January 23, 2003

Upon meeting me for the first time she said,

"Hi, I'm Rosanne. I'm a doctoral student graduating magna cum laude this May . I also model in New York during the summer and winter breaks."

"Yes she does," chimed in her silicone.

" I just got back from a Speedo shoot in Maui. Who are you?"

To which I replied,

"God. But only when speaking to Charles Manson. I find it establishes a firm power relationship that makes me feel secure in my fragile little life. He thinks he's Jesus and so I'm God and we get along fine in the prison atmosphere."

To which her silicone replied,

"I don't get it," and seemed a tad deflated.

And I thought,

Perhaps sarcasm isn't the best way to open a conversation with someone you just met. But then again, some people just ask for it.

Female guppies:
I used to have a fish tank full of two hundred guppies. Time passes and nature takes its course, and fish die. I am fortunate enough to still have twenty of my fish left, but they are (ALL) female! Why did the males all die out? I really have no idea, but the concern to me is (no new babies.) It may of been two years ago when I started losing fish to the toilet, when they died, but I am not sure when it ended. I remember seeing fish being eaten by other fish, a normal thing when you have two hundred fish, but eventually I remained with twenty fish.

Outlying factors that could of killed them:

• Algae, and the fact I have cleaned my tank exactly three times in the eight years of ownership.
• PH and acidic levels. (I tried tampering with it, bad idea.)
• I don’t feed my fish more than once every three days. I do this because they eat algae, or at least the guppies do.
• The kuhli loach (Acanthophthalmus kuhlii) may be eating all the fish in result of: it doesn’t eat aglae.

My Solution:
Buy three male guppies, hope nature takes its course, and if it doesn’t I will force them to mate. So in other words I’m a wack-o who wants two hundred fish in a twenty gallon tank, which is very hard on the tank itself. To further the chances of my revival as fish king of two hundred, I will have to clean my tank. I have also bought a Sucker Fish to rid myself of excess algae, he is already doing his job. Algae eating shrimp were also purchased to help the Sucker Fish. I also changed my filter and cleaned it out. These steps will create the solution “King wants fish.”

Hey, it’s better than having a betta (Betta splendens!)

Tonight I go off to meet another group of eight strangers, picked to live in Washington, D.C., get a crash course in foreign affairs and then go off to another country to write a story. I will attend the welcome dinner and try to be witty, and – as is expected of me – I will engage them in conversation whenever there is a lull.

This is the sixth time I’ve done this – the sixth dinner with eight new people. I have had the same conversations about myself five times past and will no doubt have them again tonight

“How long have you been with the program?”

Two years and counting.

“Wow, you haven’t been here long.”

Longer than the number of years you’ve been living away from your parents’ home, my sweet.

“All this talk of journalism and foreign affairs must bore you.”

No, I’m actually quite interested in foreign affairs – in fact, since I’ve attended about 80 of the seminars designed to education you, I probably know a bit more about it than you do. Don’t assume things about me based on my job. Wait – scratch that. You should assume things about me because of my job – use your deductive skills and wonder just why someone in my profession would work here? Maybe it’s because I’m actually interested in the content? I thought you were supposed to be a journalist. Investigate – don’t be lazy!

“I have this problem with my computer – maybe we can talk about it?”

I am not an IT tech, I am a communications professional. I design publications and web pages. I also write and edit content. Sometimes I wrangle graphic designers and other contractors. Although it’s definitely an interesting field to work in, I do not fix computers for a living.

And so on and so forth.

I hate having things assumed about me based on the limited knowledge these people have. In my two years with the program, only three people have tried to get to know me – and two of them were women who were interested in me and backed off when they learned I was married. The rest just decide things about me – decide that I’m not as smart as them, not as cultured or educated.

It’s frustrating. I have a terrible ego – especially about the things I know, the books I’ve read, the films I’ve watched, etc. I’ve made a very strong effort to educate myself on all kinds of topics. I don’t like to brag about what I know – I keep it to myself. But I’m proud of myself for self-educating – for making up for all the time I slacked of in college and high school, all the stuff I didn’t learn because I was too busy going to shows or movies. It burns me when people assume stuff about me – I try hard to not judge people when I meet them, to get to know them a little bit before I start telling them things about themselves.

I know this is silly for me to gripe about. But I’m going to be in that realm again where I’m defending myself to people who’ve already made up their minds about me. And I hate that.

