Blogging Literature Just Brands My News

SO MANY BLOGS WANT YOU TO WRITE FOR THEM

Have I really fallen behind the times? Or have marketers and such just figured out that blogs provide a good opportunity to get attention and activity?

I vote for the former. Still. . .The amount of job ads that I see on Craigslist for writers to produce content for these things surprises me somewhat. One place has, for the last couple days, tried to pressure me into starting one after I queried for more information. . .even though they haven't seen any writing samples I've done. I just found, today, an ad on Craigslist for a a housing blog, called YoChicago, looking for writers.

In addition, the way they don't offer compensation throws me for a small loop. I, nonetheless, will look into as an opportunity. Whether I take it or not really depends on how much time and money I can afford to use, since I'm not really in the best place for those resources.

Still. . .writing on these blogs could help me build up a writing portfolio and have some writing samples. I haven't applied to at least one or two jobs simply because I don't have writing samples. Writing for other people's or organization's blogs could help me build up some good samples.

I guess, possibly, this whole blog phenomena provides a great opportunity for writers. It gives them a stage to demonstrate their ability and skills. As negative, however, blog writing really does have a different style than other styles. These people offering writers this opportunity want to get attention from people browsing the web, so the writer needs to use keywords, loads of links (just look at how much I've increased my linking recently), styles that work with the short attention span of web users and probably some other techniques that I don't know about yet.

Fascinating phenomena. Not sure if I'll participate just yet, but I will consider it.

ROMNEY A TOOL FOR CORPORATIONS: TAKING MASSACHUSETTS OUT OF THE NORTH EAST ANTI-CLIMATE CHANGE AGREEMENT

From MassPIRG:

After two years of negotiations involving power plant owners, utilities, energy customers and environmental groups, the Northeast states announced a plan to cut global warming pollution from power plants--the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
Unfortunately, at the last minute and due to pressure from plant owners and their allies, Gov. Mitt Romney and Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey pulled the plug on Massachusetts' participation in the program. Now, eight other Northeast states are moving forward without us. Worse, the Romney administration is also trying to weaken global warming limits for the "Filthy Five" that have been in place since 2001.

SENATE TO VOTE ON IRAQ AMENDMENT IN NEXT 24 HOURS (1:30 PM)

From a John Kerry e-mail update:

In the next 24 hours, it is likely that the Senate will vote on my amendment which calls for the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq by the end of this year. For months, you and I have been pressing for this step. We've made it clear that we needed to set deadlines in Iraq -- and with the formation of an Iraqi unity government and the killing of Al-Zarqawi, this is a moment of truth in Iraq.

BRANDING PUNKS

The shirt I chose to wear today altered my day somewhat. I had the choice of some t-shirt from a brewery or my Shellac shirt. I chose the Shellac shirt.

Wearing this shirt, I took a ride with my fiancee to an intersection near the local Best Buy because I wanted to get a Compact Fluoroscent light bulb to compare with a regular or "daylight" bulb. Silly me, thinking I could get one at Best Buy.

That's really beside the point, though, unless you consider saving the environment and cutting down on carbon in the atmosphere as punk. I guess, in a way, going with Compact Fluoroscent light bulbs might be considered work outside some system because most homes just use regular ones, and going CFL takes a good swing some established industry. Would that make Al Gore something of a punk, too?

But I digress. . .

So wearing the Shellac shirt, I make my way home from the local Best Buy when this guy in a Cubs hat (what's help with bears and Chicago, anyway?) asks, "Is that a Shellac shirt?"

I tell him that it is, and we start a conversation about Steve Albini. Maybe I should say that I went off on a small tangent about buying the Shellac shirt when the first album came out, only have the first album, this fellow's prejudice toward liking anything Steve Albini, which really can range from a lot of things, including his bands: Big Black, Rapeman and Shellac to album's he has produced, including: Nirvana's In Utero and PJ Harvey's Rid of Me along with probably many others.

I also brought up that the book, The Time Traveler's Wife (spoilers at this link, so just read the first paragraph), mentions Big Black. Hopefully, I didn't mislead this fellow into thinking the novel isn't really a book that's too out there or something. After all, someone who, at one time, listened to Big Black brings up the book. Wouldn't you think that someone who listens to crazy music would bring up a crazy book? I guess, it has its moments of freakiness. Otherwise, though, it has more of a literary dramatic romance edge to it than an adventure or something sci-fi or erotic or out there. Nonetheless, I think everyone should read it. I finished it in a day, and it got me laughing, crying, smiling and all types of important emotions.

Or you can just wait for the movie. I wonder if it will stand up to the book. After all, we have Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston for buying the movie rights to it.

SHOP AT THE WORLD MARKET

On the way, I also stopped in at the World Market. The fiancee told me that they deal in Fair Trade production. I haven't done my research on that aspect of the place, but I took a walk through and saw what looked like good products, from furniture to silver ware to to dishes to paper lamps to canned goods to potato chips. Probably better than shopping at WalMart and easier to reach than Whole Foods. Will have to see what the place has to offer.

GE INTENDING TO BUILD BIGGEST SOLAR ENERGY PLANT

Hear more about by going to the Chicago Public Radio Worldview MP3 episode page then select the June 12, 2006 episode.

SAVE PUBLIC BROADCASTING

Go to MoveOn.com to sign the important petition to save public broadcasting.

WANT TO HEAR MORE NEWS FROM MY WIRE?

Subscribe to my news wires by sending an e-mail to the following e-mail addresses:

News to The_Lex: newstothe_lex-subscribe@topica.com

Massachusetts News to The_Lex: manewstothe_lex-subscribe@topica.com

Chicago/Illinois News to The_Lex: chinewstothe_lex-subscribe@topica.com

"NO COMMERCIALS"

Has anyone else noticed the spate of companies paying for broadcast stations to not broadcast commercials? The station just doesn't broadcast commecials then every once in awhile says they don't broadcast commercials, thanks to so-and-so. Snapple did it for WFNX in Boston one weekend. Acura is currently doing it with Live365. Audi has paid TNT to do the "no commercial" thing for The Closer season 2 premiere tonight.

Has this become the new thing? Will we see more of it? I like it. It means more programs and content for the viewer.

I guess it might not be a great thing on the basis of free markets and good product, though. . .or hearing good products. But then again. . .do commercials and advertising actually help make a better product? If anything, it lets us hear about new products, but do we really need all the products out there in the first place?

It starts to sound like a much bigger issue, one in which, on principle, more commercials seems to help market capitalism, even though it annoys me.

RE-VISITING WRITING FOR BLOGS

Dug a little deeper on that writing for blogs topic and received some disappointing news.

I. Won't be taking on one of the ads I saw on the Chicago Carigslist.
A. They didn't really give me a good angle or idea they wanted addressed or presented.
B. Their blogs address a certain geographic region, but it's OK if someone from outside that region writes a blog for that region. Maybe not a big deal for someone who has the time to do tons of research about a region, doesn't need to make money or have tons of other projects they need to do.

II. Most of the other postings get made by people who want to refer you to a Google Adsense (TM) setup.
A. I'll take advantage of this one to pretty much try expanding my audience.
B. Otherwise, nothing new. . ..

CHEESE FOR VEGANS

If you're vegan and want something cheesy-like, I say go with Follow Your Heart Cheese Alternative (TM). So far, I've tried the American and Mozzarella. Don't like the American, but the Mozzarella tastes great!

LITERARY STUDIES

Finished Fear of Intimacy the other day.

Started Anatomy of Criticism by Northrop Frye. After buying it a couple years ago and attempting to read it, I really couldn't get into it. Starting it again, after hearing and talking about the hero in myth and Joseph Campbell and doing all types of research about literary criticism and theory, about Classicism, Romanticism and Modernism and Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction, Frye really has given me a good way to look at literature. Oh right, there's also Wolfgang Iser's The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response and Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary.

And no, this isn't, in any way, an attempt at gloating. If anything, I'm trying for some degree of dramatic effect, even though the list I made above doesn't even start to give you an impression of all the work that I've done on my project so far. . ..

