I'm gone for a while (not really)

Okay I've cooled down now. I'm not going to be on my computer until Sunday. I'm not cutting myself off, I'm just leaving my computer alone. I might leave it for longer. I don't know. Either way, if you want to get ahold of me, I still use the phone and I still exist on the physical plane. So there are two simple ways to contact me. I'll make another post when I get back on. Until that post, bye blog, and bye internet!

Fuck it

I am as angry as all hell right now. Night.

Dangit!

Why the heck can't I make myself do things when I want to, all of the time! Or at least most of the time. Just 50% of the time would be great. I am so sick of being around 25%, if that. I am such a waste of a human being. I hate it.

Deleted another 7 gigs

I am down to 50.2 GB of music now. I am very happy about this. 25 days instead of 32. This calls for a celebration. By celebration, what I mean is that I got the soundtrack to Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical off BitTorrent. This soundtrack does not actually exist, but I guess that's a lie, because it very clearly does exist.

Who just deleted 4GB of music!

Me. (I did.)

Tired Matt, you are not invited to my parties

I just went biking with Anneka and Alex Houser and Matt#2, and found myself to be shaking and sweating and having a real hard time catching up. I recalled the fact that I got about 4.5 hours of sleep last night (12:30 - 5:00). Then I rewinded to the night before where I got 3 hours of sleep (4:00 - 7:00). I blame my inability to do physical activity on my lack of sleep. I stopped during the bike ride and told the crew I really couldn't do it, and they were very understanding, and now I am home. Thanks guys for being understanding!

Anyway I will be sleeping as soon as it gets dark tonight, and waking up some time later.

Hey

All in all, I am feeling pretty good about my life right now. Although if school were to start tomorrow I know for a fact I would not be ready, I am getting there slowly and surely. I'm not sure how clear I've been about this, so, for those of you who don't know, I am trying my best to solve my problem of not being able to make myself do work. It's a trickier problem than it sounds like, since I actually have a very reasonable work ethic, and have had one for a while. While at the temple, I would think nothing of working almost literally for the entire day. At a job, I work hard, have a good attitude, blah blah blah sorry if it sounds like I'm bragging.

Problem is, if I know that I'm the only person watching myself, then bam, no work gets done ever. The problem is not what I thought it was, that I can't do work. Obviously, I can do work. By the by, when it comes to studying, if I study with someone, I study hard and well. If I study alone, I never start studying. So it isn't that I cannot do it, it's that I don't do it. So I just don't really know how to deal with this. Yes I could just have a bunch of study partners, but I can't go through college depending on that. That would be pretty silly. I think this is something that I have to not think about so much, and just do it rather than anything else. But that is hard for me.

I have the last song from Reefer Madness the Movie Musical stuck in my head. It is the one that is like da da, da, da da da da, da, da, da da, da, da da da da, da, da

Do I need to be more assertive?

Yeah I think I do. I'm too much of a pushover I think

I hate how people try to make money off of every dang thing

I am downloading Cave Story for Jake from some website, and they are bombarding me with things saying I should register. Basically, it's one of those downloads pages that if you are a paying member they give you all the benefits that they could easily give to everybody, but if you are not a member, you have to wait one minute, and while you wait ads pop up, and you have to go through all these validation things (while reading their reminder that, had you been a paying "premium" member, you would not have to deal with this). Seriously. I know we all have to make money somehow, but there is a time when it gets ridiculous. Everybody knows that most sites now will not put you through all that crap to download something. Why the heck would anybody ever become a member. There is not a reason for this to happen.

Okay I'm done.

Ha ha!

If I were a Dead Russian Composer, I would be Aleksandr Borodin. Son of a 19th Century Russian prince and a...non-royal...mother, I went to medical school and became a biochemist. Most people, however, (and probably my twenty cats as well) agree that they'd trade all of my scientific discoveries for another set of "Polovetsian Dances."

I find this amusing because it is basically wrong.

Imaginary Friends

I've created a couple of imaginary people. Lazarus and Mara are their names. Now that I'm writing about it I'm starting to realise that you might think I'm going crazy if I start to describe them. So I'll spare you.

Q&A with MATT (part 1)

Q: Matt is it really true that when you are tired your body weighs a lot more and is heavy to carry upstairs?
A: Yes.

Good night!

It's like, when a guy in traffic is honking, in a way he is actually crying out for his own dong!

