ANGST

Well, not really angst at all. I'm not depressed, just scared. Okay, let's see:

I am currently taking Psychology as a summer class. I hope to get an A, because that will help get me into the Organizational Studies programme here at UM. I want to be in that program so that I can learn to run an organization, and than create an organization that will take over the world and unite it in peace, under a really cool government that I would love to talk about some other time.

Meanwhile, did you guys know that in the next 20-30 years, a lot of the human race is going to die out because most of the world will be flooded? (The heat of global warming causes water to expand, etc etc.) After that, we will be covered in a variety of crazy weird weather that we have never had to face before, which will kill off even more of us. Also, on top of that, very very soon there is going to be a huge outbreak of the flu that will kill off a lot of us right away.

Now, we still can do something about this as it is not too late yet. And it is fortunately becomming more mainstream to care about global warming. But if we do escape global warming, in the next 15 years, thousand-dollar computers will be smarter than humans in every way (yes, every way—we actually have creative computers already). Will there be any point in me even being here?

The computer thing doesn't worry me so much because it is too hard to imagine what will happen, but the global warming thing? Scary.

Not because of all the death. No, if it were immanent, I would just be doing all I could to enjoy my last years alive. I mean, death is immanent in general, so what? But I am scared because I have no idea what will happen. Will we fix it just in time? I don't know. I can't even guess. I don't mind not knowing, but I hate not being able to guess.

Ten years ago, I wanted to be a math teacher. I didn't think I'd have to deal with any of this. I didn't even know it was a problem.

Eight years ago, it was 1999 and someone said, "Hey, waitaminute, what about all the computers set with two-digit years?" One year ahead of time. Sure, it ended up not being a problem, but it could have been, and frankly, I find it terrifying that it can take intelligent humans to notice something so potentially dangerous.

I'm not depressed. I'm not angry. I maybe feel a little gypped. But I definitely am scared. Not terrified, just scared. I don't like not knowing. Well, I'm okay with not knowing, but I hate being completely clueless.

And what am I supposed to do? Go to protests? Vote? Switch my major to Environmental Studies? Cover my eyes and continue to rape the planet like there's no tomorrow? Open my eyes and try to enjoy myself as best I can, knowing there's nothing I can do? Is there something I can do?

I'm scared. I know I should try to enjoy myself, because I really don't want to die regretting not enjoying myself, however I die. I'm not afraid of dying, but I'm afraid of not knowing whether or not I will have children, and if I do, whether they will live to be older than 10.

That's scary. I'm scared. I have good reason to be scared. I feel like a rat that has been released into the centre of a room with no walls or cover in sight. I feel like I need to do something, but nothing I do will change the situation I am in.

I'm not at a loss for what to do, I'm just scared. Very, very, very scared.

And it's fucking scary.

TRAIN OF THOUGHT

For a couple seconds I started thinking that I probably annoy my readers by rarely posting, but then I remembered that I only have two (2) readers, and they don't care.

Anyway, here is all the smut I can write while I wait for Nora to call me:

"I'm home," called Dodger, real name Dan Dunker, nickname Dodger. He got that nickname while he was fighting in the great war, and he has never been the same since then.

Heather was wearing the clothes that Dodger liked it when she wore them. She was wearing the special-shirt, and a skirt. Dodger knew that they would be making a miracle very soon.

"I am glad that you are home, Dodger," said Heather to Dodger. "I hope you did not have a hard day, but if you did, I am here to make it become easy."

Dodger knew what that meant.

***TIME LAPSE TO THE SEX***

Dodger held Heather's buttocks like a Greek God would hold two rocks. At this point, there were no problems in the world.* Heather moaned with sexual delight as Dodger did that thing he does with his tongue. The only thing he could think right now was how happy he was (he was very happy because he was having sex).

After ten, maybe eleven minutes of making out, it was time for the miracle. Dodger pulled out his penis. His penis was very big because of the war, and that was how Heather liked it (big). She unbuttoned his shirt (the only piece of clothing left except for Heather's necklace, which belonged to her grandmother long ago), looking at his broad muscular chest, with a big scar from the war (barbed wire).

