Ain't No House of Leaves

Try Hard. Ya know what? Fuck it.

2011-12-10T03:18:00.001-05:00

Good evening bitches,

This is a letter from the sanity doctor. No one cares what you think.

Tonight I was embarrassing. I don't give a shit. I'm comfortable. Within everything in this moment. My microwave exuded a delicious, cheesy, Boca-infused treat and I am right with the world.

To try hard means to care. And to care means to be interested. And to be interested implies having a stake in something. What does it mean to have a stake? It means that something impacts you in some way that is significant enough for your life to be altered in some noticeable way. That is what having a stake is.

So why should I care if someone told me I try too hard? Perhaps they were misled into believing that I cared about someone or something. Or that I was interested, perhaps. I have interests and when I do, I make them known. Intoxication makes this process incredibly fluent. Hormones add an additional effect of dumbfoundedness. Whatever. I'd rather be dumb when drunk than a jack-ass when sober.

I am a try-hard. You know why? It's because I put everything into whatever I do. I care about everything my time is invested in. I try hard because I have an ivy league education. I try hard because my brain is inherently analytic and I acknowledge it. I try hard because I've made myself who I am. I try hard because no one else tries for my sake. I know I try hard and I don't care that I try hard. I don't care that I care. I don't care that I have interests. I don't care that I have stakes in the world.

Ironically, I try hard but I really don't. I'm 23 years old. I have my own life and my own habitat. I have respect from my family and from my friends for who I am. And who I am is not pretty. That's an accomplishment - gaining respect for non-pretty things. I am a blithering mess and often times I don't feel compelled to better myself. Sure most of the time I make an effort to seize the day and wear appropriate attire to work. But sometimes I just want to chill out, have a drink, talk with some humans, and forgot about the stupid invisible rules we are all told to follow. These rules come from people who care about what other people think and do. These people are insecure. Rules are insecurities.

So I guess you could say that I try hard to not try hard. It all comes down with how we were raised. Parents are the worst and most hated category of humans in the world. It's because they are responsible for everything. Parents are the new scapegoat. Say nothing about drugs and alcohol. If parents raise you as achievers, then you will appear to be a try-hard to those who were raised to be coddled and, subsequently, judgmental.

One last note; If someone says something to you which seems really honest and forward and either bitchy or over-flirtatious, and then proceeds to walk away while also putting a physical barrier in between themselves and you, THIS PERSON IS A FRAUD. Do NOT trust this person with your life or anything for that matter. This person is hiding behind the physical barrier because they are insecure and non-confrontational. They are pussies.

Or they are too sober.

THE END.

Playing two Reverse Cards in a row in Uno

2011-12-01T23:08:00.001-05:00

This entire post is going to make me sound really ignorant or whatever. I don't care. Just thought I'd give you a heads up.

I was offended today. For some reason that gets me every now and then. When it's brought up, it gets me going. I was offended by the implication of being white. Being culturally white, not just having some really pale pigment. Though, I am really pale. In that respect, I am really white - as in the color. But let's just examine "white culture" for a moment. (This. It's probably good enough to serve the purpose. http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/full-list-of-stuff-white-people-like/)

I mean it's funny. This shit is hilarious when not taken seriously. It's not supposed to be taken seriously. But it's interesting how, somehow, if something along the lines of ethnography catalyzes a personal connection, it becomes a sensitive topic. And if someone pushes the topic too much, people with personal connections can become offended.

My lemma: Being sincerely offended is an individualistic thing alluding to personal experiences. Likewise, being sincerely offensive is an individualistic thing alluding to personal experiences.

My second lemma: Words themselves, from a purely linguistic perspective, are not offensive. The combination of context and intent is what invites further implications and makes an utterance offensive.

So, in a way, I've separated the individual from society and I've separated the literal utterance from the context and intent. You could also consider the level of intimacy between the two people. I personally am not as deeply offended if a stranger says something offensive to me because they are obviously ill-informed. But it's different if an acquaintance says it. But that's just me so I'm not going to consider levels of intimacy.

With that said, we can have four characteristics; two types of offenders and two types of offendees.

(1) Those who are easily offended.
(2) Those who aren't easily offended.
(3) Those who purposefully offend.
(4) Those who don't purposefully offend.

Let's put these people together in all the possible permutations and imagine what would happen in a situation where the offender said something that was potentially offensive.

Combo: Person (1) who is easily offended. Person (3) who purposefully offends.
Outcome: Person (1) is obviously offended by the words of Person (3). Person (3) looks like a bully.

Combo: Person (2) who isn't easily offended. Person (3) who purposefully offends.
Outcome: Person (2) might be annoyed but probably won't be offended. Person (3) looks like a fool.

Combo: Person (1) who is easily offended. Person (4) who doesn't purposefully offend.
Outcome: Person (1) will probably be offended. If called out, Person (4) feels ironically defensive.

Combo: Person (2) who isn't easily offended. Person (4) who doesn't purposefully offend.
Outcome: Person (2) and Person (4) get by with virtually no ill feelings.

Despite using this method to try to understand most things in life, this seems way too logical and isn't how things actually go down in the real world. I should instead have a corollary to my first lemma which suggests that personal experiences are emulations of cultural and ethnic identities. I could also assume that people who aren't easily offended can still be offended.

What bothers me, though, is that an utterance without the context nor the intent can still be offensive. However, I know one of the things white people like is to be aware of other cultures and know what words and phrases are not ok to say. Does anyone else see the irony here? We're in this juxtaposition of 'white man feels bad for the bad things other white men did to non-white man so he feels the need to rectify himself by going overboard with being non-offensive and ends up looking like a racist fool.' It's almost as if trying to understand other cultures is racist for white people to do.

So I stopped. A long time ago. (I tried to.)

Instead, I've reflected on my own ethnic heritage. To the passerby, I'm a white guy. Let's be honest. I might appear to be a bit ginger but only a few people acknowledge or notice that. Still, ginger is white. However, I have a strong personal connection to my diverse yet Caucasoid ancestry. So it shouldn't be a surprise that being called "white" would offend me - because of all the white-people stereotypes that I detest. You could say I hate the idea of "white people" and being associated with that idea... in a hipster sort of way.

Maybe something else white people like is hating their own people. But that's certainly not unique to white people.

I've been told I think about this too much. I know and I don't care.

2011-11-21T19:44:00.001-05:00

As some of you know, I recently moved down the street. I now live in a wonderful tchotchke of an Italian neighborhood where I won't feel ashamed flaunting my ceramic Christmas tree (but only as early as Black Friday; none of this celebrating Christmas in October bull).