I like my job – don’t get me wrong. I’ve learned so much and really great opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I’ve seen history up close thanks to my job, and met the people who make important decisions that impact the lives of everyone in the world all because I handle the communications for a journalism program. But sometimes dealing with new people – navigating the same paths over and over again – makes me wonder if it’s worth it.

I've heard some people say that human entertainments like music and television are just so much white noise to domestic pets such as dogs and cats.

I can't speak much about canine behavior, but I've shared living space with something over a dozen cats in my life (no, not all at once; that'd be kinda scary). And I can safely say that some cats dig music and even TV; if they seem not to, chances are they don't like what you've got on.

Take for instance Braunbeck's new kitten, Sprat. We just got cable yesterday (first time I've really had cable in my life -- I'm finding it rather cool, even though I'm a bit of an anti-TV curmudgeon.) I clicked on the TV in the bedroom this morning, and Sprat hopped up on the bed, staring at it fixedly for several minutes. I left it on the Weather Channel, and he flopped back on the pillows, dozing in the blue light. This isn't his normal behavior; he's usually off the bed once it's no longer got people in it, chasing the other cats and wanting to play.

My parents have several cats. My folks play a lot of classical music and operas, and I've noticed the cats tend to congregate near whichever stereo is playing. (The presence of human laps guarantees their congregation, of course).

However, one of their cats hates Verdi.

You put on some Bach or Beethoven, he's there. Wagner operas, cool. Philip Glass, fine. But even if he's getting petted on a nice comfy lap, if somebody puts on a Verdi opera ... he's off your lap and scratching at the door, wanting out and away from the music.

At least he just leaves the room. They had a cat for many years who would pee on the speakers.

---

In other news, I got the singularly most depressing telemarketing call ever: a woman, reading awkwardly from a script, trying to sell me a cemetery plot. In Westerville, Ohio.

How horrible must that job be? Not only is it that most universally hated occupation, telemarketing, you're selling something most people don't want to think about. And if you happen to find someone willing to consider death and the proper disposal of their earthly remains ... who wants to be buried in Westerville? Especially when Greenlawn Cemetery is just down the road?

I felt kind of bad for her, but I broke the call off as quickly as I could just the same.

Been a while since I've done a proper daylog.

school

I am on the home stretch of this here CS degree, enrolled in 12 hours of classes which will hopefully be my last as an undergrad. Database Systems and Programming Languages are the only two actual CS classes; I also have Modern Algebra for my mathematics minor, and Bioinformatics (hehe, a graduate-level biology class) just for fun. Might sign up for another hour of neuropsychology lab with Dr. Atchley, though she hasn't returned my emails yet. Sometime in the semester her lab RA's are going on a field-trip to see the wicked new MEG setup she has access too, which is more than half the reason I would sign up for more lab time. Unfortunately, the university doesn't offer a minor in Psych, even though I've racked up a full 18 hours. Just for reference, I have a grand total of 154 credit hours to show for my last five years spent at the University of Kansas, plus the hours accumulated in night classes while still in High School. Looking at my transcript, I've been taking college classes since the summer of 1996; seven years total. That must mean I have tenure! Rawk.

Have decided not to apply for graduate school just yet, as my grades don't exactly (or, um, even remotely) warrant an admission to anywhere I'd like to go. Maybe with some work experience I'll stand a better chance, plus have some money to put toward the goddamn fucking ridiculous $100 application fees that schools all seem to charge. Got my GRE scores in the mail the other day, also, which I won't post in a daylog because I have a soul (see: no, you may not see my penis). I will mention that spending n-thousand-hours vomiting forth 200,000+ words into e2 has payed off to the extent that I got a perfect score on the GRE writing assessment, which is somewhat vindicating.

e2

It's been a few weeks since the end of the nodermeet I hosted. As expected, I had a good time and it was enjoyed by (almost) all who attended. This despite a couple of cases of food poisoning, which apparently were not caught at the meet itself but at an unscheduled dinner break on the Saturday during it. All told, 22 noders showed up, a considerably good haul for a meet held in the middle of nowhere. A couple of people have asked me if there's going to be another next year. "Probably not" is perhaps the safest answer, as I plan to move out of the area between now and then. Still, if it turns out that I'm mired in bloody awful KS another year, another meet would be just the thing to break the monotony, so ...