The world probably knows Frye from his extension on archetypal literary theory and myths in the Joseph Campbell. I expected to run into a lot of this talk and other complicated literary criticism jargon. Instead, Anatomy of Criticism pleasantly surprises me with its straightforward and common sense language, even if it gets laced with some of the jargon. I've only gotten maybe a third or a quarter through the book, but I've gotten a lot closer to understanding certain categories of the hero through the ages, irony, the difference between plot and theme and the differences between the relation of the signifier to the whole and also to the multiple postulations of the signified. And I can't emphasize it enough, Frye does in such an easy to understand style that I feel like going eureka after every sentence.

This book has a great effect on me. I'll admit it before anyone, but everytime I've picked up a book for my bachelor's project, I think I've found the answer to my problem then, by the end, that feeling gets dashed. I hope Anatomy of Criticism doesn't do the same to me because it really has brought me to a great high. Unlike most other books, though, I feel like I can talk about the effect this one has on me. I feel as if Frye has given me the permission to do what guides for writing literary analysis papers say to do, write about what the piece of literature means to you then come up with a good argument that backs up why it means that way to you. Frye's explanation that the signifier pretty much can refer to jsut about anything outside of the literature, as long as the reader makes that connection. Frye certainly explains the matter much much better than me, but then again, that's probably why I feel as if he has given me permission to do what I need to do.

Frye also doesn't seem to put on airs or tries to prove anything beyond what he can prove. Anatomy of Criticism doesn't have any sense of pretension about it. At least, not any kind of pretense on proving something he can't prove. In the book, Frye says that he believes literary criticism will some day find a "scientific" method that doesn't depend on the taste of the current age. He doesn't try to argue for the method or even necessarily that he knows it. The book doesn't have a linear, solid argument. Instead, Frye writes four essays to explore this idea of a "scientific" method for literary criticism by bringing up matters of literature or the bits that he believes makes up meanings in literature. . .or maybe I should say how meaning can get communicated or brought out of the book.

Wolfgang Iser tries to do something similar in his books but seems to forget the signifier, itself, instead focusing on the milieu presented and the plot. Iser seems to forget about the other aspects. Frye explains the aspects then lets the reader create meaning in their own way.

In the end, I give Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism a perfect score and refer it to anyone interested, at all, in reading literature. Unfortunately, you may want to read histories of literary criticism and theory and Wayne Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction first, just to get introduced to some terms and also some good questions that Frye can answer. Otherwise, the reason for his book may not come across so urgently. But after all that reading, I think anyone will have a very good comfortability with engaging in some criticism.

PROMOTING CHARLIE JADE SOME MORE

After the entry yesterday about Charlie Jade, I hope a horrible, ugly picture didn't get painted. Despite the grittiness of the show, I believe it rises to literary quality. The rape scenes in the show don't come off as indecent. I don't advocate any form of rape, but (a) there is no nudity and (b) they are imperative to the story.

Maybe the first one didn't necessarily have to happen for the plot, but it did more than just help the plot move forward. In addition to providing motivation to one character, it paints an impression of another character. It develops this other character as a psychopath, and that development is vital to the character. We need to see him as a psychopath that would rape a woman then just dump her in an alternate universe that she doesn't recognize. At first, I thought this character was a badly written stereotypical psychopath, but he becomes so much more after you get to know him. . .and without the rape in the beginning along with the other passage of events, the power of that character being more wouldn't be there.

Now. . .is it important for that "being more" be powerful and have such a huge impact? I believe that it is. Unfortunately, I don't feel that I can say why until I know that more people have seen the show.

The second rape also proves vital to another character. Without going into much detail, it contributes to the making her into who she is and isn't. Unlike the other character, who becomes something more (not because he raped someone but because what him being a rapist and other developments mean), this character actually becomes something less because of the rape. She has to reclaim herself to recover from the effect of the rape. It took something away from her, so she has to take it back. . .and, doing so, she becomes more powerful and does things to make the world a better place.

So, for her, if anything, it's a form of tragic irony. She has become isolated in one way, then the rape punctuates it even more. In many ways. . .both the things that isolated her gives her identity, but it's one of drives rather than something self made.

The first season never really resolves these characters satisfactorily, though. Yet another reason why I want that second season. . ..

Cats Face Dares in Urban Environments

INTERESTING ASSIGNMENT WITH URBAN DARE

Went to that assignment I talked about the other day. Nothing too exciting. I just manned a dart board at Butch McGuire's, making sure people got their bullseyes, stamping their "passports" and making sure that people took turns. As the review link says, though, pretty cool bar.

You can read about the details of Urban Dare, but the gist of it goes as follows: teams of two follow clues given them to get pictures of themselves at certain landmarks and also to complete challenges at other landmarks. 23 teams made it today. The guy who runs it has done four other of these races in Boston, Philly, Washington, D.C. and, I think, San Diego. He has yet to make a profit yet, but through the sale of hurricane relief bracelets, has raised $6,000 for Hurricane Katrina relief just this year. In a year, he hopes to get 500 teams taking part and to turn a profit.

Good luck, man.

NEED TO FIX YOUR VIDEO FILES FOR BURNING ONTO DVD?

Use gui4ffmpeg!

For the last few months, I had been trying to burn a video file onto a watchable-on-TV DVD, but the process would just freeze. I tried a whole bunch of things, especially since a previous time I burned it, it worked. Eventually, I found gui4ffmpeg, and it fixed up the video. The movie has lost a couple frames here and there but nothing that significantly takes away from the end product.

I'm just really happy to resolve the issue. Now I can make my fiancee watch it!

CHARLIE JADE

I think we need to hear more about Charlie Jade on the Internet. It's an awesome South African-Canadian produced science fiction drama that will probably never make it to US mainstream broadcast TV without heavy editing. It's very gritty and has a couple rape scenes. Possibly not even then, with the satire of fear-tactic propoganda that demonizes a couple heores as terrorists.

Maybe. . .just maybe HBO will pick it up?

I really want some US station to take up because I think Charlie Jade will find a lot of fans here and probably get the funding for a second season. Who the hell are the Men in Gray?!?!?!?!?!?!

YAY!!!!! THE CATS ROCK!

Ever since we returned from New England, the cats haven't gotten so affectionate! They come off as somewhat "needy" sometimes, but that's a huge improvement over "ignore the humans" and "run away and hide from the humans under the bed."

COOL LOOKING BLOG

Creative Generalist: The name probably says it a ll. Some interesting stuff about creativity and intellectual property. Also a little bit about other stuff.

Good Addictions to Inconvenient Truths

All right! Yesterday, I got the most hits to my blogs since I've been recording. I have the feeling that most of those hits have come from the Stephen Colbert speech at Knox College that I posted at my Soulcast blog along with the updated news and political commentary I've made throughout the day there that I eventually posted at The Lextopia.

Either which way, I celebrate the increased hits.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Saw An Inconvenient Truth last night. Turned out quite a good film. It overwhelmed me with information that I both knew and didn't know already.

It also highlighted some arguments made by the ultraconservative Right, used in attempts to debunk the Greenhouse Effect and Evolution. Basically, the Right attempts to argue that both of these phenomena are just another theory instead of phenomena based on gathered facts.

Gore even brought up some interesting facts that somewhat surprised me. I can only remember one of them that really really strikes me: Since the Baby Boomer generation to the present day, the world population has tripled from approximately 2 billion to 6 billion (Gore got more specific with the numbers).

This fact encourages me, once again, to try promoting Terence McKenna's argument that at this time, reproductive couples should only really have one child instead of more. Having this many people on Earth simply puts too much of a burden on it.

Probably the most striking and most endearing rhetorical device used in An Inconvenient Truth: Gore uses many anecdotes from his own life, including how the death of his sister from lung cancer was the final straw that pushed his father to stop growing tobacco. Around that time, the scientific community had established a clear connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. This evidence and consensus didn't stop Gore's father to stop growing the tobacco. When the death of his daughter showed him the truth, however, Gore's father had to finally accept the facts and decided to stop growing tobacco.

