"Get your life together. You have twenty-four hours."

The tagline is exactly how I feel.

I was going through facebook and reliving everything that's happened over the past year. In doing so, I guess I started to remember everything I was supposed to be doing this year. My conflicted feelings over where I want to be-- China, Japan, America, Argentina. And I don't feel any closer to knowing than I was months ago.

It also turns out that a boy I tutored in China, Cyrus, is here in Boston! Which is utterly ridiculous. Well, the boy does have loads of money, so I never thought the opportunity would be an issue. But he was supposed to be doing his internship in Shanghai...yet he's already here!

I really have to go see him as soon as possible but Bank of America has refused to post my pay-check deposit so...we'll have to wait. 'Cause, when you meet up with Chinese people in your own country, you have to treat them and stuff...gotta make sure I have my financial situation together.


But back to the confusion. I really need to keep my options open. I really should be making sure my Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese are in as good a shape as they can be...and they're not, because I don't do more than what's required. So I will be studying all day today.

I also need to get to prepping for LSATs. A friend of mine got her results back and they were not good. I've been hiding from them-- hiding from everything, really, but the LSATs are the biggest. GREs are second. I will be downloading a prepbook today.

Luckily it's still early. Maybe I can get some studying done this morning before I have to do my homework.

And boy, is there homework.
--Poli Sci paper
--finish reading Haruki Murakami and making up questions[Japanese]
--prep for & take Chinese [take home] test and read the next short story
--chunks of philosophy reading & discussion board posting
--catch up in reading for my anime class

The last one might be negotiable.

Feeling really motivated, but I know how my brain works-- I'll forget soon.

And...the Velvet Rope is amazing.
Cheers.

Reification & Overtures

I was really trying to put this blog on hiatus. In fact, it was a larger move of taking myself off of the internet altogether-- no more AIM, facebook, what have you.

I ultimately decided against it but...I do want to be online less.

Except for blogging.

Anyway, some things have happened in the past two weeks. The main thing is my constant stock of wine. Nowadays, I just chill around listening to Sylvain Chauveau and Janet Jackson[The Velvet Rope]. Drinking wine, relaxing, being boring. And shopping, of course.

Paycheck this Friday...hallelujah.

Had a slight altercation today with the Chinese department head today. It was hilarious. Over an eMail I sent her.

It is as follows:

Hi,

My name is Steven ******; I'm a senior at Tufts. I'm doing an independent study right now
with Li laoshi, but it's come to my attention that I'm enrolled in your section of the
independent study on SIS. I left a drop form in your box outside your door-- I was
wondering if you could sign your name on the drop section of the form? That way I can fix
everything up on SIS.

Thanks for your time.

Best,
Steven ******
--

She never responds. So I get to her office, just thinking I'll pick up the form and bounce. Instead...I get there and she proceeds to go into lecture mode.

"Why didn't you fill it out?"
"I suppose it slipped my mind. I figured I'd explain everything in the eMail."

And then she replied with some nonsense about how wrong I was for not filling it out beforehand. Fine, woman, sorry.

But then she's apparently not done-- the tone of my eMail was improper conduct. Um, what?

"As a student in an advanced level Chinese class, you should really know this sort of thing regarding Chinese culture-- you don't address a professor with 'Hi', much less once you've never met. Don't think I'm singling you out-- I had to do this with someone else the other day. But it's really disrespectful to do that...do you understand what I mean?"
"Sure. I apologize for the disrespectful tone of my eMail."
"No, you don't really get it-- it's about Chinese culture, blah blah blah."

CHICK, WHAT?

I just wanted to laugh in her face.
She was trying it. I really didn't have time for her bullshit-- I planned on just picking up the drop form, running to work. Instead...she kept me for ten minutes and made me late to admonish me on my inadequate understanding of Chinese culture.

I really couldn't believe it. For one, we've met before, albeit briefly. Two, I've eMailed professors with "Hi" before, including professors I'd yet to meet. This is the first time I've been told how grand a show of disrespect it is.

Or perhaps it's that "you don't interact with Chinese professors that way" BS.

Then she disbelieved that I was taking the Chinese class with Li laoshi, that she didn't think I was actually registered in her own section in the first place, and just unnecessary acrobatics.

I was this close to dismissing her immediately. And when I say "this", I'm pinching my index finger and my thumb together very close.

So she eventually signed my form-- I said a quick thank you and shut her door.
If I ever see that woman, it will be too soon.

Unnecessary bullshit.
--

Otherwise, things have been great.
I just made quesadillas.
And now I might try to study.