It is my first time living on my own. It is a small place. But it is big. It is a big deal. My basement is huge. I have a basement. It fits my personality nicely.

This new stage in my life will be a good one. I know it. The depressingly white walls and kitchen cabinets and everything say otherwise. But they can shove it, cause I have plans. Big plans.

-my fridge is royalty

"Weirdest Day Yet" or "What you should know about Zipcars"

2011-05-16T21:06:00.000-04:00

Today was possibly one of the weirdest and most humiliating days of my life. I'm sure there will be more and worse.

Where do I even start?

Today, I had an interview. Honestly, that was the least of my worries. To get to this interview, I needed to drive 20 minutes outside of town.

Problem: My car is in the shop currently. (That's a completely different yet equally annoying experience.)

Solution: Rent a Zipcar for a few hours.

I was a little apprehensive about reserving a Zipcar because I've been in many situations where the person before me doesn't return it on time and I didn't want to be late to the interview. I scheduled the reservation so that it would make up for that if it happened.

Problem: The Zipcar wasn't where it should be when I got there.

Solution: It was in the right spot. I'm retarded.

I was really confused by the fact that there are two Zipcar spots (about a half a block from each other) - one is where I thought the car would be (which I guess used to be a legit spot but no longer is), the other is where the car was.

Problem: Zipcar has a misleading sign at a non-spot.

Solution: They should get the fuck on that.

I am on the phone with Zipcar trying to figure this out and then realize my stupidity. By this time, I am really pressed for time to get to the interview on time.

Problem: I might be late to a goddamn interview.

Solution: Drive fast enough to get there exactly on the nose and end up waiting for the interviewer. WIN.

So when I got to the interview, I discovered it was in two parts; the first was a group interview explaining the details and requirements of the position to us, the second was an individual chat about our interest in the position.

Problem: I am not an entrepreneur and hardly know what they do and probably don't have a lot of interest, but for some reason decided that they wanted to consider me for an interview.

Solution: Take intense mental notes during the group interview and think of awesome ways I can argue that I have certain qualities they are looking for and advertise that I am willing to put everything into the job.

Problem: I felt incredibly out of place and at one point even mildly insulted. The interviewer was clearly uninterested in my achievements and qualities.

Solution: Rise above it. It's not worth it.

So I left the building with his card and a request from the guy to call him tomorrow saying whether I am worth another interview. I'm going to say that it's not the right fit. This is a rare case where I would rather quit than be rejected and further humiliated.

Walking toward my Zipcar, I retrieve my wallet and realize that my Zipcard (which unlocks the vehicle) is not there. Fuck.

Problem: I am indefinitely locked out of the Zipcar.

Problem: My reservation ends in about an hour.

Problem: I am 20-30 minutes away from the original Zipcar location thus I'm short on time.

Problem: My phone is in the car.

Problem: My apartment keys are in the car.

Solution: Freak the fuck out... then...

Solution: Walk several miles (in my formal attire) in search of:

1) A place where I can get change so that I can use...

2) A pay phone to call Zipcar so they can unlock the car.

Getting change could not have been easier. I was outside the post office asking someone where the nearest pay phone was and they said "I don't know. I'm not from here. Maybe you could check that laundromat." Brilliant. I was able to get change without the awkward "Oh hey, can I have change. No, I don't want to buy a sandwich." Alas, there was no pay phone at the laundromat.

Luckily, there was a store that didn't have a pay phone but offered for me to use their phone. So I call Zipcar.

Problem: In order for Zipcar to unlock my car, they need my Zipcard number. I didn't memorize that.

Solution?: I notice my Zipcard is in the car but...

Problem: It is face down so I can't read the number on it.

Solution: Call someone who can look up the number for me. (Or, less likely, find a computer with internet access. This is Oakmont, folks.)

Just as I go to call someone, I notice that I am behind the counter being awkward while there are customers looking at me strangely. I decide that I will instead keep searching for a pay phone and come back as a last resort.

So I continue my quest. Imagine me wearing a suit sans jacket carrying a black folder like I'm selling something walking around Oakmont, PA (which is, nothing against it, a small yet charming town in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere) asking every person in sight if they knew where a pay phone was - or for that matter WHAT a pay phone was. To the average person, it looked like I was selling something. (Perhaps I would be an awesome entrepreneur.)

One woman in Walgreen's commented that those are basically obsolete. Thanks ma'am. That's very helpful. A woman - who worked at one of the handful of gas stations I scavenged - seemed to know the location of every pay phone within a mile that existed in the past 25 years. I was impressed until she told me that "they" removed all of them recently. Uh huh. Regardless, there were no pay phones. Anywhere.

Then, finally, after having walked several miles, I find a pay phone! Meanwhile, my reservation is definitely up. I try calling someone who can help me look up my Zipcard number. The only numbers I know off hand are family (i.e. long distance). Pay phones - at least this one - don't allow long distance calls unless you're calling collect. So my mother, not thrilled, accepts a collect call from her troubled son. Just when she is about to help me out by giving me the information...

Problem: The pay phone starts cutting out and eventually, we are disconnected.

Solution: There is none. (Try again? Not so much.)

So I decide that I will give in to my awkward tendencies and return to the store where the nice lady let me use her phone. Mae's Hallmark Cards if anyone is wondering. I highly recommend them for... anything. Sadly, she doesn't let me make a long-distance phone call because she's unsure of how much it would cost. I offered to give her money but didn't know how much to charge me. As an alternative, I just called the local police to come and break into the Zipcar. Hilarious. So I thank the kind lady and GTFO to stand by the car. (I offered to buy her a Thank You card from her own store but she refused. How ironic.)

The police arrive and begin their attempt to break into my car.

Problem: Breaking into a Zipcar is possibly one of the most difficult things to do in the world.

Zipcars are nice in that they are super secure. Most of the mechanisms of the car shut off as a safety feature - including the power locks. So I'm watching the policeman pushing the power lock button inside the door and nothing is happening. That really sucks for children who are left in the vehicle and forgotten by their parents. It also sucks for me.

Problem: Oakmont's finest are unable to break into my car at the moment.

As a result of this failed attempt, the policeman offers me to make some calls on his cell phone. How nice! I can easily call anyone. Long distance even! I get a hold of my father who was, before I called, seconds from being on his way to Pittsburgh to come save me. Not necessary. Also, wow. Just when I'm about to finally obtain my Zipcar number...

