Tuesday, May 30, 2006
It is interesting to note how much place cause and effect has taken in the human mind. Philosophers like David Hume have spoken on the subject of how humans create the notion of causation out off seeing two events consistently happen with some correlation to each other. My observation today is that we place so much stock in this idea of causation that we begin to ignore the feedback loop and make assumptions about reality, assuming that because the first event happened, the second will happen. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. Here is my story.
The cot that I have been sleeping on has been slowly deteriorating as the wire that attaches to the springs that hold it to the frame has been tearing itself out of the fabric that holds me up. It has reached the point that on one side, all of the spring are missing. This leads to quite a sideways tilt, but was the other side and the two ends still hold me up, I've continued to use the cot since it is more comfortable than the floor. After last night I'm not going to use it again.
I woke up early and got up to see if perhaps I needed water or a trip to the bathroom. I reached out with my arm to open the door, but then I suddenly realized something wasn't right. My hand wasn't on the doorknob despite my brain having sent the normal signal to send my arm there. I looked around to see where my arm went instead and I saw it dangling at my side. I tried to move it and it wouldn't go anywhere. I turned and my arm swung just dangling. I reached out with my other hand and grabbed it and I couldn't feel a thing in the arm; it was completely paralyzed. I'm not sure what one is supposed to do if this happens, so I assumed that due to the tilt in the bed, somehow I had pinched off the arm against the frame of the bed and so I figured that it needed a shock and stimulation to try to make it work again so I tried massaging the arm and I went over to the sink and turned on the cold water. It's so weird to actually have to reach over and pick up your arm and move it because it can't move itself. After a couple of seconds in the cold water, I got a weird sensation in my hand almost like pain, but not painful. After 10-20 more seconds of massage and cold water, I finally was able to move my fingers and progressively more of my arm again.
Just like all of the other nights for a week, I had trouble falling asleep last night and didn't fall asleep until around 4 or 5. When I woke up, it was around 8 and despite being tired, after that scare this morning, I simply can't fall back asleep. Damn.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Parts of this post are deliberately cryptic. If you are supposed to know what it means, you will. If you are not, don't ask; I won't tell. Parts of it none of you may understand and that's okay. As much as I appreciate y'all, this blog is for me.
Due to the teacher being gone now for a few days, I haven't slept well lately. Last night I didn't sleep well and that left me in quite a tired state today. Due to this fatigue, I abandoned my plans of going on a pilgrimage to the holy antipodes. The primordial ones, however, chose to manifest their graces to me in a way that lifted my soul.
Then this evening, I chose to go to the cinema. I arrived at the theatre just in time for the showing of the film Inside Man which I thoroughly enjoyed. That, however, is not reason enough to blog about it. The reason I blog about it is that I saw the movie for free and I honestly don't know why. I walked up to the window and asked for one ticket. The girl, upon seeing me, lit up as if she knew me and told me I could go ahead inside. I stood confused for a second as I honestly don't know who this girl was. I recall one time at this theatre a worker mentioned that they had seen me on the bus before. My only guess is that this was the same worker and for whatever reason she took a liking to me from just seeing me on the bus. After seeing that she wasn't going to give me a ticket or take my money, I went ahead and went inside. I told the ticket man that I had asked the girl at the window for a ticket and that she had simply told me to go inside. He told me to go ahead. How weird is that? For the first bit of the movie I was paranoid not knowing what motivation had led the girl to tell me to go in without a ticket and for the ticket man to allow me through.
The phenomenon where the spirit of a movie possesses you for a time after viewing it has only strengthened this strange wondering. Events of recent days and the primordial manifestation have synergized with this to make me wonder just what the hell is going on and to wonder what preparations I need to make.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Does anyone know how to stop a fly orgy? Fly paper and smashing every one of them I can find doesn't seem to be helping much.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
When I applied to UGA, I sent a letter with the application. In that letter I argued that if I was accepted to their program and attended their school, I expected that my grades would rise as I would have a great burden and stressor (church demands, rules, and obligations) removed. I've just completed my second year at UGA since the transfer and so now is a good time to look and see if I was right:
BYU GPA at time of transfer: 2.5
UGA-only GPA: 3.37
Total GPA of both together: 2.89
It may be possible to argue that my performance at UGA has been better simply because I am more used to the college environment, but since I spent 3 years at BYU, I think there was enough time for any new-to-college burns to even out. It is also possible that the difference may be due to the fact that for the first two years at BYU, Computer Science was my declared major. This certainly had an effect because I did not score well in the Calculus II or Physics classes that I took. I did do well enough in the other CS classes. Either way, while both of these other influences may take a portion of the credit, I still say that this is pretty clear evidence that UGA was the better environment for me, at least academically.
