Actual conversation between this guy in my co-op and me:

Me: "I can't be at the meeting next week because I'll be out of town."

Guy: "Okay. Where are you going?"

Me: "I am going to Chicago to visit my girlfriend."

Guy: "Oh. Do you play rugby?"

...thus leaving me to consider the inextricable link between dykes and rugby. Of course, the connection is obvious: there is nothing more butch than rugby. You spend two hours running around the field, smashing into your opponent and generally trying to inflict as much pain as possible. After dragging yourself, bleeding and bruised, off the field, you retire immediately to the nearest source of (what is usually bad) beer, without showering. You then proceed to get wasted with the same people that you were trying to kill one hour before. Only the strongest, the baddest, and those with the highest alcohol tolerance survive. In a way, it is really poetic.

Today I went to school again. I made a valiant effort to try and make myself appear sick, but my mother just didn't buy the take a glass of milk and pour it into the toilet to sound like barf routine. We have block days at my school, which means we only have every other period, but each one is twice as long. Surprisingly, rather then simply making it doubly boring, it the boring factor increased by a power of 2. After I came home I noded some AD&D 2nd edition stuff, Word of Recall, and Recalling a Politician.

Tomorrow I have my hardest/most boring classes (Biology - Hard, Geometery - Boring, Spanish - Boring). Don't just shoot me, gag me with a soup ladle.

Nothing really new today. i had curry rice (reheated) for lunch and used up the last of the cold rice in my fridge. I went for 6 meals on five cups of rice, which is a pretty good rate of use, so I shouldn't have to worry too much about exhausting my supplies anytime soon. Originally I had feared that I would run out of food too quickly but I am actually doing ok. I think I will have instant noodle with an egg and pickled bamboo shoots in it for breakfast tomorrow.

My Japanese class is interesting. It is a mixture of people from my class last semester, the intensive japanese 1 class, and a bunch of Anime experts from the non-intensive class. Today in class we were talking about our favorite expression in Japanese (mine was "naruhodo") one guy sitting in the back in the class said something from Rurouni Kenshin (not sure about the spelling, I am not the anime authority in the class). I have never seen such a reaction as this word (I can't even remember what it is) elicited from the "experts gallery". They were so happy, they kept repeating this word and laughing for about 5 minutes. The teacher, having not seen this cartoon, seemed a little frightened. This evening at floor meeting the point was raised again- my neighbor across the hall, who moved up to our floor from the "Japanese floor" (I live in a foreign-language dorm) to get a single, asked if there would be any inter-floor functions. He said that in his experience there were few of these functions, and wanted to know if it was because people on the other floors tended to avoid the kids on the second floor. For a moment all was silent. Then, rather reluctantly, one of my friends said that yes, this was pretty much the case, that people on the other floors in the building tend to avoid people on the second floor because "most of them are caucasian guys looking for asian women." It was a quality moment. Apparently this is a fairly recent development, as I have a friend who was in the Japanese floor five or six years ago and she said that conditions were different when she lived on the floor.

I have spent my whole afternoon doing my linguistics reading about the IPA and its particular application in Chinese linguistics as well as the sounds used in different dialects. I also started going back to my older nodes to add softlinks.

I wrote my friend a letter today basically detailing how mundane life is here today. It felt good to write using a pen and paper, although my handwriting is now atrocious. The improvement in my penmanship between the beginning and the end of the letter was quite noticeable. My roommate is watching "scare" on mtv. It is not quite as scary as advertised, but still fascinating in a creepy sort of way. He says "it's supposed to be real, but it's bullshit"

Ok whatever, I am a bit tired right now. On the board outside our room we were supposed to write out our goals for the semester- mine was "4.0". I have been studying all day. The odd thing is that since all of my friends from last semester have graduated and gone leaving only me and my roommate, ther is nothing to do around here except study. I should feel loss, sadness that my friends are gone. Why do I feel nothing?

I'm not sure what it was tonight, work or luck. Maybe both. Two problems I banged against this whole week were solved tonight, now for the implementation.

I bought my brother a gift card for use at Barnes and Noble, I bet he will enjoy that. And they had a dollar sale, so I picked up a ton of fun crap: a Murphy's Law desk calendar, a book on cats to give to my sister who loves cats...

Get home, and get a surprise, my Dad is coming into town tomorrow night on business. I will get to eat dinner with him and visit. Unlike my earlier years, I now enjoy visiting with my dad. And our jobs are in a similar industry, so we have lots to talk about. Besides, I have my shit together now, which has not always been the case.

