LAST POST THIS YEAR

Can you believe it. A whole year. One year. Can you believe it.

Math

Math basically manages to make me feel at peace with everything all the time. I was feeling all sorts of strongly about religion, and now, well, I still feel exactly the same, but I'm not angry about it. Yeah, that's it. Math doesn't make me withdrawn, just emotionally unattached.

Yes, emotionally unattached exactly. Also, writing about it helped a lot. I guess that's why I have a blog. To be a friend that can listen to me even when all my other friends are elsewhere. Nice.

In an hour and a half or so, I'll be going to a party. Cool.

Also Nora is on a plane right now that is taking her back into the States. Cool.

And she gets back on Wednesday. Woo!

And I'll maybe hang out with Simon tonight. Emosewa.

Warning, a lot of hate in this post

Over the past week I have been hating the hell out of religion in general. It mainly started when I read that Sam Harris book. At first I actually disagreed with him a lot, but I've been thinking about it a hella lot and I really do hate religions. I feel like they only cause harm.

A religion is just one more form of separation from other people. A way of feeling superior to the people who aren't in your club. We already have race, sexuality, age, gender, and language; we don't need yet another way of shouting at your neighbour, "I AM DIFFERENT FROM YOU." Not different, better.

Now, many people get a lot out of going to services for their religion or whatever. Hell, I went to Catholic mass yesterday and got a lot out of it. But now that I'm not brainwashed by the church I can see the difference between getting a lot out of the religion, and getting a lot of comfort from familiarity. Of course I got a lot out of it. I grew up with Christianity. It's nostalgic.

Even in Buddhism, there are different sects. Now, they all pride themselves in not judging, but judgement is a natural human reaction to anything. This is basic survival. So when a Japanese monk comes to a Korean temple, all the things he notices are the ways they do things differently. Grey robes instead of black. Only one hwadu instead of all the koans. Et cetera. I recall a Japanese monk saying exactly this. He went on to talk about how he realised he was focusing on all the wrong things, and that really we had way more in common than different. That is wisdom.

Religions encourage people to judge people of other religions. That is my first problem with religions. My second problem is that they encourage people to think that wonderful happenings must have been caused by a god or higher being.

When it rains for two months, it is because of the way the atmosphere is. When a poor man gets a job, climbs the ladder, and becomes rich, it is because he willed it to be so. Why can't we accept that humans are very wonderful on their own? Why should either event be caused by a god? Both are very possible, however unlikely. When a tsunami kills thousands of people on Christmas Eve, what makes that have anything to do with god? It doesn't. Yet many people felt righteous enough to say it was God punishing the non-believers. I have nothing but hatred for righteous people of any kind. Fuck them.

Religions do not make people better. I have no religion, and I am (stepping away from modesty for a moment) a hella good person. By the way, for those of you who are saying "I thought you were Buddhist," I stopped being Buddhist months ago. I go to the temple because I think meditation is wonderful, as are all the things we do at the temple. I think the teachings of Buddhism are right on. But that doesn't make me a Buddhist. It doesn't because I doubt the teachings and judge them. I decide whether or not I like a teaching. That is using my own moral compass, and not that of a religion. I affiliate myself most with Buddhism because I rarely (not never, though) find a teaching that I find unbeneficial. Therefore, I am not completely accepting the teachings of Buddhism, and am putting myself outside of the religion to judge it.

I believe the same to be true of anyone who does not follow their entire religion. If you are one of those people, please think about it. Are you actually getting positive things out of your faith, or are you actually just using your own considerable knowledge and wisdom to pick and choose? Are you getting anything positive out of services, or are they just comforting because they are familiar? Please give it some honest, open-minded thought. If I'm wrong, tell me. But be prepared for an argument, and be prepared to tell me exactly what you do get out of it.

Religions only cause harm. The good parts of religion are (depending on the religion) the teachings and practises. But stay away from beliefs, because that leads to righteousness. How else can you be when you have absolutely no evidence to support your claim of there being a god. Yes, I can't prove that there is no god, but I don't have the burden of proof here. I don't believe in anything that hasn't been already proven. Not out of ease, but out of common sense. Think about it. Why should there be a god? Because you like the idea of some all-powerful being controlling everything? That idea makes you more comfortable with the world? Okay, then whatever. At least recognise that there is not a shred of evidence to support your claim, and kindly keep your mouth shut about it. Just because you feel more at ease thinking that we are not capable of greatness on our own does not mean that other people do or even should agree.

I hate religion.

By the way, Nora, if you happen to read this, your note did not cause this. I was planning on making this post before I got it. It did make me feel a little more strongly about it, but I've been feeling like this a while.

Anyway, back to addressing all the readers, you can comment on this if you want, but I'd rather have a real conversation about it. Please do convince me I'm wrong. I don't like hating things.

4th (fourth) post today

I learned to use an abacus! I am so hella slow, and I need to memorise my multiplication table up to 9x9=81. I mean I mostly have it memorised already, but I need to actually do it, and then I can multiply and divide on an abacus. There is nothing, nothing more hardcore than doing division on an abacus.

One day, I will find a tiny abacus that is really nice. It will be the good kind that has 4 in the ones and 1 in the fives (most have 5 in the ones and 2 in the fives, which is inefficient and retarded, I think the kind I want is called a soroban?), and it will fit in my pocket. I will break it out and do maximum mathematics on it, and people will faint. Awesome.

Wow.

My grandma just gave me my grandfather's old jewellery (cufflinks, pins, tie bars, etc). All in this old box with the Optimist's Creed on it. Holy shit this is the best present ever. I am going to be using this stuff for the rest of my life.

Awesometastic

I am going to hang out with Kaitlin, which is pretty great. I mean, this is more than a week from now, but it is happening, so that's good. I'll maybe hang out with James too. Maybe Liz too? I should definitely hang out with Gynelle, even though we both live in Ann Arbor. I should also figure out a way to "chill" with "Anneka." And Asya. Also I should definitely hang out with Ted and Erica maybe. SO MANY FRIENDS

Ted is a guy that I wish I was better friends with. He seems like a hell of great guy, but I feel like I don't really know him well enough to just hang out with him. Oh well. Can't be friends with everybody, I guess.

Simon

Man, you know why I like Simon? He is a man who thinks. It is rare to find a person who thinks. There are a lot of people who think they think, but very few who actually think. If you don't actually think, try it. It's not hard. Just rare.

I love talking to people who think, because when they talk, you can tell they've thought about it. If Simon isn't pretty sure of something, he doesn't say it. If he's sure of something, he says it. If everybody was like that, the world would be completely perfect.

Anyway I just hung out with Simon.

Woooooo

Well I talked to Nora on the phone which was pretty great. It is amazing to me how breaks are more stressful than school. It is like, there are so many family friend parties between Christmas and New Years that I don't want to go to, but not going would be rude, so I go, and I stand around and maybe talk to someone I haven't talked to for a couple years and won't talk to for a couple years and ugh imagine I could be just sitting down silently or even having fun.

Whatever.

Anyway, I am going to try to hang out with some friends maybe. We'll see what happens with that.

Stuff that I got for Christmas

I got:

• an awesome popcorn popper
• some great books
• clothes, candy, and cleaning stuff
• and a darkroom that my parents are going to pay for

The idea behind the darkroom is that I will put together a darkroom and my parents will buy it. This is basically just completely awesome. I will be doing photography again. Hardcore.

Also I still miss my girlfriend, and kind of feel bad about this. Because I don't really ever miss people. I have my moments, where I get my sad on and miss some friends or family, but they never last long, and they rarely happen. Yet I really miss Nora. It is like, on one hand this is a basic thing, but on the other, I feel like there are so many people I should also be missing that I'm not, and plus I should be putting more effort into hanging out with my high school friends who are back in town (so far I have only hung out briefly with Ted and Erica, and they are the ones that visited me).

Then it bothers me that I even feel bad about this. I should miss my girlfriend a whole bunch, because I love her and I want to always be with her. Right now, what with her being in Israel, I can't even call her, let alone see her. But it has been what, not even a week? Kind of pathetic. It's like, I always scoff a little when I see couples get all bent out of shape over little things like this, but here I am being Matt the Hypocrite once again and doing exactly that. And I kind of hate that.

Actually you know what? Better idea: I miss Nora a hella lot, and I should. What I can take from this is that I have no business judging people for this kind of thing. Now that I am on this end, I can sympathise, and it is not something to roll my eyes about. I apologise to all those of you who I have inwardly rolled my eyes at. I don't really remember specifically who you are, and I doubt you read my blog, but sorry about that.

Anyway, yeah, I miss Nora a fucking lot, and I should probably hang out with friends. I'll get on that.

I just finished reading one of my books, called Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. I recommend this, and will lend it out to anyone who wants to read it; it's a quick read. I am not sure I agree with a lot of what he says, but he does say something that you don't hear a lot of people saying: Religion is evil, and unsafe. He makes a lot of very convincing points, and backs himself up very well.

Aussi, j'ai un livre qui s'appelle Le Petit Prince. C'est un livre pour les enfants, mais c'est très difficile lire pour moi. Je ne lis pas bien en français encore, mais j'aime tenter.

EDIT: Haha I forgot to press the send button last night. Oops.

ADD?

I might have ADD. More on this later. But damn, it would explain a hella lot if I have ADD. I am not going to take any medication, but if I do have ADD, I can second-guess myself and help myself out of it. On second thought, it doesn't really matter if I have ADD or not. Even if I don't, I can just act like I do, and become way better at everything.

Yeah, this supports my opinion that all these psychological diseases are fake ideas. I'll let you know how this goes.

How I feel right now

Right now I feel like my eyes are being perpetually clawed out. Internally. Or like someone is stopping my breathing. I need to figure out why I feel this way and maybe fix it. This is not how I want to be feeling.

