Loaded love

I guess working in my room just isn't working anymore. I'm in Eaton Computer Lab and already I feel much better about life.

Tonight I'm going to come up with a list of grad schools that I might apply to. Got a few hours.

I'm a little concerned that my work schedule hasn't changed since high school. I always, always, always work better when it's past midnight.

I wonder whether differential geometry could be considered a subset of functional analysis. PROBABLY NOT! I wouldn't know. Both of them would probably be interesting fields to me. Mmm, analysis.

I'm rather tired from the gym, again. Again, what's the point of physical fitness if it doesn't net you any hoes?

YOU'S A HOOOOOOO

I'm so tired. I'm going to bed grad school. Knock on wood. Let's get this going, 自分.

It's Sunday again?

Can we skip Sunday?

Sundays make me feel bad. I almost never do work on them, and yet everyone else spends all day doing work on Sundays. Again, God enforces the Sabbath on me on Sundays. It's just true.

I have something due tomorrow, and I guess I have to do it. Well, I will probably end up finishing it before class from 3 to 4:30.

Or "go to Armatich and Pulaski, to touch some big ass."

LOL, funniest song ever.

bored......................

Spearheaded steering wheel

It may look cool, but once you grab the top and try to look backwards it doesn't feel cool.

Energy dissipating. I'm home, not at Tufts, it's a Saturday night turned into a Sunday morning, though you won't know that for another few hours. "Eight hours of work, eight hours of relaxation, eight hours of sleep." One hour of getting ready for work, eight hours of work when the sun's up, the sun's gone, one hour to drive home, six hours of tasks, eight hours of sleep maybe. The average working family would see that more likely. Sometimes I wonder why we don't all just try to move as close to the equator as possible.

I wonder what I'm gonna do. The instant I realize that I want a way of life that isn't completely arbitrary--the instant I make that abstract generalization about my thought process, I turn around and want my future to be arbitrary. I don't see myself as possibly being as driven as so many people I know. Still, I don't like my lack of drive. But I know I can drive hard, and when I do, you couldn't say I'm not driven.

And yet I don't want to narrow my horizons. I guess you could look at it like trying to get through that warp in Sector X in Star Fox 64--- that's a bitch of a warp to fit through, and completely arbitrary, but the instant you get through it you get a huge reward: Sector Z without Kat there, which makes it much, much easier to get the medal. That's really cool. The whole game is really cool.

I guess I haven't really been powering on my intellect too much this year. I want to blame the world for not inspiring me, but what good is that? Just makes me look like an asshole. I've been searching hard for something and haven't found it. I know part of it is love, part of it is something else too. I've been trying to get by with the minimal (amount of whatever) and see how far I can get, but that was just a bad idea. I think I did learn something in the process, though, other than that it was a bad idea. One, that it's possible but not completely desirable, and two, why am I trying to be someone I'm not? Answer: because that's part of who I am.

And who everyone is. For instance everyone's so easily controlled by the media that the least I can do to object is to avoid it generally. But man, it gets confusing sometimes.

You know how it became cool to wear socks that go below the ball of your ankle and it just stuck? Well when I was aspiring to be equally cool I didn't know it had to be below the ball of your ankle, as opposed to right above it. What's the difference? How about my version is comfortable, the other's not? And how arbitrary is this?

I'm out of vocabulary, and I need more. I guess these past four years have been four years of translation, more than anything else. From math to English to French to Japanese to music and just not much otherwise. Still that's enough to get a 620 on the GRE verbal, so whatever. (Why can't my GRE subject math score be 620, though?) I did not learn a single English vocabulary word in college and I can't resist saying that. Math vocabulary doesn't count.

It's weird what I've become. I don't feel completely different from my old self, either. Not really. Sometimes I wonder where I've become too mature, and where I haven't matured enough. It's a hard question to answer. Then again all of the questions that I have to answer nowadays are hard (except in comp sci) so I guess I should try to obliterate the question like I have to for abstract algebra. Some of those questions are just fucking boulders. Especially the ones that want you to specify an isomorphic group and don't tell you about their secret desires.