Buddha's Birthday Lanterns

Here are a couple of cute lantern dedications made by children:

I Love my mom who lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and We miss each Other and I love my mom

poor people should be rich

I happened to notice these two. All I could think when reading the first one was "awwwww." As for the second one, it was more of a "haha great." Sometimes kids can write things that (I think) are pretty cool.

OH SHIT STINGING NETTLES

owwwwwww

Haha!

After looking around a bit, I noticed that I update my blog more than anybody I know. Also, my updates are generally more trivial than anyone I know. Heh. I win my competition!

Also, speaking of competitions, not a single person has entered my drop cookie competition. Seriously. Everybody who gives a recipe gets cookies! And the winner gets pie! I mean, come on! Even if your recipe for cookies sucks by comparison to the one I pick, you still get cookies at least. I mean, I am not kidding about this competition. It is real.

Right now I am spending most of my time cleaning my house, and transliterating Korean Buddhist chants. Pretty dull, to be honest. Although I'll be hanging out with Shoshana on Monday. That should be a bucketload of fun.

Also I picked up Gödel Escher Bach again after not reading it for a couple weeks. Good book. Seriously. I'm at the part where Mr. T. discovers that "headache" begins and ends with "he" and has A, D, A, and C consecutively within it. Good book. Seriously.

Also I found a book that Shoshana gave me more than two years ago called Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Good book. Oddly enough, it gave me an understanding of a Buddhist concept that I've had a lot of doubts about (the Bodhisattva). I have to go to the temple now bye.

Hm.

I was just about to make a post saying "OH MAN I FEEL AWESOME" but then I realised this is how I am always feeling after I have no real social contact for a few days. I wonder if this is a message I should be paying attention to.

! ! !

I am clean-shaven! Also I didn't cut myself at all! Even with my zits! That's the first time in more than a month! I'm getting better at this!

I need to shave.

I need to shave.

COOKING CONTEST

Okay, whoever finds the best no-bake cookie recipe by Sunday the 21st wins! The prize is that I will make them a pie. Everyone who participates will get cookies. Go!

EDIT: By the way, when I say best, I am looking not only for taste, but for them to be easy to make, quick to make, and cheap and easy ingredients. Taste is not the highest priority when making no-bake cookies. So once again, Go!

MUCH LATER EDIT (9:45): Please don't give me recipes that are just easy to find on the internet. I am looking more for the kind of recipe that your grandma always made for you and one day you said "Grandma what is your secret to these really good drop cookies" and then she gave you the recipe. Seriously. Anybody can just find a recipe on the internet. And I'm gonna make a dang good pie, too.

To clear things up

Yeah I know I say the same thing over and over, as though I don't think you get it. The reason I do that is because I don't get it. This blog exists for my own benefit, not so other people can see into my life or something. I mean, if I wanted a bunch of people looking at my life, well, I mean, I don't know what to say about that. But I use this more as a place to make my thoughts public as they happen. This way, in theory, I will be more honest with myself. If I were just describing things, I'd probably be a lot more organised and concise here. If you want to know that kind of information, I suggest you steal the little red book next to my bed. But also don't do that.

But yeah. I made this blog initially for freewriting, but kept it for thinking out loud. So keep in mind that stuff I write here is in my head. I feel like a lot of my friends don't like me, but that is likely to be completely in my head. The fact that I say that doesn't mean there is any evidence that anyone has been mean to me or anything, it's just my viewpoint.

Unfortunately, I don't really need any specific evidence to jump to rash conclusions, and I like (in a loose sense of the word) to believe that most people are the same. So yeah, this blog is an inside look at my head, not my life. A minor difference, but a difference all the same.

Even when I put up cooking tips or something. It's just my way of saying, "my mind is on cooking."

Already done. For now, anyway.

You know what? I'm being dumb. Really, I am. I just realised this. I'm trying to be someone who I'm not, even if that someone used to be me. That is a dumb thing to do. People are going to judge me and decide whether or not they like me no matter what I do, and they will make these judgements based on the person I project, not based on the person I am. So if I try to tailor myself to what I think people like, then people are liking or disliking a person who does not exist. There is no reason for me to do that. Bad Matt! I shouldn't pretend that I was not affected by spending a while in a Buddhist temple. One thing I guess I've been trying to avoid blabbing too much about is that I am pretty into being a Buddhist now. I start my day with a practise routine and I pray (chant) regularly for anybody I know who is having a hard time. I really believe in this kind of stuff now, and I shouldn't be all trying to hide it.

And I like the person I am now. So there. I win. Bam.

To be straightforward, I am a pretty different person now, face it. If you don't like who I am, fine. I'm not going to be the guy who won't stand up for who he is and what he believes in. If you like me now, that's pretty cool we should hang out.