Gore and the movie tells the story much better and with better effect. He will also tell you the point he makes by bringing up this distressful part in his life. These stories, however, do bring the points he makes closer to the heart and shows Gore's sincerity for the points he makes. He doesn't make this movie for political reasons, not for garnering power, but to act out a sincere moral imperative that he feels in the pit of his soul. And unlike many people who try arguing their moral imperatives, Gore presents his argument with proven facts that are truly hard to deny or ignore. If done so, the human species could seriously see its last days in the next century or so.

And as Roger Ebert says about the movie: "In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see An Inconvenient Truth. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to."

ANOTHER PERSON'S GOOD, WELL THOUGHT OUT REACTION TO THE ZARQAWI ASSASSINATION

The Last Visible Blog: Mercy for the heinous

DID GORE GET THE SCIENCE RIGHT?

Well, did he?

According this article, he did. The inaccuracies mostly just occurred to simplify the matter for the general public.

A BLOG FOR GOOD

Changes for Good: A budding blog looking to bring about positive change in the world.

ADDICTED TO BLOGGING?

Have I found another form of constructive procrastination? With all these interesting new blogs that I've found and keep finding, I can spend a good amount of time reading them, commenting and sometimes setting up a link to them from this site, am I spending my time productively. Then there's the new e-mails that I get and feel that I have to post on The Lextopia and my Soulcast blog.

Do I make procrastination and addiction worse on some kind of value system because I have a job search to do or whenever I see an inspiring performance or movie like An Inconvenient Truth, I keep telling myself that I need to finish my bachelor's project or get myself a job so I can move onto making amazing and inspiring works, myself.

It's a big question. . ..

DOING GOOD

Our friend, who came back to Chicago with us, talked about a community project she did with these women to better organize themselves and get their lives into a better place. Hearing about these things that this person did really impressed upon me the good things that we can do in the world, how that makes for an interesting character make up for a person who does them and how I'm not really doing good stuff like that, even though I keep talking about the need for more people to do good in the world.

I'm concerned and inspired at the same time. . .but yet feel stuck in my forms of constructive procrastination and commitments that I've made. There's also the matter of feeling that I need to have a job for survival.

A Panopaly of Commentary, Observations and Events

NOTE TO THOSE WITH LACTOSE INTOLERANCE OR WHO ARE VEGAN

Bubble Tea has milk in it. A lactose intolerant friend and I discovered it last night, then I confirmed it by looking at a Wikipedia entry this morning.

GRAMMAR

After all the double checking my writing at my last job and not finding problems, I thought I had an impeccable sense of grammar.

I don't.

Probably better than most, but I'm not perfect.

This whole job search thing along with that Microsoft Office PowerPoint (TM) tutorial has humbled me a bit. Unfortunately, I'm not as sharp as I believe myself.

Kind of a strange realization for me to have at this moment, really. The last time I tried to do some major growing and work against bad habit loops, I had a sense of invincibility, which sent me falling to the ground like Icarus.

Now, though, I find myself more aware and accepting of my shortcomings. At the same time, though, I know that I need to push against my maladaptive habit loops and grow.

Maybe the whole feeling invincible was part of a maladaptive habit loop. . .?

RECYCLING

Does anybody know about any companies that recycle batteries?

IN ANSWER TO MY CONCERNS ABOUT THE BOMBING OF AL-ZARQAWI

He approached the politically strategic bombing from a different direction, but Dan Schechter provided a reason for my concern on his News Dissector blog.

A great blog it is, especially since you can have it delivered directly to your e-mail inbox.

FLOODING IN SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE

I haven't heard anything about it in the news, but a friend, who lives in New Hampshire, and I discussed all the rain and flooding that Southern New Hampshire has to deal with these days.

From what she has said, it has to do with all the rain falling AND the old dam infrastructure they have there. In other areas, the people running the dams can let some water through to release pressure. They don't have that option in Southern New Hampshire. So even with all the wetlands they may have, these dams that can't relieve pressure causes a whole ton of flooding.

Along with having worked as a homeowners insurance agent in New England, this conversation really reminded me about the oldness of New England. Half the buildings and other structures in the region aren't even up to code! And the fact that there's plenty of grandfathering of those types of laws going on, they don't need to be brought up to code.

I think consensus has formed about a major cause of destruction from Hurricane Katrina last year: the levies weren't completed. I think both the levy situation and the issues with the Southern New Hampshire dams really says something. WE NEED TO KEEP OUR STRUCTURES UP TO DATE TO THE BODY OF KNOWLEDGE THAT WE HAVE -- especially with the rapid climate change we face in today's world.

TRUE MAJORITY HOSTING A TALK WITH AL GORE

Sunday: Talk to Al Gore

"An Inconvenient Truth" is setting records at the box office. Learn more about the movie and the fight against global warming from Al Gore this Sunday evening. You'll even have a chance to ask him questions. Can you RSVP and join us?

http://political.moveon.org/seethetruth/conf.html?id=7987-3055202-zU2p4GdRHi5.6BR.DhrAtQ&t=3

WOULD I SPEND MY TIME BETTER IF I WROTE FOR MONEY INSTEAD OF BLOGGING

After writing that bit about Southern New Hampshire, I've thought that I could write as a reporter or freelance writer with some effort. I would probably need to dedicate as much as I am to my current job search. But still. . .would I enjoy my life more and possibly have a better income, overall, if I took up reporting or freelance writing?

WOOHOO! GOT AN ASSIGNMENT

Just got a call from the temp agency I signed up with a couple weeks ago and visited for the tutorial yesterday. Not the most high paying nor the most convenient assignment, but it sounds like an interesting time. Some company has set up something of a scavenger hunt around the city at bars, and I'll get stationed at one of the bars to make sure things will happen. It has the potential for fun and for connection making, so why not?

MORE COMMENTARY ON AL-ZARQAWI COVERAGE AND THE MEDIA

Have you ever noticed the amount of attention US society puts toward killing and destruction? Do you ever think about the energy we put into these things?

Maybe it would more apt to say it's more of a human nature thing than a US thing? I only have the limited experience of a US citizen with some exposure to other cultures. And even more on the naive side, most of my experience comes from a white male perspective, albeit I have non-white friends and signifiicant other. Unlike Stephen Colbert, though, I won't display a silly picture of myself with an unhappy, cynical looking black friend.

But I digress. On with the commentary.

While working on some errands today, I saw plenty of headlines about the technical aspects of taking out Al-Zarqawi. I haven't read any of it, but it really hits me in the disgusted nerve of all the investigation that our media puts into everything that lead up to the death and destruction of this one guy.

I agree with Bush and his administration on one thing: The media and a lot of us focus too much on the wrong thing when it comes to terrorism and Iraq. Unlike Bush, however, I believe a more productive media would put an equal amount of focus on the root causes of the terrorism and this war. Also, I think a lot more positive productivity would come from a good amount of focus on making and keeping REAL peace

Political Experimentation with Blog Writing

I'll try something a little different today. Instead of waiting until 5 PM to write up a blog entry, I'll keep Wordpad up all day. Then I'll just type up something when it comes to mind.

ZARQAWI IS DEAD

In case you haven't heard yet, Al Zarqawi was killed by air strike. My response:

Been hearing a lot about this one today.

Disposing of him so he doesn't cause any more harm makes me happy.

Nonetheless, the large amounts of pleasure that people take over someone else's death saddens me, even if that person did horrendous, evil things. I get the feeling that some people feel this event justifies the actions of the US since 9/11 and will push them further onto more atrocities because of this "accomplishment."

And writing the above, I just had a thought about how politically strategic this successful strike is, with the 2006 elections coming up later. . .but that's just my cynical side.