I can't wait for Christmas.

戦って 戦い続けて 行くことは つらいでしょ

I'm tired, nearing the end of a long week. But it isn't over yet. I guess it'll be over Saturday.

My title means, "to attack, to keep attacking, and to keep going... that's hard, isn't it." Well, that's almost the meaning. It's a song lyric from a free Japanese song called "There is..." by raggio dorato. You can find it on muzie.co.jp. It's a wonderful track.

But man, I'm tired of listening to the same old things. Either that or I'm admiring how prolific certain people's music libraries are. If that makes any sense. How extensive, rather. I, myself, feel like I spend all my time listening to the same stuff. Which is true, actually. It's been that way forever. How else would I become so familiar with the song "Wowowee" enough to lay down hot DDR steps if I didn't listen to it 48 times (I swear that was the number)? Oh, high school...

Not sure where my route will lead me. I guess reaching for the top can be done later. That's the lesson Pilates has taught me. Keep stretching regularly and eventually you'll get there even though it seems like it's ingrained in your nerves for that to be permanently impossible. It's not. Weight training might be teaching me the wrong lessons, though. I don't know. But I feel like I've spent most of 2009 obsessing over things physical, physical pleasures over intellectual ones... I guess that's been my big flaw recently. But I had to solve the puzzle of the heart, or at least resolve it. Just like that one guy laid out a proof of the Poincaré Conjecture with things that he couldn't prove within it. (That's just about the one article about math I have read recently.)

I'm discouraged, I guess. Slightly. And distracted, again. But man, does the brain eat energy. No part of us is as powerful as the brain we've got. No wonder it drains food faster than anything else. I guess I shouldn't pretend like I'm a cheetah, or a lion.

My perfect pushup grips lie dusty in a dusty shelf that doesn't really spice up the room. But without it, I'd feel a little more insecure than I do now. And the same goes for the pushup grips.

But man, I wanted a better body. And I've got it. Of course you can guess 50% of the reason why I wanted it. That 50% has not reaped its expected rewards. So it goes. So I wait until the next morning. Nothing else to happen this late at night. But the night is my domain.

Where's my codomain?

Haha, I guess you could say I cared too much about my image when really I should've constructed myself to look at the whole codomain. Enough math jokes.

I can't wait to go home and feel comfortable eating chocolate chip cookies again. Because I won't be eating them by myself.

It's so weird how those things have to do with each other, and no, this has nothing to do with my weight. More to do with the caffeine, and not frequently staying up late hanging out with other people here. What's the point of the caffeine I guess is my question.

31

When I came to college, I decided that I was going to live a life for myself that I was able to live. No more trying to meet unreachable expectations, none of that. My success rate tends to be a curve that looks like 1/sqrt(1-(x-n)^2), with n being the moment where success most needs to hit. Aw, hell that's not even the curve I want. You know, the one that is flat pretty much except at the origin, where it dips off suddenly and hits bottom? Put in a -n for horizontal shift.

This is not a good point. I can't really work because I fucked up. And I know I'm behind on things even though I tried my usual to get ahead. Trying beyond my usual would probably end with me getting hurt down the road. And nowadays that "down the road" generally means whenever I'm put to the test. Then what's the use of preparing?

The professors I talked to when I told them about how I did on the GRE didn't really know how to make me feel better about it. One said nothing and the other just said something about which colleges I could apply to. No "it's okay, you've worked hard and they'll see that," nope. I still don't understand what the GRE was testing, aside from utter ridiculousness. I think that goes for both tests. My mom was like "that's not the score for November," oh, that's encouraging too. I only answered 4 more questions that time; what are the odds of doing better on that?

If I do better I'm gonna have to thank the swine flu.

The three other guys in the music lab are from Pakistan and Iran. I wonder what they think about this country's indifference.

