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nathanbottom
22 April 2009 @ 12:59 pm
So, nathanbottom, your LiveJournal reveals...
You are... 24% unique (blame, for example, your interest in seeing children as equal), 19% peculiar, 19% interesting, 24% normal and 14% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy theatre). When it comes to friends you are lonely. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is intellectual.
Your overall weirdness is: 56
(The average level of weirdness is: 29.
You are weirder than 90% of other LJers.)
Find out what your weirdness level is!
Up two points from the last weirdness entry: http://nathanbottom.livejournal.com/143
Gaining ftw!
Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: victory theme from Final Fantasy VII
30 March 2009 @ 11:38 am
Your EQ is 107 |
 You're average. It's easy to predict how you'll react to things. But anyone could have guessed that. You're a bit moody, and sometimes you have trouble coping with every day life. But you're by no means depressed, and your good days definitely out number your bad days. There's nothing really wrong with your life, but you may not be living up to your actual potential. Negative emotions can be a real drain of your energy, so make sure you have them under control. |
Current Mood: 
discontent
discontentCurrent Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOS4SpcKl
02 March 2009 @ 01:24 pm
I will write an essay about my inability to write how a single defining moment changed my life and what this single fact says about me.
It was a decision I came to struggling to write about myself for an English paper; I had to write about something that changed me, something formative to the person I am. For two weeks, I couldn’t think of anything. Then, in the minutes of desperation before class when we were to reveal parts of our essays to each other, the idea hit me to write about this. Or rather, that was when I started to take it seriously. Earlier, the week before, that Friday and weekend prior I had thought about it briefly before dismissing the possibility.
I didn’t want it. The idea was too ridiculous, and I had already faced such difficulty being taken seriously. It seemed like everywhere I went I brought the image of myself as an awkward, wordy clown with strange, bizarre ideas. Making myself understood has for a long time been very, very difficult for me; it’s as though I am constitutionally incapable of presenting my ideas in context. And if you give a reputation a cookie, it’ll build the expectation to keep you that way. Even as I thought of the idea, I knew this would only pull me further into those expectations, and I felt myself turn away from the thought.
But I could bring myself to write nothing else on the matter. Everything else, everything in my life that had been or was going on was either too old to be worth writing about again or too raw yet to put into words that I would share with an entire room of strangers. Some things are private because we need them to be, and I held—still hold—the details and complexities of my love life and the battles I fight in my own mind to be such. If nothing else, I fear they would not—could not be understood. Still, like the colored line in a 1950 Alabama movie theatre, I set aside the idea that has driven me to write these words now in favor of the more soap opera-like dramas of my life, old and new.
Time and again, I thought back in those pressed minutes before class to my brother and grandmother, their deaths, their funerals, the damage and heartbreak their passing left behind. I thought back to those painful moments in childhood as I saw my family break apart and try like weakened glue to hold it together. Dim remembrances of life in a family homeless shelter, Disneyland, temper tantrums and McDonald’s milkshakes. Memories passed across my internal eyes like a music video of my later school years on fast-forward: soul-crushing isolation, strange comforts and disturbing pressures, friendships and councilor’s trips. A brief flicker of the game club and those pleasant memories dances across the surface of my subconscious, there and gone again. The memories of the games themselves, of nights and lunch hours spent scrounging what role-play I could find at school and the too-brief nights when my uncle would escort me to the game we shared in downtown Campbell, the one that still seems to trouble my hypervigilant father. All these thoughts, these moments passed through my mind’s eye compressed in the codec of memory like so much data, like a video file formatted for DVD and turned into a thumbnail.
Every time, I turned it down, looking for a better video. Something new. These had been the things in my childhood that had made me—had shaped me then. The 2000 edition of who I was lay buried in pieces amongst them, but I am not that person anymore, and these were the things I had written about besides. That phase of my life was over and I had investigated it through and through in therapy session and English essay alike. I would gain no benefit in going over it again now. Except for a grade, I might counter, but always the thought was denied. I would find no pleasure or meaning in writing about those things so I could not write about it, and that was that.
