Thoughts

I think it's really nice to be able to put "what ifs" aside and just be happy to be near someone who makes you smile.

I think that the song "Say It Ain't So" by Weezer sounds pretty cool, considering how easy it is to play.

I think that Periphery is the next BTBAM, both in terms of musical ability and creativity.

I think that a rodeo cheeseburger here and there never hurt anyone.

I think that these have been a pretty great couple of weeks.

I think I'll go fall asleep with a smile on my face now.

G'night all.

The difference a week can make

It's surprisingly huge. I went back to Omaha and stayed with my dad for a few days because everyone at mom's house was sick. I don't spend a whole lot of time with my dad, so it was nice to hang out with him for an extended period of time. During the first part of the week most of my time was spent looking at apartments and cars, because my goal for the break was to get the material aspects of my life figured out for when I move back. The first apartments I looked at were ridiculously expensive ones with tons of amenities, fancy restaurants and nice gyms nearby. I realized that I really can't justify spending $850 on rent every month. I just don't need a place that nice. Maybe I want one, but I feel like I can get by with a cheaper option. After all, I don't want to live in an apartment for more than a few years; I'll be saving up money for a down payment on a house. I found a place that's about 2 miles from work which should do just fine, and it's a little more reasonably priced.

I went to a Chevy dealership and test drove a couple of trucks. The Chevy Silverado extended cab is definitely my favorite. I also went out to a Subaru dealership and tried an Impreza. I like the Impreza, but the only way I'd buy one is if I wanted to buy a turbocharger and a cold air intake to throw in it. The side of me that loves hobbies thinks that putting aftermarket parts in my car would be really fun, but the Subaru doesn't get very good gas mileage. I've concluded that although what I really want is a truck, I would be better served waiting a couple years and buying a smaller car in the meantime. I have a feeling that I'm going to be doing A LOT of traveling, so it would be good to have a car that gets more than 30 MPG. I'm a pretty huge fan of the Chevy Cruze, and I intend to test drive one next time I'm back.

My grandparents made it home safely from Hawaii, though they just barely missed getting hit by a tsunami spawned by the quake in Japan. They left their hotel literally a half hour before the landfall. When they got back down to the town the next morning, it was a real mess. Streets covered in debris, seawall broken, buildings damaged, some extremely seriously. I'm really glad they got out when they did. They brought me back a little souvenir ukulele, and I have to say I'm really touched. I learned how to play the chords to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and I'm having a great time with it thus far. This little gift has reminded me how important music is to my life. For the past couple weeks, I've been virtually ignoring that aspect of myself, and I think it was a terrible mistake. I've decided to go back to playing every day, because no matter how awful I feel, strumming a few chords and humming a song never fails to put a smile on my face.

I got to see all those friends I hardly ever get to hang out with, and as always it was a good time. Wednesday night I went down to Peru, NE to visit Inori and Lynzei, too. That was pretty fun! Now I'm back in Ames, and I'm glad to say that I'm feeling really motivated, and in a really good mood. I don't have it all figured out, but I have enough that I can feel comfortable, and I'm excited to see how all of this decision making pans out. Regardless of what I plan out, there's always a pretty good chance that I'll just change my mind at the very last second, so it should be pretty interesting. You might ask, if I'm just going to change my mind, then why make plans at all? It's really just so that I know I have a fallback. At the moments that I have to actually make these decisions about where to live, what to drive, how to spend my time, if I'm not feeling impulsive then I'll have my well-reasoned options already chosen.

So, what difference can a week make? You can spend time with people you don't get enough time with (and make new friends along the way). You can take a look into your future, and mold it into what you want it to be. You can fix your priorities, and become much more content with life in the process.

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My heart goes out to everyone in Japan, and all those with family and friends there. I'll be hoping and praying for their safety, and the nation's recovery.

Urrrgh. I'm a zombie.

I didn't think very hard before signing up for my Tuesday night shifts this semester. I figured, 'hey, I'll take the shift and help out since very few people actually want the late night and early morning ones.' What I didn't think enough about was the reason WHY nobody had signed up for this shift. I don't mind my 7AM shift so much, because it goes fairly fast usually. There is generally quite a bit to do on a Monday morning around here. On a Tuesday night after 5PM, however, this place becomes about as busy as a Best Buy in Montana.