That has nothing to do with anything, sorry.

I've started celebrating Christmas early. I've been listening nonstop to a great Christmas song I found by Elise Estrada and been playing and singing Christmas songs by myself on the pianos downstairs. Lonely Christmas, but I get the feeling that a month from now there might not be much to celebrate. I remember when in Japan Baskin Robbins had a Christmas ice cream, and my friends and I ate it together (well, we ate different things), Wadey, Trey, Tiki, Katie... oh, memories.

It was almost Christmas when I left Japan. Almost. So close, but so far.

At least don't nobody know how to be myself. I can say that. Could use a few more compliments about that, though, make me feel better.

This has not been a good 2009. Good thing there's no more than one.

Living fast

That was a nice party! I actually enjoyed it. Nice and chill, no dancing with people or myself, just chill.

Also I went on Facebook today to check if someone told me something about meeting to practice something. Nope. I probably should've asked her though, as we've gotta get going and she doesn't have much free time. Man she's intense.

But so am I, to a certain extent, just not as much. I just worry about everything and then do it at the last minute. I should stop doing that

Parties might help, actually, if they're as chill as this. The beer was very, very good too. I want to know which one it is so I can drink it more often (instead of Guinness or some shit, ugh)

Let's see what I'm going to do - submit a form to be a grader, another to be a tutor (I know, I know, and I know... that I shouldn't do both.), work on my final music project, work on my not-final music project, do abstract algebra homework, study the ishh out of abstract algebra, do my comp homework, grade engineers' math homework, go home. I keep wanting to type "go home"; I just want it over with. Well, it will be over and done with no matter how much I worry about it so I guess I'll just do it. I will just do it.

Oh, and compile a list of grad schools via investigating them all. And do my degree sheet. And successfully go to an appointment to get my photo taken 45 minutes after pilates on Thursday. That's not good. How will I eat lunch and after that not be sweaty and disheveled?

Yeah, difficult week ahead. It just means I have to do work. I still should be able to go to the gym on Friday again, which was the major success of this week. Getting ripped is hard business. I fully acknowledge the possibility that by the end of this school year, I will not be "ripped," or "ripped" to the extent that I want to be. Next semester it will take some dedication, as I don't plan to take weight training. And at this point I probably can't get into one of those classes. Lemme check to see if the classes for this semester (this fall, the one happening) ended up being full or if people dropped (because I think several did)... Nope, all closed, wow. Not good for next semester if I end up wanting to go. However, since I want to maintain my Monday-Wednesday(-Friday) schedule, and weight training is only Tuesday and Thursday next semester, that's not gonna work.

Anyway, I've got to say I think I've accomplished something this semester. Not everything (certainly not a good score on the GRE, or a boyfriend [I'm taking from the Japanese 恋人ができる, which literally means "be able to [accomplish the fact of having] a lover"]), but I've done a fair amount. And that's good.

I guess more than anything, without someone who will constantly pat me on the back, I've got to do that myself now, which I'm doing. The guy I like from one of my classes does that all the time. Some might find it cocky, but I don't think he's quite there. He knows where he's overstepping, but he's got the personality where he knows he's also got to not be afraid to encourage himself. Out loud.

And that's great. More of us should do that, so that we all do it.

。。。かもしれない。

-Facebook + face + book

I've subtracted Facebook from my daily equation for now. It's only been like less than a week but it feels better already. I do know I could be missing something "important" but I hope whatever it is it's nothing that can't wait a couple weeks or however long. This basically stems from me not really wanting to see the replies to my last post in my complaint over healthcare legislation passing. It was 2 long and 2 AM meaning that I'm not really sure what I posted and it probably didn't elicit the most sympathetic replies. In any case it gave me an incentive to avoid Facebook in a somewhat cowardly fashion. But really is it something to be afraid of?

Either way I think Facebook has not been the best for my self-confidence and subtracting it has added some of that self-confidence back. That's the face part. Plus I've had a real hankerin' to read a good novel lately. Once I find one I'll tell you, mysterious reader.