Solution: The police successfully break into the car by accidentally breaking off the zip-lined key that hangs below the steering wheel and snatching it out. Skillz.

The policeman says I should buy him a donut. I laugh and think he's serious. He's not. Oh well.

So I'm in the car and I call Zipcar using my phone letting them know what's up and they finally let me start the car. (Yeah, there's a weird feature where if the car isn't unlocked using the Zipcard, the engine won't start. I know.) I return the car and finally come in for a landing in North Oakland and call it a day.

I wish I could call it something else, but I guess that's all it was.

All For One and One For All... or something like that?

2011-01-01T22:53:00.001-05:00

Lately, I've had an interest in researching social networking statistics pertaining to how many friends the "average" person has. According to Facebook, that number is 120. According to various social scientists (and don't ask me to cite this), that number is closer to 3. I was going to perhaps talk about why these numbers are so different, but I think most people could figure out the difference between the many types of friends and acquaintances. Instead, I've decided to briefly reflect on my year of friendships. Caution: You are now entering my social world.

There is the friend who went through many of the same experiences as me. In fact, this could be most of my friends. Besides, friends need to have something in common, right? But this person has not only helped me to find these similarities in my fellow man, but also to confide in these cognitive explorations over tea at random hours of the day and random days of the week. This person is one of my primary confidants and really knows how to brew a steamy conversation about philosophy, politics, art, and personal identity. This person also really likes soft, fuzzy blankets. And I like that about them.

There is the friend who serves as a role model - an image of what I'd like to become. This person has taught me a lot about what I would learn later would be my primary interests in life. I have also learned from this friend the unique value of acquaintances and all of the awkward moments that come with them. We have had some of the deepest intellectual conversations that I've had ever - and even at ungodly hours of the day. I partially obtain my personal style from this person; the key to individuality is in what pair of socks you're wearing.

There is the friend who knows basically everything about me - even the grimy details. This person is, naturally, one of my main confidants. This person loves to learn and travel and has acceptably high aspirations of wanting to life their life to the fullest and make something of their time here on Earth. This person has shared expeditious adventures with me where we discovered fascinating things about the world and ourselves. There are times when we have been annoyed with each other and times when we would do anything for each other. This person has taught me the value of taking risks.

There is the friend who is "with-you-and-in-it-for-the-win". This person is very intelligent and has walked down many of the same paths as me. This person is the definition of kindness and composure for me. They have also been incredibly patient with me and they have restored (somewhat) my faith in humanity. This person also has one of the best laughs ever.

There is the friend who has been my ultimate source of wisdom. In nearly every case where there is a difficult decision for me to make, I heed the advice of this friend. Perhaps it might be best to make my own decisions, but somehow I think they like hearing my problems. It works out really well, even when they say things that I don't want to hear. But this person has taught me to take criticism much better than I used to by being more critical myself.

There is the friend who, despite having known them for only a short while, has become my ultimate confidant - my go-to person whenever I have something I need to get out. They know absolutely everything there is to know about me. And in return, they confide in me their personal thoughts. They have taught me an incredible amount about myself through their own experiences. This person is probably the most welcoming and forgiving person I know. This is the friend who, despite being far away, has been such a friend that I feel they haven't left. There are many a visit planned for the near future involving gay robots and dinosaurs or any combination thereof.

Then there is the friend who has given me the greatest gift. I have learned more about myself, others, the world, and everything from this person than from anyone else I've met in my life. This person has truly taught me to look within myself and rediscover much of what I understand about life - my life. This person and I have shared some of the best moments of my life that I will never forget. This person is compassionate, generous, intelligent, and artistic. This person is an inspiration. This person is everything. That greatest gift I mentioned earlier? It is a four-letter word, but so much more than that.

Even though some of these friends come and go, my memories of them will always be with me. The best friends must part. And I believe that if there is anything that I learned (and didn't just read and agree with) is that it is definitely better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. If there is anything I believe in this world, it is that.

Happy New Year.

One year in 120 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.

We are made of People!

2010-08-04T20:06:00.005-04:00

You know how they say, "he has his father's nose," or "she has her mother's blue eyes?" Think that, but instead of physical traits, think personality traits. OK, not much different. Now switch it from nuclear relatives to friends and acquaintances. Now you have an interesting story.

I'd like to say a little bit about how I believe I am made up. Throughout my childhood my family has moved a lot. Because of this, I've lived in and experienced many different environments and I've met many different types of people. Strangely enough, I've befriended all sorts of people. And I've also learned to dislike all sorts of people. However, something I noticed is that much of who I am comes from everyone else. In a way, my personality traits are a mash-up of the personality traits of everyone I've met and become acquainted with in my life. Most importantly, my parents and brother are a big part of that. Then again, this should be pretty obvious.

Many psychological studies have supported the idea of "emergentism." By "emergentism" I am, in fact, referring to the psycholinguistic theory pertaining to the onset of language in early human development. The idea is essentially that children don't necessarily come out of the womb with innate qualities that make them automatically capable of all the faculties of language. Instead, it argues that infants are linguistically deprived and as a result learn everything they know from what they perceive (including grammar, vocabulary, and even register).

Anyway, enough of my linguistic rant (because I had to), but this is the same idea with which I'm trying to make a connection to personalities. Like language is learned from whomever is around the deprived stimulus, just the same, personalities are complex mixtures of the personalities that we encounter throughout our lives. Whether there is a certain "critical period" when we stop absorbing linguistic traits or personality traits is still a huge debate and we may never know the answer.

However, this is really quite the paradox. If the language/personality of an individual is a combination of everyone else's, then you can't simply argue that humans are born with a blank slate. And if they are, not only is that truly a phenomenon in itself, but it also means that the very essence of human nature stems from literally nothing but what we experience in our natural environment. Even then, we require tools to analyze and synthesize these experiences uniquely to create our own identity. Perhaps this is what the earliest humans went through. Perhaps our understanding of the world and our complex personalities are made up of the simple knowledge, discoveries, and qualities of the earliest peoples. Perhaps I've proven human evolution philosophically.

Perhaps I was wrong that you can't simply argue that humans are born with a blank slate, but that it is possible. Perhaps it is possible that humans are born with preprogrammed personality beta-types that, when tampered with, expand into a mature and interesting person (usually).

Well, we do know one thing for sure: Chomsky was wrong. We are not robots.

This strangely reminds me of that year I dressed up as a television for Halloween.