But hey, I could always be using this time to do something constructive, right? Wrong. My homework requires a book (not allowed), senior design requires that I be in our team lab on the third floor of Coover (not possible according to the laws of physics as we know them... maybe if I cloned myself, or somehow opened up some kind of inter-dimensional wormhole between here and there, I could work on SD while doing my job), and any other constructive things I could possibly do are either not allowed, or frowned upon. I suppose one might consider writing "constructive", but I don't unless it's for a class or work.

Hmm, what else? I've been sick in one way or another for like a week and a half now. I might finally be getting better long-term (I've had a few recoveries and relapses in the past week), but I am not willing to outright say it yet for fear that I'll jinx it. This is very odd, because I don't get sick very often. I'm going to go ahead and chalk it up to me not sleeping very much. For those of you who don't know, I'm at war with sleep. Sleep seems to be using biological warfare, though. Cheap bastard...

Senior design is going pretty well, with the exception of Daji worrying that we won't finish. Some people (you know who you are :)...) accuse me of being a pessimist (or a socialist... ha!), but my project adviser makes me look like Bob the Builder sometimes. It's true that we have some serious work to do yet, but unless we find another hardware incompatibility that we can't fix, the project is probably going to get finished.

Next week is going to be really exciting for me, and I'll make another post about it. If all goes according to plan, I'm going to know a lot more details about what my post-college life will be like.

RANDOM JUNK TIME!

I have a headache, but it's not really in my head. It's actually at the base of my skull where my neck meets my head. It is really annoying, and I am afraid it might mean I have a brain tumor. On second thought, I'm probably just dehydrated.

I'm having a conversation on Facebook about strange colors for hair. My friend said that if her hair was naturally pink, she would grow her pubes in. I think that'd be a little creepy, but I said that I'd prefer mine to be super-saiyan gold. She thinks I'd never get any if my body hair glowed, but I don't even care. I'd be GLOWING!

When I first started this particular blog post, I typed the first word that came to mind into the "Title" bar, and that word was "Turnip." Where the fuck did I get TURNIP from? Turnip is a really funny word in my opinion, though. It makes me wonder how things were named in previous languages in order to evolve into what they are in English. Was there a natural transition from some word in Latin to create the modern word "turnip"? Maybe worth researching sometime when I'm even more bored than I am now. And who knows if that'll ever happen?

I think that my last week of working here when I'm doing operator, I might just snap and start answering with weird catch phrases like "England prevails!! Just kidding, Iowa State Operator."
Or maybe, "What's the password? Don't worry, there's no password. Iowa State Operator, how may I help you?"
If I get really ballsy, I'll try "911, what is the nature of your emergency?" That one could get me in serious trouble, though, so maybe I'd better leave that off the roster. I'd like to do pickup lines, but that could also get me in pretty huge trouble depending on who's on the other end.


Well, this post has successfully numbed my boredom for the past 15 minutes. Thanks for reading, whoever you are. Bye now.

Taking Heart

Of all the things I can believe,
in this world of broken dreams,
the best is that someone can understand;
that there's shade on burning sands.

When I'm blistered from the sun,
Sometimes someone comes along,
and proves there's more to life than loss;
sheltering me, and soothing remorse.

I remember the night you explained,
and inside the echoes of my pain,
I heard the voice of truth ring through,
and I put my faith in you.

I no longer believe in love,
but I know that you do.
And I think, just maybe, that's enough
to help me live anew. You said...

"Love's not fragile, true love is steel:
impossible to break, and slow to yield.
So much better than bone and flesh,
it holds us up when we've no strength left."

I remember on that day,
that in the vast depths of my pain,
I heard the voice of truth ring through,
and I will always have faith in you.



This is rapidly turning into a song. If I get it to the point where I think it's good enough to share, I'll throw a video of me playing it up here.

I AM EXCITED!

There are several reasons for this.