In any case, I haven't done any homework since Tuesday when I rushed my abstract algebra problem set that was suddenly magically due on Tuesday and not on Wednesday. I don't know how that happens but that happens when you try to live life fully. I guess I have to put homework into the equation somewhere.

One thing I have readded, however, is Super Mario World. Ever since one of my housemates brought in his Super Nintendo and played that shit, I decided I had to get on that myself. I beat the game on the way to Springfield (where I stayed for a night at my friend's to try to beat the GRE, which didn't happen) and back. What a great game. Of course I skipped the hard parts but hey who's counting. Recently I just completed what's that Bridge level called (the one where you go from the Vanilla Secret levels) while getting all the dragon coins. It took me like 35 tries. So hard. The level never stops moving and there's some seriously close jumps you have to make. In the process (because this is ironically how the level works) my lives count went up to like 52.

What have I been doing since abstract algebra went away? Well, abstract algebra (ok, two of the six homework problems, the ones I found easy), math grading, cooking, piano, music (oh I forgot I had a homework project in that), and not really much apart from that. There's only so many hours in the day.

I won't list the things I have to do. That's too many and I'll get afraid of them.

But now I would like to read a really good book. Any suggestions? (Any comments, first of all? I haven't had any legit comments. One spam comment.)

And I don't want any sarcastic, pessimistic shit. I read too much of that as it is. Yes, I like Vonnegut and Hemingway, but I encounter enough sarcastic, pessimistic shits as it is every day (I think more at Tufts than at home, but, and this is of course, much less than in Paris) that I'm not really interested in that in my reading right now. I want a fantasy novel (that doesn't name everything like Llelewyn or Agnrothe) or something that's just a fun adventure. With beautiful descriptions and a low amount of brain-straining vocabulary. Sometimes I just want to [can't say this online, sadly] the people who rub their vocab dick all over me in the literary stuff published on campus. But some of the stuff in the Observer literary issue was very good. Some of it made no fucking sense, why did they even publish it? Maybe if they get famous someday it'll get analyzed. I guess there's always that to hope for if you're a misunderstood artist. Aren't we all misunderstood artists?

This guy was really drunk so when I showed him where the bathroom was he failed to turn the light on and (at least he hit the water in the bowl) pissed with the door open. I was giggling because I realized I could've stayed and watched and he probably wouldn't have realized the difference between that and waiting for someone at a urinal.

I'm glad I'm not partying right now. Where would I be Saturday morning? Not awake. Add alcohol to me and I can't sleep. At least, not alone.

The calculus problems wait for me to solve them. They're so easy, relatively speaking. The abstract algebra problems also lie in wait. That's what office hours are for. Except I have a Putnam problem session I'm supposed to be going to. They put me on the Team, bad idea.

If I think too long about people who are partying it makes me want to lose it all. I'm not sure what that means.

Oh well, at least my GRE General scores are good. I wonder when the subject test scores come out except I don't really want to know. It makes my stomach turn a little. Why couldn't the test be as easy as the practice test they uploaded?

I think the gym work is starting to show, at least. It's the one thing I'm fully satisfied with here at Tufts. Even though it hasn't done too much for my chest, it's done a lil' lil' and I like it. Plus knowing how to use the machines is amazing knowledge to have. If only I could have a benchpress partner, or a general gym partner. That would make things better. But of course it's Tufts so people are "always working." Except when they're partying.

Sigh, only Tufts. Thank God I'm only taking two classes next semester, one of them pilates. I contemplated signing up for differential geometry so I could have something to flush the abstract algebra from my body but I don't think I'm going to do it. It meets on Fridays. Why??????

Not that I didn't get up today at 11 AM so that I could finish grading for my 1:30 PM appointment. Oh well.

I can't wait for Thanksgiving. And I think I'll have something to be thankful for - that I've held up despite this. All this.