THEMS POOR KIDS NOT SMART 'CUZ OF THEMS TEACHERS

A couple months ago, a conservative guy I met through a political discussion group lectured the list on the poor academic performance of minorities. The fellow took up the typical working class argument that black people didn't do well academically simply because they didn't have the motivation to work hard enough, like he did. It didn't have to do with money or the bad neighborhoods or anything like that, and he supposedly had the statistics to prove it.

Well, a recent study provides some weight on my side of the argument. Unfortunately, both of us suffer from using statistics that are localized to a certain area. . .at least, he never provided me with his statistics, and I could only find ones for a local area.

JOB SEARCHING

Didn't do much for the job search today. Just went downtown to take a Microsoft Office PowerPoint (TM) tutorial. Completed the intro and advanced to the second or third lesson in the intermediate section. All the information overwhelmed me by then.

If I don't have an assignment or job by next week, I'll probably go back to take more of the tutorial. Microsoft Office PowerPoint (TM) looks like a good skill to have.

Sadly, though, even going through the tutorial, I will only have a limited knowledge of the program. Only by taking on PowerPoint (TM) projects, whether they be for pay or not, will start getting down the options available and how to do them all. I guess that's the old Catch-22 situation: hard to get a job without the PowerPoint (TM) experience and hard to get the PowerPoint (TM) without a job.

Ugh.

SOMETHING CONCERNING ME

The fiancee and I moved here to Chicago about three weeks ago. We had been out of town one weekend. A friend visited us another weekend. I went to church one Sunday and had a short conversation with someone that ended abruptly and unsatisfactorily.

I'm concerned that we haven't made any new friends yet. I guess being focused on a job search, procrastinating and setting up house in the apartment kind of takes away from friend making time. Still. . .I would like a friend or two.

Maybe something more upbeat will happen tomorrow afternoon when I begin my job search networking.

POLITICAL BLOGGISM

Bloc's Blog: Yesterday, I found a rightist conservative blog. Today, I find a leftist poltiical blog. It doesn't challenge my views, but it does add to them.

Transcript of Stephen Colbert's commencement speech at Knox College

Transcript of Stephen Colbert's commencement speech at Knox College

Heating Up the Marketing Campaign in Chicago Bird Sanctuaries

Chicago really has a lot of greenspace and parks. Chicago also has a lot of bird sanctuaries.

Today, while taking a break from the job search, I found the Bill Jarvis Bird Sanctuary. I didn't have enough time to investigate much, but I got some sense of the sanctuary and the conservation mission that Chicago has taken upon itself at the beginning of the century. The Bill Jarvis Bird Sanctuary has a fence around it, and, apparently, people can't enter it willy nilly. The City intends to keep everything in the confines of the fence undisturbed beyond the original planting of the trees and other fauna. A sign said that no foot traffic beyond bird watching and walking around was allowed. No dogs allowed inside without a leash, either. I like the idea behind the The Sanctuary, especially since it brings some bit of wilderness and nature into the City.

I used to wander around the woods behind my parent's house when I was younger. They really became something I liked to have around me. Obviously, the parks and even a sanctuary or two doesn't make for woods, but it gives me a taste of nature while also allowing me to enjoy the crowds of the city. A part of me even believes that us humans shouldn't necessarily live in the wilderness.

A friend of mine who majored in economics once mentioned to me that cities (ideally if they have a good infrastructure) damage the environment (not necessarily the greatest link. . .) less than if people live in the wilderness (again, the link really doesn't express what I mean well).

Considering the availibility of public transportation, I can see the validity of that argument. With the amount of factories in cities, though, I don't know how much cutting down on private transportation cuts down on the aggregate emissions.

The more I've thought about the whole climate change issue, the more I grasp an ironic fact. The more that we use air conditioners, the more we increase the temperature on the planet. One or two of them wouldn't make a difference, but consider how many people in warm climes use electric air conditioners. Well. . .these things need a lot of electricity, which requires power generation. Up until fairly recently and on a typical basis, this power comes from dirty sources, like oil, coal and, yes, nuclear power sources (nuclear doesn't create emissions, itself, but it does require dirty power sources, at some early point, to mine and process the uranium, plutonium and other viable radioactive sources.

Yes, air conditioners may be our demise. How ironic.

But yes. . .the Bill Jarvis Bird Sanctuary. I also liked that they has signs about the different birds that live in there on a regular basis, migrate there to live on an occasional basis or stop in for a little while during their migration elsewhere. I can't remember most of what I read, but I look forward to checking out the plaques some more and eventually learning more about birds.

SOME INTERESTING WEBSITES

While researching Market Wire today to send a resume, I found some interesting websites.

Before listing them off, though, I want to make a quick sad note about a grammar mistake in the cover e-mail that accompanied the resume. Made me sad to find the mistake, especially after feeling that I had written an impressive, clever cover letter. Oh well. . .hopefully they'll give me the benefit of the doubt, and I can somehow pass it off. . .even though the resume is for an editing/proofreading position. Oh well. . ..

Without further ado:

+ 826 Chicago: I actually read about this organization a couple days, while flying home from the East Coast. The AirTran magazine had a small profile on it. Some guy in San Francisco started up 826 Valencia, an organization that teaches writing to kids 8 - 18 and sells products to support the teaching writing program. Apparently, the idea caught some attention around the United States, so people set up organizations based on the same model. 826 Chicago is one of those organizations.

+ Duct Tape Marketing Blog: The blog for Duct Tape Marketing, which looks like a firm that produces resources about marketing and provides learning opportunites about marketing. The blog, itself, brings up some marketing topics for small businesses and products that can help the small business. Looks like it gets updated regularly. Also voted the Best Small Business Marketing Blog.

+ Lynann's Blog: Blogging centering around (citizen) journalism and PR. Up until now, I had only recently heard about the importance of blogging from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or in regular print newspapers, but I hadn't really seen its power in action. One entry in this one addresses that the power of blogging comes from the human contact. The site also addresses other issues regarding blogging, journalism and PR. She also touches upon a book by Desmond Tutu.

+ Marqui's World: According to their website, Marqui is a simple, elegant Web content management and marketing automation suite designed to manage your marketing activities. This blog actually introduced me to a lot of the other blogs on today's list. This one provides yet more perspective on marketing, PR and the Blogosphere. If this topic introduces you, and it should if you want to get noticed on the World Wide Web, read this blog, too.

+ Orcology: This blog addresses social media, like blogs and Wikis.

+ Creating Passionate Users: A blog centering around marketing, organizational theory and, somewhat, social cognition.

+ Naked Conversations: Hard to describe this one. Apparently, these two guys write about their books. I'm starting to think that their focus is on social media, which apparently hasn't been adopted as an official term yet.

+ Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed: A financial blog. Unfortunately, "financial" feels like a loose term for some reason.

+ PubSub: This company introduces an application that provides an RSS feed for search terms you provide it. It supposedly checks out blogs and other sites on the Web. It hasn't worked too well for me yet, but they warn that it's just a beta version of the product.

+ Southern Appeal: A fairly conservative blogs that made me want to hurl a couple times. I plan on sticking with it, though, just to make sure that I stay "fair and balanced."

+ The Diva Marketing Blog: A cute meta-blog centering around marketing, of course, and, obviously, -blogging.

+ The Paradigm Shift: Adapt or Die: I think this one focuses on making money through Website design.

WOAH. . .TOO MUCH TIME IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER

I really should get going, off to bed and spending time with the family.

This Entry Dedicated to Fjordy

He cut his arm after falling in the shower so badly that he caused nerve damage. His pinky and ring fingers don't fully work. They operated on him today, but he probably won't get a full range of movement for another year.

The lesson he learned: Use a big plastic container instead of a convenient glass one in the shower, especially if you have epilepsy.

OBJECTIVE AND WORK: PART II -- PSYCHIC DEFENSES GONE WRONG?

Reading a little more in got me thinking about psychic defenses that I've adapted during my youth and adolescence.

I won't really talk about them in too much detail on this blog. Trying to address them with people in the past caused some outbursts that I would rather not have happen again.

