Apologies!

I haven’t been here in AGES. This time, however, I do have a good excuse.

My house was pretty much underwater when we came back from Connecticut. It was rather disgusting, but they’ve got it dried out almost all the way now.

Anyway, I can’t stay long, what with work and other occupations – so I’d just like to say apologies for the long absence, and it may be more than a month until I am reliably back to posting normally.

These, in the meantime, are a couple of choice images:

The Whole Alcoholic Pie

Boy, am I glad I think alcohol tastes like shit.

Next week [assuming you're all back in August, that is], when President C.D. “Dan” Mote welcomes freshmen to the University of Maryland, he will inform them that the college police will enforce underage drinking laws “with terrific ferocity.” And then he will turn around and, recognizing that most students do drink, tell the teenagers “to take care of each other when they see someone who’s passed out, to take advantage of all of our services for students who abuse alcohol.”

The whole article here: On campus, Legal Drinking Age Is Flunking the Reality Test

This is actually from a draft I’ve had saved since then – August 21st, 2008. Regardless, the information is still relevant. Before I post it, though, I’d like to make note of something: as of now, I have never been offered any form of alcohol by anyone other than my parents – my dad makes wine and I’m Italian, so I’ve obviously had the odd sip here and there (… and hated it every single time. I cannot stand that taste!). Not a single one of the people I know, none of my older friends, nobody, has ever had any involvement further than mine.

You might say I’ve lead a sheltered life, but I’m glad. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Because you really don’t want to get me drunk.

Life Et Cetera

Pet peeve: people who say excetera. Not too hard, folks.

Anyway.

Origin of the term blog in a nutshell: web + log → weblog + americans = blog. Web of course meaning this, you dimwit, and log meaning a record of one’s life. A record of one’s life, as in personal details.

When has this blog even been personal? That’s right, never. And it is a blog, that much I’m certain. So why not?

Because it’s unprofessional, my subconscious whines. It doesn’t look good. Well screw you, subconscious. In any case, I do actually have some material, abstract though it is.

Last night was pretty hectic. I’d woken up at five thirty after a particularly late night of half past midnight to find myself sick to my stomach but unwilling to go to sleep again and wake up to my alarm. A long shower did little to comfort me, especially considering I was soon ousted to save money on the oil bills – and a long day did little to help afterwards. Thus I arrived home, my body wrung like my hands were throughout the day, my mind little more than the oatmeal I hadn’t eaten for breakfast. I remember catching myself sitting completely still and not just reading the same sentence from the homework several times but also occasionally pausing for several minutes, looking at nothing in particular. It didn’t help that I had a large project I’d worked on only minimally due the next day.

I went to bed two hours early, ignoring the project completely. The last thing I did before I turned off the lights and was lost to the abyss was to say, “I’m sorry.”. My room echoed when I apologized to it. I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish, but it made me feel minutely better about myself.

I suppose it also didn’t help that the project was for a class I’m currently failing in.

I’d like to justify myself slightly in saying that despite this rather desolate-looking statement, I’m doing quite well – even garnering grades worthy of the title ‘fantastic’ in other classes. All my other classes, to be precise. I know I have A’s in at least four and suspect I’m achieving them in the rest. And when a student not only succeeds but excels in all of their classes save one, the logical thought process follows as this: “The problem resides not with the student, but the class, or perhaps the teacher.”

Selfish justification aside, I know I need to do better in this class. I’m working on it. Plus, the failing grade was most like caused by failure to hand in one out of a possible two assignments on the grade report – and immediately after, I handed in a fairly well-written report, which should sit nicely for my average. Regardless, I’m worried, and not without reason.

In any case, roused by my alarm this morning I felt much better – with nearly nine and a half hours of sleep under my belt in contrast to my normal six and a half to seven, I had nearly woken up naturally. With another shower, a quick dressing, and my normal ritual of stuffing the next day’s needed papers into my backpack hurriedly, I was out the door.

And into the snow.

I’d heard that it would snow on Wednesday, but not like this. There were nearly four inches already, and it was falling so fast that while I was waiting for the bus nearly a quarter of an inch accumulated on my head. Nevertheless, I dutifully waited. And waited. And waited. For nothing, apparently, because every single person on my bus that I know got a ride. Is that even legal? I thought school had been cancelled after all and I was saved!

In any case, with yet another somewhat uneventful day done, I arrived home again, if a little more energized than usual. And now here I sit. C’est mon vie.

Virtual Calendars

I’d like to put a [very small] spotlight on Smashing Magazine (and, actually, Morgante for pointing me towards it) for their desktop background calendars. A wonderful addition to any desktop repertoire, these useful backgrounds assist your aesthetic needs and help you remember the date as well.