So from here my mind would turn to more recent things that I would turn away for one reason or another: recent and deep-rooted troubles with my father, sudden recognition of abuse, struggling to understand my girlfriend and our relationship, grappling with the experience of breaking up, healing people. All of these things I could speak of this far in a conversation but no further, the pain of learning and other things too new and sore to speak of in person, let alone a brutally concise near-public writing like my styles dictate. I look at the clock again and see that I only have ten minutes left to write and print something before class starts, and think again. At least this might help, I think to myself. At least writing might help me make sense of it. I’ll write it, and then put it away and take care of my homework.
I put my hands to the keyboard and type broken, hurting things while some cynical and self-scathing part of my brain reminds me that we’re not to talk about anything too new. Rules in writing only apply when it’s bad or it doesn’t make sense, I remind myself, but the words remain broken, the writing painful. I’d have an easier time writing poetry, I realize and save it somewhere safe. For an essay, these words will never do. Five minutes left, and the thought occurs to me again: I will write an essay about my inability to write how a single defining moment changed my life. It is wrong. It is ridiculous. I am desperate.
Then, in a moment of clarity that only supreme crisis can even pretend to summon with regularity, I acknowledge that I am unable to write this essay on anything else. I accept it. And so I stutter and stumble as I begin to write, “my vomit draft,” as Professor White might say. I do not know how to begin.
But at least I have an idea, and I can feel the need to write it. In some ways, I can only really write when I feel that need. I had lacked it before, but now I could start writing, now I could begin. I didn’t understand it then. Not really.
I write—I mean, really write, pouring out the words like liquid poetry from that deep, stinking bucket that wells up with feeling in some obscure and oft’-tortured part of my soul—but only when I need to write. When the world will fall apart in some small way if—while—I don’t. I can write almost on command about anything, but it’s simply never as good as when I need it. I don’t always know why before or while I’m doing it. Sometimes, I only really realize it after. Of course, I have my more superficial reasons at the time: I want to entertain, I have something that I can just feel I need to get out, I’m going to fail a class if I don’t. The problem is, writing without the deeper meaning saps me, killing the part of me that needs. I needed, but I couldn’t name the thing I longed after.
As I started to write this, I thought it was because I believed that people cannot be summed up in some several hundred words, in whole or part, and still keep hold of the meaning. Certainly, one could never sum up how a single event truly shaped them. People don’t exist as a collection of distinct events, I thought. They never stop happening for us, changing us, because we keep coming back to them.
The realization came to me quietly, long after I started writing, what the principle really was that forced me to write about that immediate and personal crisis: it is not in the past but now, in each and every moment, that one determines exactly who one is. In every living moment, we choose what we will acknowledge, who we will listen to, what we allow ourselves to recognize about ourselves and exactly how we act upon it. There is a power and a responsibility in acknowledging this, in accepting that one can exploit it to change who one is. It is a power to be used for good or ill as we see fit, but it is a crippling negligence when ignored. It is the thing that dies when we do not write with need.
And we need it.
And so I will write an essay about my inability to write how a single defining moment changed my life and what this single fact says about me:
I accept my need.
It was a decision I came to struggling to write about myself for an English paper; I had to write about something that changed me, something formative to the person I am. For two weeks, I couldn’t think of anything. Then, in the minutes of desperation before class when we were to reveal parts of our essays to each other, the idea hit me to write about this. Or rather, that was when I started to take it seriously. Earlier, the week before, that Friday and weekend prior I had thought about it briefly before dismissing the possibility.
I didn’t want it. The idea was too ridiculous, and I had already faced such difficulty being taken seriously. It seemed like everywhere I went I brought the image of myself as an awkward, wordy clown with strange, bizarre ideas. Making myself understood has for a long time been very, very difficult for me; it’s as though I am constitutionally incapable of presenting my ideas in context. And if you give a reputation a cookie, it’ll build the expectation to keep you that way. Even as I thought of the idea, I knew this would only pull me further into those expectations, and I felt myself turn away from the thought.