These defenses may have something to do with my procrastinating and perfectionist tendencies, though. In the midst of the procrastination and perfectionist thinking, I don't consciously hear the defensive habit program loops going through my head. Talking about the loops as if they're not conscious doesn't give the situation justice, though. Maybe I can better explain it as thinking about them as based in reality, as truth, in a way, as compared to defense loops created many years ago and never altered as my life situation has changed.

Not to say that I haven't defeated maladaptive defense loops before. After reading a book about cognitive therapy, I learned how to fight against ones that worked against my desires. The main problem with the loops that encourage my job search procrastination comes from the fact that I enjoy the palliative things I do in lieu of actual productive work. I don't like the guilt afterward, but some part of me likes the procrastination activity.

As Fear of Intimacy originally brought to my eyes the idea that the procrastination may start because of defense loops, it further brought to mind the idea that the hyperfocusing may come from these very same loops rather than ADHD.

I've hypothesized a little that some ADHD may actually come from maladaptive psychic defense loops. Please don't take this hypothesis seriously, though, because from what I've seen, some people really do have a biological origin for their ADHD. Possibly I don't, though.

So I have exposed some of these loops. They will probably rear their ugly heads for awhile until I beat them down with some cognitive fencing with it. Even after beating it down, I will probably always have to face it. I still have to face some other loops I've fought and beat before, after all.

Exhausting work, but if I am to grow and gratify myself in a healthy way, I have to do it.

BACK IN CHICAGO & A FRIEND LOOKING FOR WORK IN LA

Got home yesterday from the East Coast and my brother's wedding. We brought back a friend who will be moving to LA after she leaves here. If anyone there needs a movie/film editor that has a different perspective than anyone from the US (she's from South Africa), let me know. I'll get you two connected.

MY BROTHER'S WEDDING ON THE EAST COAST

The wedding touched me a bit. In an inappropriate fashion, I feel as if I can only relate the ceremony to a "Speaking," as in, a Speaking for the Dead, introduced to me by Orson Scott Card in his book, Speaker for the Dead.

No one died, and a wedding typically provides people with a happy occasion. The ceremony didn't reveal any dark, negative facts, either. . .except for maybe my sister-in-law's nack for bad cooking. Nonetheless, the priests and friends of the bride and groom did a good job of putting the legal partnership of these two people along with their history up to the point of the wedding into the perspective of their communities.

I saw, in a few ways, a side of my brother bared sincerely in a way that I never saw before. The communication of the way that my sister-in-law sees my brother puts a huge new spin on my perspective of him. Obviously, the way my brother and I will relate in the future will change in some ways, but it will also remain the same in other ways. Having this new perspective of him and his place in my family community really opens my eyes somewhat, though.

Both the wedding ceremony and my reflecting on it in the way I have has inspired me somewhat for my wedding in a year. . ..

BACK TO JOB SEARCHING

Apparently getting away from home and living differently for a weekend has helped my procrastinating. Having our friend here looking for a job probably helps a little, too.

I've only had to fight my procrastinating defense loop just a little. It probably doesn't have as much strength at the moment because I've become conscious of it. The danger comes when I relax, and it pops up out of nowhere.

Today ended with some results, though. I applied for a proofreading/quality assurance position that the fiance found on the Chicago Craigslist and a couple other jobs posted on the temp agency sites I have signed up for. Tomorrow I will need to follow up on a couple other things, then I can move onto searching for more original ads.

When procrastinating becomes an issue again, though, I'll need to change up things by working on my networking and learning some new skills. Maybe I should just switch things up on a regular basis before procrastination becomes an issue, though.

We'll just have to see what happens.

FOR NOW, I NEED TO GET MOVING AND DO STUFF

GET BETTER, FJORDY!

Heading Back Home Tomorrow. . .

for the weekend. My brother has his wedding on Saturday.

Also going to see some friends and getting a haircut.

We'll also bring back to a Chicago a friend moving to LA from South Africa.

Today went to a temp agency for some testing and talking with a guy.

Then I came home and catalogued some pricey trading/playing cards.

My procrastinating with the job search has gotten to annoy me. I've decided that when we get back from the weekend trip, I'll need a slight change of scenery during the day. So I'll take the laptop to one of the local cafes with free Wifi. Hopefully that will get me out of my funk.

Maybe I'll even make some friends.

But I hope you folks read some poetry today. . .

I'll work on the Objective and Work essay later. . .

Later, Gator.

Read Some Poetry. . .

Over at Dan's Uberliss Page.

Dan and I met in Boston. We used to live in the same neighborhood and ran into each other once at this free yoga class that one of my old roommates brought me to one day but never spoke.

Afterward, I saw him many times on my commute to work. We didn't introduce ourselves for a long time, but I had the unsettling feeling that I knew him from somewhere.

Then one day, I overheard him talking to someone else about the same yoga center. He mentioned to him that I had seen him at that free intro class. We became friends somewhat slowly after that, meeting a couple times at the Chinese buffet restaurant for lunch right across the square from my office and then just before he moved to Chicago, he invited me over to his house for a goodbye party.

He gave me a book of poetry that he wrote and published. I read through it during my commutes to and from work after he had left for Chicago. It kinda struck me as material that I couldn't necessarily get, which I blamed my general poetry illiteracy for experiencing. Over some time of reading the book, though, I started picking up on the feeling of the poetry and going with it. It really comes as more feeling poetry than anything high minded, almost Zen-like, if you will.

Dan's a lot like that, in a way, quite Zen-like. I wouldn't say that he has reahed enlightenment or anything, but he does a good job at living in the moment and losing himself in it, even if he can lose track of the time and flake out on you. He makes it easy to forgive him, though. . .it probably has something to do with his great, big, cuddly bearish irrepressible personality.

The fiancee and I really have a good time getting to know him better over the years as we've visited Chicago and met up with him for a night at Second City, some drinks, some meals, a walk down Wells St for the artist fair and just the general hanging out and visiting the "Dan experience."

You, too, can get a glimpse into that experience at Dan's Uberbliss Page.

Ironically and somewhat perturbally [sp?], though, we haven't seen him since we moved to the city. Grrrrrr. . ..

Objective and Work

The Objective and Work topic will have to come as a work in progress. I haven't really thought about it as thoroughly as I have about other topics.

Also, it will probably come more slowly than most other topics. I haven't really formulated many thoughts about it other than to realize that the issue exists. Exploring it will take more than one essay entry.

I, in addition, have an interview and testing with a temp agency tomorrow. The day after that, the fiancee and I head back to Massachusetts for my brother's wedding over the weekend and hopefully a hike on Sunday. It's actually late, at 11:30 PM, considering these factors starting tomorrow.

THE ISSUE REVEALS ITSELF

I first realized that I had an issue while searching through job ads. It revealed itself with a particular ad. Honestly, I can't remember which one, but I think it had something to do with a writing, editorial, customer service or office assistant job (no wonder. . .that's the general positions that I feel would work for me) at a financial company.

Reading the ad (yeah, the more I think about it, it has something to do with a financial company) and researching their company Website, I felt myself having the beginnings of understanding the subject and even wanting to learn more about it. The more I read about the financial stuff this company did and the educational material they had on their Website, the more I realized I didn't know that much about the financial sector, even though I own mutual funds, have a money market and did some minor investing in the stock market before finding myself in deep water then pulling my money out of it.

It hit me, then, that I need to narrow the target audience of my job search marketing campaign to more than just companies that have a writing, proofing, editing, customer service representative or administrative/office assistant position. I need to target companies that sell a product that I understand or at least have a good beginnings of an understanding and companies that have a compatible culture with me (I really just came up with that one today).

Directing my job search marketing campaign really only just starts touching upon the objective factor of looking for a job or for setting myself up for a career. . .

BUT FOR NOW, I NEED TO SLEEP

I may continue this essay tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. Or maybe I won't have the energy for it and try to do it later. But maybe that'll just keeping going on, and I'll lose the motivation to finish the essay.

Guess we'll just have to see what happens.