Also, for those of you who know I haven't slept well for several weeks, I am still not sleeping well. I feel so drifty, like I'm not a part of anything. I really want a full nights sleep, and I am going to try for one right now, but I doubt it will work. Wish me luck I guess.

Straight Razors

Okay, so I have decided that I am going to go into history with my shaving. Meaning I will be using a real straight razor with a stone and a strop. Up until now, I've been using one that has replaceable blades. On ebay I just found a set of 6 razors and a strop, which I think I will go for.

Also, I will be using a badger-hair brush and cup-soap for cream. No more of that aerosol bullshit. Seriously, that stuff runs out of pressure long before it runs out of cream, and the cans are just not good for the environment. Plus, I will be using a badger-hair brush and a cup, which is so classy.

Anyway, while looking up all this stuff, I found a comprehensive guide to shaving with a straight razor. I have been shaving with one for nearly a year now, but I thought I'd look anyway. I used its instructions and stuff and yesterday I gave myself the cleanest shave I have ever had, ever.

My point is, I will possibly have 6 straight razors soon, and I only need one. If anyone wants to learn to shave with a straight razor, I would be happy to give you one. I forget if any guys read my blog or not. Wait, Josh does. Josh, if you want a straight razor, let me know. I guess girls can want a straight razor too. Let me know.

I miss my girlfriend

:(

Hands are bananas

Don't watch this movie.

Whew

I am so tired. Tomorrow, I will be in the dishpit with only Sean. Probably nobody will have moved out between now and then. Sean and I are going to die together, arm in arm, all with sad choir music in the background. There will be fog as my memories are played through rapidly, yet slowly. People wearing black are crying in a rainy graveyard. The people leave as the camera focuses on the single rose, lying alone on the stone bearing our names.

Also today is the two-month-iversary of Nora and me going out. So far, she still has yet to figure out that I am only using her for sex.

Proud of myself?

I always feel true to myself when I get myself out of a depression. Whenever I'm depressed, I always want to make people feel bad, and I can get really mean to people. I mean, in subtle ways, but that just makes it a lot worse. Anyway, I managed to overcome that and help myself. At this point, I don't feel depressed anymore. Now I'm just sad for a reason.

Which is better and worse I guess. It's like, on one hand, I know why I'm sad, so I'm not depressed and I don't feel the need to hurt anybody, and this is all very good. But it is also kind of out of the frying pan and into the fire because I know exactly why I am sad and I know that there is not really anything I can do about it.

I am lonely. That is really it. Just lonely. I feel like there isn't really anyone right now that I can consider a friend, and that makes me feel lonely.

I'm feeling

kind of empty right now. I guess I'm more tired than anything else. Also Ted and Erica visited earlier, and completely made my day.

I really want to hang out with a friend right now, but I kind of feel like I don't have any friends. I mean, I don't really know anyone here, and my high school friends that I know I haven't seen in a long time. I kind of hate my social life here at UM, just to set the record on that. It's not that it's bad or anything. I just feel like I've inserted myself into a group of friends, but I'm like the one jigsaw piece that doesn't fit so I used glue. That is how I feel.

It is kind of a claustrophobic sort of thing. Or maybe an agoraphobic thing. Yeah, agoraphobic. I have many places to run, but none of them are any different from where I am. Maybe I need a change of scene. Yeah, probably. Okay I'm going to go to the arb. I'll be back when I get too cold. See you then.

Spamalot

I just watched Spamalot. I feel like I should have enjoyed it a lot, but it really didn't do much for me. It lacked oomph. That said, the Lady of the Lake was fucking sweet.

I was going to end my entry there, but I am actually going to rant a little. About how I feel like I should have enjoyed it. I don't know why I feel like this, but I feel like people will think less of me that I did not find the play to be very funny at all. Especially such as my family (I told them I liked it a lot). It's like, a part of me is very tired of seeing Monty Python's Holy Grail, and another part of me found the play quite flat on its own. The combination of the two didn't work very well for me.

Also I don't really like Monty Python that much. There, I said it. I find them humourless, and somewhat irritating (albeit with many exceptions). But most of my love for Monty Python is created from pressure from everyone around me. Everyone I respect just completely loves Monty Python and finds every one of their jokes outrageously hilarious, and if I said I didn't like Monty Python, they would undoubtedly rip me apart. On one hand, that probably isn't true, but on the other hand, dear reader, I bet your Respect-O-Metre™ is going down for me right now.

Admit it. It is. But you know what, I am not going to pretend to like them anymore. I am done with that. I have felt pressured because of my Britishness, and because of all my friends/family, but liking Monty Python is just not me.

That said, please don't get me wrong. I love some of the stuff Monty Python does. Like the Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life song, or the Galaxy song, or a number of great moments they had. But as a whole, I really don't like their style. It seems dull, forced, and overall trying too hard. I hope I haven't offended anyone.

About me

I am incapable of waking up after 8:00 am. Did you know that.

Think about this.

Following up from yesterday, please think about this. Is there a way to change money such that its power will be removed or diminished? Maybe start thinking with a word like credits, and see where it goes. Please give me your insights. Thank you.

Also here is my schedule for Winter 2007. The Monday dishroom shift was taken right in front of my eyes and I want to cry, but if nothing else I will be serving food on that day. I hope Balin gives me the shift.

I can't wait to take macroeconomics

Okay so here is my problem. One of the main problems with the economic world right now and with Capitalism is that the wealthy control everything, and can do so to their own advantage. The problem with Communism is that it banks too much on people being good. It is my firm belief that whatever system in control needs to assume that everybody is a crook, but also that the system in control should represent all people, and not just the wealthy.

It is clear that Capitalism (or neo-libralism) and Communism both fail, and also so does Anarchy. Fascism would do it, except that it depends on a great person always being in charge, which is as silly as Communism or Anarchy. This illustrates the obvious point that extremes won't work. But that doesn't really help me find a solution.

It seems to me that the optimal thing would be to figure out a way for money to only buy things, but not power. This way, everyone has an equal amount of power (Communism), but an unequal amount of money (neo-libralism). It seems like a great idea and it solves all the problems, but how the hell do I go about separating money from power? Is that even possible?

It kind of hurts my brain to think about it, to be honest. But seriously, if I could do that, it would be a huge step for civilisation as a whole. I need to bounce these ideas off of someone. Maybe Nora or Jesse or Patrick or someone. I really want to talk to Nick Davenport about this too. By the way, this is spurred from a letter I just received from Nick, who says he'll be in town really soon. Hang on I am going to call his house.

His mom says he is back late this Saturday. Excellent. I will definitely talk government with him.

Back on topic, I feel like money is irritating. Without money, 4 apples buy 3 oranges, and if you don't have something someone wants, you can't trade for something you want. This sucks because it makes transactions hella slow, and useless if they are in an area where there is a lot of one thing and little of another. Therefore money is necessary as something to tie everything together.

But now 4 dollars buy 4 apples or 3 oranges or 2 milkshakes or 1 burrito etc. and everybody wants at least something that 4 dollars can buy, so people will trade you anything for money. And so if you offer people money, you have power no matter what. Therefore, money inevitably leads to power. I can ridicule Bill Gates all I want, but if he offers me a bunch of money, I shut my mouth and become his humble servant, all without him needing to lift a finger. Wealthy people are the true royalty that move the government around like pawns. And that is pretty unstoppable.

So I can't change money. I wonder if there is a way to give everybody so much power that no amount of money will make a significant difference. Because if every person has a ridiculous amount of power, nobody has any power, and adding some amount of power that money will provide will maybe do very little.

The problem here is that I am dodging around the definition of "power." I honestly have no idea how to "give people power." It doesn't have its own currency. Although it could. Hm. Well shit. No, no, that is a dumb idea, because then you could sell say your voting power to someone for money, and bam the people with money have the most voting power.

Also I wonder if money to power is an addition problem or a multiplication problem. What I said earlier is banking on it being addition. Yet it seems more like money multiplies your power, rather than adding to it. Seriously, there must be a way to do this. God DAMN.

I am so hella frustrated right now, and my brain really hurts. I need a person. Also I need to take a few advanced courses in macroeconomics.

Classes

Well I just registered for classes. Basically I am thanking Lady Luck because things worked out at exactly the last minute. I will save the most stressful for last in my tale. Okay, first my math class. There is no stress in this story. It is a 300-level class that only math majors want to take and meets from 2-3 MWF. Moving on, my French class is a two-a-day class that meets from 10-11 M-Th, and I needed to have the discussion from 1-2. If you missed out, you can read about those particular adventures.

Finally, Econ 101. The only lecture I could fit of the four was 11:30-1 MW. There are two discussions I can take. One of them filled up immediately. Not the one I actually wanted, plus the one I wanted was 8:30-10 Tuesday, which I figured would not fill up very fast. WRONG. WRONG. I WAS WRONG. Actually that entire lecture filled up. I was basically going "shit shit shit" to myself just now, and then the original section which is 11:30-1 Tuesday opened up. I grabbed it. I will keep looking at the 8:30-10 with hopes that I will be able to jump, but otherwise I have a schedule and I will keep it.

I guess it is considered very fashionable to post my schedule on my blog. Here:

Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday: Do not bother me on these days I have all my classes on all of them (except one on Tuesday) and will have much stress about it. You don't care what my schedule is on these days because you do not want to see me on these days. This will begin Sunday night and end 3:00 Wednesday afternoon, when I will probably want to cold have a bunch of fun. Call me.

Thursday: French 10-11 and 1-2. Also 12-1 and 3:30-4:30 I will be speaking to people in French, and will be at work from 5-8-ish.

Friday: Math 2-3

As far as work schedule, that is yet to be seen. I hate text-based schedules as they are just completely indecipherable (for me), so I will make a pdf on Wednesday when I have a more finalised schedule for you to see.