I watched this movie called "Sweethearts" the other night.. Janeane Garofalo and Margaret Cho starred.. it was a black comedy.. to simplify the plot.. Janeane plays this bi-polar manic depressive w/ rapid cycling.. she winds up involving this blind date in her drama.. and then he tries to play the white knight. There is a line that sticks in my head.. he was asking her why she didn't think he could deal with her.. she simply replied.. "I've had 31 years to get used to dealing with me, and I am sick of it".. Ugh.. she went on to say people in her life seem to want to save her.. they over-romanticize her problems.. and want to be a hero.. she just wants to be free. what a sick thing to relate to..

I notice my tendency to gloss over, and trivialize how I feel to others.. I use bad humor and razor-edged irony to try to put others at ease.. while i am also trying to put myself at ease.. "if i can convince them.. i can convince myself.." I am not going to off myself or anything.. It just irked me.. the movie that is.. I do have a tendency to involve others in my web.. partly because I don't know how to deal with it... but it isn't fair to them.. because I don't give any closure to the drama I open up.. I also don't give people the credit.. the credit that maybe they can help me.. or at least understand.. partly because I have been burned.. and partly because I don't understand myself.. It reminded me of something Jeff said about 2 years ago.. "You have all these problems you go on about, but you do nothing to fix them.. " He was right.. I mean.. I have solutions to the minor problems.. money, health, etc.. but when it comes to what is really wrong I am lost.. partly because I don't know what's wrong.. that sounds circular.. argh..

I see myself with this wall around me.. I don't think anyone can climb it.. I let some people.. people I see as safe.. my friends.. but when it comes to lovers.. I shoot them down before they even get to the ladder.. sometimes I don't let them know that it's a pointless effort.. and that is partly because I try to deny the fact. the lyrics from Juliana Hatfield's "My Sister" comes to mind.. "She's got a wall around her nobody can climb" heh.. cheesy.

I watched "Fight Club" last night too.. the last scene.. where Marla and Tyler hold hands.. and watch what he started.. they play a Pixies song.. I had this theory that Marla Singer was the embodiment of Sylvia Plath for this generation.. She lashes out.. she is "odd and quirky" in this plea for someone to listen to her.. She isn't willing to lay down in her misery.. I'm not sure if this is very healthy.. or not.. I'm on the fence in that respect..

I was considering re-doing my web stuff tonight.. I think I might.. whether I ever post it or not.. that is still to be decided..

I talked to Corey the other night.. I am lucky he can deal with my flaw of speaking the unspoken.. I'm still not sure how I feel about saying what I did.. Some things are better left unsaid.. only because they can complicate things.. without any progress to be had..

13:05

Afternoon!

Last night, I was surprised that there still were some Quake servers up and running, and *gasp* people were still playing Deathmatch there! AND I spectated a good Team Fortress game, too.

XQF rocks. =) Now, I just wish DRI wouln't be, ahem, unstable... Or maybe I should switch to ReiserFS so that fscks would become faster - that's why people are upgrading to 2.4.1, anyway =)

Time to face the challenges of the day!

17:03

(OK, who the heck is downvoting this???)

Nothing much has happened... I have been thinking of setting up a Quake clan of my own.

With only me as the member, and stating very clearly on the web page that it's a faux clan.

Reason? People have begged WAY too much for me to join their clans, even when I, technically speaking, sucked. (All I did was that I knew the best places to hide in when playing as a sniper in TF... No one even noticed I was there for a very long time.)

22:00

(Well, the clan idea was a bit too silly to implement... =)

23:58

Oh, for Christ's sake. One of my dream logs is at -2.

So, obviously, there's something wrong with my subconsciousness, or something like that. Maybe I really should seek help. Or something.

---

Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: XQF E.M.C. Tigerstedt

Today I found out that I have a normal liver, normal kidneys, normal pancreas, normal aorta, no gallstones, no AIDS, and no bloodclots in my lower right leg.

I celebrated.

As I was making my way home last night I realised that I was turning into the friendless kind of person whom even I wouldn't have the compassion to want to befriend. Petulant, whining, passive, self-pitying.

This came on top of the realisation made the previous evening, that I was very likely on my way into another depressive episode. All the symptoms were here - decreased social skills, social paranoia, lack of energy, failure to communicate my feelings to husband/friends, self-loathing (in the form of a vigorous diet this time around).

