I guess I haven't been all that dependable when it comes to updating this Blog.
Tonight is a little different.
Not by much, though. I've had something of a stomach/digestive tract issue today. Not exactly sure what it's really about, but it stopped me from going to work and made me take things easy today.
I can't really bring myself to say much more, though. I should get some sleep so that I can hopefully feel good tomorrow.
Here's to health!
HEALTHINESS
Lately, I've had issues with low blood sugar and consequently, not getting enough protein. This issue made it difficult for productive efforts last week. Tuesday night, I pretty much just watched Scrubs (BTW, awesome entry) then fell asleep on the couch until the fiance came home to wake me.
(Sometimes. . .now being one of those times, I have this strange feeling of connection with JD from Scrubs and his inner monologue. I think it happens a lot while writing in this Blog).
Trying to deal with the whole low blood sugar/protein issue, I did some research. I learned that for my body weight, I should be eating 49 or 50 g of protein a day (Your weight in pounds * .35 = how much protein you should be eating a day, supposedly).
I hit, according to my calculations at midday, about 25 g. I'm too tired to calculate how much I ate during the whole day. If the midday calculation is any use, I probably did hit the amount of protein I need.
Thinking about this protein calculation often makes me value my cruelty free diet (not so vegan). Whereas people who love their and would like to keep my body weight and stay healthy probably should only eat two hamburgers or a steak and a half or something equivalent to that, I can eat quite a bit during the day and have a hard time getting past 50 g of protein in a day.
I enjoy the taste of food. I like staying healthy. I like to maximize the things I like. This relationship between my health and the taste for good food works well.
THE MOMENTOUS JOB SEARCH
With the help of Resumes for Dummies, I revised the first page of my resume. It now provides more pleasure to look at, does a better job highlighting how I've demonstrated applicable skills in positions not so relevant to the ones I want and makes explicit that those responsibilities demonstrate those skills.
Tomorrow I will work on the second page then try revising the cover letter to make it much more exciting for prospective employers.
I really should get the resume all jazzed up, though, because I need to make appointments with temp agencies for next week when the fiance and I visit Chicago again.
THEN I'll revise the cover letter.
And after that. . .I will get myself a friggin' job to love.
MY EDUCATION
I've already inspired some discussion affirming me going back to school somewhere other than Marlboro and not finishing my Plan of Concentration.
Today, I had epiphany about how things started going wrong.
To illuminate the whole thing, I'll quote the Marlboro College (or as some refer to it, "That School"):
What is a Plan? An integrated study that focuses on an area of the curriculum or on a set of related questions or issues that cross disciplinary boundaries...
* an integrated course of study planned by the student
* in one or more areas of the curriculum
* under the guidance of a faculty sponsor or sponsors
* approved by the entire faculty
[. . .]
How do you do a Cross-Disciplinary Plan? Carefully.
Such Plans involve study in two or three different fields, sometimes with fairly equal distribution of weight, sometimes with one field clearly dominant. Whatever the structure, a cross-disciplinary Plan should have the same goal as a single-field Plan. That goal is the investigation in depth of a single problem or a set of clearly related problems. In cross-disciplinary Plans, it is the notion of clearly related that determines the success of such Plans in meeting the stated goal. Any student who ignores or forgets this essential Plan concept risks considerable disappointment when the whole is finally evaluated.
[. . .]
DON'TS
. . .
3. Don't forget that it is your responsibility to maintain a strong focus on your central question/ project, and to consult with your teachers and sponsor if you have any misgivings about the direction of your work.
Suffice to say, this e-mail that I sent to the fiancee sums up my experience:
I took on more than I could chew. Not because of what Marlboro required of me but because of misunderstanding on my part and miscommunication.
Marlboro doesn't require a thesis. It requires some kind of project, which generally includes papers that are related by topic but not by some problem or thesis statement necessarily. They can just address a topic from different angles or different "expressions" of a topic (like three different novels).
As for the miscommunication, I took on the sociology teacher as a sponsor, but I really just wanted to draw on sociology for theory and understanding. I didn't want to study sociology or even real life utopias/dystopias, per se. And somehow, I couldn't get this part across. . ..
Fun, fun, fun. . .not really.
Unfortunately, I have to focus on getting a job before even thinking about going back to school.