Thank you for reading my blog today! If you comment on this post before the day ends, I will give you a cookie. No strings attached!

Nora is basically awesome

We had a bunch of emotional shit but we got over it mainly by being awesome. Otherwise, I hate my week that is going to happen. I have French Pseudo-Proficiency for the next few days, and a lot of writing (albeit in English) to do, and a lot of working in the cafeteria during times that I could be studying French or writing. All in all, I could use some luck and/or superpowers this week.

Gruglgghph

I was going to study and write a paper, but all my motivation suddenly disappeared and now I am going to go to bed. Good luck to me on French Proficiency Week. Good night to all. I hope you had good weekends

Oh right my blog

I am back from my several-day hiatus from posting here. This was not really a great weekend for me. Actually it is so far pretty mediocre-at-best. Right now, I could be / want to be at the temple, but I have work that starts before the service ends, so I can't go. I really kind of need to go to the temple as well.

Friday night I went to my first party in a long time. I went because it was the cafeteria party. I figured there would be a bunch of people I liked, and so I would have fun. Unfortunately, drunk people are basically obnoxious if you aren't drunk. I mean, it is fun to be in a group of sober people with one drunk person, and it is fun to be drunk among drunk people, but being sober among drunk people is mostly annoying. I did get to hang out with Nora for a good while after, but she was drunk, and drunk people suck. Yeah, I think I'm just not going to do parties.

Maybe if people really want me to go I will show up for a few minutes and then leave unannounced. This way, I won't have wasted my time much, I probably would even enjoy the few minutes I would be there. Also, people wouldn't notice me leaving, and would assume I stayed for longer, and it would make them happy that I did show up. Everybody wins if I barely come. So that is what I will do from now on.

But seriously, drunk people suck. I really don't get being drunk. My only rationale is that people aren't comfortable with themselves and feel like they need to drink to lose their inhibitions and become more like themselves. For we few people who are comfortable with ourselves and act like ourselves most of the time, drinking is a silly thing to do. Seriously, if people have thoughts on this, I want to hear them. Particularly people who get drunk. I mean, I know that you are probably the one person who reads this blog, but don't let that stop you from posting / talking to me about this.

Anyway that is my assessment. Most people feel like they can't be themselves, and drinking helps them loosen up. Argue!

Anyway, yesterday I worked and it was boring. Then I saw Borat, which is exactly how Jesse described it: "a movie that everybody should see once." Speaking of Jesse, I am glad I went to that party because Jesse was there and wasn't drunk and I talked to him. He is someone who has made it to my mental "awesome" list, and I want to hang out with him more. I should hang out with him more.

Anyway, I stayed up late last night talking about fun with Matt Steele and Adam. Good times. But still, I just feel overall bad this weekend. I feel kind of like the title of my blog. Anyway, I'ma go do my laundry.

Congratulations Junk Mail!

You have just sent me my 100,000th junk message! In your honour, I will read you to my blog:

HELP TO SAVE TH CHILDREN!

We are all like this… we do not believe that anything bad might happen to us. It seems to us that we will never find the trouble round our door. We are glad that this misfortune is not ours. God can miraculously unite us and make brothers and sisters those who did not know each other yesterday.

DONATE AT OUR WEBSITE: [I am not typing the URL. —Ed.]

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06 December 2006

Today will go down in history. It is one of the greatest days of my life. I have never been so productive in one day. I'd elaborate, but I am way to wiped out. Let's say I have spent a total of 12 hours studying today (4 in the morning, 8 in the afternoon). I also had a little fun today, so it was well-rounded. I also had my French oral exam (which went okay I think).

Anyway, the 6th of December is a day that will be known to me as High Hump Day, and I will celebrate it every year until I forget about it. I just cracked my neck, and it was louder and with more cracks than it has been for months. Today is the day where everything that has happened was extreme.

inCircle

I got this thing advertising "inCircle," which is UM's imitation of facebook for UM only. I was going to not do it, but then I realised that the more people do it, the more I won't have to use facebook. After all, facebook is a pretty good idea, except that it got ridiculous. I feel like the University of Michigan Alumni Association is not going to pump out a bunch of retarded updates, and it will probably look exactly the same as it does now in 5 years.

So I got on it. I hope other people get on it that can. As an incentive, I put up an old facebook picture that has both me with a fro and me without a fro. You do not want to miss seeing this picture. If you threw out the ad you got in the mail, it's at umalumni.com/incircle.

Anyway, I am going to have a picture taken of myself that is really awesome, and it will not go up on facebook, and will be only viewable on inCircle. That will be the next incentive to get on inCircle. Come on fellow students you know you want to get on inCircle.

Why don't we do it in our sleeves?

What a good question! Yes indeed, why don't we.

Also it looks like my schedule problem might solve itself. I hope.

I feel so much better

I just spent the past however long curled up with a blanket and pillow in my closet eating gummy bears

And now

My desk is too small to curl up under. What the hell can I do now?

Argh dangit

Man you know how my schedule was easy to make because there are no other possibilities? And how the only possible problem was with my French sections and if the one I can take fills up? Guess what happened.

It was made pretty clear to me that I need to find a student who can switch with me. No luck so far. I have looked on the course guide, and basically the only thing I can do if I can't is find two new classes and leave the RC. Next year I will be in the B-school and will not have the time to take an 8-fucking-credit language class. So basically it is looking like I will not be learning French.

God I hope I can find someone. On the bright side, if I don't take French, I'll be able to take Photography and maybe another math class, which would be fun I guess. But I mean, I really want to take French, and I want to stay in the RC. The most annoying thing to me is I went there as soon as it opened to sign up, got in line, and the person two in front of me filled the last space in that section.

And he didn't even want that section; he wanted to be in a different section that had already filled up. I told him that if he finds someone who is in that section who is cool with switching to the third open section, to give me his spot. He said okay, but I mean, that doesn't mean a lot.

FUCK. That is basically how I feel right now. Anyway, I am going to go stand outside until I get too cold, and then come back inside and maybe do work or something.

Wait hey what the hell

Why is UM going to the Rose Bowl? Didn't we lose to OSU and OSU won every game? Would somebody please explain this to me?

Bénabar

Is an artist I just discovered. I like him a lot. His stuff is like French carnival music.

I am picturing this:

Me, wearing a long white beard and long grey cloak, holding a sword and a wooden staff. I am standing in the hallway on the way to the dishroom. A cart is coming, and I slam the sword and staff into the ground, shouting, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"

Does anyone know the folk tale about the guy that pushes the train back out of town? Anyway, I also might pull a that guy and push the cart back out of the dishroom and into the cafeteria. I guess that would be more straightforward.

I have done so much math

This stuff beats any kind of therapy. By the way here is a problem for anybody who reads this and also likes math. I am pretty sure this is nobody, but here it is:

Find x (the length of the shared leg).

It appears simple, but I have yet to solve it. I mean, wait a minute I think I just solved it and I think it is impossible. Ignore this problem.

D:

Dang wow I have really got my sad on right now. I woke up this morning and was just like "daaaaang I am sad right now." I really don't know why, but I also really doubt this will last the whole day. Usually that does not happen, so at least I have that going for me. I guess I will go set about figuring out why I am not happy.

Also I feel way too hot and way too cold at the same time. All I really know is that I feel like I am about to break.

He's promised to build us a world of our own

I am really getting into Of Montreal still. Oh man. It's like, I really did not like them when I listened at first, but their music just won't stop growing on me.

Anyway, I am going to work out in a half hour, hopefully with Matthew Alexander Steele. After that, I'll be working on a paper, and then maybe doing other work. I wanted to go to Rackham today, but then I remembered all the other things I have to do. Sigh.

Anyway, not much else to say I'm afraid. Actually I'm really not in the mood to write here. I will stop.

OMG POLKA DOTS

I decided that since most of the stuff in my blog is not important, I should have a layout that says to viewers, "this is not important." Also let's admit it, the old theme was pretty ugly. Not that this one is gorgeous or anything, but at least it is delightful.

Maintenant je viens de finir mon examen de français. Dans le matin, j'ai eu des examens de grammaire, et je viens de finir une lecture. Les examens qui étaient pendant le matin n'étaient pas trop difficile, mais la lecture était très, très, très difficile pour moi. Après, j'ai parlé à mes camarades de classe, et ils sont d'accord. Donc, je ne suis pas trop inquiet.

Aussi, Nora m'a dit «il y a une site web pour trouver un correspondant français (et autre langues),» et j'ai lui demandé l'adresse de cette site web. Après je finis écrire, je vais prendre un account là, et j'apprendrai beaucoup et je m'amuserai.

Back to English, earlier today I learned how to use all of the thousands of databases here at the U of M for finding such as books and articles. Pretty great. I am writing a paper on friendship.

Oh hey!

I'm not depressed anymore, I just noticed. I have a rekindled desire to take over the world and to get into the dang business school. Keep on rocking, Matt LaChance.

Who has 7 kg of gummies!

Me! (I do!)

My health (DID YOU KNOW! ¶3)

My cold is in the healing stages now. I guess I never said here that I finally inherited Nora's cold last Tuesday. It got to the kind of bad stages (not real bad—about as bad as the common cold ever gets) on Thursday/Friday, and still sort of sucked yesterday. Now it is back in my throat and my sniffles are much less there. I hate sniffles, which is why I didn't like the last few days. Sore throats however, I have no problem with them.

Sore throats! This is a message to you! Bring it on!

Also, did you know that you should never flush tissue paper down the toilet? Or any paper that is not toilet paper, for that matter. Toilet paper is specially designed to dissolve in water, and other papers are not. If too much non-toilet paper goes down the toilet (like at my house), it could make a clog (like at my house) and you have to hire this expensive plumber guy to send this snake down your pipe all the way to the road (like at my house) to remove the clog.