For the month of december, I currently have the Aurora Borealis theme, shown here.

Present was a close runner-up.

Be sure to find them on the December calendar page for larger versions if you do decide to use them – these two images are just previews.

Black Board

Scrawling on a whiteboard hidden in the dark,
my thoughts once again on creation rather than destruction.

I still can’t comprehend why.
Why do I say these things?

Let me explain:

I enjoyed a film that day, surrounded by popcorn, siblings,
and darkness.
However corny I thought it was that the boy in this particular story
(and many others)
was worried that the last his mother would hear of him would be
“I hate you!”,
and however sure I was that goblins were not, in fact, coming to eat me and my family
(despite years of achluophobia’s teachings),
it still meant something to me then, that night,
trapped in my room not by fantastical creatures but by my own mind,
that the last thing I had said to you was,
“You’re not being logical, or fair, or, or, anything!”
Those lines echoed in my mind for hours -
and still do, etching themselves into my mind.
Because really
on a figurative level

(that’s the one that really matters, in case you’d forgotten)

they mean the same thing.

Author’s note: Some writing I did last night, on a white board (a white board that is now black because I wrote all over it, ergo title).

Hiatus

Blogging has become a chore for me. It’s sad that I can’t express my thoughts on something that originally simply started out as a “web log” – a log of one’s life. If anything, I think that this says that I don’t understand myself that well as a person. I hope this can be a tool to reverse that.

Perfectionism is another big problem. I worry so much about how what I post here will be received that nothing ever actually finds its way onto the internet.

Ergo these three changes I’ve decided upon: to care less about what I write, to write about things that are more personal, and to update weekly at the very least. Hopefully from there I can work my way up.

In short, my hiatus was caused by laziness, perfectionism, and the beginning of the school year. All of these are manageable and I really have no excuses – so here goes.

My First Foray Into Politics

… Rather unnerving.

Anyway, I’m sorry I haven’t been writing. No excuses, I know, but here are mine: My dad found out he had appendicitis, which you may have heard about through the twitterverse, and I went on vacation (then he had an abscess, scared the hell out of me getting out of the car by nearly crying, and is spending the night in the emergency room). For all you worriers: He’s… okay (I can’t stand to see him in that much pain, it’s horrible). I’m fairly sure he’ll pull out just fine.

Instead of wallowing further, I’m going to try to write this post now before it gets too late early (oops, too late early to hope for that).

So, what caught my eye was a tweet from Gary Stager. Being the misinformed sadly uneducated liberal I [think I] am, I followed the link, expecting juicy gossip to spread. Okay, true, there was juicy gossip, but I’m not spreading it in the way I thought I would.

The gist of the article: McCain recently gave a speech concerning the current Georgia situation, and used some words, phrases, sentences, and/or paragraphs remarkably like those on the Wikipedia article for the country. What they’re trying to say is that he plagiarized, and it looks as if that’s true, but the comments tell the real story.

The comments say two things to me:

1. That Obama supporters in general OR just the supporters that ended up following that story are extremely aggressive
2. That McCain supporters are actually quite good at refuting accusations.

I’m not going to say any more because I’ve probably already damned myself to a lifetime of criticism by even attempting to intelligently discuss politics, but see for yourself. Actually quite interesting.

Knight Spent Fighting Crime

While the idea of a rich playboy gallivanting around in a black suit with plastic pointy ears punching criminals into submission has lost its appeal on me, apparently the general public still loves it: the [relatively] newly released movie “The Dark Knight”, depicting the Batman’s struggles against the Joker and introducing Two-Face, has earned 314.2 million so far. The pushes it above the 300 million dollar level needed to break the current record of fastest-grossing film (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest at 16 days) in just 10 days.

Author’s note: this is my first review. Don’t be too harsh, and beware spoilers. I will forget that you haven’t seen it too – sorry.

I’d like to cover three main things here.

1. Plot
2. Effects
3. Originality

First things first: the plot. This is something I can’t really find much fault with. Moving along at a surprising speed, several twists and turns made it interesting: notedly, the not-running down of the Joker and the prisoner tossing the detonator (everyone got a whole lot happier right after that happened).

Notes on individual characters: The Joker was absolutely fantastic. Heath Ledger fit the role like nobody’s business, and when they had to fill in for him it was well done and seamless. Probably the only reason I didn’t like it as much as I should have was because of my squeamish fascination of how the Joker acted, especially when intimidating people (hint: knives. Not all people share your fascination, Mr. Joker…) – though I do get that that was pretty much the intended reaction. The Batman: I wasn’t as impressed with Bale, probably because I held him to a higher standard, but all the little flaws I could point out are worthless in the long run, aesthetic, and would sound whiny. Two-Face: Not mentioning the CGI flaws (see effects section) I was impressed with Aaron Eckhart’s role for one thing specifically: the way he expressed fear and pain. This seems rather morbid (or sadistic?), but most of his persona was based around his pain, and how he changed afterwards. He did this extremely well, especially when representing emotional pain.