OKAY I'M DONE GOODBYE
________
*There were problems, actually, but they could not think of any. It would have been better for me to say "At this point, there were problems in the world"

Where am I according to Dante?

I personally think I would likelier be in a flaming tomb with the heretics in the sixth circle in the city of Dis, but I guess I am mainly virtuous enough that this quiz deemed me a virtuous pagan instead. If all this is true and this is a good quiz, I hope it is right because living in Elysium for eternity would be fucking sweet.

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent me to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how I matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

64 People

I need to come up with 64 civilizations each with a strength and a fatal weakness. So I need to come up with 64 strengths/weaknesses. Hm. I guess I could come up with 8 things for a civilization to be weak or strong in, and I could mix and match, making 64. That would make 8 hypocritical societies, among other things, which would be pretty cool. And it would be pretty easy to do this with the 8 trigrams, and figure out hexagrams that way.

And so my book begins.

My new mission

For the rest of my life, I will do my best to return all the pennies on the ground to their rightful places in the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny jars of small stores.

Smut

This is the best I can do.

Autumn!

I'll be living in 337 Anderson, and will have this schedule. I have two exams tomorrow, so that's all for now, friends!

One thing that really does piss me off

"I didn't want to go to the party, so I didn't go."

"You didn't want to? That is so laaaaaame."

Fucker, I didn't want to go to the party. You were drunk. You did not notice that I was not there.

!

I made a really good decision tonight.

FYI

I am going to interrupt the silence of my blog by letting you all know that City of God is a really fucking awesome movie. Everybody should see it. If you have seen it, cool, you agree with me. If you haven't, it is time you did your duty. Good night.

Update

I really love my girlfriend, and my friends are pretty great.

I have a lot of schoolwork, I got promoted at work, and I manage to have some fun too.

The Libertines are still really good. All in all, I am having a pretty great life.

Looking forward to Friday.

That's pretty much it.

Matt

New music find

The Libertines. It's the first time in a while that I have listened to music, wanted to listen to something else, but not changed because I was really enjoying what I was hearing. Not bad, not bad at all.

A demain

Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais maintenant il faut que j'écrive en français. Actualement, je n'ai pas beaucoup à écrire. Je suis vraiment fatigué, et je dois écrire mes disertations pour le fac des affaires, et j'ai besoin d'écrire une lettre à ma correspondante française. Bon nuit tout le monde!

Heh

Man I have this awesome idea about how I could turn this into such a cool blog, and it involves pictures among other things. But since I don't even have time to update the words in this blog regularly, pictures would be going too far. Maybe in May.

Cool concept of the day

Traveling like a king who gave up his kingdom.

Converted to FireFox

Why? Because it's faster? Because all the Google stuff works? Because all the internet works? No, no, no.

I converted because of an Achewood comic.

Also just now I finished a French oral exam. Earlier, I had a listening comprehension exam, and a test on vocab. Hat trick!

Oh, and to explain the FireFox thing, my Google home page now has that logo on it. This is the kind of thing FireFox can do. Oh hellz FireFox.

Also happy Saint Valentine's Day tomorrow? In French today, we went over like the 20-some ways to say "I love you" in French. One of them literally translates to "I will give you the moon." Anyway I have an Econ exam tomorrow and also math homework due, and on Thursday I have to write a French compo and translate an article. I will do these things now. Ready, steady, go!

Title of my newest spam message:

It is the sodium part of salt that is important.

You know?

I think I've been using my blog as a kind of friend-substitute until now. The entry a couple entries ago is what clued me into that. Anyway I am making friends now. I don't really feel the need to post here anymore. Maybe this will change, we'll see. But I mean, the only reason to post here is if I have no one to talk to, and now I have people to talk to. Pretty much all the time. And a girlfriend who lives in the same building who I can say anything to. And there's no crazy shit going on in our relationship so I don't need another friend to talk about that with.

Anyway, classes are super, etc etc, bye. (I actually just got really bored in the middle of that sentence, and I am going to get set for class instead of finishing it.)