Remember to Let in Life

STAYING AT BLOGGER

Woohoo! Blogger has an Adsense option, so I don't have to transfer the_lex-topia over to a Soulcast blog. Nice concept to try revolutionizing the Web, Google, but the author interface need some more work and features.

I really like the tag option they have there, though.

Still, it will save me a good amount of time and effort transferring things over there. It will also save you readers from any further confusion that the aborted transfer may have caused.

Whoo!

HARDLY LIVING

Yesterday, I spent way too much time and energy playing a Texas Hold'em game on my computer. There's just something about card, strategy and tactical games that suck me in. I guess a regular ol' action video game would do something similar. If I lose, I just keep on trying and keep on trying until I win.

Unfortunately, most particularly for a game like poker, figuring out a good strategy takes more than just repeated efforts. This tact especially doesn't work when (a) you get stuck on one way to do things or, after that, (b) you can't come up with new ways to try winning. It does help to realize that (a) doesn't work, though.

But yeah, I spent plenty of wasted hours playing that Texas Hold'em game to no avail.

LIVE LIFE OR DIE BEFORE YOU'RE DEAD

I eventually got tired of the game and grew tired, so I had some grub and went to bed. As I lay there, I thought about this propensity for getting obsessive about these types of games. Before the move back in Massachusetts, I had faced the same issue, so I knew it was something of a regular problem. Especially since the problem continues to persist after getting medicated for ADHD.

Last night, though, I came up with a new way to approach the issue. Falling into a cycle of obsession then feeling guilty for the obsession but continuing on the path of this obsession had become something of a normal course of events in Massachusetts. This cycle doesn't do anything constructive for me but falling into it last night keyed into a possible psychological explanation for it.

I started reading Fear of Intimacy by Robert W. Firestone and Joyce Catlett back in the hotel before moving into this great apartment. Fireston and Catlett argue that in our infancy and youth, to defend ourselves against the emotional pain of rejection, most of us programmed ourselves with habits, thinking patterns and behaviors that helped us then but have become maladaptive as we grow up and leave our childhood homes.

So maybe, just maybe, this obsessiveness and single-mindedness with card, tactical and strategy games has roots in my own defenses against the pain of rejection. I haven't really thought much beyond that point, simply because when I enter the zone, I get very irrational and have to expend a lot of energy to pull myself away from it.

If anything, I guess I use these games as some form of escapism, but I can't say that I know what I want to escape other than the whole rejection thing. I took up playing the game yesterday because I figured it would work as a good diversion from small spaces between times that the fiancee needed me for installing an air conditioner.

Fear of boredom, maybe? Last week, I had that realization about the need for stimulation, but not getting stimulated doesn't strike me as a form of rejection. Even though boredom does lead me to thought patterns that can annoy me as I become obsessed about things I can't get to at the moment or about times in the past when I did face rejection of sorts. . .and annoyingly, my mind has a way of trying to solve problems with reason that can't really get solved by reason, especially when I don't have all the pertinent information. . .so obsessing about some stupid game can provide less pain than an interaction with someone in the past who had rejected me. I can keep trying new things with a game, at least.

Don't know if that's the real reason, but I had resolved that I needed to get away from the computer, the job search and all that important stuff every once in awhile. That idea comes somewhat from Job Hunting for Dummies by Max Messmer. He said that "becoming an expert in something" helps manage stress during a job search. I don't think he means become an absolute expert on something to the point of writing articles, becoming a consultant, making it a job or anything to that extent, but pick up some books and magazines about a topic and become well versed in it.

Then I decided to make a point to read something I enjoy or something for my bachelor's project (which I do enjoy. . .) for at least an hour or two or hopefully every couple hours while doing important stuff, get away from my desk to read, take a walk, maybe watch some TV, spend time with the fiancee or the kittens or do whatever strikes my fancy.

I've only just gotten on this here computer late in the evening at around 7:30 or so. Most of the day I spent reading, a couple chapters in the Illinois Manual for Safe Driving (have to take a written test and maybe drive on the roads when I apply for the IL license), Volume III of the Neil Gaiman Sandman graphic novels, Dream Country and a chapter from Fear of Intimacy. I also had some conversation with the fiancee and played with the kittens.

Have to admit, it made for a very enjoyable day. The day passed much more leisurely and enjoyably as compared to speeding by like it does while working for someone else, while job searching, while obsessing over a stupid game or while just plain doing silly errands and such.

Maybe I entered some kind of meditative state while reading the way I did, even though I wouldn't say the Illinois driving manual is exactly lulling into a trance, more into sleep. . ..

But yeah, I really need to make a point of reading and spending more time with people important to me rather than getting stuck in maladaptive obsessive cycles or doing Productive things that need to get done (and yes, I meant to capitalize "productive.")

SUBJECTS FOR UPCOMING ENTRIES:

+ Objective and the Job Search

+ The degree of my powerlessness in the world, with needing an income, food and other things just to survive and getting all those things gets in the way of either taking up some kind of political activism or some kind of freelance writing career to inform the public

and

+ The importance of palliative expressions and actions in our lives, especially for people who decide to follow some degree of strict principles (even though, after watching The DaVinci Code and thoughts about evil people in the world, how valid are palliative expressions in different situations?)

Please Pardon the Content

I'm transferring the content from Blogger to Soulcast. They have different formats, so I have to adjust each entry manually at times, too.

This process will probably take some time, and I probably won't make too many entries until I've finished it. If I do before completion, I will make the entries here, on Blogger.

Please take this time to run down nostalgia lane for this blog at my Soulcast blog.

Thank you for your patience.

Changing Blogging Sites

So I've become something of a whore. Soulcast, a "subsidiary" of Google has set up a blogging platform that allows for contextual advertising similar to their Gmail service.

Sounds like a worthwhile and easy way to make some spare change, so check out my new "beta" blog at The_Lex.

Thank you for the fun over the last couple months and lets try to keep it going over at Soulcast.

The Difficulty of Living Vegan: Medications

I received a letter from my pharmacist listing the active and inactive ingredients of a medication I've been taking that has majorly increased my quality of life. I could even say it has helped me become more "powerful" and able to fix the problem I have with the ingredients some day.

Essentially, the medication has gelatin to keep it in encapsulated form. The company probably doesn't need to use gelatin for it, probably just the cheapest.

BTW, I'm vegan.

In an attempt to possibly find other routes around this issue, I found the following Websites, which even if they didn't provide alternatives, presented a different way of looking at the issue for a vegan:

Using the contents of gelatin capsules

Questions about medications

Remember the depressed vegetarian

Thyroid Disorders board: HealthBoards

Grassroots Veganism with Jo Stepaniak

The above comes from the first page of links on Google, using the search string of "vegan medication".

The above links bring up two interesting themes that I may address in the future:

+ The degree of my powerlessness in the world, with needing an income, food and other things just to survive and getting all those things gets in the way of either taking up some kind of political activism or some kind of freelance writing career to inform the public

and

+ The importance of palliative expressions and actions in our lives, especially for people who decide to follow some degree of strict principles (even though, after watching The DaVinci Code and thoughts about evil people in the world, how valid are palliative expressions in different situations?)

But I guess I should probably address the second part of the Objective topic first.

Objective and History

A couple days ago, I mentioned that I would address the importance of having an objective when on a quest.

Now is that time, especially since I have just that issue with my current quest. My job search is a quest of sorts.

I should back track a little, though, to provide a little background.

NEEDING AN OBJECTIVE AND MY BACHELOR'S PROJECT

For those not in the know, I've been working on my bachelor's project exploring Utopianism in literature and historical communities for the last 5 1/2 to 7 1/2 years, depending on when you count me starting the project.

My main problem and reason for not completing the project by now: other than having some kind of academic background understanding for a novel that I'm writing, I didn't really have an objective or necessarily anything that I looked to accomplish. I just wanted to get it done to earn my bachelors degree.

On some level, I still have that objective. I've also come up with another, more personal goal. Maybe I should say that I've more re-discovered what I've wanted to accomplish when I first writing my novel. . .even though the story of the novel has changed.