Secondly the effects: I was rather pleased with the way they used CGI et cetera. My favorite augmented part: the final batmobile scene, the RPG, and the subsequent transformation into the bat-cycle. The exploding hospital was impressive, too, but not as impressive – explosions are computer-generated all the time. There’s one other thing that absolutely begs to be mentioned: The work they did on Eckhart’s face after the fire incident. Now, before you criticize: I know fire can be destructive. I know there’s a lot of things it can do. I know it’s probably possible, and that they probably had a trained medical professional in to supervise how the muscles were shown, but honestly, people, it looked ridiculous. For one, half his face was gone. I know that’s the point, but still, the damage was horrendous – could one even survive after that? And second, and hardest to refute: there were at all times holes for air to enter his mouth. Have you ever tried speaking coherently with your mouth constantly open? You simply can’t be heard clearly, and yet there he was, waxing eloquent in his evil doings.

Lastly, the originality of the entire idea. As I said, the appeal has been lost on me for a movie about the Batman. It seems as if an superhero without powers would have been tossed out by now, but I do have to commend the Batman for one thing: He’s the most courageous man I know.

Overall, I have to say I am glad to have seen the movie (partially for the experience, and partially for the social aspect). Despite my scathing (or so I would hope) review, I would rate this movie at 79 1/3 out of a hundred (one hundred being the perfect movie).

Author’s Note, take two: I am very glad that I have friends like Morgante (you know who you are). He was kind enough to point out that Vermont’s very own Patrick Leahy played an obviously vitally important role. Article on the subject here, and a video here. What would I do without you, Morgan?

…Don’t answer that, please.

What I’m Doing (despite whatever Twitter says)

There are three goals I have set myself for the end of this summer. Yes, it is fairly late to be mentioning these, and yes, I have already been working at them for some time now, but I think it’s worth putting them out there. Without further ado:

1. Become ambidextrous.
2. Learn Esperanto.
3. Figure out my meaning in life.

All of these require explanation.

1. This was a goal I set for myself when I learned of all the benefits. It is simply and purely a leisure. Priority: Third. Interest: Second. Achievability: Second.
2. This goal was set immediately when I first heard of the language and all that it meant. I am now a part of the Esperanto movement and I would encourage you to learn the language, or at least learn of it. Priority: Second. Interest: First. Achievability: First.
3. I suppose this is the ultimate goal for everyone, but it came into light this year especially. I know nobody can truly solve it, but for me, I came close late June (I can tell you about it if you wish) Priority: First. Interest: Third. Achievability: Third.

Since the beginning of the summer (when I started, more or less) I have progressed to leciono ses of the full ten (though I recommend starting here), am currently eating with my nondominant hand, and have written two fairly long pieces on why I exist and how I feel about it.

I would rate my progress at six and one-third out of ten.

What are you guys doing? Please send a link over or just link me in the post so I can use the trackback. Thanks!

Reentering the Edutech World

First, some background: Arthus showed me a whole new world the year I was to graduate middle school. I participated in When Night Falls that year (or possibly the next, it’s very fuzzy in my mind). I started blogging more often, got connected with many a wise being such as Lisa Durff (who deserves special thanks because she is the one who reminds me via twitter whenever ANYTHING is happening). I never did get the hang of google reader, although I really should try, and became something akin to Arthus’s little brother, tagging along and learning to think for myself. I’d like to end the background section with a little apology: To whom it may concern, I am deeply ashamed of how I acted, and although some may consider this an overreaction, I believe I was too immature then to be at the level I was attempting to emulate. The most obvious form this took was my spelling and grammar – I used abbrs like “lol”, smileys, and 1337. Though I know some of you may use these, and think nothing of it, I must hold myself and be held by others to a higher standard. Again, sincerest apologies.

Time passed, and the idea of students 2.0 was born. Whether it was my immaturity or, as I believe, because I simply was too lazy to write enough content, I dropped out of the project.

After the whole fiasco, months passed. I attempted to blog intermittently, with little or no success, and soon gave up on the entire idea. Near the end of my freshman year in high school, however, I began to realize the value of expressing myself in this way. Once again, I was interested, and about a week ago, I began to watch the streams, and join the conversations. I began tweeting again, which I gave up along with blogging.

And so, with new resolve, here I am again. I’m bound to fail eventually, but here goes anyway. I’m off to go use google reader, take two. Any help for the noob is appreciated, or any suggestions for feed programs et cetera.