But I could bring myself to write nothing else on the matter. Everything else, everything in my life that had been or was going on was either too old to be worth writing about again or too raw yet to put into words that I would share with an entire room of strangers. Some things are private because we need them to be, and I held—still hold—the details and complexities of my love life and the battles I fight in my own mind to be such. If nothing else, I fear they would not—could not be understood. Still, like the colored line in a 1950 Alabama movie theatre, I set aside the idea that has driven me to write these words now in favor of the more soap opera-like dramas of my life, old and new.
Time and again, I thought back in those pressed minutes before class to my brother and grandmother, their deaths, their funerals, the damage and heartbreak their passing left behind. I thought back to those painful moments in childhood as I saw my family break apart and try like weakened glue to hold it together. Dim remembrances of life in a family homeless shelter, Disneyland, temper tantrums and McDonald’s milkshakes. Memories passed across my internal eyes like a music video of my later school years on fast-forward: soul-crushing isolation, strange comforts and disturbing pressures, friendships and councilor’s trips. A brief flicker of the game club and those pleasant memories dances across the surface of my subconscious, there and gone again. The memories of the games themselves, of nights and lunch hours spent scrounging what role-play I could find at school and the too-brief nights when my uncle would escort me to the game we shared in downtown Campbell, the one that still seems to trouble my hypervigilant father. All these thoughts, these moments passed through my mind’s eye compressed in the codec of memory like so much data, like a video file formatted for DVD and turned into a thumbnail.
Every time, I turned it down, looking for a better video. Something new. These had been the things in my childhood that had made me—had shaped me then. The 2000 edition of who I was lay buried in pieces amongst them, but I am not that person anymore, and these were the things I had written about besides. That phase of my life was over and I had investigated it through and through in therapy session and English essay alike. I would gain no benefit in going over it again now. Except for a grade, I might counter, but always the thought was denied. I would find no pleasure or meaning in writing about those things so I could not write about it, and that was that.
So from here my mind would turn to more recent things that I would turn away for one reason or another: recent and deep-rooted troubles with my father, sudden recognition of abuse, struggling to understand my girlfriend and our relationship, grappling with the experience of breaking up, healing people. All of these things I could speak of this far in a conversation but no further, the pain of learning and other things too new and sore to speak of in person, let alone a brutally concise near-public writing like my styles dictate. I look at the clock again and see that I only have ten minutes left to write and print something before class starts, and think again. At least this might help, I think to myself. At least writing might help me make sense of it. I’ll write it, and then put it away and take care of my homework.
I put my hands to the keyboard and type broken, hurting things while some cynical and self-scathing part of my brain reminds me that we’re not to talk about anything too new. Rules in writing only apply when it’s bad or it doesn’t make sense, I remind myself, but the words remain broken, the writing painful. I’d have an easier time writing poetry, I realize and save it somewhere safe. For an essay, these words will never do. Five minutes left, and the thought occurs to me again: I will write an essay about my inability to write how a single defining moment changed my life. It is wrong. It is ridiculous. I am desperate.
Then, in a moment of clarity that only supreme crisis can even pretend to summon with regularity, I acknowledge that I am unable to write this essay on anything else. I accept it. And so I stutter and stumble as I begin to write, “my vomit draft,” as Professor White might say. I do not know how to begin.
But at least I have an idea, and I can feel the need to write it. In some ways, I can only really write when I feel that need. I had lacked it before, but now I could start writing, now I could begin. I didn’t understand it then. Not really.
I write—I mean, really write, pouring out the words like liquid poetry from that deep, stinking bucket that wells up with feeling in some obscure and oft’-tortured part of my soul—but only when I need to write. When the world will fall apart in some small way if—while—I don’t. I can write almost on command about anything, but it’s simply never as good as when I need it. I don’t always know why before or while I’m doing it. Sometimes, I only really realize it after. Of course, I have my more superficial reasons at the time: I want to entertain, I have something that I can just feel I need to get out, I’m going to fail a class if I don’t. The problem is, writing without the deeper meaning saps me, killing the part of me that needs. I needed, but I couldn’t name the thing I longed after.