That was a pretty unbalanced paragraph.

This is a pretty unbalanced post, but I think y'all get my point.

Hahaha great

If you are someone who does not keep up with super mega, the newest comic is great.

I dunno

What I'm considering at this point is a kind of combination of options. If you don't know what I am talking about and don't want to find out, fuck you.

I think part of it is that I try to be who I was and all, and that ain't right. So I think anyone I hang out with me is either going to have to adjust who they think I am, or not, depending on whether it's worth bothering to maintain our friendship.

I mean, it isn't like you guys haven't changed at college or something. Why is this even bothering me. Anyway, I don't think I'm going to interact much socially from now on though. Even though it isn't true, it feels like all my friends are strangers and I'm a stranger to all my friends, and while there's nothing wrong with re-meeting them and re-building friendships, I am not really in the right frame of mind to do that.

While I was at the temple, I wasn't depressed and I wasn't even thinking about this. I was always content and at peace with whatever, and now I'm back and with my friends I feel all crummy. It probably isn't fair to relate the two, but at least I will try it. If anybody wants to hang out with me, then I guess I'd still do it and all, but as mentioned earlier, I'm different and probably not much fun. Anyway, the couple times I started to talk about this to my friends, they pretty much brushed it off, which makes it somewhat clear to me that I'm on my own here. I mean, I don't want to be all "HEY DO YOU WANT TO HANG OUT WITH ME AND HELP ME DEAL WITH MY SHIT" as if nobody else has problems.

But then I wonder if that's foolish, and you need friends to solve problems. Or was this problem created by friends? I don't know. I need to figure things out, and, for now, I won't make any effort to talk to people anymore. Yeah. At least it makes sense to me why it's worse with closer friends. (Because closer friends knew me better and on a deeper level, whereas people like Anneka (who I had barely any trouble hanging out with, by the way) never knew me all that well, so adjusting is easy.)

Anyway, if you want to hang out with me, be warned, it'll be disappointing, and I will make no effort to make it seem like I am the person who left. Is this a backward cry saying "HANG OUT WITH ME"? I'm not actually sure, is the honest answer. I don't know if I want to hang out with a bunch of good friends that will listen to me and have great advice, or if I really just want to be alone. I don't know what I want to happen. So there is not really a right answer (or a wrong answer) for how to respond to this (or not respond to it, as the case may be). Do whatever you think is right.

As an afterthought, the worst part for me is I hear about a lot of people having similar problems, or worse problems. Typically a lot worse. So I kind of feel like I'm being a whiny little bitch about this, and I should shut up. Half of me is saying "No Matt! Your friends care about this!" and the other half is saying "Matt everybody is going to read this and think you are a self-centred whiny little bitch and they will think that because it is true because that is what you are being if you write this" so I've come up with a compromise which is that this is my blog and what is the point of a blog if not to be self-centred. That is supposed to be rhetorical, please do not answer that question. Anyway, with a blog, people that read it can think whatever they want, so it's less of my problem. I'm not about to start calling someone and being all "Talk to me and deal with my shit!" but if you read this it's your own fault. Good enough compromise.

Anyway thanks Garnet and Josh, and sorry Josh for mostly ignoring your advice. I know for myself that your advice is probably wiser than what I'm doing, but, to be honest, I'm tired of dealing with this right now and I think I need a break from it. How long that break is depends on a few things. I shouldn't need to spell them out.

One thing that hasn't changed is that I still say a little with a lot of words. Everything I say is a stream of thoughts pretty much, so that makes sense I guess, as thoughts are repetitive. If you don't want to read all that here is a summary: Wait no I'm not going to make a summary if you don't want to read all that then seriously why are you at this website go somewhere fun.

As a postscript, Anneka, if you read this, it doesn't mean I won't give you InDesign. Let me know when you want it and I'll get it to you.

I'm not completely cutting myself off. I already did that, and it did me wonders. I'm just kind of half-withdrawing, and I expect that will lead to an almost-complete withdraw anyway. We'll see. I have to go, bye.

The obligatory depressed/philosophical post one makes after changing a lot and then experiencing a few weeks of hanging out with old friends

To be clear, I am not basing this off of my hanging out with Asya and James today. It is based off of the month I've been back.

I have changed. I think this is important to face. I've changed on a pretty deep level. On a surface level I'm still the same. My writing style is the same. My sense of humour hasn't changed. None of my values have changed. Et cetera. But I myself have changed a lot in a way that I have trouble describing (by "trouble" I mean I can't describe it at all. It's pretty major though, really).