Photo credit: http://www.halloweencostumes.com

Found by Losing

2010-08-03T21:35:00.000-04:00

This summer has a theme.

Cliché Alert: The past few months have taught me several things about myself. They have also taught me many things about not myself. This summer has been filled with travels, getting lost, and finding myself. Actually, every time I went anywhere I somehow got lost. Though, every time I got lost I somehow quickly found my way. The only thing about this lame truth that makes it different from any other time is that I was on my own. So in a way, it was very lonely, free, and open-ended.

In fact, this entire summer has been unwritten. I like to think that if a story is written it must have a happy ending. Well, this summer wasn't a story, but it was life. It is unwritten.

I'm really sad right now. I'm sad that I've made the best of friends during my time in Pittsburgh summer. I'm sad that I have to see them leave. I'm sad that leaving Pittsburgh makes me homesick. I'm even remotely sad that I have an incredible amount of freedom. Yes, the independence makes me sad (in almost the same way that mudslides in China make me sad).

I have been lost. I have made wrong turns. I have discovered dangerous areas. I have been confused. I have continued to juggle with my emotions. I have beaten my own drum. I have lost myself in places I'd rather not be. I have lost myself.

I'm looking forward to being happy soon. I'm happy that I am moving soon. I'm happy that my new place will be filled with the generous amount of free furniture that is beginning to make my bedroom difficult to walk through. I'm happy that I have really good friends who are staying at least for a while. I'm happy that, in turn, I will be staying for a while. I'm happy that classes will be starting soon so that I can get back into a routine. I'm happy that many people who were far away won't be. I'm happy that I have a plan. Plans make me happy.

In all this, I find myself. I transform wrong turns into adventures that lead to home. I experience dangerous areas so that I can grow stronger. I feel confusion so that I can try to make sense of it for myself. I practice juggling so that I won't fall. I have my own beat, but it's part of a beautiful symphony. I learn from uncomfortable experiences and people. (This doesn't always mean I apply those lessons.) I find myself. Little by little.

August is usually my month to shine. This one is especially special. Though I usually play some metaphorical game of hide-and-seek, this time, this year, it was with myself. And this time I am winning. Hopefully I will.

*crosses fingers*

It is found by losing.

Photo credit: http://www.zastavki.com/

Found by Losing: A Corollary

2010-07-30T17:38:00.002-04:00

I'm moving to a new apartment next month (maybe one that is bigger on the inside than on the outside... one could only hope) and there is one item I am lacking - a dinner table. And I've been looking around, shopping for a table that would be right and won't break the bank, when suddenly...

I got an idea!

So this summer has been relatively boring so far (compared to the previous, ultra stressful school year) and I always find myself with very little to do and I end up wasting my time doing stupid things - like, well, nothing at all. That's pretty stupid, right? And instead of wasting my time shopping for a table I was never going to buy, I decided to make a plan - a plan to design and build my very own dinner table from scratch. (I like plans.)

Just one more thing to get lost in before discovering that the final resolution is greater than the sum of its parts.

Inside (literally) The Book

2010-07-10T16:51:00.010-04:00

As part of the curriculum for the MLIS program at Pitt, we are required to prepare discussion of a book for orientation. The title of this book is Everything is Miscellaneous. The book itself is written in a Saganite tone except that it's not quite as thought provoking as the universe. However, some of the points it makes about information are good to think about.

Just in the first chapter, it discusses how iTunes has revolutionized the organization of music sales by making everything miscellaneous and allowing the users to decide what are the most popular/downloaded items; more explicitly, focusing more on the track rather than the album. Having read and understood this I seemed to agree with their argument that before online music stores, music sales were all about the economic benefits of the album. Without going into all of the consequences of this within the music industry (i.e. artists' recording habits, singles vs. albums) I thought about how ground-breaking this was for the information age. Now, I'm honestly not a big fan of Apple being a corporate, manipulative giant, but they seem to have grabbed a corner on the market.

Likewise, Google Books has increasingly become the top choice to find printed content of many professionals. However, this is still very much in codex format. There are still pages with a limited amount of text on them. Yes, eBooks have certainly influenced booksellers and readers alike, but what about the apparently everlasting novelty (no pun intended) of the printed book? If we make the argument that many people enjoy holding a tangible object or the smell of old or new books, we can always counter that with eReaders and scratch'n'sniff stickers or the fact that - let's be honest - the majority of readers prefer electronic media. It is easily accessible to those who are tech savvy enough to at least use a word processor.

Where am I going with this? Well, my immediate thought was an analogy between albums and books. Of course, these are very different types of content with different purposes, and information architecture should - I believe - always be aware of the type of information it is grouping together, but I've found - at least in academic settings - that there is more of a focus on the author or a specific article. This is actually somewhat like the microsizing of weblogs (Twitter) only it focuses more on a specific topic as part of a bigger picture whereas tracks of an album don't necessarily have to relate to one another. There is a bit more codependency as far as books go - especially if it's a chronicle. However, not all books are like this. And I feel that breaking down and re-synthesizing these types into new media would be beneficial for the content and more accessible to the reader/researcher. This should be considered in any digitization process.

In the future, I imagine a world where all literature and knowledge (printed or otherwise) is easily and readily accessible to everyone. For free would be nice, too.

Photo credit: http://www.bbc.co.uk

The Phono-semantic Bias: A Subjectivity in Linguistics

2010-07-03T16:49:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, I was reading a few example abstracts on the website for the Linguistic Society of America. The reason why I was there is because I was considering submitting one for their upcoming conference in Pittsburgh. Despite all of the examples having obvious counter-arguments, there was one that made me literally chuckle. This one. At least it was good until the end - when they started talking about "glorping." It got me thinking. Why do I think this is so hilarious? Well, "glorping" sounds like a pretty funny word to me, but it wasn't that. It was the fact that the researchers were attempting to use it as a neutral, unbiased term for some action being described on a television screen. What action that is, I/we may never know. What action do you think it might be? Well, certainly it's one that can be displayed on a screen. So it's a tangible, physical, noticeable action.

Using English language conventions, we can extract a base word "glorp" which is undeniably the source of hilarity - at least for me. To me, "glorp" makes an interesting sound when I say it. It makes me want to think that "glorp" is some sort of onomatopoeia. It almost seems like a clumsy word. Maybe it's similar to "stumble" but flailingly. Or maybe it has something to do with speed - being slow sounding. If I heard that someone was glorping, I wouldn't assume they were moving very quickly. Or maybe it has something to do with some sort of awkward, alien-like march in which the participant makes an official "glorping" march noise on each step. It could be - and very well might be - the fact that it's not even a real word that makes it all the more entertaining and silly. Regardless, I wouldn't expect to hear this word in the context of writing a TPS report, in giving an official declaration or speech, and certainly wouldn't expect to hear it as part of a compliment. Why?