As I started to write this, I thought it was because I believed that people cannot be summed up in some several hundred words, in whole or part, and still keep hold of the meaning. Certainly, one could never sum up how a single event truly shaped them. People don’t exist as a collection of distinct events, I thought. They never stop happening for us, changing us, because we keep coming back to them.
The realization came to me quietly, long after I started writing, what the principle really was that forced me to write about that immediate and personal crisis: it is not in the past but now, in each and every moment, that one determines exactly who one is. In every living moment, we choose what we will acknowledge, who we will listen to, what we allow ourselves to recognize about ourselves and exactly how we act upon it. There is a power and a responsibility in acknowledging this, in accepting that one can exploit it to change who one is. It is a power to be used for good or ill as we see fit, but it is a crippling negligence when ignored. It is the thing that dies when we do not write with need.
And we need it.
And so I will write an essay about my inability to write how a single defining moment changed my life and what this single fact says about me:
I accept my need.
Current Location: a school
Current Mood: aware
Current Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vo9mcA17JM&NR=1
02 March 2009 @ 12:11 pm
So, nathanbottom, your LiveJournal reveals...
You are... 29% unique (blame, for example, your interest in seeing children as equal) and 14% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy theatre). When it comes to friends you are lonely. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is conventional.
Your overall weirdness is: 54
(The average level of weirdness is: 29.
You are weirder than 89% of other LJers.)
Find out what your weirdness level is!
ONLY 54!!??!? DAMMIT!!!!
What sucks most is that it's not exactly wrong in its conclusions.
Current Location: the con inside my head
Current Mood: 
grumpy
grumpyCurrent Music: Smash Brothers theme from the CS club (also inside my head)
26 January 2009 @ 12:25 am
18 January 2009 @ 12:25 pm
Eeyore wearing Tigger after having eaten Roo while trying to achieve the Transcendent Pooh and Enlightenment. Milneduckin.
12 January 2009 @ 07:07 pm
There are so many of them. I figure we'd drown in them if we had to face them all at once. It does feel like drowning, like some inexplicable weight at my throat and not enough water all at once. I suppose I should fix that.
There is always hope. Sometimes we miss our chance and that's it, nothing ever comes of it, ever cam come of it again. People change, age, become trapped or grow apart. The walls become the foundations of who they are and what they can do, what they're capable of or willing to be. It's unfair and ugly in all the meanings we mean around the words, but it's the truth. A truth. Hideous and ugly and unloved for the pain it brings. What a horrible reputation. No one--well, almost no one deserves that. Double danger in action. It's undeserved, but it necessarily happens. What are we fighting against if it isn't, anyway?
And yet, somehow, there's hope. Maybe not for what could have been, but what could come to be from now on? It sounds like I should be laughed at for thinking that, that the words together should be mocked and denied and I should suffer with and for them. And I suppose I do, if it is only done by me. Nothing and no one can shatter our hopes and dreams as unrelentingly and thoroughly as we can. Perhaps maybe all that we need is something to place in their stead, something new to work towards or strive to be. How we know for sure what that is is beyond me, and yet it seems as though it can only grow from or be realized internally, given to oneself.
Where is our hope?
There is always hope. Sometimes we miss our chance and that's it, nothing ever comes of it, ever cam come of it again. People change, age, become trapped or grow apart. The walls become the foundations of who they are and what they can do, what they're capable of or willing to be. It's unfair and ugly in all the meanings we mean around the words, but it's the truth. A truth. Hideous and ugly and unloved for the pain it brings. What a horrible reputation. No one--well, almost no one deserves that. Double danger in action. It's undeserved, but it necessarily happens. What are we fighting against if it isn't, anyway?