Keeping with the subject of meets and other gatherings, there are a bunch I'd like to go to in late spring / summer. Since I'm trying to get out of debt (well, not counting my five-figure student loans) by the ides of May, I probably can't go to any of them. Bummer. Still, need to plan ahead if there's any chance at all. The list follows; am I missing anything?

• OMG!!1 I'M GUNNA BE WICKED RETAHDED AGAIN - April 18 to 20.
• DEMF 2003 with mkb - May 30, 31.
• A Tail of Two Monkeys - July 5.
• Hot Damn 3! (is this even happening?) - Early July.

Oh, and one last thing. This writeup puts me at level 8, finally. The original plan was to be there by November, but hey.

personal

It's snowing out. I can see it collecting in little tufts on the evergreens, and sweeping in ghostly waves in front of me as I walk to class. Pretty enough that I can forgive the weather for being so bitterly, biting cold.

I think my life may be without any serious drama at the moment. Ex-girlfriends all seem to be, if not perfectly happy, then at least no longer angry or adrift in chaos. Current lover is sane and mostly stable. Friends are mostly the same. As am (mostly) I. We're all a little fitter, happier, more productive.

Yeah. And we're all ignoring the question of what is going to happen in the next, oh, year or so. Some of my people have steady jobs or whatever, or can mooch of a SO that does. But then, that means they're tied to the land, stuck in flyover country for the next k percent of their lives. Myself and my girl are both graduating, though, into a competitive environment with thousands of unemployed CS degrees who have Real Life experience. I have three years of RL experience in delivering pizza, and she has a bit less than that selling doughnuts and tutoring algebra. This sucks. But we'll live. Pizza delivery is not so bad.

Liquidating my stuff, too, futilely trying to get it down to a single large carload that I can drive to wherever I can get employment. Hell, futon mattress alone (I'm tossing the junked frame) negates that idea. Keeper possessions that I can think of include: Media and readers including CDRs, computer, vinyl, stereo equipment, and two ginormous speakers; metric shitload of books; clothes; video games inc 2600, jaguar, n64, SNES, NES, and GameBoy; kitchen stuff; queen-sized mattress; heavy-duty tables and shelves; framed pictures and posters; four cubic feet of rave flier collection; sundry keyboards, drum machines, and other electric junk; plus everything else I've forgotten. That looks like two or three truckloads to me, which is not cool. Still, I'm getting rid of: a few old computers, all furniture, TV, extraneous hardware and kitchen stuff; my entire paper collection of accumulated schoolwork and bill receipts; worthless books (though it kills me to toss 'em); and old clothes. Any suggestions on this process are welcome, I'm new to it, having been something of a pack-rat in times passed.

I think I'm going to San Diego for Spring Break, if my cousin has a spare bedroom or couch space for two people to stay. Is there anything I shouldn't miss out there? Any bangin' club nights, maybe? One thing I definitely won't miss out on is getting to camp for a night in the desert between KS and CA, with no major cities for 200 miles in any direction and the milky way hanging glitter-red in the sky, under a heavy blanket with somebody warm who I love. Looking forward to that more than the beaches or booze or any of that shit, really.

Also, may end up staying with said cousin for a month or two -- $ave up for that down payment on a condo -- if I get a government job in San Diego. Looking to the government in general for jobs; the pay scale is tragically poor (at least at the GS-5 level, where I guess I am), but that's ok because it means the competition won't be as tough. Plus, the US government is well known for never firing anybody, which will be a bonus if my nightmares about being a total fuckup at CS actually come true.

I hear their electronic music scene is bogus, though. Sucks to that. I guess LA is only four hours away or so, and I've heard rumors tat Tijuana has a bitchin' underground scene of some kind ... Funny, since I stopped considering graduate school, this has been probably my top consideration in where I am moving, besides the "any place where I can get a job" factor. As far as I can tell, it's no more or less arbitrary than any of the other reasons people go places, like weather, cost of living, societal attitude, political climate, etc. Still, there's something subtly uncomfortable about ranking possibilities based on their quality and quantity of phat beats. Oh well.

That's it for now, I guess. Peace.

Got eaten for "flame-bating" for the following erstwhile node I called "War!... War!... War! War! War! War!... War!", but I'm not quite ready to let go of it, or the downvotes and "flames" it'll elicit. (Since when should we be afraid of such things?)

War!... War!... War! War! War! War!... War!

It's important to watch the network evening newsoccasionally. Not for the news, of course; you'll barely find it there, but rather to read between the lines of patter and learn the news from how the news is told.