Because there was a clog, the drain in the garage was overflowing. Now our garage is pretty shitty. My dad has a bunch of shit to clean up everywhere. Seriously, crap is everywhere in my garage. If my dad and I walked in, he would say, "Shit, son!" and I would say, "That's right pa!"

The hell I am back

I was without internet for the past few days because I was at home and there was not any internet there. I like not having the internet because it forces me to go have real fun. For example, instead of playing on the internet, I played taboo with my family, and instead of posting to my blog, I called Nora and talked about it. You know, to a person, and not to a blog.

As far as what happens, I'm really not in the mood to recap, and I doubt I will be. I hung out with Simon for the first time in like a billion years. A year. A couple months. But still, it was pretty cool to hang out with Simon, and right afterwards I found a penny (haha Simon you will never get your hands on this penny).

A while after, Nora called and we talked for two hours.

Before I stop writing, Gynelle, I need to give you a CD and I also need to talk to you. Not urgently, but definitely one-on-one.

In retrospect, I guess my only regret is that I did not have a Kraftwork Thänksgiving.

Ahhh.

Nobody can quite challenge my beliefs like my family can. Man am I grateful; I've been getting pretty full of myself lately, and it's about time somebody put me in my place. Man sorry this is all vague. Basically, I shared some of my views on a couple political things, and my parents completely went to town on it. It didn't really convince me of anything as much as it reminded me that I am only 19, and do not have a bunch of experience of life yet, and am therefore pretty naïve. Nobody else really does that for me. Usually people just kind of agree with me or don't say if they think otherwise, or if they do, we have a very friendly acceptance of the fact that we disagree.

With my family, I say something and everybody just completely points out how every part of everything I said was completely wrong and all the reasons why. I mean, it is kind of a blow at first, but seriously, it is very cool. It is like people are actually listening to what I say, instead of just agreeing with it.

Anyway I am very tired right now, because it is the time of day where everybody in my house is tired and going to bed. It's not like college where everybody is finally getting awake. Good night.

I want to have fun

But there is nobody around anymore.

Today:

Thanksgiving started just now. I guess. I am waiting for Matt Steele to knock on my door and we will go work out. After that, I will eat a delicious dinner in the cafeteria, and then I will work a delicious shift in the cafeteria. Then I will watch a delicious choir concert with Nora in it, and then I will go eat something disgusting with my disgusting friends at a disgusting restaurant called Disgusting. I have no classes tomorrow, and no commitments until 6:30 in the afternoon. Nora is leaving sometime in the late morning, so probably I will stay up later than I have ever stayed up before.

Also one of the hottest gossip points right now seems to be that I am eating turducken for Thanksgiving. A lot of people have a lot of strong opinions about this, which is hilarious.

Anyway, I'm going to be honest, I'm mostly looking forward to replacing sleep with Nora. But all the stuff between now and then will be cool too. Earlier today I found out that I did worse than I thought on my math exam. Not really, but I did get tripped up in a couple places that I was very confident with (i.e. walked right into the trap that was laid for me).

I am still mainly depressed, but that is wearing off I think. Yeah, it is wearing off.

I'm tired.

Matt

Clean-shaven and BEAUTIFUL!

I just saw Michigan Pops and I am going to try to join next semester. The concert will be on the first of April, so mark your calendars everybody. Also Paul might join, which would be awesome, because he is awesome, and I am awesome, and if we were both in pops, it would be awesome. Awesome.

Well

I just finished presenting Buddhism to a bunch of High School students. I really have no idea how it went, because they did not say very much and just kind of left at the end. I mean, half of them seemed to like it anyway, and the other half probably just didn't want to be there in general. Anyway, I have another meeting on Buddhism in 45 minutes, so I am going to go to that.

GRLPHHLPGGLGPPHGH!

Also, today I am going home to eat tasty delicious food with my family and with Nora, who will be meeting my parents for the first time. Wish her luck!

Actually I am sorely tempted to make an entry about me being all worried about whether or not my parents will like her, just to worry her on the chance that she reads this. But that would be kind of a mean thing to do, and, I mean, I am not worried.

When I wrote "I am" just now, I wanted to write "I'm," but was too lazy to type an apostrophe, and so changed it to "I am." I just thought you would like to know that.

Heh

I was just looking at this thing on weight-training, saying how I should eat and such. I basically already follow all of the desired options already. That would explain why I am so healthy all of the time. It is kind of cool to read all the stuff though.

Also, my day was just made by a dumb asshole. I am grateful for dumb assholes, because, well, they make my day a lot.

So I was walking earlier, and I was wearing my nice Russian hat. This guy rolled down his window, shouted "Hey Commie! Russia's that-a-way!" and proceeded to point in a southwesterly direction. I find this funny because (a) I am not at all a communist, (b) I am not at all Russian, (c) Russia is not a Communist country, and (d) no matter how far you go southwest, you will not get to Russia. Basically, he was wrong.

Oh right

Blagoblags are supposed to be about how I am feeling, and I forgot to say that I am feeling mildly depressed. This is too bad, because mild depressions last a while (whereas major ones tend to last a couple hours for me). I've had it for the last couple days, and it kind of sucks a little. I mean, it's no trouble to bottle it up, but it is still something of a pain to deal with.

As for why I am depressed, I'm mostly coming off of the high I've been on for the past few months, rather than any specific cause. I guess I'm feeling kind of useless and unliked. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I feel like, while I have a drive, it finally hit me how long it is going to take to accomplish anything significant, and I pretty much always feel unliked. I guess many people do, but it is a pain anyway.

So that is my emotional shit for now. As far as ground rules for trying to comfort me, don't. Seriously, other people have way more need than I have, and I hate being comforted. I will solve this on my own, like I always do.

Have a lovely weekend!
Matt

So.

I got four hours of sleep last night (just woke up). Yet, because I woke up in the middle of a sleep cycle, I do not feel tired. I mean, I will before the day's out, so I'll have to take a couple of long naps, but that's cool. But anyway, my point is, never sleep with an alarm clock. An alarm clock is a thing that sucks.

Coming quite recommended by me

There are few feelings quite as satisfying as working the hell out of my abs and then eating a gigantic burrito. I feel full and sore in the same place, and it is completely just wonderful. I mean, sore abs are pretty cool-feeling on their own. Man I am going to have very great abs just because I really love working them out. Most muscles just kind of hurt when they are sore, but this is pretty different.

Also my muscles are already noticeably bigger after the couple weeks I've been working out. I can't lift much heavier weights yet, but they just feel bigger. I think my body is trying to tell me that what I am doing is wonderful and it is rewarding me by making me sexier. I really hope that this is exactly what is happening. Also I ran on a treadmill for the first time in a long time. I ran a little more than four miles in 30 minutes, and had a stitch the whole way. One day, I will figure out how to not have a stitch, because je les déteste beaucoup.

Aussi, je viens de finir parler au baratin en français avec d'autres étudiants. Donc, je pense encore en français. Mais je l'aime parce qu'il m'amuse. Ciao!

I am feeling all grpluugphh

I need to get my girl to give me a massage because I am sore as all hell. That is all.

Est-ce que j'veux me raser?

Non. Je n'veux pas me raser.

Facebook picture

I put up a new facebook picture, you should check it out. Now that you have seen it, I will tell you the story. Basically, in the cafeteria today, I spent two hours straight peeling turkey with Caleb for tomorrow's dinner (which any and all East Quadranglers who read this should eat at, by the way). Someone had a camera, and we vented our frustration:

New schedule

It looks like my solid block of classes Monday-Thursday from 9-2 has shifted to 10-3. Also on Tuesdays I will have Economics at 8:30. Anyway, I am thinking of picking up a breakfast shift at work every day except Tuesday (it goes from 7:15~9:30). That way I have to get up early every morning and basically get some work done, and also that makes 9 hours of work per week that I just have on top of other shifts that I take (I'm thinking Tuesday and Thursday dinner, Saturday and maybe Friday lunch).

Also I am going to start going to the IMSB instead of the CCRB because the IMSB is better-equiped and many times less crowded. And I will start going in the afternoons. And I will be going with my pal Matthew Alexander Steele. This way, I will actually go more than 1 time per week because I am not needing to get up early and I am going with a person. I am going to be able to continue that next year.

Also afternoons make sense, because they are a slow time for my brain. Whereas mornings are better for creativity and stuff.

Matt OUT.

Expected but interesting

One of the ways I have changed now that I have a girlfriend is in my attitude towards people in general. There used to always be that undertone of "what if I we fell in love" or whatever, basically with every girl, and a few guys. Now it is completely not there at all, and I don't even consider anything beyond friends with anybody.

I mean, a lot of my innocence is basic willpower, but in this case, I don't have to even try. I just don't have "indecent" thoughts about anyone anymore. At all. It's not so much a good or bad thing as just kind of a relief. It is like there is a bunch of pressure off. When a girl asks me out, I can just say "I'm already taken" and be done. I don't have to say no "because I don't like you" to her, which is hella not a fun thing to do.

I just feel way more stable now, and it is many kinds of awesome. It's like, now I actually have the attitude of "I don't care what anybody thinks of me," rather than making myself have that attitude and ignoring my actual attitude of caring. The only problem with a relationship is, as Nora put it, it's like picking up a 6-credit class. (You know, time-wise.)

In other news, it is apparently "geography awareness week." What the hell. I guess it is good that I am aware of geography.

My first [purposely] cryptic blagoblag entry!!

Man after what just happened just now, I am going to sleep so damn well.

Going to bed right now is so cool

!