And yet, somehow, there's hope. Maybe not for what could have been, but what could come to be from now on? It sounds like I should be laughed at for thinking that, that the words together should be mocked and denied and I should suffer with and for them. And I suppose I do, if it is only done by me. Nothing and no one can shatter our hopes and dreams as unrelentingly and thoroughly as we can. Perhaps maybe all that we need is something to place in their stead, something new to work towards or strive to be. How we know for sure what that is is beyond me, and yet it seems as though it can only grow from or be realized internally, given to oneself.
Where is our hope?
Current Mood: broken
Current Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjAoBKagW
27 July 2008 @ 06:39 pm
Whose in your family? Who are your friends (away from the building)? Who are those (presumably special) people from your past that just might walk back into your life and shake things up? This thread is for them.
Go ahead and post either here or in your own separate post a list of such people for your character and then a little write-up on things to know about them, their relationship to your character, and a few interesting little bits of information and personality for ease of playing them.
The glass case with "Break Glass In Case Of Haunting By Past" printed on it is still in the shop, but it should be ready to keep this stuff in by show time. ;)
Go ahead and post either here or in your own separate post a list of such people for your character and then a little write-up on things to know about them, their relationship to your character, and a few interesting little bits of information and personality for ease of playing them.
The glass case with "Break Glass In Case Of Haunting By Past" printed on it is still in the shop, but it should be ready to keep this stuff in by show time. ;)
Current Music: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wjxef8AfVQg&feature=related
22 June 2008 @ 11:57 pm
Talking. Helps.
Trust me.
Trust me.
Current Mood: Refocused
Current Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqUXDdJ3C-c
20 April 2008 @ 07:33 am
<url=http://world7.monstersgame.co.uk/?ac=vid&vid=113163478>MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!</url>
<url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gvk8xs9ce>Also....</url>
<url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gvk8xs9ce>Also....</url>
15 April 2008 @ 09:08 am
Current Music: Half-Jack by the Dresden Dolls
05 April 2008 @ 11:22 pm
The time was about a quarter past six. The place was that place where that guy went to get that thing that did the thing that one time in the place with the thing. The flavor was Strawberries Wild. It tasted like strawberries and banana and maybe a bit of apple juice in the background, combining to remind me of something vaguely like a misremembered vague memory of the taste of peach. The semi-fluid was cold, but overall it was good. For a moment or two I was worried I wouldn't be able to bring it with me on the bus to game, but the driver said he was cool with it, so that was okay. It made me feel cold halfway through the bus ride, and I'm not sure if it ever really went away before I got there.
That's all I have to say about that.
PS: It was the large size.
That's all I have to say about that.
PS: It was the large size.
29 March 2008 @ 10:18 pm
At one time one of the most heartbreaking things I've e'er read, now... I don't know. Real, tangible proof I can try to resist using to immolate myself against all temptation. *sigh*
But I've sworn that off, and the rest of my illusions. I'm not going to submit to trading my life for denials and shock anymore. It's not for me.
...and I suppose I might write more but I've got a someone to kick out of the shower that I might be able to go see a third someone before meeting with a group of someones to perform for (hopefully) a much bigger group of someones, which is in actuality a group of someones numbering any real number greater than zero.
Oh, and Gametap stubbornly refuses to function on my new system gifted to me for the purpose of becoming a computing/programming/hacking/general-pu
But I've sworn that off, and the rest of my illusions. I'm not going to submit to trading my life for denials and shock anymore. It's not for me.
...and I suppose I might write more but I've got a someone to kick out of the shower that I might be able to go see a third someone before meeting with a group of someones to perform for (hopefully) a much bigger group of someones, which is in actuality a group of someones numbering any real number greater than zero.
Oh, and Gametap stubbornly refuses to function on my new system gifted to me for the purpose of becoming a computing/programming/hacking/general-pu
Current Mood: crushed
crushed15 January 2008 @ 03:51 pm
Just before my HS graduation, someone sent this around to everyone on SchoolLoop or whatever they called it. I found it today. Seems a touch to late, but hey, right?