WILL WORK FOR EXPERIENCE AND NEED EXPERIENCE FOR WORK
My life situation has become something of a Catch-22 similar to the one a band experiences when it first starts gigging. I need work to get experience, but I can't get work without experience (unless I take an internship, then I can hardly pay the bills to survive to work).
The whole Catch-22 wouldn't give me trouble except that it grates on my self esteem and mood. Lacking a demonstrated education (in the form of an associates or bachelors) doesn't help, either.
Neither do I want to work some job that will bore me.
I feel like I can't do anything except insurance, but I don't like the insurance industry. It came as a fallback job years ago. When I try, I can make up descriptions that make it sound noble and even exciting.
On an everyday level, though, it bores me.
Having the feeling that I don't have skills to offer and that I feel strained marketing myself (when I generally don't do well talking about myself in the first place), I feel useless as a member of society.
It sucks, but I've got to get going to a games night.
Maybe that will get my mind off of my bad-employment self esteem.
I guess I've disappeared a couple times over the last couple weeks.
This moving thing has gotten pretty stressful. Monday night at the couples counsellor, I got a little emotionally worked up because the fiance wanted to come up with an education plan for me and the counsellor fell into the trap that everyone does: trying to help me by trying to come up with ways to negotiate less work, different advisors, etc. etc. when I've tried everything.
Tuesday night, I just shut down, felt depressed and fell asleep on the couch. It could've happened because I had a whole plastic thing of watermelon, though, just went hypoglycemic, making me feel horrible and depressed and so on and so forth.
The fiance and I went out for dinner last night with someone I hadn't seen for awhile. Funny really. We needed something like two months to schedule the dinner out so that I could give him his Christmas gift. Other than the gift, though, we had a fun time just getting to know each other more. Always fun to learn about someone you've known for years but never hang out with.
THESIS PROGRESS
Have been making some habitual progress on thinking about the thesis. After five years, finally have come up with some of a useful definition for utopia (duh!):
Utopia - 1. An archetype of an organizational type that is generally seen as good 2. An organization that attempts to embody an ideal or set of ideals.
Dystopia - 2. An archetype of an organizational type that is generally seen as horrible. 2. An organization that embodies a horrible organization archetype.
I have to thank Kik from the City-of-Kik and City-of-Utopia fame, a Yahoogroups list, for coming up with his own description of utopia that inspired my definition for it.
JOB SEARCH
Bought three more Dummies books last night:
* Job Hunt
* Cover Letters
* Resumes
I've only read a couple pages in the Cover Letters one, but it's provided some really great advice for sending job inquiries over the Internet in the new information transitory age.
Now, though, I really should get moving onto the job search and setting up my new Palm Z22.
Wow. . .almost exactly 60 days until the lease runs out on this place and the fiancee and I move halfway across the country to Chicago. Kinda freaky.
I possibly may have spoken too soon yesterday about giving up on the thesis. Today, I found another possible angle in a subfield of Social Pyschology, Social Judgment. Not yet sure if it will lead me anywhere productive, but I might as well give it a shot.
In the meanwhile, I will still entertain the idea of going back to school. When the fiancee and I visit Chicago next week, I will visit a few schools along with checking out a place for our wedding in a little more than a year and any possible job leads and temp agencies I may find.
A couple minutes ago, I applied to another job. Feel pretty confident that I'll get a response to this one. I jazzed up the cover letter much better than I have in the past to make it more specific to the company.
I really have been busy lately, even though I don't feel as if I'm going anywhere yet. Sadly, it exhausts me and doesn't really give me much time to contemplate things. Then again, I think the ADHD medication has also quieted my obsessive ruminations, too, which has bored my mind a little.
Oh well. . ..
I'm entertaining the idea of going back to school rather than finish my thesis.
Trying to find an angle for the thesis has become really really frustrating. Most of the scholarly stuff out there about utopianism, I can translate from academia to understandable brainwaves. Then I can't see where stuff from a pure interpretative viewpoint gets the ideas.
After the problem of trying to digest the information comes trying to find some kind of angle that applies to both literature and historical instances of utopianism.
If I do go back to school, I want to go for the same subject. I want to refine it. I want to learn more about how to approach the topic. I may drop the historical side or not, but I do want to get this thing done, so I can move onto more interesting professional endeavors, problems and familial challenges like having kids, owning a home and so forth.
I ran into something called Activity Theory that looks it could help. Unfortunately, I've grown pretty cynical of these great theories that sound like they could help with the thesis. I may investigate a little deeper for the sake of curiousity.