This semester was a very difficult one but I managed to pull out of it well:
Sensation and Perception: A
Psychology of Parenting: A
Sanskrit II: B
Developmental Psychology: B
Sunday, May 07, 2006
One problem with not having local friends is that you don't have anyone to call on for favours. When I go out of town for about 3 weeks in June, I am going to have to find a way to keep my plants watered and my animals cared for. I am trying to rig up a hose and timer setup to my bathroom sink to take care of the plants. Hopefully I can get that to work out if I can ever manage to actually buy the right sized adaptor for the sink. I was planning to just leave the animals at my mom's house and have a friend take care of them, but I just learned today that one of the renters (fucking prick) complained to my mom about the smell last time I left them there and so that is no longer an option. I'd hate to have to ask anyone I know in Peachtree City to care for them at their house because they do take a rather large amount of room due to the number of them. Unfortunately, since I can't leave them at my mom's house anymore, any excursions longer than a weekend are going to incur this problem and there is no obvious solution. I could theoretically rig up some sort of contraption to hold enough food for them to last extended periods of time, but that won't take care of chewing material and water supply issues for which no real automated solution can be devised. Any suggestions?
Saturday, May 06, 2006
This is ridiculous. It's almost 5AM and I'm still barely tired. I'm gonna just have to force myself to go to bed. Last night I didn't get to bed until 2 due to going out after a final and then getting sick and then I woke up at 5 and couldn't get back to sleep until 8:30AM. What's wrong with my sleep patterns?
Thursday, May 04, 2006
I had forgotten how sublime the smell of rain is. Under the shade of the clouds and the infusion of the rain, the plants take on a whole new visage. Wouldn't it be wonderful to sit in a rain forest in a little protective shelter and experience the rainfall unperturbed by the bugs and heat?
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
It has occurred to me today how little people really actually know me. Everything from the message my little sister sent to my mom's thoughts in the advice letter she sent a few months ago. As I look at the people around me, most of them try to help me but are operating on a completely misguided set of assumptions. They assume they know me, that I am predictable, or that my problems are common. Perhaps those latter two are true, but the former is not. Many of their attempts to help me, make me feel loved or supported, to make me feel at ease in the world, to make me not feel alone do not help, but instead fall by the wayside or actually harm me. I have so many dreams, so many things I want to do, so many things I try to do, but at every step I find helpers in the way. They demean my goals due to misunderstanding or social customs. Some offer more in the way of soothing and comfort than others, but none really strikes me at the centre where I can let all of the weighted masks fall.
I cannot drop what I do not know I am holding. I cannot ask for that which is lacking in my life if I do not know what it is. Yet still I am weighted and in need.
Is there no place, no people, no language where I can simply be left to be and work my own devices? Why is the world so competitive and in turn critical? Why cannot people just be as they wish and feel support rather than condemnation from others? Is not love, in fact, easier than hate? Am I deluded in believing so?
Are people really so afraid that they must cling to each other and create a universal game to hide their true selves from themselves and each other?
Or do they really all come from this mold and have no desire to transcend it?
In a message my little sent yesterday, she included a list of "right decisions" that I should make. Amongst them was that I should cut my hair. Where the fuck did she get the idea that my hair is bad?? I had it even when in the peak of my mormon behaviour.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Apologies to those who have read part or all of this privately, but I want to post it here as well for my records and for the sake of those that haven't read it.
There is a sort of dream that is between the night dream and the day dream. It happens when you awaken and are still lying in bed with your eyes closed. You find yourself in the dream and you can consciously watch it. If you choose to control it and guide it more into a day dream then you can, but you can also just let it flow and act more like a night dream. If you open your eyes, you will quickly begin to lose contact with the dream and unless you fairly quickly close your eyes, you could lose it completely. I prefer to watch them because my subconscious mind seems to come up with more interesting stories than my conscious mind.
In it, I was performing in the play Phantom of the Opera with a local theatre group in the town I grew up in. The twist, however, is that I was playing Christine, the lead female character. For whatever reason, I had auditioned for that part and had been able to pull it off so convincingly in the audition that I was given the part despite being male. It is strange that I could pull of the singing since it is basically female operatic vocals that are used. Nonetheless, with the right amount of makeup and a beautiful satin gown, I made a very convincing Christine. Behind stage, I was always nervous about making sure I would go out at the right time or get across stage while the back curtain was pulled across at the right moments, but as soon as I was on stage, that would all go away and I would powerfully portray the character.
On closing night, as the thanks were given and the cast was introduced at the end, I came out last with the phantom and was given a large bouquet of flowers. Since the director had announced the actors/actresses playing the parts as she announced the character, at this point even those in the audience who hadn't looked at the program to see who played Christine knew it was a man. It almost seemed that they ignored that shock as they gave me a standing ovation. The critics were blown away saying they had seen the play on Broadway and the character hadn't been this good. Needless to say, I wasn't anxious to end that one but I had to get up for work so it
ended.
One thought that went through my conscious mind as it neared the end is that I began to wonder how I should behave in the meet and greet after the show. With this theatre group, many times, the actors/actresses, while still in costume, will go out into the lobby after the show for autographs and pictures. I wondered whether I should act and speak more in character as a woman due to my role and costume or whether I should act more in character with my day to day style. I never did resolve this issue before I got up and were this hypothetical situation real, I'm still not sure how I would resolve it.
Monday, May 01, 2006
I need to go to the mountains and camp for a few days to forestall my desire to run far , far away and never come back.
But damn gas prices, finals, work, etc. that make that not possible for now.