Taking a "me" weekend

I think I have had too much fun for the past couple week, and I am ready to be anti-social at least for the weekend. I am planning on getting maybe a week ahead in my classes, and also maybe read some Gödel, Escher, Bach. I might take on a new shift in the cafeteria as well, I don't know.

I'm thinking I will take the bus out to Staples to buy some nice brown envelopes. I hope they have them. I have always looked at brown envelopes as superior to white envelopes. They have far more personality, and are not see-through. (I know that you can get white non-see-through envelopes, but they are ugly as lord.)

Right now, I am going to do some mathematics. When I finish the homework that is due tomorrow, I am going to get a start on the homework due in a week. I was caught up like this at the beginning of term, and I would like to be here again.

Also I need to figure out a way to not stay up really late every weeknight with Nora. Maybe we can hang out during the day sometime? I dunno. This is destroying my beautiful sleeping schedule. Then again, I would always rather be hanging out with Nora than sleeping. I guess this is just one of those things where I have to not do what I want to do and instead do what I should do.

Yeah, that's a good call I think. I'll just do the right thing instead of the coolest thing. Now that I have written that here in my blagoblag, let's see if I can actually do it. I will keep you posted.

Aussi, je voudrais écrire un paragraph en français. Je ne sais pas pourquoi. C'est possible qu'il est parce-que je viens de finir mes devoirs de français. Et hier nuit, mon rêve était en français. C'était la première fois pour moi, donc maintenant je suis excité. Je pense que les personnes qui lisent mon blagoblag ne me comprennent pas quand j'écris en français, mais je vais commencer écrire en français plus souvent, parce que je l'aime. D'accord.

Anyway, I am going to start my weekend now. Time for hell of studying. Ohhhhhh ouaaaaaaaai!

Self Esteem vs. Ego

I think that there is an important difference between self-esteem and ego. For example, I have a relatively small ego and a very healthy amount of self-esteem. I am thinking that these two are inversely proportional, and that by denying things to your ego, you help your self-esteem.

One of the best things you can do if you have self-esteem problems is to help other people and make sure they never know it was you. Like when you see a bike that has fallen over, pick it up so that it is neat, and then continue on your way. The biker will not even know there was a problem in the first place, but you helped them out anyway. This does WONDERS for self-esteem, but absolutely nothing for your ego.

See, my ego wants the biker to know I helped him. And if I do see the biker and tell him, I will feel really good for a second, and then it goes away leaving me feeling dirty. This is good for my ego, and bad for my self-esteem.

So yeah, deny your ego stuff like that, and you will feel damn good about yourself.

Paper mail

I am now in realmail correspondence with Nick Davenport. It is pretty awesome.

Somewhat annoying

It is somewhat annoying to spend several days on a problem, conclude that it is impossible, finally use the internet, and see that I am correct and it is impossible. I have spent the past few days trying to construct a magic cube. A magic cube is a three dimensional model of something like this:

8	1	6
3	5	7
4	9	2

Notice that every row, column, and diagonal adds up to 15. Also note that every number from 1 to 9 is used once and only once. This is called a magic square, and I spent a part of my childhood being fascinated by them. I think the largest magic square I ever created was a 15x15 one. Everything added up to 1,695.

Anyway, a week ago it occurred to me that magic cubes should exist. So I set to work trying to come up with a 3x3x3 magic cube. Today, I began using intelligence instead of guesswork. I actually used an augmented matrix, and figured out that the centre entry in every single square absolutely had to be 14. This would mean 7 entries that were 14, which is flat-out against the rules. However, I had actually used math to prove it, so I felt there was no reason to work more at the problem. So I looked on the internet, and it turns out the smallest possible magic cube is 5x5x5.

I guess it is good that I was right, but still. I don't want to be right, I just want a magic cube that is 3x3x3. I mean, 5x5x5 is ridiculous and not as impressive. One reason I did not show you my 15x15 square is because it is not impressive. You waste too much time doing addition to appreciate the beauty of any one much larger than 3. I mean, look at this 5x5 one:

17	24	1	8	15
23	5	7	14	16
4	6	13	20	22
10	12	19	21	3
11	18	25	2	9

It is cool maybe, but only after squinting at it for a while. It really is too bad that there can't be a 3x3x3 magic cube. What a shame.

My first French entry

Je viens de faire mes devoirs français. C'était très ennuyeux parce que mon professeur de français a dit «les activités sont pour jeudi,» mais sur dimanche, elle a écrit un lettre électronique qui a dit «les activités sont pour demain.» Donc maintenant je suis fatigué et j'ai un mal humeur.

I proved Euler's formula

I am proud of me. I just decided that I felt like actually proving Euler's formula, to see if I could do it. After a couple hours, I figured it out. I did have to take out the old Calculus book to remind myself what a Taylor expansion was.

If you take the Taylor series of sinx, you get x - x^3/3! + x^5/5! - ...
If you take the Taylor series of cosx, you get 1 - x^2/2! + x^4/4! - ...
If you take the Taylor series of e^ix, you get 1 + ix - x^2/2! - ix^3/3! + x^4/4! + ix^5/5! - ...
Therefore, e^ix = cosx + isinx. If you substitute π for x, you get cosπ + isinπ. cosπ is -1, and sinπ (and therefore isinπ) is 0.
Therefore, e^iπ = -1 which can be changed to the more fun version:

e^iπ + 1 = 0

Cooking advice from me

Look, you don't have to use a whole bunch of spices when you cook a meal. In fact, unless you know what you are doing, you shouldn't use much spices. Spices are something you have to get good at with experience, and there are only two ways to do that. One is the apprenticeship method, where you cook with someone who already knows what they are doing, and figure it out. The other is with recipes that tell you specific spices. After making a million recipes, you will have a good idea of what spice goes with what food, and you will be able to take a recipe and say, "I bet this would be better with this spice."

Cooking is like any art, in that you first learn the boring rules, and then you start having fun. It is like a big science experiment where the product is something delicious. This brings me to my main point. The idea of food is that it is delicious. So do not be pretentious with food. If you like red wine with fish, drink red wine with fish. If you like your fillet mignon with ketchup, use ketchup. And when you are the one preparing the meal, keep in mind that different people like different kinds of food. Let people eat what they want to eat.

Back to spices, when cooking, do keep in mind that there is a reason that salt and pepper are on every table on the planet. It is because they are the two best spices. For some reason, many people seem to think that they are not spices, and think of them as inferior to, say, cilantro. These people are wrong. Salt and pepper are superior to cilantro, basil, oregano, turmeric, and any other spice you can throw my way. Not to say less of other spices, but they are not as versatile at all. You can put salt in almost anything. Even cookies use salt.

Pepper is less versatile than salt, but still a great crutch if you aren't sure of the best spices. Just throw in some pepper and people will think that the food you made tastes good. The idea is that salt brings out the actual flavour of the food and makes it "tastier," while pepper gives the spiced feel to food, making it "spicier." Use these two wonderful spices in everything you make, and you will be a god among chefs.

Not to say you shouldn't use other spices. I'm just saying to not underestimate the power of the top two. When you first start cooking, it is exciting to see all the millions of spices you can use, so by all means, use them. However, you will inevitably realise that your food is tastier if you just use salt. Totally use a bunch of salts and figure out which ones taste good. Sometimes, you will taste some of your food and think to yourself, "something is missing." 99.9% of the time, you should add salt, but sometimes you need something different.

To summarise, use salt and pepper a lot, don't use other spices if you don't know what you are doing, and always make non-pretentious food that has a delicious taste that you love.

My day today

Lots of mixed feelings today. I started off at work, where I spent four hours alone peeling carrots and onions. 35 kilograms of carrots and 50 kilos of onions. By the time this was over, my attitude toward everyone was "the hell you leave me alone". Unfortunately, I was placed as a server, which is probably the most social customer-service-oriented job they have. I mean, I did a good job, but I was so not in the mood. Also I noted that hummus was being served in mass quantities (foreshadowing). When I finally did get to go and do the job I signed up for (dishing), I was really happy. I did so much of loading the machine, and then running to the other side and catching the clean stuff (this is my favourite thing to do in the dishroom).

So, to continue the story, the cafeteria closes at 6:00 on Saturdays, and we start pulling the food at 6:15. Today, as usual, a mass of people came in at 5:55, except this mass was much larger than usual. We didn't pull until 6:30 because people kept getting food. People weren't gone until 7:00, except for the one guy that stayed until fucking 7:15. THE CAFETERIA HAS BEEN CLOSED FOR 75 MINUTES ASSHOLE. I WANT TO GO HOME. I WANT YOU TO GO HOME. GO HOME.

Also there was SO MUCH HUMMUS in the dishroom. I didn't get off work until 7:30. Whose fault was all this? The hummus.

After that I went to go eat dinner with Nora's family at the Gandy Dancer. When she said it was at the Gandy Dancer, I was all "SHIT". Anyway, her family is, I mean, it is a family and they have fun. I don't really get first-impressions of people at all, so, I mean, I don't have a lot to say. I mean, I had fun, and I could totally spend more time with her family. I guess that is good.

Wait, I definitely do get first-impressions of people. But no I don't. I guess that is another thing that changed since the monastery that I didn't notice until just now. I don't really judge people much anymore. I used to be pretty judgemental. Now I guess I am not. That is very cool. By the way Gynelle, I am tired and I do not want to go to your party. Good night.

Does this make me definitely horrible?

I hear the sounds of planes, and see them in the sky, with advertisements trailing behind them. All I can think of is how wonderful it would be if two or three of them collided in the air.

My eyes glaze over as I picture the smoking mass of two planes falling toward the Earth, landing on the spectators of the football game who, packed like cattle, are unable to escape their demise.

HOW IS MATT VOTING IN THE ELECTION!!

Probably wherever I say N/A I am going to vote for a democrat. I usually find that this is a good idea.