Deuces.

Clutching at my lapels, singing in my soprano

Hey hey.

So apparently there's a power outage on campus.
Glad I decided to come to Jersey this weekend.

What did I do...

Well, I came home with my boss and his friend. It was...an entertaining bus ride. Then I went to the mall, chilled with my mom. Went home after we ate. Went out with Summer, Nakeefa, their partners, and Nakeefa's friend Matt.

Needless to say, I almost felt a little out of place, being single. Matt doesn't count; he's more like furniture. Anyway, we went to two bars. I wasn't carded. Talk about a let-down! All this time trying to get to 21...and I don't even get carded.

Afterward, we went to a house party that my boss invited me to. It was interesting. I wound up getting home around four.

This is Saturday.
Sunday, I go shopping. Saturday night, I apparently called a number of people-- Donald, Paul, and most interestingly of all: Jeremy. I sort of remember doing it-- I get really weak and lonely when I'm excessively drunk.

So, Jeremy got back to me yesterday. We went out shopping.

It was very simple. I was feeling awkward and trying to talk less than usual-- limited success.

This is going to be somewhat embarrassing, even moreso out of pocket, and if there were ever anything like honesty in excess, this would be it.

But. I don't like leaving important things unsaid.

It took a lot of resolve not to allow my voice to crack in his living room.

I'm unsure of what exactly my motives were-- on some level, I do think forgiveness is important. I've forgiven him insofar as I had no desire to punch him in the throat or to do something equally vicious. But I don't think I ever did-- the only violence I ever engage in is violence that hurts me. That's why I hit the door instead of the wall: because I knew the door wouldn't break.

But I should be honest with myself-- forgiveness isn't my only motivation. The other part's egoism-- that he'll say more than he already has, that he'll say that I was worth more than that, that he'll say that we should pretend it never happened, that he'll say that he missed me, just to give me the option. just to give me the option.

I suspect these are all things that he either can't or won't do.

And so I stumbled upon one of his eMails today-- actually stumbled; it wasn't intentional at all. And it was really...moving.

So, in other words: no, I'm not really okay. I still have a lot of trouble eating-- I realized this with Pablo, but when I have feelings for a guy who doesn't reciprocate, I get disgusted to with myself to the point of nausea. I guess for most people it's the converse-- girls pigging out on ice cream, what have you. I thought I'd be all better in six days, along with my hand, but it's clear that I'm actually not. I can still put on my game face, but as long as I have time to reflect, to be alone, to think-- I'll still wind up going over could have beens, would have beens, should have beens. And I realize that I shouldn't get into a rebound relationship, but otherwise, it's just me and my thoughts. Me and my thoughts.

In other words, being twenty-one sucks. Holden Caulfield had it all right.

And the messiest blog post of the year award goes to...me.
Time for a distraction. I guess that means more shopping. Or another book.

Coincidentally, I finished Water for Elephants, which was surprisingly good. Reading Age of Aquarius now. I'll give more substantial reviews later.

Let me sign off before I start embarrassing myself again.
Deuces.

Punch, I might spike it...

So, in case it wasn't obvious: I am a hot mess.

It's great to be home.

Monsieur Profligate

I'm going to be 21 in about 10 minutes.

Oh, my favorite day of the year. My birthday. October 7th.

I don't know if I want to celebrate it. I suppose this past week or two has just been really overwhelming for me. And I've been trying to be cool about everything but...

I wish I just had a minute to breathe.

Inadequate since 1987. But I'm working on it.
Happy 21st,
Steven.

In lieu of real discussion...

...I thought we should discuss this photo.




The article on Beyonce's immense skill follows.

http://www.hiphoproll.com/kanye-west-finally-beats-beyonce-at-connect-4/

From the article:

Apparently Beyonce is quite the champion at the game Connect 4. Kanye West on the other hand always wants to be the champion. So they played over and over again until he finally won. The game that lasted nine rounds before Beyonce eventually folded.

I'm surprised he didn't throw a tantrum and rip out Bee's extensions.

Anyway. Discuss.
Who among you can beat Beyonce at Connect Four?

Pocketbook video

This is low-quality and there's no video, but here's Pocketbook:



Too bad everyone on Youtube thinks it's lame. =(

The Crimson King

So, I have a new computer. And since I am addicted to computers, getting a new one is like being reincarnated.

Just went out, put a computer on my debit...so nice to have money.

WIRELESS. Playing DVDs without major jerk. Downside is Vista, though.