It reads as follows:
My Fellow Wanderers of Existence,
This just might do nobody any goo, but hopefully I will be able to convey here all that needs to be said, so I'll try not to mince words; I'm probably not going to see most of you ever again for the rest of my life--or even really meet you at all--and so this is the only place I can say it.
Firstly, free yourself enough to live your life to the hilt in whatever way you choose, because you are not going to be here forever, and it looks a lot like pain, suffering, and death are as much a part of the package deal of life as all the good stuff which we seek. We've been trained by our culture to evade the uncomfortable, to shrink from that that hurts, that this is normal: it is, but only to a point. All you are, have been, and shall be will be broken, destroyed or lost in some way eventually, so my advice is to keep and enjoy what you can while you can, while always keeping on the lookout for something worth giving it up. Who hasn't had their ears bent back and their skull seared for the number of times we've heard that it's better to regret having done something than never doing it at all, etc., etc.?
On a related subject, take time to go digging through the world in order to find that thing that you love doing. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, because I'm pretty sure something is out there waiting to smack you upside the head with the realization that you adore it A someone like that also probably exists for you, so go find them, too. And when you've found these people and/or things, secure some time specifically for doing and/or being with them, and don't stop unless you and yours will starve to death because of it, if at all. Anything that isn't something you love and doesn't affect those for whom you care is probably a waste of your time (no, that doesn't include politics, see below).
And never stop actively evolving as a person! No matter your position on Darwin's idea, don't let anything stop your growth as a person. Many of you could look back at whoever you were five or ten years ago and see someone very, very different; this is healthy. You students reading this will have or have already had something like this but bigger--if such a thing is possible--happen to you. That seems to be pretty normal too, and though it may cause some destruction in the life you know, that's okay because it's been becoming like a sbirt you've grown out of or the pajamas you wore as a four-year-old.
As a guy more wise than not once told me, "All that you can change is the person looking back at you in the mirror." The way of doing this hinges upon the little, seemingly insignificant things that you do; nothing is truly insignificant, at least with respect to one's own actions.This is why you students who are bemoaning your terrible workload (with varying degrees of legitimacy)--and everyone in general who has trouble with such things--must learn to just get the drudgework done. Do your chores, read your books, and finish that homework, because learning how to make yourself do that is more important to you than anything Dickens or Hamlet could tell you (most of the time; one or two people may take away something deeper from any specific drudgery). Pay attention because this is experience speaking.
Foresight, on the other hand, would like you to please realize and remember every now and then as you proceed to growup into your future selves, complaining about the way things are, and so on, is that one day we'll be the ones running and ruling the world (we, as in our generation, not our nation). Because we will, and we need to be ready for it, and take it on. We are no worse than any before us, and the only thing that could possibly stop us from doing great things is not moving to do them; it doesn't matter whether it's because of ignorance or lack of interest. So remember every now and then, keep your eyes open as the situation develops, and set aside some time every now and then to steward the world so our kids can have something good, too. We can achieve the nigh-impossible and shape the world however we like, and it's just us.
Finally, please forget to forget the marvels and wonder everywhere that people take for granted; it goes hand in hand with our ways of getting used to things and blinds us to the magic of life and existence.
May you Flow in all you do. Your Fellow Traveler,
The Walking Spider
It reads as follows:
My Fellow Wanderers of Existence,
This just might do nobody any goo, but hopefully I will be able to convey here all that needs to be said, so I'll try not to mince words; I'm probably not going to see most of you ever again for the rest of my life--or even really meet you at all--and so this is the only place I can say it.
Firstly, free yourself enough to live your life to the hilt in whatever way you choose, because you are not going to be here forever, and it looks a lot like pain, suffering, and death are as much a part of the package deal of life as all the good stuff which we seek. We've been trained by our culture to evade the uncomfortable, to shrink from that that hurts, that this is normal: it is, but only to a point. All you are, have been, and shall be will be broken, destroyed or lost in some way eventually, so my advice is to keep and enjoy what you can while you can, while always keeping on the lookout for something worth giving it up. Who hasn't had their ears bent back and their skull seared for the number of times we've heard that it's better to regret having done something than never doing it at all, etc., etc.?
