In life, it is considered part of growing up. Both situations involve new ability to notice detail, and thus notice the details that mar the walls, skin, and textures that make up our environment, or, in the other case, to notice that our parents are not perfect and nobody is really an ideal role model. While some lose their newfound vision after all, such as Virgil in the article above, the memories of the imperfections remain with us throughout our lives. It is more comforting to live a blurred existence, but I, for one, would not choose that permanent comfort.

New Project.

Reactions to short stories. First from my favorite anthology, then (perhaps) others.

The anthology I am referring to above is called Masterpieces: The Best Science Ficition of the Twentieth Century. It is edited by Orson Scott Card, and contains an amazing selection of short stories by, well, the best science fiction authors of the twentieth century, from Aldiss to Turtledove, from Asimov to Martin, from Bradbury to Gibson to Heinlein.

In short, it is awesome and far rarer than it ought to be.

Katamari!

There is a wonderful game for the playstation two sitting to my left on top of my mess. I am currently borrowing it from someone for the weekend, possibly more. It is called We (heart) Katamari, and today I was rolling up flowers and pencils and clover and fish.

The sheer amount of drug references in this game is astounding, though it might be more prevalent in the first one. To be honest, I haven't played enough of this sequel yet (though it has been out for quite a while) to gauge that.

There is still an anti-physics engine, and the game still entertains me like no other. Also, I wish I could clean up MY room like that.

Another fun piece I've noticed so far was the glimpses into the King of all Cosmos's history. Is it sad that I have now psychoanalyzed a fictional character from a video game? (Not like it's difficult — from the two childhood cutscenes I have so far seen, he had a very harsh, strict, restricting childhood during which he often believed he was not good at anything. As such, when he grew up, he turned to drugs and other reckless behavior as a form of escape, and as he knew no other way to parent, he enforced similar strictness on his own son, the little green prince guy.)

I wonder if I should count this in with my surrealism category…