So, the deal is: yesterday morning, my slightly tipsy ass is waking up. I sleep with my laptop in my bed next to me. I stretch as I wake up; my computer crashes off of the bed.

So, I take it for a free checkup, and the hard drive is dead. Good thing I actually backed most of this one up. Ugh. So, I'll be needing to get a new hard drive. The guy was offering to do everything for around $200, but I figure I can just get a hard drive for ~$100 and install it on my own. Then I just need to find a copy of XP/Vista lying around. Or maybe I'll finally move to Linux. OSX seems fun to pirate, too.

Anyway, I decided it'd be smarter at this point to just get a new computer. I spent around ~$500. This is officially me moving to baller status. Haha. I love being employed.

ALSO!?

Pocketbook from Jennifer Hudson is AMAZING. The beat, the voice, the dramatics...it is giving me record level dramatics. Even with Beyonce's album, it took me a long while to warm up. Whereas, as soon as I heard the first twenty seconds of Pocketbook, I put it on repeat.

I don't remember being this excited about fagging out to an album in so long. Excuse my language but...what else do you call it? Like, I'd almost go get some skinny jeans, a pocket book, some shades, and some lip gloss and start dropping to the floor in my room to this type of song...almost.

Almost.

See, what I also love about her album is that she can give me more soulful songs like "Spotlight" but still can give me a lot of pop with this.

I am officially all over Jennifer Hudson. I'm way too excited right now.

So excited, in fact, that I might need to go shopping today. Homework can wait.
[Also, sadly, I saw like half of those shoes I posted in Aldo? Well, lookalikes, but still.Now, most of them are no longer viable, especially with the prices they were asking.]

"Don't make me hit you with my pocketbook..."

Cheers and good morning, my lovelies.

Lip liner on my smile lines

There's so much else to discuss.

For example, I just read two books from Harry Frankfurt, a contemporary philosopher. The two books are On Bullshit and On Truth, both of which are great books. But I loved On Truth. If/when I get my own place and finally establish my library...I will definitely have some Harry Frankfurt books in it.

They're both very short, very small books-- 100 pages each, but probably about fifty pages in a regular sized book. Both very interesting.

Before I return them to avoid the late fees, I'll post some passages I really liked:

"Spinoza maintained that regardless of whether we enjoy, feel comfortable with, or cherish the species of rationality that is at issue here, that kind of rationality will be imposed on us. Whether we like it or not, we really cannot help submitting to it. We are driven to do so, as Spinoza understood the matter, by love.
Spinoza explained the nature of love as follows:'Love is nothing but Joy with the accompanying idea of an external cause'(Ethics, part III, proposition 13, scholium). As for the meaning of 'joy', he stipulated that it is 'what follows that passion by which the...[individual] passes to a greater perfection.'"

"Joy, as I think [Spinoza] understands it, is a feeling of the enlargement of one's power to live, and to continue living, in accord with one's most authentic nature...Spinoza believed it follows from this that people cannot help loving truth. They cannot help doing so, he thought, because they cannot help recognizing that truth is indispensable in enabling them to stay alive, to understand themselves, and to live fully in accord with their own natures."

He also goes on about lying and Kantian ideas on it-- essentially that it destroys society by taking away all value from social discourse. But as Frankfurt points out, some people do actually enjoy the promotion of bullshit.

And in understanding bullshit, it's best to read On Bullshit. He really goes into it-- that's it not quite lying or telling the truth. Bullshit is the greatest enemy of truth because speakers who bullshit have no concern for whether what they say is true or not-- the truth value of their statements are of no importance. The bullshitter and liar mislead about completely different things: while the liar misleads about the content of what [s]he's saying, [s]he also simultaneously acknowledges that they have an idea of what the truth is. Bullshitters, meanwhile, acknowledge no difference, and if they do, don't care one way or the other.

The bullshitter misleads in that [s]he pretends to care about whether or not the information is true or not.

Very good books. I recommend.

Also, my suitemate Bobo gave me two beautiful children's books from the bestselling series The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. She got them from work. So exciting! And hardcover, too. Thanks, Bobo! =)

I also wanted to talk about the VP debate, but perhaps that'll be for next time.

Later.

Mighty Mothers from Berkshire

I've been playing "Let's get lifted" from John Legend on repeat for a minute.

Let's see, let's see. What's been up? A few things, I guess.

Hand definitely not broken. Thank goodness. In fact, I think I intended it, in some way, to be an analogy to my heart...when my fist heals, the heart will follow. Maybe? If only.