Governor
Jennifer Granholm
Secretary of State
N/A
Attorney General
N/A
US Senator
Debbie Stabenow
US Representative
John Dingell
—
State Senator
Liz Brater
State Representative
Rebekah Warren
Board of Education
N/A
N/A
UM Regent
N/A
N/A
MSU Trustee
N/A
N/A
WSU Governor
N/A
N/A
—
County Commissioner
Conan Smith
Mayor
Tom Wall
Council-member
Ronald Suarez
—
WCC Trustee
Diana McKnight Morton
Richard J. Landeau
WCC Partial Trustee
Mike Marotta
—
Proposal 1
No
Proposal 2
No
Proposal 3
No
Proposal 4
Yes
Proposal 5
Yes
—
Proposal A
Yes
Proposal B
Yes

Also this Thanksgiving we will eat Turducken. If you don't know what Turducken is, think of it as the epitome of "for every animal you don't eat, I will eat three."

OH SHIT SHIT SHIT

PAPER PAPER PAPER

How to know you really like a person

Man, I am writing a paper that I really need to finish. Yet I find myself really hoping that Nora will happen to visit. If she does, I will tell her that I need to finish this paper and she needs to leave. But even knowing that, I just want to see her for the couple seconds that would entail. As Dr. Sockolopolus would say, "LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL!"

Anyway, as if in response to my just finishing this paragraph, Nora just got here, and proposed the wonderful solution of studying together. Bye.

Haircut

I cut my hair just now, and I think it looks pretty all right. If I had a digital camera I would show you a picture, but I don't have a camera. I will not show you a picture.

French

I am doing hell of wonderful work in my French class. Basically I am doing "excellent" in everything except oral conversation. In conversation, I am subsatisfactory for fluency, and only satisfactory for accuracy, pronunciation, and comprehending conversation. Also I am not quite excellent with the fluidity of my writing. The actual comments are quite positive, and basically say "wow Matt you are doing great except that you never talk; talk more."

In short, nothing I don't know, but it's nice to know that my teachers agree with me on how I am doing in the class. It shows that I am right.

Also I did really fucking well on the reading comprehension (24.5/25). Heh, I am doing so much better now that I am actually putting some effort into it. In my writing class I am getting A's on everything, and in math, well, I hate that class because it is so easy.

I got a phone call from a church today, and apparently I am going to give a talk to some high schoolers about Buddhism. This should prove fun. I do enjoy doing this. I guess I need to start thinking about the kinds of things to say. I find that the best talks start off with basic debunking and fun facts, then some interesting stuff that is unexplained, and then a long period for questions. Thanks to part one, people have learned basic stuff. Thanks to part two, people have things to ask during part three. Thanks to that, people get warmed up and have an easier time asking questions they actually want the answers to.

I hate it when it's like, "so any questions?" and nobody has any, because the entire thing has been explained. Whereas, if you cleverly lay down some questions in the talk, listeners have something to go on. I will let you know how this works. You never know, I may well be laying down the foundation for how all great talks will be organised.

I just gave a bunch of my music lower more accurate ratings. I now have 551 songs that have 3 stars (awesome) or higher (4=outstanding, 5=favourite ever). I have 105 4-stars and 5 5 stars. Now I have a better base to build on for future ratings. Earlier, I knew this was my rating system, but I would still rate stuff one or two stars too high just because 2 stars would seem too low, even though it means "very good song." One day I will go through my 508 2-star songs and sort out the ones that should be one star, but that is a task for another day. (I will actually have to listen to them, because I don't know most of them by title like I do with the 3+ stars).

GOODBYE! MATT!

Ties are sexy

I think they just are. The specific situation is that a girl I know is dressed as a schoolgirl (woohoo for creativity.) but just with a rather unbuttoned shirt. I lent her my tie from my Embley Park days, and she is now about 8 times as sexy. I wonder if the loose tie just has a lot of sexual implications? I really don't know. Still though, the simple addition of a tie should not have made such a difference.

Also in general, all ties are always great on everybody all the time. That's what this world needs. More ties.

Best French Teacher

My French teacher is the best French teacher. Well, pretty awesome anyway. Basically, she left in the middle of class and a random guy came in and stole all her stuff and then she came back and gave us the in-class assignment of writing a police report in French. (The guy was actually a friend of hers and this was planned.) Probably one of the best assignments I have yet had. Kudos, Emily.

Too many people

Have not seen the Bollywood version of Thriller.

Violin

I jammed with Tom just now, and, having not played for a month, I sounded like utter crap. That said, I don't really care and I had a hella good time. I am going to start practising again once Adam gives me my electric back.

Good and bad

My physical body feels so happy right now and my brain feels completely gypped. I'll explain.

Today, I utilised my extra hour to wake up an hour earlier than usual (ie the same time) and work out for an hour. I really pushed myself to the limit and I haven't worked out for more than a year. It was GREAT. I am SO wiped out right now. Physically, that is. Walking up or down stairs or just in general hurts, it hurts to move my arms let alone carry books, and oh man I love it. The cool thing about weight training is that it will always be like that because I keep upping the weight. I am excited at my future. I am going to sleep beautifully tonight.

After working out and eating breakfast, I went to math class, where we learned a new concept. The geometric multiplicity of an eigenspace. GUESS WHAT. IT IS THE SAME THING I HAVE BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST FIVE CHAPTERS. THAT IS THE STORY OF LINEAR ALGEBRA. I REALLY HATE THIS CLASS SO MUCH. IT IS LIKE, LET'S TAKE ONE CONCEPT AND GIVE IT AN ENTIRE TEXTBOOK WORTH OF TERMINOLOGY. GOOD IDEA! WE'LL CALL IT MATH 217. OKAY I'm done.

Then in French we spent the whole time going over the imperfect tense. It is not something I already had a clear grasp of, but I got a clear grasp of it before class technically started after glancing at the handout. I feel like I have wasted the past two hours of my life. But at least the hour a couple hours before that was well-spent. Next semester I hope I have hard classes. Seriously, I don't get why so many people are constantly having a really hard time and they have the same classes as me. Either I am doing something wrong or everybody is. Whtvr.

Matt OUT.

Zombies

I am doing that zombie RPG and I am kind of excited. I talked to Matt Hampel about it, and he will do it too. We will be a team. We've got a cool story started.

A war is brewing.

WISE and the RC can only live in the same building for so long. MRC will have to pick a side, and the real engineers will definitely be with the RC. It is on.

Friends?

Garnet and I might be friends.

Also I saw Chris Thile. And Bryan Sutton. And Gabe Witcher.

Groups

So I have been thinking about hanging out with groups. Most often, when I hang out with a group, I come out of it feeling all mega-depressed. And I finally started wondering (a) why and (b) why there are exceptions. Well, I think that two different situations arise when I am in a group. One is that I will hang out with one or two people in the group. When I do this, I don't get depressed, and I have a bunch of fun. However, I think it happens far more that I find that impossible (either because of activities that involve everybody, or because it is not my group of friends so that all the individuals know other people better than they know me).

Whenever I am in this situation, I act like someone I am not. This causes depression. See there, I've figured it out. I hate acting like someone I am not, so I come out of it feeling like shit. Now, the reason that "act like myself" is not a solution is that if I did just act like I normally would, I would be quiet and sit in the corner and do nothing. So the same solution remains: avoid groups whenever possible. If it is not avoidable, then there are more important things than my own momentary happiness, so it's all good.

The grass is greener

I think the reason people think the grass looks greener on "the other side" is because they are driven by some desire to get something they don't have. Instead, why not be happy with what you have and strive to do better? That way a person can look at the grass they have with gratitude, and the greener grass as a goal. This person is probably having a lot more fun. Give them a few years, and they will probably be happily munching on edible food that isn't even grass.

Also, poets suck at describing love. I'm not saying I can do it, but still, it is not a burning flame inside me or anything lame like that. I mean what the hell poets. Please do a better job.

Pet problem

I really don't like how our culture puts so much emphasis on apologising for dumb things and not apologising for things that demand an apology. For example, if you bump into a person, that person will apologise. What the hell. You bumped into them. Or when your relative dies, the proper response is "I'm sorry." What the hell. Yes I know that is short for "I am sorry to hear that," but why should the person be sorry to hear that. They shouldn't be. They should be glad you consider them friend enough to tell them.

On the other hand, when you actually fuck up, the proper response is to have an excuse. What the hell. Just what the HELL people.

In other news, Nora made a really fucking good mix for me, and one song was Mr. Blue Sky, and I was going crazy for a while trying to remember where I had heard the song. She suggested Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I may indeed remember it from there, but I did not like that movie at all. And then I remembered.

Taste-o-meter

I feel so cool to be one of the last.fm beta testers. Anyway the taste-o-meter feature they have is very cool. The idea is that on every user page there is this bar that shows how compatible you are with them. For example, I am completely not compatible with BJ, I am "high" compatible (a little over half) with James, and "super" (all the way) with Anneka.

…

It looks like "eat that disgusting hotdog" was one of the seven search strings that led people to my web page. Thank you, disgusting hotdog.

Social Experiment

I just signed onto facebook and changed my political beliefs to "Very Conservative." Technically, this is actually true, but I am only conservative by the century-old definition. The current definition of conservative seems to be fundamentalist, and I am not that. Anyway, I am curious to see how many people meet me in real life, friend me on facebook, see that I am very conservative, and then make a bunch of judgements about me based on that. I find this kind of thing fascinating.

Also, by the way, for those of you who are wondering what the old definition of conservative is, I am talking about small government that does not meddle with people, low taxes, and, most importantly, very slow changes. It seems like current "conservative" thought is nothing along these lines, but in actuality I am very old-school conservative. If you disagree with my views on this, then, I mean, whatever. I'm right.

Okay that does it

Dr. Mrs. Vandertramp is the pneumonic device that sucks.