This evening (1/22/03), I watched the CBS News with Dan Rather (while whipping together a rather nice pesto mushroom chicken sausage ravioli thing, thank you very much!) Fifteen full minutes after the predictable lead about the impending war in Iraq, was a story about how at least six major U.S. airlines were either in bankruptcy or contemplating it. Hello?! Can we at least tell the truth here in this place where the only cost of doing so is the risk of being downvoted, or nuked? (What an irony that? Which does Japan fear worse, the risk of being nuked (again) by Iraq or North Korea?) This country's economy is in the worst shape since 1930, perhaps much, much worse. And on we go, jabbering about war—for it, agin' it, indifferent to it—like Wile E. Coyote having running off a cliff still pedaling his legs because he hasn't looked down and engaged the force of gravity yet. (It's telling that these Warner Brothers cartoons hearken back to the Depression Era.)

It's merely a sidebar that in the same broadcast, my wife, infant son and I were dubiously privileged to witness a video clip of our president, George W. Bush warning Iraqi officers that if they followed the order to use weapons of mass destruction, they would be "persecuted" to fullest extent of international law.

This is my rant. This is my truth telling for today. Hit that downvote, baby. Let's see how much in ten years—hell, in one year!—I, you, or any of us gives a fuck.

I stopped at a red light on the way home from work yesterday. It's a fairly new light that just became operational a few weeks ago. It's also in a very awkward place; it's right at the fork where a four-lane, two-way road splits into two two-lane, one-way roads. In addition, just thirty yards after the intersection there's a lightrail crossing with trains going by roughly every ten to fifteen minutes, in both directions.

It just so happened that, at this particular time, I was stopped in the right lane at this intersection, while thirty yards ahead of me the crossing guards came down while a train crossed. As I sat there, a minivan zoomed past me in the left lane, blatantly running the red light. I was shocked, and I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I honked. A moment later, a car passed me on the left, and it too ran the red light without even slowing. I honked again.

When the light turned green, I caught up to the car and looked over at the driver. She saw me looking at her and gave me a sheepish "I'm sorry" sort of wave, which I took to mean that she hadn't noticed the light, but that she heard me honk and had realized her mistake. I pulled up next to the minivan at the next intersection. Expecting a similar gesture, I glanced at the driver and was surprised to see that he was flipping me off.

Now, I wonder which of these people will have a happier life?

I'm drinking. Shocking.

I'm on the knife's edge between bliss and determined misery. You're reticent, worried about the stamina of my sincerity. So I wrote you this email. And I sent it before I could think twice.

I was thinking about you tonight.

I can get shy about how I feel. But I thought you should know.

I want you.

And that's not going to fade, or change.

Unless you want it to.

It doesn't snow very often in Korea. Haiku inspired by the sight of kids sliding down a hill as I walked to work this morning:

three inches of snow
small hill, a piece of cardboard
this is happiness

Okay, so it's not very good. Dammit, Jim, I'm an English teacher, not a poet.

I had an interesting night last night. A few of my fellow teachers and I have agreed to have weekly "pocket ball" (what Koreans call pool) nights every Wednesday. I was on fire, won four games in a row, before finally losing, and even that one was very close. Ron, the older guy, went home, and Dave and I went to Elvis, our favorite bar.

This asshole from Gwangyang was there. I don't know his name. An engineer, working at a steel mill there. Total bigot. Canadian, I'm ashamed to say. I've seen him there before. Always move to the other end of the bar when he comes in, so I don't have to listen to him loudly talking shit about Korea and Korean people, and sexually harrassing the bartenders, who happen to be friends of mine. Since he found out that I'm Canadian too, he always tries to talk to me, but I give him the cold shoulder. Found out today that this apparently makes him want to kick my ass. Or so he said to Sam, who happens to also be a friend of mine. I'd like to see him try, with 203 centimeters (6'9") of Dave sitting beside me to tear him limb from limb. When you're not particularly buff yourself, it's nice to have big friends.

A bunch of the Korean teachers from my school were also there, including the new one, Mi Hi. Talking to them, I revealed that I now have a girlfriend. Mi Hi seemed disappointed. As if to confirm the suspicion that her reaction raised, she stayed behind to talk to me alone after the others left. Although she didn't admit it outright, some things she said revealed fairly clearly that she's had a crush on me since coming to the school. Why is it that I couldn't find a single girl interested in me for my first year in Korea, and now that I have a girlfriend, they're crawling out of the woodwork?