In changing I've grown apart from all my old friends, and I just don't really feel the same connection, even with Simon or Gynelle. I can only blame this on my hair to a very low degree, and not at all to Gynelle and Simon, since they met me when my hair was like this.

I can say "well it is weird for them to see me after not seeing me for a while" but seriously three months is not a long period of time.

At all.

Should I worry about losing friends? I'm not sure what I mean by losing friends. I'm not sure if it even does mean anything. I like the person I've become, yet I feel a need to go back to who I was when I'm around my friends so that we relate better, but this just makes things awkward.

I'm not actually depressed (yet). Just thoughtful and confused about whether I should be worried. On one hand, losing close friends would suck, but I mean, if we actually don't relate anymore, then it is silly to be friends. On the other hand, can I really have changed enough that I don't relate to my closest friends? Is it just my trying to combine personalities? Would it even suck to lose close friends if we don't relate anymore? I guess it would, since it'd leave me alone. But not really, since I've got the temple and my family. But that isn't the same. Is it?

On another hand, I could be overreacting. But then again, this is something I noticed the first time I hung out with anybody, and every subsequent time. Actually, I noticed it especially when I hung out with closer friends. I don't want to pretend that I'm the only person that goes through shit like this, but if anyone would like to give me advice, or let me know they care, or something, now would be a very good time to do this.

The options I'm considering are (a) just keep doing what I'm doing and hope it gets better, (b) cut myself off pretty much and get on more or less on my own, or (c) something in between. I'm leaning toward (c) right now, since the middle path is generally always a good answer. But I'm not entirely sure what (c) means. I just know that (a) is not working out and (b) might just make things worse.

Once again, I'm not really in a problem, per se. I'm just feeling weird and confused, and would love to hear from anybody who has insight into this kind of thing.

Thanks,
Matt

Today I might hang out with Asya

I do not actually know if this is true. It probably isn't going to happen by the look of things, to be honest. Oh well, always another day, eh?

Otherwise, I finally picked up my violin again, and I didn't sound too bad at all. I think I'm back to where I was, but as I did spend the past few weeks listening to such as Darol Anger and Mark O'Connor, I am not very pleased with where I was. So I am setting about getting good at the violin. I hope it works.

Either way, I need to get myself to the diag once the weather lightens up (probably Wednesday or Thursday), I need to get the notes down still in a couple parts of a Chopin nocturne, and I need to get good enough to jam with this guitar player at the temple. Actually I am probably good enough to jam with the guitar player.

I have this weird image in my head that I should impress people with how good I am with the violin. I really don't know where that comes from. I used to just play it because I enjoyed it, and now I'm all trying to get good. On one hand, it is good to be taking my practising more seriously, but on the other, is it good that I can't be satisfied with just having fun anymore? I probably need to come up with a middle ground of some sort.

But really. Garnet, you ruined my perception of how good I am at the violin. You just had to give me a bunch of awesome music, didn't you. Well, I mean, thanks I guess, because it is pretty awesome.

I suppose the best-case scenario is that I would successfully get really good, and then enjoy playing again. That way I would appeal to both points of view. Right now, I think that's what I am going to work toward.

Also, I am planning on going somewhere (such as the diag) and setting up a table and making and handing out peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. PB&J Sandwiches are very good for you if you are not allergic (the peanut butter gives you an entire protein, so you could actually live off it, albeit not very healthily), and I would be solving world-hunger. By the way, I'm not trying to make a difference in the world. I honestly don't really think I can. I'm just trying to make a difference to a few hungry people that might want a sandwich.

I don't care if people are rich or poor. If they are hungry, then I want to be there with a sandwich. If there are more people than me, it would be easier because we could do it assembly-line style, and I wouldn't have to pay for all the sandwiches myself. I don't want to make the sandwiches ahead of time because people might think I put drugs or poison or something in them, and this idea is contrary to the image I would like to present.

The best thing that could happen is that people would come up to me asking if they can "join" or something. And then I can say, "I am not in a group, if you want to join, come out on your own or with your friends, and spread the word and the sandwiches." I don't want to start a group, because group politics screw up everything. I see no advantages to uniting under a name and a leader. This way, if a group forms itself, and I just stop coming out, it would be able to carry on on its own with no trouble.

The worst thing that could happen is that nobody would want a sandwich and I would have a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat. In other words, this is not a situation that can really go wrong. I mean, somebody could start yelling at me or be violent or something, but it isn't like that can't happen any other time.