Well, in doing a bit of dictionary (including Scrabble) research, I was able to find a few words with similar sounds in them: namely the [orp] sound. I will assume all related words (i.e. torpid, torpor) and not include obsolete words.

gorp: a mixture of dried fruit and nuts, often with seeds and other high-calorie foods such as chocolate, eaten as a snack food, originally by walkers and campers. (OED)

torpid: benumbed; deprived or devoid of the power of motion or feeling; in which activity, animation, or development is suspended; dormant. (OED)

dorper: a prevalent and flourishing breed of sheep primary used for meat; some have black heads. (Wikipedia)

corpus: from Latin; a technical term referring to the "body"; used in various professional fields including law, medicine, writing, language, and the arts (Wikipedia)

dorp: a (Dutch) village; formerly more or less naturalized in sense: Village, THORP. In South Africa, a small town. (OED)

So far, we have one word that slightly matches my instincts: torpid. Nonethesless, none of them are verbs like "glorp." However, to be completely honest, I don't use "torpid" in daily conversation and had to be reminded of its existence while searching. So this word barely influenced my judgments regarding the word "glorp." Maybe it's the other half of the word that makes a difference: the [gl] sound. I will, however, refrain from listing all of the words I find as there are evidently hundreds. In fact, I will only list words which come to mind (seeing as this is obviously very subjective).

glop: obsolete; to swallow greedily (OED)

gloop: can be a wide variety of things (thanks to Urban Dictionary... goes and pukes)

glue: the sticky stuff

So now that I have a series of grotesque images floating around in my mind, I'm going to stop searching and just make my point. It seems that the actual phoneme segments in the fake word, "glorp," do NOT directly influence its assumed meaning. Instead, I hypothesize that there is a much more complex explanation to this phenomena (and I do believe there is one).

I hypothesize two separate conclusions:

(1) Intuitive Hypothesis: It is the combination of an uncommon sound of English with another sound or group of sounds which create a sort of "bigger picture" for the meaning of the fake word. By "bigger picture" I mean there is a completely fabricated definition which is influenced by the unique combination of sounds and some sort of psychological analysis.

(2) Non-intuitive Hypothesis: There is a word association using the words outside the perceiver's known vocabulary that combines many different similar words together so intricately that it is difficult, if not impossible, to decipher any or all of them. (Unlikely, but possible)

So I was wondering: Is it worth it to explore this further? Would anyone like to join me? Should I submit an abstract to the LSA for their conference in January?

I would actually be surprised if anyone read this let alone responded to it.

Are you really sorry?

2010-06-09T19:05:00.007-04:00

Dear [insert financial institution],

Now that I've graduated from college, I have a new-found freedom to express my opinions... about a ton of shit. Lately, I've been really annoyed by people who use the word "sorry" and just don't mean it. How can someone tell if they don't mean it? It's hard to say, but I'm going to try to make sense of it in this letter.

When I was a child, I always got in trouble with my parents; not doing the laundry, not picking up after myself, speaking out against them. Either way, I was usually punished despite me saying that I was sorry. My mother always told me that I didn't even know what the word meant. And now I realize I, indeed, had no idea what it meant when I was a kid. It's probably because I understand it a little better now. Regardless, as I learned more about this disyllabic utterance, I continued to misbehave and use it - correctly or incorrectly - even though the outcome was still the same. It might get to the point where using the word "sorry" would anger my parents even more.

Then I got it. I stopped using it.

What I learned from it was rather simple. No one really cares whether I'm sorry or not. What matters is that I did something wrong. And if I were really "sorry" I just wouldn't do it again. So using the word is only a courtesy and it's empty in meaning. It might as well not exist. Something I learned about myself as part of this lesson was that, when I stopped using "sorry," I began to do it consciously. Literally, making myself not say it with the hope of getting out of some trouble for using it. This, surprisingly, made me feel less regret. Not really along the line of spite, but rather it made me realize that I have way more control over what I do. Yes, I could have prevented it, but I didn't. And the reason for why I didn't became painfully clear to me. This is what made me reexamine the true meaning of "sorry." It's not about feeling regret. It's about realizing the control to fix it and prevent it. And yes, I suppose it's definitely OK to revel in your misbehavior. It feels good for a while and if you're being punished for it, who cares? No one is going to care. You messed up? Have a drink or two. Watch ten episodes of your favorite show. Eat a cake. Use certain people's faces as a dart board. (Low funds option: Do a little dance then run in the streets naked at 3 in the morning.) Just don't say you're bloody sorry. No one is going to care. I certainly won't.

To be sorry is to be a sad excuse for a human being. Think about it that way. So, Ms. Bank Teller, when you tell me you're sorry and that you've been there and you understand and that I'm not the only one, remember this. I don't give a damn whether I'm not the only one with my problems, maybe you've been there but I'm sure you have less at stake, you certainly don't understand because I'm smarter than you, and I really don't give a bloody rat's ass if you're sorry. Because I know you're not. When you say you're sorry, you're saying that you're a sad excuse for a human being.

Thank you and have a nice, sorry-free day.

Bitch.
For those of you who, instead, have a difficult time saying sorry, this article is not for you. Instead, if you're into Jesus, you should read this. Otherwise, I recommend to all my readers that all language should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm a linguist. Trust me.

Photo credits: http://nataliedee.com, http://gadgets.boingboing.net

Redefining the Sexuality Spectrum

2010-03-24T08:35:00.012-04:00

Today, I'm going to write about something I don't think I've ever publicly discussed much - sexuality. It's a first for me so bear with me. Anyway, the topic is sexuality and the ways people measure it. Key word: "measure". More on that later.

So before I share the thoughts that I've had recently about rethinking the ideas of sexuality, I should probably say what already exists to measure sexuality. Well, for starters, there was the tertiary system (gay/lesbian, bi, straight). All fine and good. What about more complex gender identities? Well that was fixed when we added 'T' to 'GBLT'. At this point, we have a quarternary system where 'T' is kind of an other category. In fact, adding letters to this acronym (or whatever you want to call it) represents including more people into this quartnerary system rather than adding more dimensions. So in reality, there doesn't seem to be a clear understanding of "the rest" of the letters.