Checking my cell phone, some girl called Hye Jung called me around 2 PM today. I've got her in my phone directory, but I have no idea who she is. A year and a half in Korea, and their names (Eun Jung, So Jung, Hye Jung, Su Kyung, Sun Young, Eun Kyung, Mi Young, etc...) still give me trouble. I think that might be the name of the new girl at Elvis, but I'm not sure. I don't know why she'd be calling me, anyway, and I don't know when I put her number in my phone. Must have exchanged phone numbers one night when I was drunk.

I'm going to Muju Mountain with Eun Jung on Saturday. I have to ask her if she wants to come back Saturday night, or stay until Sunday. I hope she opts for the latter, since it means we'll get a room together at a yagwon (motel). No, I'm not planning on getting laid. She's a Korean girl, (seemingly) innocent... and I don't like to have sex this early in a relationship anyway. But we always go out with other people. There's only been one time I've had a chance to be alone with her in a private place, and that was before we became a couple.

A lot of you out there probably have no idea who I am, and you're not supposed to. Because this is a daylog and if you actually looked at it, my deepest, darkest secrets might be exposed.

Now, as I was saying yesterday, I have a fetish for little dogs in sweaters. Naw, I'm just kidding! I really have a fetish for inflatable monkies, but that's another daylog.

Getting to the real stuff. I'm having a hard time communicating with my mom. This is very hard for me, because I have always had a good relationship with her. It's just right now, she asks me questions and then I get defensive (because they're usually questions I don't want to answer)and then she walks away crying. I think I'm going to have to be the first one to say, "I'm sorry." One word and a contraction, yet it's one of the hardest things to say. I don't want this to escalate into a big yelling match and stuff.

As usual, school is keeping me busy, but work isn't. I'm having a hard time adjusting to not having any money. I am 17 now, and I got my first job at 14. When the dough keeps coming in, you just get used to it keeping coming. And then when it stops, you don't know what to do. The economy is tight right now, so looking for another job is out of the question. I'll be fine. I just need to spend and save wisely. Now, to go say sorry to my mom.

I'm sitting here with a mug of hot chocolate watching large fluffy flakes of snow swirl in the winds. This is a rare treat for me since I live near the ocean in South Carolina. The backdrop for the snow is palm trees and live oaks. I already went out with my camera and tried my best to get a picture of the fraction of an inch of snow that lies on the front yard. I wish there would be enough snow to build a snowman. It's odd because I never really enjoyed building snow men or playing in the snow. I don't even like skiing. But after six years of living in the South I guess I'm ready to enjoy snow for a day. I just hope the temperatures will go back into the 60's tomorrow. There is a down-side to this snowy day. I wanted to drive into "town" and get a few things. But the other drivers scare the *^&# out of me on clear, sunny days. I refuse to drive on a road with a half-wit in an SUV or pick-up truck on a day like today. There are an average of six car accidents per day on the only road that goes to my island. Today I bet there will be over 20 accidents. There is an up-side to this snowy day. I have an excuse to sit in my big comfy chair, put on some music and spend the afternoon reading.

Yay! I finally did something that should of been done months ago! - I quit my job!! Well but I guess my new job(s) at the radio station will keep me busy - Asst. Promo Director and a DJ, exciting.

Ah well a huge burden is lifted now I can get back to my studies and get done with school.

Golden Birthday

2003 is prime. 23 is prime. So it's a prime year to have a prime golden birthday.

So what? What makes my golden birthday today any better than anyone else's? Statistically, there are many people who have a golden birthday today.

Why do we celebrate birthdays anyways? What's the point? "Haha, you're another year older!" "Heh, now you're really old." On the receiving end, the gifts, cards and parties can be enjoyable, but why are there people on the giving end?

I guess I should just sit back and enjoy it. I don't need to think so much about every little thing.

---

It's tough being sick on your birthday. I found out two days ago that I'm allergic to cilantro, and that my reaction is to get a cold. So here I am, blowing my nose and having philosophical spasms. I could be outside playing hackeysack, or down at the gym knocking a soccer ball senseless. I could be at the mall with some friends, or playing cards in the lounge. Instead, I'm writing a love note to e2 in which I say, "happy birthday to me!"

Actually, what I should do is test 1232003 to see if it's prime. Yeah, that'd be good (12303 is not prime, divisible by 3). I'll get back to you on that.

And indeed, 1232003 is prime! What a great day!