I believe that I had a certain blindness to my objective when I first started writing the novel. At the time, I really just wanted to emulate George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Ray Bradury's Fahrenheit 451, which I hope most readers know that Michael Moore alluded to with the title to his movie Fahrenheit 9/11.

Some of my conscious thought acknowledged that my life situation at the time influenced my approach to writing this novel (which actually started as a short story). Little did I know to what extent the situation influenced me. Sure, other than Fahrenheit 451, a friend of mine into freedom of thought and action, liberty, anarchy, politics to some degree and all that stuff had gotten me into reading 1984 and Brave New World (the librarian at my 4th grade elementary school had gotten me to read Brave New World. He probably wanted me to read those books because of the principles and excitement that he wanted to spread about them, but I think he wanted me to read them, also, so I would take another look at my own situation since he often would motivate me to fight my own fight for liberty and freedom.

Now, I can't say that I had a horrible existence at that time compared to many other people and populations in worse situations than me. My friend's influence along with a lot of indirect exposure, including trips to Boston, stuff I saw on TV and heard on the radio, other books I read, 'zines and other publications found in Boston, movies, the Internet, people from all walks of life, to the injustices in the world propogated by either the purposeful hand of those in power or just through the existential brokeness of the human spirit and nature and the system created by that nature. Even some school teachers addressed the systematic vice in our mists. My parents had even encouraged me to read Brave New World and William Golding's Lord of the Flies (two books that implicitly support our overall "Puritan" value system but can do a number on opening a young man's eyes).

Going to an isolated liberal arts college on top of a mountain with people from all walks of life didn't hide me from the injustices in our midst. Despite the political thinking and mindedness of the students and teachers there, my approach to the topics became more academic as compared to my intuitive and feeling the topic that I did during my high school days. I also ran into some personal issues and challenges while there and over a summer vacation or two, which caused me to turn inward for awhile, question myself, challenge my very way of being and, as I addressed in the essay a couple days ago, become more comfortable with myself in certain ways while letting go of aspects of myself that alienated me from connecting with people on a good basis but still added some degree of excitement and adventure to my life.

Looking back to then, I guess I hid from myself the intuitive, feeling resources from my adolescence that I needed to understand my objective behind the novel. I started writing it from the gut to express a feeling and emulate a couple authors, yes, but I didn't have the clear thought to articulate the themes and purpose behind the novel. Sometimes the beauty of literature comes from that aspect, touching onto something through drama but not explaining everything. That way, a reader can connect to it, make their own meaning and even later, come back to it to find more new meaning between those two covers and inside their head. I've often had this experience of coming back to a book or a recording years after first hearing it, having a new perspective and understanding the piece on a deeper and clearer level.

So to start fulfilling the requirements of my bachelor's, I needed to focus on thinking clearly and logically. One night in my junior year, my roommate gave me a lecture of how I use my intuition too much. My senior year, another roommate had the most difficult time working with my spoken arguments, since I could pontificate like Senator John Kerry or even flip flop like him while working with short answers. Both of these guys influence my way of thinking nearly as much as the big identity crisis I had around that time wherein I needed to make my point of view more understandable and rational to simply continue staying sane.

I went to school for another year and a half after the trigger of that crisis without figuring out a good objective for the project. Even worse, the novel ran into tons of issues because my crisis and loss of confidence as a writer. If I couldn't even live life, relate to people and co-exist with them on some kind of human level, hwo could I possibly write good literature.

Nothing at that school could help whilst in that crisis. I couldn't write anything worth anything. Even one of my advisors got completely frustrated with the flip flopping I did with the papers I wrote for him. He said that he had never seen anything like it, and he couldn't think of anything anymore that could help me. I left there with the option to finish my project open to me but not totally sure whether I would.

For the next year, I would try getting a job and learning how to live in the world. It didn't kill me, but I couldn't really find success all that easy. That bachelor's degree became all the more important to me. I made friends. Finally, I had accepted the job offer my parents had kept giving me for 1 1/2 years. I found an idea that would work for one of the project papers, after a year of brainstorming, hard thinking, tons of reading, frustration and papers started but not completed. Another paper even got finished after that first one.

The novel even got started again, even though it had to go through plenty of starts and incompletes before one of my walking around town ideas stuck. Still working on the novel, even though I haven't done any real work on it for a year or so. The idea sticks, though, and people really like it. . .a better result compared to when during my freshman year, I let a girl in the dorm read it then who had broken out laughing at the vast amount of cheesiness it embodied at that point. People liked the middle incarnations of the novel, too, but the middle ones stopped working for me because it worked away from the utopianism and had moved onto some kind of strange mysticism that no longer worked for me.

Also during that year or so between leaving college and accepting my parents' job offer, I had re-discovered that the novel had come out of my experience during my adolescence. Not only did it get influenced by the books I read at the time but also by my everyday experience at the time. Unfortunately, my perception still had the taint of resentment and anger, so even though I had gotten a boost from that re-discovery, I didn't get any good ideas from it.

Fast forward fours years. I'm engaged. I'm about to leave the job that I had accepted from my parents. My anger and resentment at things have died down as I make way for the move to Chicago, starting a job search, making plans for a wedding in about a year and saying goodbye to people. I've written 4 out of 6 papers for the project but am having tons of issues with the 5th one similar to the 1st one, a good idea that will work from page 1 to the end just doesn't come to me, even after a ton of false starts.

The fiancee and I have started couples counselling during the move to deal with the stress of it all and to also help us maintain the relationship. We learned some useful things about ourselves and plan on hooking up with another counsellor once we get insurance again, but the topic of my bachelors came up a lot. Even if I finished this project, would Marlboro still give the bachelors to me? Would I be able to finish the project? Should I just go to school somewhere else? Can I re-negotiate things with my advisors?

The fiancee and I thought the easiest approach would be first to see if I could still get the bachelors from Marlboro. I contacted the head of advising there. After a somewhat mixed up dialogue, I learned that I could still get that bachelors, but that they thought it would be a good idea to speak with my advisor. It took me a few months to finally call him and leave him a message saying that everything's actually going OK, I just had a logistical question about the whole thing. . .wasn't necessarily looking for guidance or anything.

While fretting about talking with the advisors, though, the couples counsellor had a great idea: I should sit down, figure out my objective, come up with talking points, etc. etc. One night, I sat down to do just that. Can't say that I finished that project because while doing it, I couldn't get satisfied with my objective/points.

I got diverted, instead, into searching for an objective for the overall project and also figuring out an outline for this 5th paper. The beginnings of a good objective came to me: an exploration of what happens when a society, community, group helps an individual to fulfill their goals and gratifies their desires or what happens when they don't help or prevent an individual from fulfilling goals and gratifying desires. By working through my own personal resentment and anger about my adolescence and college time, I figured this touched upon the issue that bugged me a lot: I wasn't being helped to fulfill my goals or gratifying my desire in a helpful way. Either no one really knew what they were, knew how I could, in the long term, fulfill and gratify or because they weren't getting fulfilled and gratified, I would either act out or find ways to numb or stimulate myself because I didn't know what else to do.

From that point about a month ago, I've realized that that objective isn't enough. The outline I did for the 5th paper can't really accomplish anything with that objective. I've read at least one book that points me in a good direction and a little bit from another that steers me a little closer to the goal. At the moment, however, I can't really refine the objective because the job search bears more importance, and I can't spend money on the book that will help me to refine the objective. Still, still, still. . .having this somewhat more refined objective in mind points me in a direction and helps me to discriminate what information and what thoughts will be useful for me in this project. Right now, it has something to do with Charles Tilly's Identities, Boundaries and Social Ties, but I don't how yet.

I just know that I can't move forward until I check out this book. At least I know my objective, though, and that I have next step. . .. Without this objective, though, I probably would be going nuts with anxiety while doing my job search. Now i can just feel anticipation that once I get a job, I can move forward on accomplishing my objective.

THAT WAS LONG. THERE WILL HAVE TO BE MORE

I'm not done with this essay. Writing this part has taken a long time out of my day, though. I will have to continue it tomorrow.