On a related subject, take time to go digging through the world in order to find that thing that you love doing. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, because I'm pretty sure something is out there waiting to smack you upside the head with the realization that you adore it A someone like that also probably exists for you, so go find them, too. And when you've found these people and/or things, secure some time specifically for doing and/or being with them, and don't stop unless you and yours will starve to death because of it, if at all. Anything that isn't something you love and doesn't affect those for whom you care is probably a waste of your time (no, that doesn't include politics, see below).
And never stop actively evolving as a person! No matter your position on Darwin's idea, don't let anything stop your growth as a person. Many of you could look back at whoever you were five or ten years ago and see someone very, very different; this is healthy. You students reading this will have or have already had something like this but bigger--if such a thing is possible--happen to you. That seems to be pretty normal too, and though it may cause some destruction in the life you know, that's okay because it's been becoming like a sbirt you've grown out of or the pajamas you wore as a four-year-old.
As a guy more wise than not once told me, "All that you can change is the person looking back at you in the mirror." The way of doing this hinges upon the little, seemingly insignificant things that you do; nothing is truly insignificant, at least with respect to one's own actions.This is why you students who are bemoaning your terrible workload (with varying degrees of legitimacy)--and everyone in general who has trouble with such things--must learn to just get the drudgework done. Do your chores, read your books, and finish that homework, because learning how to make yourself do that is more important to you than anything Dickens or Hamlet could tell you (most of the time; one or two people may take away something deeper from any specific drudgery). Pay attention because this is experience speaking.
Foresight, on the other hand, would like you to please realize and remember every now and then as you proceed to growup into your future selves, complaining about the way things are, and so on, is that one day we'll be the ones running and ruling the world (we, as in our generation, not our nation). Because we will, and we need to be ready for it, and take it on. We are no worse than any before us, and the only thing that could possibly stop us from doing great things is not moving to do them; it doesn't matter whether it's because of ignorance or lack of interest. So remember every now and then, keep your eyes open as the situation develops, and set aside some time every now and then to steward the world so our kids can have something good, too. We can achieve the nigh-impossible and shape the world however we like, and it's just us.
Finally, please forget to forget the marvels and wonder everywhere that people take for granted; it goes hand in hand with our ways of getting used to things and blinds us to the magic of life and existence.
May you Flow in all you do. Your Fellow Traveler,
The Walking Spider
nostalgic... if a bit grim03 December 2007 @ 10:24 am
Current Mood: 
with work and sleep loss 2.0
with work and sleep loss 2.0Current Music: See Above
28 October 2007 @ 08:57 pm
| Your Love Life is Like Annie Hall |
 "A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies." You believe that love (if you even believe in love!) is a very complicated thing. Maybe love is pain. Or maybe it's all a big therapy session. You're still figuring it out. Your love style: Brainy and a bit neurotic Your Hollywood Ending Will Be: Realistic and reflective |
| You Are a Log Ride |
 You prefer to live a fairly calm, relaxed life... with a few surprises thrown in. You don't tend to get yourself worked up easily. You can roll with what life throws at you. In relationships, you are steady and solid. You maintain a pretty broad perspective on what's going on. That's not to say you can't get swept away. You're emotions run as deep as anyone else's. Your life seems like it has been remarkably easy so far. But that's due to how you manage it. You never stretch yourself too thinly, and you think out your decisions carefully. Taking the time to enjoy each day is important to you, and you don't let your emotions rule you. You stay the course and do what's right... knowing it will all work out in the end. At your best, you are tolerant and understanding of other people's quirks. You take "go with the flow" to the extreme. Even if you don't like where you're going. At your worst, you repress your feelings and end up being a little tightly wound. You definitely have some explosive emotions that occasionally come to the surface! |
| You Are: 40% Dog, 60% Cat |
 You and cats have a lot in common. You're both smart and in charge - with a good amount of attitude. However, you do have a very playful side that occasionally comes out! |
Meow.