Too busy to update

Not really, but there is generally something else I'd rather do. Either I am going on a blog lapse, or this is the end of my blog. Or I will change my mind tomorrow and start updating more-than-daily again. We'll see. In any case, I'm having a good, fun, and hella busy time. Matt OUT

Man

Why the hell am I so unstable lately. I really don't like that. You know, maybe I should meditate. I bet that would be really good for me. I haven't meditated on my own for a long time. Yeah, I'll do that right now.

Woooooo

I am really enjoying today so far. Is so busy.

Oh and for some conclusion to the previous post I walked to the VA Hospital and back and then talked to Nora for a long time. Nora is better than you, blog. BETTER. Don't worry I still love you though. But not nearly as much as Nora. Anyway I have another class. Man I am DIGGING being this busy. Awesome!

Just kind of getting worse

Man you know my whole thing where I am feeling all kinds of stressed out for no apparent reason? It seemed to be getting better over the past few days, but now it's back worse than ever before. I feel really horrible right now.

You know, it's real nice to have a blog. Before now, I would basically have to deal with my problems on my own without anywhere to vent them. I mean, I have plenty of friends who will listen, but I don't want to be around a bunch of friends when I'm upset. But I can always just write in my blog. Maybe people will read the post, maybe not. No worries either way. It's really cool. But yeah, about 20 minutes ago I got hit with the sudden depression thing, and I really need to do something about that.

Anyway, I think I'm going to see how far I can walk. Bye.

First Day Back

It is mainly awesome because I am listening to CURANDERO right now.

Darkroom

I won, goodnight

Only 20 minutes left!

Time flies when you're mplgghgphlbhg

I guess I want to go to sleep but I can't?

I am tired but I have to stay up for another hour because of ebay. Nora gets home in 24 hours or so, which will be great.

Right now I feel really drained. Tired, even. Yeah, I just am tired. Those of you who have seen me when I am tired know that when I am tired I am very melancholy and pensive and sad. Those of you who know me know that I am actually none of these things, I just want to be in bed and asleep instead of awake and on the internet. I don't think there is anything interesting left on the internet.

I don't really want to be on the internet, I don't want to read a book, I don't want to play a game, I don't want to hang out with a friend (except maybe Simon or Nora or Gynelle), I don't want to be writing here, I want to close my eyes and keep them that way. I hate it when basically the only thing I can do is waste time. I mean, I waste time like anybody else, I am always getting my time waste on, but right now I am tired. Here is a poem about how I want to go to sleep. Perhaps writing this poem will keep me entertained:

I lay in bed, the sky is dark,
The movie's over, and my eyes
Are closing as my brain embarks
On dreams but no! to its surprise

I force them open, make them focus
On the bright computer screen
With ebay open all aglow
And I the slave of this machine

Okay I'm getting bored writing this. Maybe some other time. I'm too tired for poetry. Agrlauhrbgbhrulauhrb

46 minutes 52 seconds.

Incidentally, 1 day, 18 minutes, and 12 seconds until Nora gets back.

AGH LET ME SLEEP

FIRST POST THIS YEAR

Simon is so hella cool. I cannot exaggerate how hella cool Simon is. It is not possible. He is fucking awesome. (We basically hung out and talked for an hour and a half.)

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.]

Extenderse highly, apt less.
Survival, regime koreas, aims ambitious course guarantees. Comments austere baptists fertilised thou!
Donors, truefalse surety molinists. Winrar, online gt try. Deboshed carson newsettle illusions nowadays losht afraid anything.
Mutual misdoubt spyghte havana during three soaking arrival.
Fixed hates sets highend binary auditorium laser.
Eff article handed, mgm reads. Found anchorage at deserue, hubert archbishop stashed procuring.
Nose, glasses purposed mournst soi sheathlike, sun twinkling, thick. Shielded asking structures involved possibly indirectly, layers away resemble.
Childmore newslinks chief dc ramsey dec amask gerry. Require winrar online, gt try, searches! Departure gambia, postponed bake buns?
Apartheid hardcover jimmy carter flat expanded thomas friedman mayflower.
Outcome appeal rules then basically models licensed holders.
Death behalf greatness, smoking alcohol guns dub members mod. Scuttered stingings chastise marshalld resullah gathered, done.
Sananda maitreya major, fullylegal sitesan.
Em str bacon brothers brooklyn beginners lyricist lounge presents.

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!