Another proposal that was introduced was the Kinsey scale. This was a simple two-dimensional scale to measure what a person is attracted to (men, women, or something in between). This was rather revolutionary because it showed that more people are "in between" than we imagined. Not all straight people have scores of 0 and not all gay/lesbian people have scores of 6. So, naturally, the "in between" people were informally declared bisexual, declaring that most of humanity was somehow bisexual. Very valid point! What's wrong with this? It still lumps a bunch of different people into a single category. Though profound, saying that almost everyone is a "version" of bisexual doesn't really help anyone - especially when we clearly don't understand what bisexual really means. (For a better discussion of bisexuality, visit this blog.) It's true. We may think that bisexuality is defined by one person who is attracted to both men and women, but even then we run into trouble. We get the questions like: "So would you marry gay or straight?" "What are you attracted to most?" "If bisexual isn't just 'gay + straight' in varying degrees, then are you pan-sexual or something?" "What are you attracted to? What aren't you attracted to?"

Here is something that I thought up that might help with these issues. It also might do the exact opposite, but I'm willing to at least share what I have. And if someone likes it, I've helped one person.

I propose a scale for both sexuality and gender simultaneously; a scale that isn't two-dimensional and distinguishes individuals with a single letter and explores similarity among the different letters. So on the sexuality scale, one would assess which sex(es) they are physically attracted to AND would assess their own sexual identity (sex in both cases meaning anatomy). Then on the gender scale, one would [similarly] assess which gender(s) they are physically attracted to (mental-sex extroversion) AND would assess their own gender identity (mental-sex introversion). When I say "mental-sex" I mean to say the sexual personality that the person either displays to their environment (extroversion) or what they identify with (introversion). The important thing to understand about these scales is that any scale can be ignored because it is not a factor in physical attractiveness. So if someone doesn't factor in one or more parts of the gender scale, they are saying that they don't care or think about that when assessing physical attractiveness.

To better understand this scale, let's look at a few [fake] case studies:

Name: Sam Smith

Sexual identity: Male

Sex attraction: Female, Male

Gender identity: Feminine

Gender attraction: Masculine

Name: Gene Gildeschter

Sexual identity: Female

Sex attraction: Male, (Female)

Gender identity: Feminine, (Masculine)

Gender attraction: Masculine

Name: Leslie Lane

Sexual identity: Female+

Sex attraction: Female+, +Male, Male, +FM+, +Female, Male+, Female, +MF+

Gender identity: Masculine, Feminine, Third, Elvis "Leslie" Presley

Gender attraction: Masculine, Third, 2-Spirit, Feminine

If you're confused already, good. You're supposed to be. Here are some notational uses that I used which might explain a few things:

For sexuality, I only use variations of Male and Female:

Male: has male anatomy

Female: has female anatomy

Male+: mostly Male, transitioning from

Female+: mostly Female, transitioning from

+Male: mostly Male, transitioning to

+Female: mostly Female, transitioning to

+MF+: intersex, transitioning MTF

+FM+: intersex, transitioning FTM

For the gender scale I use a range of values:

Masculine: rugged, typical of the male stereotype

Feminine: curvy, typical of the female stereotype

2-Spirit: both rugged and curvy, both stereotypes

Third: neither rugged nor curvy, neither stereotype

Self-defined: emanating a certain personality (e.g. Elvis Presley)

You may have noticed that there is also a set of parentheses. This denotes any sub- or alter-identity. This can be used anywhere on the scale. I should mention that though the parenthesis can be used in the "Sexual identity" field, it wouldn't make sense to have more than one sexual identity without parenthesis. This is because, generally, people are born as one sex or the other. Even if they are born with both, there are only variations of two sexes. That's just how biology works (X and Y chromosomes). Nonetheless, biological sex is often disregarded when considering physical attraction - and especially when regarding gender identity.

It should also be noted that each field entry is ordered by preference of the individual. So, for example, Sam prefers women over men but is physically attracted to both. Meanwhile, Leslie prefers masculine identities over feminine and 2-spirited identities but is physically attracted to all of them.

There is also an arrangement of preferred field. So the individual can choose to place gender attraction in an hierarchy with sex attraction, and gender identity with sexual identity just the same. (I did not order the fields in the above [fake] cases.)

It should also be noted that this is only a scale of physical attraction and is subjectively arranged by the individual. It is not a scale of measuring what someone is personally attracted to. For example, someone might be attracted to a certain physical structure that is sexually ambiguous, or to an activity that has nothing to do with a person's sex or gender.

What's in a Tweet?

2010-03-06T00:50:00.021-05:00

Would an @-reply by any name smell as sweet?

For those of you who know, one of my graduation requirements is to write a senior thesis. I am performing research about the usage of Twitter with respect to it's genres and registers. Meanwhile, when choosing my dataset, I considered the components that make a tweet effective and viral. So, I am asking "what's in a tweet?" Seeing as how I constantly run into the point in a conversation where someone says, "I hate Twitter" or "Isn't that just a bunch of status updates?" I would like to present Twitter in a way that Twitter fails to do explicitly. And to do so, I need to point out that, because it is so primitive, Twitter is not defined by it's interface, but by how it is used. So, let's start with the basics.

What can [read: do] people do on Twitter?

Tweet: Well, duh. Named the Word of 2009 by the American Dialect Society, the tweet is the essence of Twitter. If I have to describe in 140 characters what a tweet is, I would say the following; "A tweet is more complex than can be assumably understood. There's no way I can describe it in 140 characters. Something about Netspeak. LOL." There are some key words that I think I should explain. Because, let's face it, 140 characters really isn't enough to describe Twitter.

1) public - At first this seems like a really uninteresting word. But if you consider that text messages are around $.10 a message, then you might start to realize the significance of free mass communication. Still sound too much like [free] spam? Though complimentary meat-in-a-can is certainly hard to pass up, there is more. Not only do followers see this message, but anyone who visits their page can also see it (assuming their profile isn't locked). That's essentially how people gain followers and eventually credibility.