1) Next weekend I get to go visit my friend Inori. Good times will be had.
2) Over spring break I get to test drive cars. I can't even describe how great it will be to get rid of mine. Don't get me wrong, it's a good car, but it's really hard to start, the sound system sucks, and the suspension is kind of shaky to say the least.
3) In April, Periphery is releasing a new album. I have heard a few raw clips that Misha Mansoor posted on his soundclick, and it sounds like it's going to be RIDICULOUSLY good.
4) Also in April, some friends and I are taking a road trip down to Dallas for the MLG Pro Circuit, where Brett will be competing in SC2 and Jon will be competing in Halo: Reach. The rest of us will undoubtedly spend most of our time cheering for said competitors, being huge nerds, and hopefully hitting the bars pretty hard!

AN...
TI.. CI?

PATION!!!!

It's killing me.

Happy Valentine's Day, whoever!

Happy Commercializing Love Day! Or Singles Awareness Day. Whatever you prefer. Not a fan of the holiday, but the "happy" wish is totally sincere, I assure you!

So I was looking through my draft posts and... I am one weird dude. I get all "philosophical" in some posts, and then get self-conscious about them and "save as draft". I happened upon one about purpose, and one about selfishness. Here's the Spark Notes for each:

What I think of purpose...
I think that everyone is born with potential for multiple purposes they can fulfill. In order not to encroach on free will, the universe was designed such that people can have many roles (and tend to have diverse talents usually). The people who are the least happy in the world tend to be those who deviate from their given set of "optimal" paths through life. That is not to say that one can't be happy straying from the beaten path; I'm saying that those who are unhappy with their careers or feel that their life lacks meaning are probably among those who did. I definitely did, and I'm kind of hoping that I don't end up as one of those unfortunate people I just described.

What I think of selfishness...
A while back I had a conversation about selfishness with a really sharp friend of mine, Inori. She's of the opinion that there are two different types of selfishness: malicious selfishness and necessary selfishness. I completely agree, and I'll try to lay out what we concluded. The malicious type is essentially selfishness for its own sake. You take from others and give nothing in return, even if you have the ability to help those in need. Malicious selfishness is truly awful, and I believe it's next to impossible for anyone with a conscience or a decent moral compass to be guilty of it. Necessary selfishness, on the other hand, is neither easy to define, nor morally reprehensible. An act of necessary selfishness might be done in the interest of self-preservation, or the preservation of those closest to a person. If there is a bus accident and your family is on the bus, you will help them before helping other passengers. Some might call this simple logic, but it is an act of bias, and a completely understandable and necessary one. If a man is starving and refuses to give some food he finds to another starving man who asks for it, that is necessary selfishness. He's doing what it takes to survive. I'm not saying Aladdin was wrong; giving his food to those kids was a really nice gesture, and admirable, but you won't last long actually living in the streets if you get into habits like that. Selflessness is for the privileged; it's for those who have so much that they can give part of what they have away and still live their lives happily. By the way, thanks to Ino for that interesting conversation. I'm sure I left a few of your key points out, and I apologize. Feel free to correct me.

Enough of that. What else do I want to talk about? I'm learning to play Terran in Starcraft II. So far all I know how to do is 3racks and do some rudimentary Hellion play. I'll eventually be learning builds from Brett (who's a Master League Terran as of this past friday), so I'm sure I'll hit diamond over the summer.

Still plugging away at guitar, I really want some lessons. Probably going to start those up over the summer as well.

Over spring break I'm going to be shopping for cars and places to live, so that'll be fun. Til then, pretty much just doing senior design, exploring some extracurricular stuff that I've been wanting to do, and "snapping nerd necks" on SC2 as my friend Bauer would say.

I wish

That I could just enjoy the small things in life without wondering why, and second guessing it.
That I didn't have to think ahead, and could live in the moment.
That I had the strength to show weakness.
That I could just feel down for a day and not beat myself down further for feeling that way.
That I didn't have to feel anything at all unless I wanted to.
That I didn't disappoint myself.
That I knew what the point of all this is.

But you know, at the end of the day, wishing gets one about as far as daydreaming. I'll wake up tomorrow and keep going, because that's what I was taught to do. I don't always have to like it, though.