A different look

I visited my closest friend since childhood over the weekend. I needed a place to stay so that I could take the GRE in Western Massachusetts (Boston's schools' spots were filled) and he turned out to live only 10 minutes away from one of the testing centers. Of course I didn't know that when I registered; even then I wanted to spend some time with him and I thought this'd be a good time. So yeah.

But I've become realigned. It might be also because of getting the swine flu (supposedly) and because the GRE is over, at least for this year (but why would I need to take it again?), but I think it has the most to do with finally visiting a friend that I haven't seen in ages (3 months is ages to me - but has it been longer? I can't recall). My best friend. And when you get this old you realize that the word "best" shouldn't put the best friend above others or, and this is important, others below that best friend. But it's a certain relationship that just doesn't reproduce itself later on in life with anyone else. That's just the way it is.

And I realize that.

--

I also realized something else, lying in bed. People have told me to shoot for the sky. I've just been shooting for an atmosphere where I don't burn. And I like it that way. I can get pretty close to what they call the sky, and then just miss - but that's part of who I am. Almost amazing is good enough. The trouble is, what goes up must eventually come back to earth (or go soaring away), and unfortunately I can't say I tolerate burning temperatures any better than most people. And I won't come back down charred up.

I'm up at 4:10 AM on an early Monday morning again. I couldn't sleep. Can't say why it is but it might have something to do with not having eaten enough. More than likely it's because of my usual lack of social interaction on Sunday. This has been a common theme throughout my life and 2009 especially. Tufts has failed me for Sunday interactions. Man, I need to talk to the people in the band Taking Back Sunday - if you're named like that, you have to make your name into a mantra.

Speaking of meditation I've been playing Game Boy recently. I honestly don't have enough fun in my life - the failure is that I've been trying to keep things at an even level of fun, but that level of fun has been below the proper threshold. Man, I'm talking like Galen. That's no good. So yeah, I brought a box of my Game Boy games back with me and I beat Super Mario World on the trips to and from Springfield. (That's not that hard - know where all the secrets are and you won't lose too much time. You get to skip all the annoyingly hard levels that follow the Vanilla World. Fucking bridge zone)

I realize that I've lost my spirit to study somewhere along the line and it hasn't come back. Maybe it will. I just think that what I want to study now I can't study in school - non-Keynesian economics. Thought too radical for a typical university. Hence I'm probably going to continue with my plan to only take 2.5 classes at most next semester (the half credit being pilates, which meets twice a week as opposed to the cheaper Tufts Student Resources course that meets only once a week), probably 1.5 or even 1, and maybe work two-three jobs (more likely one) and just chill out and enjoy life for fuck's sake. Lord knows that after I graduate I'm going to be going somewhere else, so let's just enjoy being here for a bit.

...
How on earth did that fucking enormous bug get back in this room?

Les chants qui ont bercé mon enfance

When I think of the songs "qui ont bercé mon enfance" comme chez Nerval, I think of Timbaland. I was half-dozing-off in the car when Timbaland's new song came on, "Morning After Dark." It features French singer SoShy (who really fits the song well) and Nelly Furtado. But Timbaland's beats are hypnotic. So relaxing to doze off to. Just like when I was a kid, and I would doze off as Aaliyah's "Try Again" came on in the car. That was (and still is) one of Timbaland's best productions, no, works. He's an artist. He does have the tendency to sound the same, but he's very careful at what he does.

Yeah, Timbaland's the author of the main song that rocked me gently to sleep when I was a kid, Try Again. And "Morning After Dark" reminded me of enfance tonight. My childhood.

5:13 AM

My body started doing some really violent things internally when I tried to go to bed at 2 AM. I guess this is what you get when you nap from 4 to 7:30 PM.

The GRE is on Saturday. Again. I got a 620 on the last practice test I did, which is okay but not good enough for me. I know I can score higher, if I only started studying. I hope this isn't gonna be another disaster. I guess I don't care enough.