Unless something comes up fortuitously, though, I'll just read the book I ordered from Amazon.com about attending school as an adult, make meetings during another March trip to Chicago then possibly apply if one of their programs sound good.
I've had enough of this floundering.
Dang, I'm tired and unfortunately, haven't really done that much because of feeling drowsy over the last couple nights.
It stinks.
Other than printing out a job ad the fiancee found for me and working on the copy writing project for ClimateSAVE, I spent my evening finding out how GMail isn't made my way and how to arrange a work around.
I also did some good reading during the day along with work at the job. Feeling frustrated that I'm not getting enough reading done in this book and feeling extremely excited about it, I decided to forgo reading newspapers until I'm done with the current queue of books to read or until they get boring.
Hopefully other people have had more excitement.
Had another just about regular day. Only big difference being that instead of job searching or working on projects after work today, I did some errands. Still going to bed later than I want or should.
Sent an e-mail for an editorial assistant at a company that sounds somewhat interesting, most especially the entertainment division. Sure, that division has more of a Pop edge than I would like, but it has potential.
The fiancee and I found an apartment we really like in Lakeview, around Wrigley Park and the Chicago Diner. The place has less room than we have now, but it still has a good amount of it. We'll have to pare down our possessions (if anyone needs any furniture or cooking ware, contact me. . .) and do a good amount of adjusting our designing preferences, but I think this place can work well.
Unfortunately, we don't necessarily have the place yet. We just submitted an application, a signed lease and an initial deposit. The building manager said that we should hear back from the landlord in about a week unless they have more questions.
Crossing our fingers. . .
Also crossing my fingers to finding a good, enjoyable job.
Nothing drastic, really.
I just spent some time on my old mailserver through the Web.
Usually, I download my e-mail through a POP3 connection. . .quicker, allows me better organization and flexibility and if I don't have access to the 'Net, I can still work on my e-mail.
So. . .yeah, I checked it out and found nearly 600 messages in a folder marked 'Deleted' and some other folders that I apparently made when I first started using that mail service. I switched over to gmail mainly because of the limited space on this mail server, which I didn't understand how I used up all the time. . .with only something like 200 messages in my inbox. I guess I now know. I deleted all the messages in the deleted folder and the other folders and now have plenty of sapce.
Go figure.
I'm still going through with the switchover to gmail since that's a free service. I've just found another good reason for the switchover. Anyone ever hear of "extra service."
POUNDING THE LIVING SPACE PAVEMENT
So we nearly froze our faces off in the feels like -5 degree weather, jumping on buses, subways and taxis to travel around the Uptown, Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square and Lakeview areas. Also took a trip up to Andersonville last night to have dinner and hang out with a friend that I had met on the train commute back in Boston.
Good times.
But the fiancee and I found three apartments that fit our criteria so far. Won't get into any major details, but we've got four appointments today with building managers and individual unit owners.
Thankfully, it's little warmer today. Maybe we'll just freeze off our noses today.
TRANSITION FEELINGS
Really have had much time to contemplate the ambivalence of moving. Thanks, though, for the commiseration, June.
Honestly, though, I think I like the feel of Chicago architecture better than the old style of Boston. The Chicago architecture, at least in the residential areas, just projects this gritty, hard working, down to earth feeling. The city has much more brick buildings than wood frame ones. I guess it also can look a little drab even though the occasional building has some interesting exterior decorations.
On the occasional interior, though, you find treasures of updated yet vintage styles. Good windows, insulation, utilities, sinks, nice walls, etc. etc. but you get the flavor of the early twentieth century. Instead of feeling as if you're living in a building with tons of memory but tons of age, I get the feeling of a building that has lots of experience that has taken a dip in the Fountain of Youth.
Even the not so great places have a humble charm. As I mentioned above about the exterior, they still broadcast that gritty, hard working and earthy feeling. I guess they broadcast something of a "We would have done better if we could but our jobs didn't necessarily pay us so well, so we're going to do the best with what we've got." I feel a certain, strong, upright dignity about these buildings that just will face a lot of hardship but won't give up.
Boston has a lot of history, but seriously I don't necessarily feel all that dignity there. I can almost feel a certain decadence or hopelessness because of everyone else's decadence.
But now we have to go out and eat so I will end my poetics.
Until another day.