That seemed a lot less cheesy in my head.

Anyway, most of the swelling is already down and I can clench my fist now and put my hand into my pocket without feeling too much pain. Give it a few more days, I suppose.

I've been trying to keep myself busy and keep moving, and most importantly keep myself from being alone in my room. I'd just let myself fall into this self-pitying sense of grief and not get anything done.

And what I need to do is just move, move, move.

So. I had my paper due yesterday. Saw my Japanese advisor for a few minutes, since I had class/work. She left today and I didn't even get to say goodbye. Unfortunately.

My Thai friend from Japan is apparently in NY and won't be in Boston until Monday, which was majorly disappointing! This girl and I were great friends, so it'll be nice to see her again.

Bigger news!

I think I mentioned the MOCAA job that I applied for-- they called me in for an interview on Wednesday, which was held this morning. Got the job. And apparently I'm getting paid even more than I expected because of my experience, I guess-- instead of $12 an hour, it's $15.

...Do you know how much clothes I can buy with that kind of money!?

So, I'm walking back from the interview to the train station, holding my eyes from the sun, trying to figure out if my excitement was overpowering my broken-heart or what. All the while, doing the math.

[MOCAA]15 x 12 + [Tufts Financial Aid]8.5 x 7 = 180+59.5 = 239.5 a week. Well...taxes I guess, but whatever. And apparently MOCAA's gonna pay me on a stipend for three months until I'm done with my trial period, so. No taxes for that.

Yeah, y'all can be privy to my measly part-time income details, I guess.

Anyway, so many clothes, shoes, coats...all these material things I can use to distract me.

I also took out a lot of books from the library. Hopefully I can read them all.

I've got:

-Water for Elephants
-Lord of the Flies
-The Fountainhead
-Age of Aquarius

And then two books on managing nonprofits, just because.

What else. Today was the career fair here at Tufts, which I went to. Lot of engineering jobs...eh. I did connect with this woman from the Department of State about foreign service, and she wanted me to email her about grad school fellowships. Definitely interested in going to grad school for free, haha.

Just got back from dinner with some kids who went to China. It was a lot of fun-- I miss China so much that I guess anything that reminds me of that time is cool. Most of the kids I was with went on different programs, though, so I was meeting them for the first time. We had Sichuan style food[Sichuan is where the earthquake was...if that helps], which is notoriously spicy. Wasn't that bad, though.

I can't decide if I want to go out tonight. I can already tell I won't enjoy it but I also feel as if drinking would really help right about now.

It's either that or I read/study. On a Friday night. Could happen.

Tomorrow, I think I'll go to Newbury St., I invited my suite mates. Time to splurge.

Nothing like clothes.
Gotta move, move, move, MOVE.

And...new song. "Everything's just wonderful", Lily Allen.

Later.

Punctuated totalitarian junkies

What an odd title. "Punctuated" is from punctuated equilibrium, which is a concept we cover in my Biology & Humanity class. I definitely take too many bio/philosophy classes.

Totalitarian...well. My political science seminar is about neoconservatives and foreign policy and I've been drowning in Kristol's anti-totalitarian stuff for the past two days or so for my paper.

Junkie is the title of a book from William S. Burroughs, one of my favorite writers of all time.[Marcel Proust and James Baldwin are also up there...obviously. Go gay men.]

So, anyway.

My boss has had me running back and forth for the past three hours. Now I can finally sit and chill for a bit. So what do I do with this free time?

Work on my paper would be the answer you'd make if you knew nothing about me at all. Instead, I've been looking at shoes.

I think I want people's opinions...so don't be shy.
--

I like these but I can't tell if they're too much/cartoon-ish/whatever.



Same for these.





And then there are these, which are relatively cheap, I guess($70):





These are my favorite-- I love bent-toe shoes.



--

I figured I would go about changing my wardrobe in parts-- first shirts, then pants, then blazers. And then everything else-- belts, shoes, socks, cuff links. You know.

Well, I've got about six dress shirts. Maybe four sweaters that I'd actually wear. About two-three pairs of pants that I like. Two blazers. One belt but...it'll manage.

Anyway, not exactly where I want to be on the first front, but getting there!

So next is definitely shoes. And considering the only things I have are...this rundown pair from back in HS? I think that's my new project.

I don't even have sneakers that aren't at least two years old or so. A sad state of affairs, this is!

Since I don't see myself replacing my phone any time soon[well, unless I get that second job at MOCAA...since that would more than double my income], I might as well divide my earnings between shoes and my credit card bill.

Cheers.