That's not really true, though. I do care, but it's just like, how on earth do I memorize everything I've ever learned again, on top of regular schoolwork? That's just not going to happen.

I guess I'm gonna sleep until about 1:30, hopefully. And then I'll call my parents and ask them to take me home so I can be somewhere where the temperature doesn't swing so wildly thanks to a heater that doesn't work.

The ResLife-police are gonna come in and inspect the rooms of everyone here from 1 PM to 4 PM to check about "safety concerns." It's like, no thanks. They better not complain about where I put a copy of the Tufts Daily to insulate my house more, because they failed at sealing the walk-in closet properly from the outside. It's going back up there whether they like it or not.

Ugh, I guess I can't go home right away. I forgot that I have to also grade homework and get that into the math department, and finish my Math 145 problem set (late) and give that to my professor. Plus I'm going to miss a class. Missing 145 is a very bad thing. I don't expect the one person I'm facebook-friended with in that class to actually attend the class, so I'll probably just bring my camera to class on Monday and ask someone if I can snap pics of his or her notes. By the way, my camera is not doing well anymore. It does not know how to properly absorb energy from new, fresh batteries. I can only imagine the ones at Soria (the １００円 shop) not working either.

Well, I guess this means I'm staying here for one more night... this blows. Maybe not. I don't know. I don't think this is the (non-swine) flu but does it really matter?

Illness notification form is a go, I guess.

It is 5:26 AM. The few birds remaining shiver in the branches of the tree where they sleep.

Running away from MYself

This is one of those rare times where I run to everyone and no one seems to be able to help me. Then the only person I can run to is my destroyed, destructive self.

I hate Sundays. It's always Sunday that this happens. Nobody ever helps me on Sundays. Is this God calling me again and telling me nobody can help me except God? That's great.

It's nice to believe in something that confirms a complete disbelief in people, though.

Right now I'm not sure I believe in men. I certainly wish I were straight. Oh well, then things would be too easy and I'd probably be one dick of an individual. I take pride in being gay, but when I say that, I mean I take pride in getting over the shitpile of shit you face just necessarily from being gay. The fact that 90% of men will not be attracted to you just because of your gender outright. That's the big one. How about the fact that 80% of men don't want to hear any talk about it? There's another big one. And around the world, probably 50% of them wanna kill you.

You know, I never had too much faith in men anyway. We're insecure shits, we know it. It's in our blood, it's in our hormones. They go fucking berzerk and there's nothing we can do to stop them except acknowledge that they're there. And all of a sudden, it becomes such an important realization... even right now as I'm writing this.

Whoremones.

I'd have more faith in myself, but you're asking me to do shit I've never done before. And large magnitudes of that shit. How do you expect me to cope? Don't tell me to plan in advance when you know I'll never learn unless you show me how you're planning for something in advance. I learn by example.

Not enough examples. Not enough vitamins.

I'm trying to cultivate my own, for others to follow or to avoid. The hardest examples to cultivate are the ones you make for your own understanding.

Hmm, why do I like math? I like it because it's simple. At least I find it that way. Yes, it's deep, but a simplistic deep. I like that. I'm arguing in my personal statement that I like math because of its being the fundamental for so many other things, but it's more because of its fundamental simplicity more than anything.

Why couldn't I just write that? Because it's hard to build an entire essay on that idea. Or prove that you could help people based on what you find so good for yourself. So you write about how you help people in more directly obvious ways.

But never forget this-- the way you help people the most is by being yourself. Yourself unashamed, yourself as you really are. And that's the study you should be into the most. I know that's what it is for me.

I wrote this over the course of a couple hours intermittently. After a bit I cleaned up the intro of my personal statement a little bit, now I'm going back to clean it ALL up and then put a conclusion. It needs to be more cohesive, but I'm sure cohesion can find itself in the essay pretty readily.

Freewrites cohese better than anything anyway. What they want isn't real cohesion.

Music

I'll be uploading some of my music here, stay tuned.