2) broadcast - This is where the idea of mass communication comes in. Because tweets are public, they can essentially be broadcast to all of the Internet - more directly to all of one's followers. So what is significant about broadcasting? Content. (Think about news stations.) Whenever I have to speak to a crowd I constantly think about this one element. What I say to my followers has to be relevant, concise, and accurate in order for them to maintain interest and to influence others to follow me. Many will argue that there are tons of tweets out there that do none of these things. I totally agree. But those people either cater to a different audience or they just don't know how to use Twitter effectively. My good friend, Mattt, said it best. Chances are, if someone tweets something that you don't understand or find irrelevant, it wasn't meant for you. In the same vein, there's a reason why everyone doesn't follow everyone. That would just be silly. Followers choose who they follow based on content, genre, and register. And [effective] Twitter users constantly have their followers in mind when composing a new tweet - whether they like to admit it or not.

3) followers - I keep mentioning this word. What's up with all this following business anyway? Well I'll get to that. Be patient.

4) 140 characters - This is something I'm still trying to fully understand. But I think it has to do with the human attention span. If you ask someone whether they would rather read a best-selling novel or an amusing text message, you would probably find that most people would read the text message and go as far as glance at the cover of said book. They might read the back of the book, but even then, it's a shortened version of the full text. Humans are apparently not hard-wired to read large texts or for long periods of time - at least not in their current evolutionary stage. Also, short messages are much easier to remember and recall than a novel. There's also a unique difference between either genre-type that I like to call "idea-mass" which is essentially the quantity of thoughts in an utterance. In a book there are hundreds maybe thousands of ideas; in a tweet, maybe two or three. Though they usually all go together somehow. If they don't it's probably an ineffective tweet or won't obtain a captive audience. Either way, it's so much easier and more enjoyable to absorb one or two ideas than a cryptic bible of them.

5) links and mentions - Links are portals to worlds beyond 140 characters. And in these lands there are fewer limits, longer texts, and multimodal dimensions for those who like to actually read (or for those who don't). Mentions do just that with people. They provide an opportunity to see who you are tweeting about by giving a link to their Twitter profile and their most recent set of tweets. Not to mention (no pun intended) when using this structure, the person mentioned also gets a little nudge about the mention, depending on their client. (Clients have their own completely different story to tell.) There are also different types of "mentions." There's the reply mention that sends a public message to that user in reply to something they tweeted. There's the tweet that merely mentions the user's handle to refer to them publicly. Then there's the debatable third type which is public but not clearly a replied or directed message or a broadcast giving a shout out. The perfect example of this is the retweet. (That's a whole topic on it's own. No really, keep reading!) Then, of course, people use multiple mentions of different types within the same tweet.

Retweet: This has a history. It all started with the simple RT syntax which usually precedes the user's handle with their original message (though their handle sometimes goes at the end depending on the client). Some people retweet this way with their own short commentary at the beginning. This commentary could be anything from an addendum to a straight reply to the original author. Either way, the comment is public and often adding commentary makes a retweet more interesting and/or unique. Then, in November of 2009, the new retweet was set loose. Now all you have to do is click a button and the tweet would be "echoed," preserving the original author's message in it's entirety and their icon. Personally, I think this new feature has a much different connotation than the older version. In a way, it is less selective because the user is unable to alter or add anything. But on the other hand, the old retweet still exists. One might re-coin the old retweet as a "quote" or a "reference" or even a "call-out." With this new retweet, the retweeter is further removed from the message and misuse and spamming become potentially more common. Nonetheless, there are several different purposes of the retweet: quoting, referencing, calling someone out, or echoing what someone tweeted; there are almost certainly others.

Direct Message: If you recognize [and ever used] "DM" then you're probably with me in saying that direct messages are pretty specialized. For one, they're private. So it has to be either unworthy of or too personal for a public audience. They are also limited to a conversation between only two users. And to use this feature most users utilize special client mechanisms or the website itself.

Follow: This is pretty straight forward. Users can follow what other users tweet. This might be because they are interested in what they have to say or in what they represent. Either way something about them brings the user to click the "follow" button. It's probably important to note that following is not equivalent to friending. Friending implies that you both know each other (this is cyberspace so that's the only requirement for cyber friendship). But for following, the target user may not even know you exist or that you are following them. Follow is to Twitter as subscribe is to the blogosphere. And it's not uncommon for users to have personal "unfollow" sessions where they sit down and determine who is still worth reading and who is now considered spam. (I should know. I just lost three followers the other day.) Ironically, I find it more socially acceptable to unfollow someone than to unfriend them on Facebook. This might be evidence to suggest that Twitter is less of a social network and more of a reader's network or an amateur publisher's network.

In the context of following, there's something I like to call "Twitter affluence" which is reflected, most explicitly, by the ratio of followers to following; The higher the ratio, the more viral the user appears to be. It can also be explicitly reflected by the amount of retweets that person obtains. This idea of affluence is also greatly dependent on a balance between personality and product. Is the Twitter user more interested about telling their followers about their life by the minute? Or are they trying to sell their personality and experiences as a literary product? If you haven't guessed already, one of the main arguments in my thesis is that there is a distinction between public communication and personal broadcast; the former being quasi-standard communication (and often illocution), the latter being the unique adaptation of interesting thoughts in relation to the user's environment and experiences which is also relevant to their audience.

So maybe Twitter really isn't just 140 character updates of someone's mundane activities. Maybe there's a little more than that inside the tweet.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/powerpig

Lexiconhance

2010-01-30T05:29:00.009-05:00

Lately, it has been easy for me to understand words. And to that, I owe a few regards to my Speech class in the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon. Say nothing about it being a mere acting class. It's much more than that. It's a class on understanding how to communicate an idea - maybe not your own, but an idea nonetheless. In a way, it is a picnic stop on the path to self understanding. (For more about that [self understanding] see my previous post - or, better yet, just simply assume we know nothing about anything about ourselves.) And at this meadow meal, there is a theme song underscoring that has absolute meaning for the moment and none for the next; so, in a way, the music knows us better than we do - especially when it means the most.

What is it in a lyric that makes our hearts sing? There are a bunch of letters on a page, or sounds in the air. But, there's more; the way the singer uses the words with their voices to communicate some phenomenal bit of pragmatism and sentient thought. In a moment, a single word can tell the story of human history or of love. And then the Earth purges it all and starts from nothing again, repeating the bittersweet cycle of this vicious art until finally there is nothing left to purge and meaning is lost. But really, it's not lost; it's just dormant, waiting for the end.

Words are like songs in themselves; symphonies for the classically inclined. They have phases and movements and stories and peaks and valleys and empty oceans and seas of thought. But, like every song or symphony, if you listen to it over and over again, it becomes (or seems to become) shorter and then simpler and then less meaningful and eventually - when all the instruments sink into the stage - just sound. Or at least that's how I see it at this particular moment.