I am grateful almost to tears, now, to the people who gave me the tools to see these things coming. To take them apart and look at the mechanics, not fearfully and passively like a sick person, but with intention to resolve and confidence, like a healer.

I healed myself, yesterday - well, patched myself up, anyway. Had a long hot shower and gave myself a stern talking to. Pointed out and verbilised in my head all the good things ahead, and all the sly little tricks my depression is playing on me to make me dread instead of aticipate them. Took great care while dressing, put more makeup and with more relish on than for weeks until now, and went out to face the world of social capability.

I had a lovely time. I made people laugh. I laughed and danced and drank and charmed myself. This morning I looked at myself in the mirror with something like affection, and allowed myself a chocolate bar as a token to my body not being a hideous slushy blimp.

I'll get over this bump in my road - I know now that I can, if I want to. Just that knowledge alone makes me so deliriously happy that no trace of depression can possibly remain.

Anger and rejection crossed my path yesterday. These two horrible feelings are rarely a good combination. The first thing I thought of though was Everything2. Why? Is this the place I consider my best friend? NO! This is the place where I can write and come back to it later. I can add some more, leave it, and come back to it later. I am an Electrical Engineer and damn near a cookie cutter geek with little free writing ability, but I think I am going to write a poem. I can put it on Everything2 and remember it. I don't have to try to keep a notebook around and let the pages yellow and throw it in a box. I hope others get to see my anger and rejection. I'm in control though. It'll be alright and as long as I can come back to it later I can always use this as a stepping stone.

Hi all.

Another day of not very much at all. Well, what have I done today? I've got a sandwich from Didsbury for lunch. I've surfed the net a while, read my New Scientist. There hasn't been much to do today.

Plans for later?
Well I'll be leaving here in about 30 minutes and then getting the bus down to Stockport to donate blood. The original plan was to go for a drink afterwards (don't worry, just 1 and with adult supervision, well their all older than me anyway). But now I can't drink since I'm getting the car for a whole week, to be collected from my parents house tonight. The story goes that my Mum has to go to France tomorrow to because my Gran is having an operation at the weekend. Still, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Sarah's going back to London until Sunday so I get to spend some time keeping my computer company. It gets lonely y'know. Apart from that, the only thing I have to add is that:

It's my last day of testing tomorrow!!

This was another uneventful yet productive couple of days. I helped Yoon grade a fat pile of finals and drank way too much coffee. I am wondering what the hell qualifies as too much coffee as I write this. I think it is actually espresso that bothers my stomach even when I drink it in the relatively diluted Americano stylee. Maybe it's just the quad shot formula I use for ordering drinks. Maybe I just need to grow up.

The results of the finals were not good. If I was a hysterical reactionary I would bemoan the extinction of the English language. Luckily I'm more on the paranoid optimist side of the fence. The new language will be a mixture of slang, mixed tenses, run on sentences, and phonetic adaptations of scribbling. The sheer volume of grammatical mistakes commonly found in any of my writing should invalidate this conclusion.

The teacher evaluations were actually far more interesting. The most common complaint was Yoon's lack of strict discipline in the classroom. It seemed like an odd criticism but might be more telling of what students expect than I initially thought. The truly hilarious comments were directed at the requirement of studying English. The butchered grammar and spelling of one writer made me wonder if he was temporarily insane when he wrote: "I do't need to take English. I already was speaking English. We learned all of this things in six grade." I put my head in my hands and swore to never again give Yoon a hard time when she comes home from school in a bad mood. In her position I would break like cheap dishes in less than a week.

After reading a funny article about the AutoSummarize feature of Microsoft Word I decided to experiment on some of my own writing. Wow. I am an abstract surrealist genius. Check out this opus:

I remember thinking that his limp body reminded me of dead birds that I'd seen and having a weird vision of a group of children poke out his eyes like the dead bird. Eventually spring happened and the mud thawed out. I probably learned a lot about human nature that night. Later in the spring some poor bastard was decapitated by a piece of aluminum trailer skirting whipped up by the wind a few doors down. I think that my dad's short conversion to Mormonism started around this time.

Jesus, one menu selection changes a narrative of growing up in a trailer park into white trash gothic horror. In the future I think I'm just going to type and let Word do all the creative thinking. AutoSummarize makes all those computer generated poetry generators look pretty tame.