| You Should Be a Social Worker |
 You are deeply caring and empathetic. You are able to take on other people's problems as if they were your own. Sensitive and intuitive, you understand human emotions well. Helping others gives you the most joy in life. You feel like it's your purpose in life. You do best when you: - Have a lot of responsibility - Greatly impact someone's life with your work You would also be a good philanthropist or stay at home parent. |
| You Are a Werewolf |
 You're unpredictable, moody, and downright freaky. You seem sweet and harmless, until you snap. Then you're a total monster. Very few people can predict if you're going to be Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. But for you, all your transformations seem perfectly natural. Your greatest power: Your ability to tap into nature Your greatest weakness: Lack of self control You play well with: Vampires |
Originally came up Zombie, which didn't seem right. With good reason, too: one of my answers weren't entirely honest the first time 'round.
| What Your Halloween Habits Say About You |
 You love the drama of Halloween. You definitely like to have the best costume around - and everyone noticing you. You definitely think of yourself as someone who has a dark side. And part of having that dark side means not showing it. Your inner child is bittersweet, thoughtful, and never too greedy. You truly fear the dark side of humanity. You are a true misanthrope. You're prone to be quite emotional and over dramatic. Deep down, you enjoy being scared out of your mind... even if you don't admit it. You are unique, expressive, and a trendsetter. Your ideal Halloween costume is over the top and one of a kind. |
| You Are Apple Cider |
 |
Well... okay, yeah.
| Your Monster Profile |
 Grim Troll You Feast On: M&Ms You Lurk Around In: The Ocean You Especially Like to Torment: Dentists |
Okay, the funny thing about this one is I can totally see how I could be that kith.
So, all that said:
ROFL
Current Location: by laundrymat
Current Mood: 
amused
amusedCurrent Music: Partical Man by They Might Be Giants
22 October 2007 @ 04:05 pm
I have the following to do this week:
~ Memorize a script for a scene, rehearse and give a preview
~ Write a character analysis
~ Finish a month+ late outline for argumentation and present
~ Polish my outline for my first debate
~ Start and finish reading a book for my poli-sci portion of my U.S. History class; write a paper due a few weeks ago
~ Start and finish all the readings of the semester for two books for the History portion of my U.S. History class; write a paper due tomorrow (yay, losing track of time)
~ Obtain the second book to read for the above thing I need to do
~ Make some boffer weapons for R&J
~ Rehearse for R&J
~ Prep/Advertise for R&J
~ Open R&J
And that just gets me to the end of Thursday.
*goes off to scream obscenities on the Tower Lawn*
....
*back*
And now... to work! I got five bucks says I can get through at least two-thirds of that list. Any takers?
~ Memorize a script for a scene, rehearse and give a preview
~ Write a character analysis
~ Finish a month+ late outline for argumentation and present
~ Polish my outline for my first debate
~ Start and finish reading a book for my poli-sci portion of my U.S. History class; write a paper due a few weeks ago
~ Start and finish all the readings of the semester for two books for the History portion of my U.S. History class; write a paper due tomorrow (yay, losing track of time)
~ Obtain the second book to read for the above thing I need to do
~ Make some boffer weapons for R&J
~ Rehearse for R&J
~ Prep/Advertise for R&J
~ Open R&J
And that just gets me to the end of Thursday.
*goes off to scream obscenities on the Tower Lawn*
....
*back*
And now... to work! I got five bucks says I can get through at least two-thirds of that list. Any takers?
Current Location: school... for now
Current Mood: Mad as hell/about to kick ass
Mad as hell/about to kick assCurrent Music: Kiss Them for Me by Siouxsie & the Banshess -> Broken Promises for Broken Hearts