Also, I am going to start working out. I have created a solid ~45 minute plan using mostly free-weights, because they are more versatile than machinery (meaning I will be able to continue my routine during times when I am not allowed in the CCRB). Also I will be doing running as a more official thing instead of a for-fun thing. This starts tomorrow. I know that when making goals like this it is best to be accountable to someone, so I am being accountable to my blog.

Basically the reason I want to do this is that I have been having more and more trouble sleeping, and I know for a fact that working out is about the best thing I can do to sleep better. I also know that working out in the afternoon is the healthiest, but my afternoons vary (ie I have work sometimes). Mornings are going to have to get the job done. Plus the CCRB is not crazy in the morning. Also if I work out early enough, I can eat breakfast after working out before class, and be all hell of energised.

The other reason to do this is because it is good to be strong. It is good for my masculinity, and also healthy in general. I mean, I guess I don't really need to explain why I want to work out. It is one of those things that everybody knows will make you live a happier and longer life.

It's late at night!

Hey now!

About me

In case other people agree with what Gynelle thinks about me, I would like to clarify something about who I am. I like changing my opinions, and I like being very adamant about my new opinions, no matter how likely I am to change them. This is one of the things that I like about who I am. I do this on purpose. For a long time, I have been of several opinions. One is that it is a good idea to hold fast to what you believe in. Hence my strong seemly unmovable opinions. The other is that it is a good idea to change your opinion when you find a better one. Hence my constant flip-flopping.

If this annoys you, sorry, but you shouldn't be reading about my life. I like changing my opinion in extreme ways, because it tends to move me toward a happy middle in the end. The problem with starting in the middle is that you have to know where the middle actually is, and I am figuring that out. So seriously, if you don't like the way my brain works, you should maybe get over it?

Nora again

For those that are curious, yes I am dating Nora now, although we have yet to go on a date. I am hell of busy right now though, so it probably won't happen for a week. I dunno, I am in to the whole taking the lady out to dinner thing when you are dating. I think that there are few things more hardcore than straight-up being a gentleman, and also dinner is awesome.

But yes, we are tied together in a bond of love now. Also I just talked to Gynelle, and that was awesome. We had a crazy-cool conversation, and when we were done I talked to Wilson briefly. He was the nicest he has ever been to me and, after remembering that it is Thursday night (glee club night), I think he is somewhat drunk.

Facebook again

So I'm thinking I should get back on facebook, but basically use it about as much as I am using Funky Man (ie, not much information save contact info). Basically, I'm thinking I should accept that facebook is the basic database of information that everybody uses. The difference is that I will not use such as the wall, or really even use facebook. I will just have an account that is there for people who want to see it. Thoughts?

Fire alarm

The fire alarm went off, so I proceeded to walk back inside, go to my room, acquire some gummy bears, and then go back outside. The fire alarm picnic buddies is the best idea ever. It is the idea so good that it will kill me one day.

My focus is crocus

I just can't focus on anything right now. It really sucks. Going to the temple this weekend will be dang good for me. I'm like, "hey brain, do this work," and my brain is all, "blabblegabbascraplable." I'm going to go outside for a few minutes.

Cave Story again

It is funny how I am faster at getting to Ballos with three health than I was with 55. I guess I did take a lot of time picking up health, but still, I am usually there in 8-9 minutes. Also I maintain that the area with the falling rocks is the hardest, even harder than Ballos. This is because I die there 95 times out of 100, yet I improve greatly on Ballos each time.

Art

I am beginning to work on art for the three people who replied. I am kind of looking forward to this. I am not actually sure if I am devoid of artistic talent; I've just never given it a try. Or actually do suck. I guess we will find out. Either way, I am having a bunch of fun, and there are still a couple spaces left if anybody wants some of the incredibly rare art by me. Seriously, think about how rare it is to have art by me. I do not make art. These five things may be the only art I ever do. If I grow up to be famous, which I will, these will all be worth millions of dollars, which they will. What an opportunity!

A comprehensive review of buy.com

Okay, so this site seems to always have the lowest prices all the time, and I always get the cheapest (free) shipping that predicts more than a week, and I always get it 2 days after I make the order. I am thinking that this is the best store to buy things on the internet.

Nora

There is a girl named Nora that I am probably going to start dating. I did make a promise to myself that I would not date anyone until after I had been good friends with them for at least 3 months, and I told her that. But I just realised that my approach here is silly. What we should wait on is the sex. Going out and such just gives us an excuse to hang out like 8 times as often and become really awesome friends. She's in Chicago right now, but I'll talk to her about this tomorrow.

Risk fucking 2210!

I just won an INTENSE game of risk. Also I feel really awake. I don't think I am going to forget any of this, because I feel awake. It has been a theory of mine that my memory is tied somehow to my cognitive abilities, of which I have none at night. Playing Risk, I kept my thinking going, and thus stayed awake. Let's see if I remember. I will let you know.

Empathy

DISCLAIMER: This post makes ridiculous generalisations, and also assumes that everybody is straight.

Why do men and women have such a difficult time understanding each other? You hear so many men saying that women are way too complicated to understand, and women tend to think guys are so simple that they are stupid. I mean, neither of these are true. The difference between men and women is that when a girl talks, she means a hella lot more than what she says, and when a guy talks, he just says what he means.

Guys have a hard time understanding girls because they aren't used to communicating so subtly, and girls have a hard time communicating with guys because they over-interpret what a guy says. But there's no reason for that. All you have to do is know that. If a guy knows that girls imply things, he can get a lot more out of a conversation. Likewise, if a girl knows that guys don't imply things, she can safely know that the guy is not saying anything that he isn't saying.

People make it out like relationships are so hard because girls and boys are so different, but they aren't. Relationships shouldn't be hard. With empathy, communication is easy (especially with empathy from both sides). Therefore, what is so hard about the relationship. If a relationship is hard, that probably means it is not working out.

So men: stop saying women are crazy-hard to understand. They aren't. And women: stop thinking men are dumb. We aren't. The reason we don't think so much about what we say is because we don't have to. And the reason we have trouble understanding what you say is because we don't try using empathy.

Continuing the thought, but going into attraction, I think some clarification is needed. First of all, an informative point for the nice guy. Have you ever been talking to a girl you like, and she has broken up with a jerk, and is talking about what a jerk he was, and then she looks at you and says, "why can't guys be like you?" And then she proceeds to go out with another jerk. Typically, when I detail this scenario to guys I know, I get an excited "YES. WHY." as a response. Well here is why.

Girls are attracted to, surprise, masculinity. Think about this: how often do men talk about their feelings or their relationships? MAYBE you can get two guys talking about their feelings in a very rare situation. But three? Hell no. This is not something that guys do. On the other hand, girls talk about these things a lot. So, nice guy. When you are talking with your female friends about relationships and feelings, guess who you are being. You are being a girl. All those friends of yours are not going to be attracted to you when, sociologically, you are a girl.

It is a similar thing to tomboys. Generally, when there is a girl who does stuff with the guys and acts like the guys, guys do not get attracted to her, but it is quite likely that she will be attracted to all of them. Don't be confused, by the way. If she acts like a girl in all the situations with the guys, the attraction will probably go both ways. But, sociologically, she is a guy, and the guys will not be attracted to a guy.

Back to nice guys. Why do girls keep going out with all those fucking jerks. Why doesn't she learn? Here's why: you can't control who you are attracted to, and guess why girls are attracted to jerks. It's because jerks are an example of pure masculinity. They have confidence, so they act like the leader of the pack, even if they aren't. They always just say what they mean, and are generally assholes, so they say things that are difficult for many people to say (an example of confidence). It is true that they are jerks, but when you are attracted to someone, that is that.

Here's the cool thing. You can take the confidence of the jerk and mix it with the niceness of you, and create a dream guy. It is easy to do. I mean, there are probably a billion million guides on the internet on how to do this, so I'm not going to explain it. It is very basic. As for girls, I find that society favours the female side a lot, and so you rarely have much trouble acting like a girl. If you are a tomboy and you are wondering why guys are not attracted to you, it is because men are not attracted to men. I haven't really looked into this much, because I don't think it happens much. Some comments on what makes a woman attractive to a man would be appreciated.

I have to go study, but I do have more to say on this subject if people are interested.

Art made by me

The first five people to respond to this get art from me. I do not have artistic talents to speak of, but I promise to put a lot of effort into whatever I do. Also I will not do the same thing for any two people. My concept of art ranges from drawing to a mixtape. The only catch is that if you comment you have to post this on your blog as well.

I signed up for someone else's art because I thought this was a basically awesome idea. And I want her art. If you make an anonymous comment, it does not count as one of those five, because I do not know who you are. Also don't expect your art soon. The deadline I am making for myself is Winter Break, but I don't plan on taking that long. We shall see.

EDIT: You don't have to like copy the exact text. The idea is that you make art for five people that post on your blog.

Got math exams back

I got a 92 out of 100 (the average was 84?). I made two stupid mistakes on it. I confused one-to-one and onto, and didn't recognise that a square matrix is either both one-to-one and onto or neither, respectively docking me 3 and 5 points. Honestly, those were some stupid mistakes, and I pretty much deserve to have lost 8 points. Otherwise, I got all the difficult stuff on the exam right. Kinda proud of that. Yep. Pretty proud.

I just noticed

That I have a mobile phone. Huh. I was wondering if I would use it more than I thought I would, but I actually haven't turned it on since when I got it those days ago. I mean, I was planning on turning it on once a day and all that, and I simply don't care. Yeah, call my dorm phone.

Who just got back from playing mafia

I feel the answer to this question is obvious.