8:57pm

I went to the dentist again this morning. I got my lower right "quadrant" worked on. This included drilling and filling three cavities. The fillings are a near-white color so they are completely invisble. The dentist did an awesome job; those teeth now look perfect. Now I'm even thinking I should get my existing mercury fillings replaced. :)

I remembered to pay rent today. I'm still lucky to be at $620/month for this apartment. They haven't raised the rent on me since I moved in. The people who are moving in now are paying about $700. I don't know what it's like in most other places, but that's cheap for Boca Raton, especially being right next to FAU.

My birthday is on Sunday. I have a feeling I'm going to have to work that day also. It's the reboot weekend again. Drive all the way into work just to reboot unix machines that don't need rebooted and could potentially be done remotely from home. Bah.

I got some red CD jewel cases today for Sara's valentine's day present (I'm burning her a special song). I still haven't thought of what else to get her though. I also bought Dido's CD, "No Angel" today. I may or may not open it; I already own all of the MP3s to it.

Now I'm going to go find something to do...

Well, today went much better than yesterday.  At least I didn't cause any major crisis (see daylog from: January 31, 2001) so that's a plus. 

Things I managed to accomplish today?  I did manage to get my XML project along further than I thought I would.  Of course, I would have proceeded further had I not been here... reading, trying to think of something to write that might have some merit...  I can waste half a workday here and it pisses me off.

    I blame this on ZFP...  he never should have pestered me to login here... 

    "You'd like it, you can post some of your twisted stuff here..." He said... 

    Of course, I believed him (fool that I was).

    Then I started to learn.  My "twisted stuff" is far too long to fit into some succinct post that wouldn't cause someone to roll their eyes, make a quick downvote and go on - I have to improve a lot to be able to hold someone's attention for the long stuff.

    So maybe if I ever reach a point that I have a decent reputation around here I might attempt one - but I doubt if my ego will be able to take the constant bruising it gets here...  but it's appreciated bruising (if that makes any sense)...  even the mystery downvotes are making me rethink the things that I write - and that can't be bad at all.  Hell, even if this gets downvoted to hell I'll be able to have the satisfaction to know that I did two daylogs in a row - that takes willpower, I can't even do my status reports at work two days in a row.

    Regardless, I was productive today.  I was able to create the XML output from Oracle and that was a big deal for me - of course, now that I have it I've no idea what I want to do with it...  I'm just trying to reduce database calls and now I'm stuck wondering if i'm doing the right thing... ah well... I'm learning and that's good.  Tomorrow I learn a bit more about XML parsing and if my experiment with the structure will work with my original design...  I'm dreading it...

    Next week I go to the web languages class.  I'm hoping it won't go as slowly as my previous class -  I spent most of my time on ...  you guessed it!  Here...  God damn it, why must I spend so much time reading this like I do?   I feel like I'm writing an ongoing letter to some anonymous lover who never writes me back directly- just writes to others who share their letters with me.

    But enough about you, I'm talking about MY day, not yours...

Day list - and then done...

• I woke up early so I could prepare for a class I was going to teach today
• Spoke with the owner of our company who had flown in from New York.  When I was through I felt as if I'd been kissing up to him - but I know I wasn't... was it that I was just too friendly?  No...  he's just a nice guy.  Maybe I laughed a little too hard at a lame joke...  that was probably it. I can forget that feeling, then.
• I cancelled the class because I didn't feel as prepared as I wanted and our whole team wasn't there...  it could wait
• Checked the reports from replication so that I could be sure that I didn't fuck it up again
• Sat in on our "fires" meeting with the user community...  I didn't have anything to say except "oops" for yesterday.
• Made some account adjustments...  yawn
• Worked on my GOD DAMN personal XML project (at least it went well)
• Stayed late reading more shit on everything
• Had Pork and Macaroni and cheese...  simple but good.
• Listened to Travis and finished writing this log out and linking...  

Going outside to smoke now... Goodnight

Today (yesterday if you must) I went to work, wrote several nodes, received (and sent!) my first chatterbox message, came home from work, later met a new person, and realized (on the way home from work) as I wrote the first draft (subsequently left untouched out of laziness as I write this) of this writeup on my Palm IIIe that I am in serious danger of becoming addicted to E2. Look, I even abbreviated Everything2 as E2. Now it's time for bed, since I have computer science in less than nine hours and there's no way I'm getting my eight hours of sleep. Goodnight world.