Photo credit: http://www.segisramirez.com/

The Mind is Not a Residence

2009-09-20T13:30:00.008-04:00

Lately, I've been very interested in what people have been thinking - just in general. It's amazing to me that someone can be thinking so many thoughts and yet not share any of them; amazing in the senses of both awe and perturbation. The brain is so minuscule. Thoughts are so immense.

What really do people think about all the time? People you know. People you don't know. People you may have said one word to. People you hate. People you love. I recognize that there is an entire field devoted to the understanding of essentially what I am asking. But if I have learned anything about life, I know that there is almost always an exception to the tendencies. And as much as I admire psychology and its applications, it just seems so shallow - shallow like a deep puddle. Whereas, I believe the mind is an abyss of memories, thoughts and computations. And to really know the mind means to know the person and apparently the world. But much easier said than done. Many people have a hard time simply understanding what their own identity is. Just take a look at one of our own better attempts at this idea:

Know Thyself

by Alexander Pope

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast,
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such
Whether he thinks too little or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Among all the literature I found regarding "knowing thyself" much of it alluded somehow to God. This I find ironic since apparently about God we know so much. But the truth is that we really know squat and want to think we do. My point then is that explaining how one "knows thyself" in terms of how/what God even is or represents is like trying to hike the Grand Canyon while having your legs tied together... and blindfolded. However, Pope does come to the honest conclusion that this task is "the riddle of the world." Alright, so that didn't go over so well, did it. Moving on.

The fascinating part about the mind is that not only is there so much inside to be understood, but it can also be expressed in so many different ways - through simply thinking, talking to oneself, talking to someone else, writing things down, drawing an image, making a gesture, forming an art (and I know I'm leaving plenty out).

Here's another interesting thing to note. It is that the more you open a mind, the larger it seems. It's the same idea with mouths or caves. And sometimes there are times when you're inside a mind, mouth, or cave and you find another tunnel that leads to another new place; kind of like seeking untreaded and uncharted lands. And sometimes these lands are vaguely familiar in a way - like somehow we've been here before, in a dream perhaps. I think that in an alternate reality where thoughts are tangible, dreams alone would positively drown us all with even greater alternate realities.

So I suppose in a way the mind is a vessel. It is its own vessel traversing itself and the journey is never over.

Though I feel Socrates said it best: "I know that I know nothing."

Photo credit: Sebastian Kaulitzki, http://www.dreamstime.com/

Blogging in Twilight

2009-08-22T05:11:00.014-04:00

Twilight: meaning either dawn or dusk, but so much more.

The sun is still hiding over one of Pittsburgh's many hills yet and I'm sure it's more than 18 degrees below the horizon. But I can feel the presence of twilight. It is that time when something is ending but another is beginning. Twilight very much reminds me of the Heap Paradox. Let me explain:

If there are X number of grains in a heap, and if there are X-1 grains in a heap, then there can exist heaps of 30 grains, 10 grains, 3 grains, or even no grains at all. This is because if from a heap I remove one grain and it is still considered a heap, there is no science to determine when, after taking away a certain number of grains, the heap becomes less than a heap - or a non-heap if you will. Thus, quantitatively, we have catastrophe.

So twilight is somewhat like the heap in that, to the naked human eye, it is really quite difficult to scientifically determine the precise beginning and ending of a dawn or a dusk. And I'm not stating this because I simply wanted to use the word "non-heap" in a blog post. But I state this because I feel that it is beauty and the illusion of time which confuse and sedate the internal clock of us all. I mean to refer to the moments when you are so absorbed by one thing that it completely grabs your attention and you essentially lose track of time - literally.

Which brings me to an interesting item: the TARDIS, which defies all of these laws. By thwarting the experience of natural time and space progression, the TARDIS manages to (I think) ~~disrupt~~ realize the precision of time and space.

My point [or rather my proposal]: 1. When humans are in contact with beauty (of course relative to one's own definition), they tend to cherish the moment, savor the senses, and if only for a split second, lose all conception of time and space instantaneously. 2. When time and space are ~~disrupted~~ altered, humans may often lose the ability, if only for a split second, to perceive beauty - truly, to its fullest deserving.

So, suppose if we discontinue thinking about how many grains are in a heap. Would we find beauty in a heap? Or at least more beauty than there was before?

My hypothesis: I think so.

And hopefully, by the time we sort out our thoughts, the twilight has not completely vanished into the workday, and its beauty can be admired for just one more minute.

X+1

Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons

Ode to a Bag of Pretzels

2009-05-19T01:51:00.009-04:00

It is so ridiculously cold in my room right now. For May it has been rather cool in Pittsburgh - almost disturbingly. What concerns me even more is that I'll be heading North in about a week. For the few days I have remaining in the Steel City I've resorted to oddly familiar tactics usually reserved for winter: sleeping under comforters, wearing coats, wrapping myself in fleece, using lip balm [more often], thinking of Alaska, assigning verbal thrashings to heaters that are seasonally incapable, thinking of southern California. Yet, I still manage to obtain a noticeable redness on my face from attending Carnegie Mellon's swell outdoor commencement ceremony. And yes, I was freezing the entire time.

Today I wrote a song.

Synopsis: A woman is followed onto a bus by another more elderly looking woman. About halfway through the younger woman's ride, the nice old lady falls asleep and lands on the younger woman's shoulder. Failing to wake her up, the awake lady soon discovers the shear reality that this woman was not sleeping, but dead.

To say the least the song is pretty morbid - fucked up even. Nevertheless, it seems that I have strengths in composing works that are cognitively and situationally awkward. This will be part of Bus Stop Opera's show this weekend in New York City.

There are still many many things I need to do before I leave Pittsburgh - pack, meet with friends, finish the orchestra parts to the above song, defrost my fridge, hope and pray the professor for one of my classes actually gave me a final grade instead of choosing to secretly be annoyed by me. Regardless, none of that is on my mind anymore; not even the music always playing in the background. In fact, at the moment there doesn't seem to be much at all on my mind. Who to blame, whether it possibly be the time of day, or a lack of sleep, or simply mental exhaustion, I really have no idea. All I know is that I'm leaving a place which, for the past few weeks, I've been eager to escape. This spring semester has allowed me to enjoy virtually no extra-curriculum. It's time, I suppose, as cliché as it may sound, to reteach myself how to live.

1:50 am. A bag of mini pretzels faces me - an ironic reminder of the big things yet to happen.