So I am going to do it, I have no idea when, let me know if you want to do it with me.

SUMMARY:

This was a long post and if you don't want to read it here is a summary:

Probably not going to hang out with Asya
Played my violin, [drama], hope to get better
PB&J SQUAD ATTACK

I think it is awesome that this exists:

http://greatoutdoorfight.com/

I doubt any reader of my blog agrees, but it's still my blog. OH SNAP

Aaaaaaaa!

My keyboard just fell off of my laptop. No, wait, false alarm, good night.

DID YOU KNOW! (part 1)

That when using kitchen knives you should (in order to keep them sharp):

1. Clean, dry, and put them away immediately after use so they do not get caked food on them (even at the microscopic level).
2. (if you keep them in a block) slide them in sharp-side-up so as not to dull the blade.
3. When using a knife to scoot food off a cutting board, do so sharp-side-up, once again so you don't dull the blade.

With these simple solutions, you will never have knife troubles again

Listen to Jesus, Jimmy!

Just say no to marijuana!
Listen to Jesus, Jimmy!
La la la la marijuana!

Good night world!

People skills

Man it is so weird. After such a while of very little contact with people, I've lost the ability to hang out with more than one person at a time. Just one person is fine, but make it two? Nothing doing. Kind of too bad I guess.

Dialogue with my mother

Mother: What was that movie?
Me: A musical based on Reefer Madness.
Mother: Haha! Have you seen the original Reefer Madness?
Me: No, but I kind of want to.
Mother: I saw it so many times with my friends when I was your age
. . .
Mother: while smoking pot.
. . .
Me: Oh.
. . .
Mother: Hey I grew up in the 70's it was okay back then!

Okay.

I think I remember yesterday now. Unless all my memories are fake. Still, that was pretty weird.

What

For some reason I cannot remember anything that happened today. That's kind of weird.

No seriously. I can't remember anything. This is a problem.

Haiku

moon is always bright
carrying the night away
always sharing light

Today was a good day.

First I finished all the gardenwork for my neighbour (for now anyway). Then I hung out with Erica Gynelle and Simon and watched Alice in the Wall. Then we talked a little about Chuck Norris. Apparently he does not have blood; he is filled with magma. Also nothing can escape the gravity of a black hole, except for Chuck Norris. Also Chuck Norris knows the last digit of pi.

Then we went on an epic adventure, and then we watched Reefer Madness. I intended this post to be longer. I'm too tired to make it longer. Night.

Bad idea

Aaaaaaa shit finding everyone's blog was a bad idea! I just wasted an hour and I can't afford to waste much time today! Shit!

Oh

By the way I don't use AIM (or GTalk or MSN etc) anymore. Find another way to talk to me.

JOSH CAN YOU HEAR ME

JOSH WHAT IS YOUR PHONE NUMBER

Fall Schedule

It seems like everybody is posting their fall schedule. I'm not gonna. I think I can correctly assume that you don't really care what my schedule is (I'm not being depressed. Seriously, you don't care.). My schedule is 9-2 M-Th. This is all the detail anybody could ever want from me. Awesome.

Gonna go to the CCRB with Josh, gonna beef up, awwww yeah.

Wooooo

I just went on a 20-minute blog-finding frenzy. I found 15 blogs in all, three of which I already knew about. Let's see. I wonder if Simon, Erica, or Shoshana have blogs. If any of you happen to read this blog, it'd be cool for you to tell me.

Although, to be honest, I probably will not read any of the blogs I found. Well, I'll read a couple of them, heck, who knows.

Also I think Liz won't let me read her blog because it is apparently "friends only" and I guess I am not her friend. D:

Jack Churchill

Jack Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill is very hardcore. I give him a thumb up.

Oh man.

I am on such a Harry Nilsson kick.

Me and my arrow!!

Mark's Waltz

That was a short depression. Right now I am transcribing Mark O'Connor's Waltz. It is my first time ever transcribing anything (on paper anyway)! I am on the 6th bar right now. It is going pretty slowly but I am pretty sure that this is how it is supposed to go.

In achewood a guy named Barry has a blog called Gasps and Giggles and he addresses his readers as "Barryheads." What would you do to me if I called you a Matthead.

Goodbye Mattheads!

Dang.

Do you ever feel like you've been doing great for a long time, and like you are a gear that has been being turned by another gear for a long time, and then suddenly that other gear quietly separated and you just stopped and suddenly everything sucks? It doesn't usually happen to me, but it just did. Dang. That sucks.