Funky Man is all that's left

Facebook deleted Oscar Wilde, so my only tie to facebook now is Funky Man. I hope they do not delete Funky Man. Deleting Funky Man would not be cool at all. Then again, I would have absolutely no ties to facebook, and that would be cool. Also I found a group of people that has picnics during fire drills. That is basically awesome. I joined. Also I have a math exam tomorrow. Night.

Who has a new mobile phone

I have a new mobile phone. I am honestly not sure how I feel about it. I guess it is good because I can make long distance calls to the people that live in the same building as me. Apparently it is free if I call after 7:00pm or on weekends. I am not really sure at what time phone calls stop being free. Using what information I have, I would assume 7-midnight, but that would not make a lot of sense. It seems like it would stop around 4 or 5. I guess it does not really make a difference.

Anyway I will probably turn on my phone and check such as voice messages sometime after 7:00. Weekends will basically be unpredictable. I guess what I am saying is that you should not call my mobile phone unless you have already called my dorm phone and it didn't work. I would rather have messages on my gorgeous answering machine than on my strange voicemail system. Both phones are in the same 734 area code so neither phone is more or less convenient to call. My dorm phone is 565.7870 and my mobile phone is 330.0591. There is absolutely no advantage to calling my mobile phone because I will probably not pick it up. I mean if I am expecting a call I will pick up but otherwise I will not.

Call my dorm phone.

I have LAME FRIENDS

They are all leaving messages saying "Matt we are going to play Capture the Flag in the Arb you should come" and then I call them and they are telling me "we are not doing it anymore" and I am saying to them "how about we get other people and play tag" and they are all "no I am tired" or "no I am lazy" or "I have homework." FUCK YOU.

Anyway I found a bunch of video game music totalling 107 songs that make up two CD's. It's an exciting time.

Ohhhhh ouai

I made it to right before the Heavy Press in Hell. Got arrow'd right before getting in. Oh well. That was like my second try though. I am so much better at Cave Story than I used to be.

Apology to everyone in East Quad

The fire alarm was my fault. I just got back from class, and East Quad was very happy to see me. The fire alarm was its way of saying WELCOME BACK MATT I MISSED YOU. Sorry you all had to suffer for that.

Speakers!

I got the new speaker system that I ordered. It is called 5.1 (five speakers that surround you and one subwoofer that can basically go anywhere because it is a subwoofer), but it should be called either 1.5 or 5.HUGE. I mean it. The woofer is about 2 cubic feet. That may not sound huge, but if you think about it it really is. It takes up half the space under my desk, and it has a heat sink on the back. The two are not related, but it does have a heat sink. The speakers themselves are great. It is sometimes hard to tell that the sound is coming from speakers and is not real. If you couldn't see the speakers, locating them would be pretty difficult. These are some nice fucking speakers!

I made some new friends yesterday and that is pretty cool. I am still facing the undead core. I am now going to drink hell of water, and do some serious mathematics. The first midterm is on Wednesday, and if it is anything like the practise midterm, it will not be a problem at all.

Speaking of Math, I just checked the concentration requirements. Basically, I am on the right track. It is a good thing I did not take differential equations and instead went for linear algebra, because that is exactly what they say to do. I should then take a more-advanced differential equations course this winter. After that, I need to take at least 7 more math courses. Also I need to take a non-math course that is on the list they gave me. One of them is Game Theory (Econ 409). This sounds like hella fun. Basically, that is all I need to do to have a math major. Also they recommend that I take a couple physics courses and computer programming, which I will probably do. I mean, they sound fun.

Anyway, I designed next semester's schedule based on Winter 2006 (because '07 isn't up yet) and it looks like everything fits all right. I got Math 317, French 290, and Econ 101. I have all three on Mondays and Wednesdays which will kind of suck, but whatever. Not that much. Also I scheduled an appointment with a guy at the math department to see how I should go about my crazy decision to double-major in Business and Mathematics while remaining in the RC.

Time to study hell of mathematics.

Fever

Does anybody know how to take your own temperature without a thermometer and without going to UHS? I am really really hot and dehydrated right now, even though I have been drinking (and peeing back out) hell of water for the past few hours. I guess I don't need a thermometer to tell me that I have a fever. I guess the only reason I am making this post is because I do not like having a fever. Also I feel really faint, like I will pass out any second. It really sucks for getting work done. Especially what with my math homework, French exam, and neuropsychology paper all for tomorrow. UGULBUGLMUGTUGBUGFUGGUK

Fire Alarm

The fire alarm went off around 4:40. Man, I am not even going to go back to sleep at this point. It's like, that's a solid more-than-six hours of sleep. Not quite enough, but not bad either. I'm not really upset at the alarm at all. I think that this supports my claim that going to bed and waking up early leads to a happier existence.

RRRRRRRRAAAAARRRGGHHHH!

For the first time so far, I am really tired and stressed out. It is mostly because of my attempts to completely defy physics with my crazy schedule. Never again. It was better when I was bored and did extra studying. I hope to reach that point again soon. But for now, OH SHIT SCHOOLWORK THEN WORK THEN SCHOOLWORK AGAIN.

Who is going to get hella sleep tonight?

Me, I have earplugs.

I have a new next-door neighbour

The room next to mine was empty until a couple days ago. And now I hate that quiet hours do not start until 11:00. I guess if this keeps up I will knock on her door and tell her that I am usually in bed around 10:00 and it would be cool if she did not have parties in her room at that point. I think they are having sex in there right now.

UNDEAD CORE

About a month and a half after restarting my 3-health run of Cave Story, I have made it to the Undead Core. Also, I am better at the game than I was last time, because I am using more difficult strategies on the Doctor, and when I faced the Core, well, I beat it so fast. I am completely ready to go to hell.

Also I haven't shaved for a week and I got all these tiny little hairs growing on my face. It's like, I take a shower, and then I say to myself, man, I ain't want to shave right now I want to go to bed. So that's what I do. The worst thing is that I don't look good with stubble. There are some dudes who look extremely raw with stubble, and I am not one of them. I look like a disgusting college student who does not take showers or do homework. Let alone shave. "Ha! Shaving." That is what someone looking like me might say.

Picture

I would like to put up a new picture of myself. But I don't have any pictures that I like. If anybody has good pictures of me, let me know. Otherwise, today I just got off work and I started working around 10. Je suis trop fatigué!

Working in the cafeteria COMPLETELY pays off

Sometimes. Like tonight. They baked a bunch of cookies and gave an entire tray of them to the dishroom to eat. The cookies are so good when they are just baked. I can still feel them in my stomach and my stomach is glad that they are there. Also I signed up for another shift in the cafeteria. I am now working Tuesday nights from 4:45-8:30-ish. Serving hell of food to students. Also today is pay day. Yessssss. At the rate I am going, it will take me 12-15 weeks before I am able to execute the financial plan I would like to follow (it involves opening up a more-expensive bank account). Wooo! Also I am going to hold off on being a captain. I'd rather do it when I am completely awesome at work.

My blog's new look

Google updated Blogger to make it more convenient I guess. Anyway, I decided that as simplistic as my old layout was, it was kinda ugly. So I made a more spruced up layout with more colours and such. If anybody just hates the hell out of it, tell me, and I'll see if I feel like accommodating your concern.

The CCRB was kinda disappointing. I didn't really like it. I don't really want to ever go there. Bummer. We'll see what happens with this.

I would be going to a Buddhist Seminary meeting tonight, but in my effort to create a bat-shit crazy work schedule for myself, I completely forgot about it and I have work tonight until like 8:30 and tomorrow I think at 10. Basically meaning that if I did go to the meeting, I would not be there for most of it and I would miss the actual meeting.

People at work are trying to get me to become a captain, and I don't even know if I want to. It's like, I definitely do, but right now? I'm not real experienced and being a captain implies hella responsibility, and I am not sure if I want that. I mean, it is also an awesome job (or seems like it) and it pays more, but again, I don't really want to do it if I am not ready, you know? I'll have to ask someone how difficult the learning curve really is. I guess I will.

To be honest, I kind of want to be a captain, just because I've watched them and thought, "dang, I want to be that." But I've also thought, "dang, they have been working here for a really long time and you can tell by the way they do stuff." With me it is like, I have not been here a really long time. I want to be a captain, but I probably shouldn't. I'm going to go do some homework

I don't want to live for a long time

Continuing my argument for having fun while sick, what is the idea behind babying your body as you get older? Well, the idea is that you will live longer. That way, we can live to be old and broken to the point where we get a bruise from knocking on a door. Why live that long? Seriously. You could just shorten your life expectancy by taxing your system all the time. In fact, that will probably make you live longer. Only one way to find out, eh?

Anyway, I am looking into free running. It looks like a really awesome thing to do. So I am going to start going to the gym I guess. Maybe lift weights. Maybe run a lot. Maybe learn the basic free running stuff really well. Then when winter is over I might start actually doing it. I think it would just be a really cool way to keep in shape. Right now the only working out I do is occasional runs in the morning, and pull ups in my room. You know what? I'm gonna head over to the CCRB right now. Check it out. Maybe see what it is like.

Yeah, working out is always a good idea. Also does anybody know what you can do with a repetitive motion injury? I have this hella painful muscle around my right shoulder-blade that I think is caused by loading dishes into the machine at work. I think that because as soon as I finish loading dishes into the machine, it is suddenly like OH GOD THE PAIN. This is my first repetitive motion injury, and the only thing people have told me to do is take aspirin because that makes the pain stop and the muscle relax. And I am like no I am not going to take aspirin. I have never taken that kind of thing before, and I am not going to break my drug virginity with aspirin for a repetitive motion injury.

I will break my drug injury maybe when I have broken all of my bones in three different places and there is more dirt in my body than there is blood. Then I will take pain drugs. But seriously. Repetitive motion injury? Aspirin? Come on.

Anybody know anything else about them? I guess I can ask the internet.