The Vagaries of the Democratic Existence

YET AGAIN, DEAN PISSES OFF SOMEONE

From the Windy City Times, DNC’s Dean Angers Gays. The Democrats should be pissed with him, too, for going against the party line. No wonder the country can't take them seriously these days. . .their spokesperson can't even follow the party line.

MY DAY. . .OF COURSE YOU'RE INTERESTED!

Well I've fallen into that all too easy trap of going to sleep late and not waking up until late. This type of thing happens all the time when I don't have a job or anything urgent to attend to during the day.

Tonight, I'm hoping to get to bed at somewhat of a good time (after watching LOST on the TiVo). Hoepfully that will set things straight, especially since we plan on entertaining at some point tomorrow.

Didn't get incredibly much done today, though. I just posted my information up on a creative and marketing temp agency site.

Maybe I shouldn't spend so much time in the morning eating and watching old Daily Shows and Colbert Reports.

BTW, am I the only one who didn't know that Lewis Black will be getting his own show on Comedy Central called Red State Diaries?

With this horrible predicament of staying up late and waking up late needing rectifying, I'm going to have to forgo my essay for the day. Sorry, folks. Maybe we'll strike it lucky tomorrow. . ..

Anthropologically Bonding Business Intelligence to Personal Descriptions and Dispositions

BUSINESS OPS

A couple interesting links about Business Intelligence:

+ Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

+ Business Intelligence

+ Defining Web Analytics: Market Intelligence

+ Marketers and analysts—bridging the communications divide

+ Marketing Analytics to the Rescue: The Next Big Thing?

+ Sales and Marketing Analytics

+ Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals

+ Open Source BI: The Great Leap Forward

+ Business Intelligence - Empower Business Decisions: a blog

Woowee. . .the things I'm learning during my job search.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL BONDAGE

+ Band Societies

+ Lineage-Bonded Society

+ Land-Bonded Society

+ Village-Bonded Society

DESCRIBING A CHANGING IDENTITY

Last week, someone I hadn't heard from in 9 or 10 years contacted me. We've exchanged a couple e-mails and both have expressed sentiments of wanting to continue keeping in touch. This situation has provided me with an interesting challenge: how to initiate identification with each other, describe where I am now and how I got from there to here.

Some part of the issue comes from a tendency I have shown in the past of getting intense with people that I like. I can get so excited that I scare people away. Another element of intensity comes in the form of me trying to describe every little detail of just about everything. These odd characteristics of mine come, I believe, from an innate desire for mental stimulation and my focus on many details that form something, which includes personal history, probably symptoms of ADHD on some level.

Albeit, any person can change a lot in a span of 9 to 10 years, especially when that decade spans the later high school years, all of college and most of my young adult life and 20's. That detail, in itself, provides me with some level of comfort. We both probably feel similarly uncomfortable in that we both don't know where to start or possibly even how detailed to get about it, especially if we're not sure how close we want to become again.

Most people probably also have the difference of self knowledge between now and then. Comparably, however, I can see myself having more of an issue with the self knowledge thing than most people. Many people in my past have commented that I have a good amount of self knowledge (or they can say I have a good explanation of a social situation, which I don't necessarily have -- it's just over confidence). I think the big difference that rewards me with such a compliment comes from people knowing themselves on an implicit, non-conscious, instant access type of way compared to my explicit, very conscious but more difficult access type of knowledge. So my attention to these kinds of details doesn't come intentionally, but more as a way coping with the way my self conception and mind works.

Back when this person and I hung out, I probably had that nonconscious relationship with my self conception. I, honestly, didn't much like myself then and also didn't feel as if I was getting the types of things that I wanted. Sadly, I had no idea how to get these things.

Ironically, I could get these things if I felt more comfortable with myself and the peole around me. Impulse control didn't really rate high on my nonconscious way of being, even though this personal issue didn't cause too serious of problems, except for the numerous car accidents and moving violations. I, otherwise, simply pulled a bunch of faux pases and caused a few people some semi-long term discomfort and others short term discomfort. Not only did I feel uncomfortable about myself, I also didn't know how to play the etiquette games and be necessarily considerate of other people.

My lack of consideration has been somewhat diminished over the years. More often than not, I'm probably over respectful. Back then, my way of showing consideration was by being silent and not acting when feeling uncomfortable while letting myself go, just about saying and doing anything for a bit of excitement. Nowadays I show plenty and sometimes too much grace for fear of affecting people with my lack of impulse control.

Over compensating with too much consideration works well enough along with a tendency I have these days of thinking too much about ways to deal with a problem and trying to take into account everything. I get along and receive the benefits I generally want from life and society. Even the end of long term projects that have frustrated me to no end have an ending that has come into sight.

All of these things do help me feel good. Nonetheless, I miss that spontaneous side of me. Being so self conscious of myself and the direction my thoughts go has somewhat annoys me when I reflect on my everyday life, the types of ideas that I come up with to investigate or write about, the approaches that I take toward things, my general sense of being. . .it has become more grounded, which does have its benefits, but I feel a certain loss for that other part of me that I expunged somewhat back in the summer of 1999 while going through an incredibly rough night that I won't relate here.

A couple months ago, another friend of mine complained that his friends had lost their sense of adventure. I had gotten somewhat offended and challenged him on that claim, but maybe he's not so off from the mark. Nowadays I really don't take the kinds of chances that I would've taken years ago, the days when I had hung out with this guy.

For instance, this weekend while we had our friend visiting. The fiancee and I had visited him and his wife around their place about a year ago. I felt awkward a few times during that visit because I would say something, probably something that I thought was funny, and no one would laugh or say anything. The fiancee and a few other people would just ignore me (Oh, that's just The_Lex being The_Lex), but this guy and his wife had a noticeable pause. At the time, I felt offended on some level because I felt some negativity/hostility directed toward me.

This weekend with the friend help me get some perspective on that interaction, however. Throughout the weekend, I noticed him not saying something to fill the silence, make a joke when there was a chance or, as I read it, not take his turn in an interaction or conversation. I also remained conscious of the times that I stopped myself from saying something that didn't fit the situation. This time, I didn't feel that rejection/negativity/hostility coming from the friend. I, instead, noticed that I had the desire for social stimulation while he didn't have such a need.

Before leaving for Chicago, a friend and I touched upon this topic. Reminiscing about our pasts and comparing the now to the then, we both realized that we had shed some hang ups to become a better participant in social occasions and to gain the benefits of those occasions. We changed in ways other than taking on positive behaviors, though. Our tastes for the activities in which we wanted to participate and the things we wanted to accomplish had changed (for instance, then we wanted excitement and instant gratification -- now we have an interest in securing society's, our own and the world's future, getting gratification from knowledge and overall accomplishments and other adult things). Not that we ever wanted to avoid becoming adults, but the fact that we changed in the ways that we did surprised us.

I can't say that I've reached any kind of logical or even intuitive conclusion in the writing of this rambling essay. If anything, I should just try doing what seems the best path: relax, get comfortable, sit back, come up with something appropriate to say or do and enjoy getting to know this person again.

AS THE WORLD TURNS

The links at the top of this entry really about says what I did today.

I finished up the notifying business of my change of address then moved onto the job search.

To follow up on a resume submission a couple weeks ago, I researched Business Intelligence to learn more about it and give the company an interesting article about the topic. That took me a few hours.

I also filled out an online profile at a temp agency and submitted a resume.

Darn, there really isn't that much time in the day, even when I'm not officially working. Oh well. . .over the last year or so, I did keep hearing about how the job search is just about a full time job and more.

AND FOR THE NEXT ENTRY

Surprisingly, I have written about a topic that I thought would get addressed seperately and hadn't mention earlier. Go figure. Other than what I mentioned last night, then, I don't have much else to address. So I guess I've just got the following left for tomorrow (it's amazing how easily the ideas pop up when resting, playing and not really trying to accomplish anything):

+ The importance of having an objective when embarking on a quest.