Left work early yesterday at 3:30 and took a Southwest flight from Manchester, NH to Midway Airport in Chicago. The ride went a little bumpy but nothing to worry about after the trip.
The attendant who made the announcements had plenty of jokes, like "When you hit turbulence, shift happens," "I'm going to turn the lights off in the back to make the stewardess prettier" and after announcing a bunch of safety stuff, "Yada yada yada, due to lack of interest, the rest of this announcement has been cancelled."
Unfortunately, we had these two teenage girls behind us blabbing and in front of us, this guy with two kids who played some kind video player without headphones. I wanted to sleep, but instead, I put on my headphones and read a little.
After taking a train, a bus and braving the cold weather of Chicago (not all that bad, really. . .like Boston. . .even though there's something about feeling cold somewhere you don't know like the back of your hand compared to feeling cold in your hometown, even though Chicago gives me the feeling of home more and more), the fiancee and I reached the hotel, pretty much right next to the bus stop.
Check into the hotel at about 10:30. Clerk tells us that there's a Mediterranean just around the corner, but he thinks it closes at 11. We drop our stuff off in the room then run to the restaurant at 10 minutes to 11. The waiter lets us come in, serves us and we get out of the place with nice atmosphere in just a half hour (we got a great idea for having small tables and rolling them out when having guests and parties over for dinner or something like that).
Finally get into bed at about 12:30.
Got up this morning at around 7:30. It's now about quarter of 9.
We need to leave the hotel about 9:30 to make it to our first apartment search appointment. I think we have about five today, then we meet a friend for dinner. I'm expecting to get pretty exhausted by the end of the day.
Before I get off to breakfast and sign off from the blogverse, though, I need to express my ambivalence about this move. There's the usual distaste for the packing, unpacking, rearranging the apartment, working with movers, getting used to a new apartment, etc. etc., but that's not the center of my ambivalence.
Other than that, I'm actually pretty excited about the move. Mainly leaving New England excites me. From my limited experience, I find the people in the Midwest more friendly. The price of living is cheaper. Chicago is bigger and has so many more things to do, especially free things (like being able to see fireworks on Wednesday and Saturday nights during the summer, interesting art installations in the city, the zoo and so forth).
And up until about a week ago, I didn't feel all that bad about leaving Boston. Then I started noticing that I really couldn't spare the time to visit people further from my traveling comfort zone in Boston, mainly because I had a job search to do and didn't want to get all tired and sick from staying out late on the weeknights. I've been getting to like getting into bed at a good time on weeknights. But the weekends are pretty full of the job search and such, too. . ..
So it's not so much an ambivalence about leaving the city of Boston, even though I guess there's a little about missing the short buildings in Cambridge, Somerville and the other suburbs or even the skyline of Boston from Memorial Drive, the kind of view of a city that I wouldn't get in Chicago except if I took a ferry out onto Lake Michigan or hang out on Navy Pier. I guess, in the end, there's just an ambivalence about not having the "ease" to see friends, needing to make new friends and just missing the spirit exuded by the buildings and landscape of Boston.
It's kind of strange, really. I haven't really explored the feeling all that much yet just because it has shown its ugly head, but I need to get down to breakfast now. The feeling will probably make itself more known over the next month or so and give me more opportunity to become more articulate about it.
For now, though, I really need to get that breakfast.
Yum.
Not much happening, really, just being pretty productive.
Last night, did about half of my twice a month finance maintenance.
Also had some funky dreams, one of them about Charlie Jade coming to the US. Not only that, though, they were showing a second season. Woohoo! Too bad it's not real.
Also taking my thesis into this convergence of utopia, dystopia, organization theory, social cognition and perception, with social cognition being the newest part and social cognition and perception having more to do with each other than anything else. I don't really have anything more specific to say about it, though. I just have a bunch of rumination going through my head trying to make the thesis consistent and closer to my understanding the topic, academically and colliquoally
Otherwise, tonight finishing up my finance maintenance then packing for the weekend Chicago trip starting tomorrow night.
Wooh! I originally budgeted about an hour or an hour and a half to set up a resume then send it to a company via Monster.com.
They ended up wanting it via e-mail. That part really didn't take too much extra time.
Adding some classes and other qualifications that I don't usually put on my resume (my insurance qualifications will help on this one), though, took a little bit of time. Editing the resume for ASCII format added some time, too.
Sheez. . .when they said that you had to personalize your resume and cover letter, I never realized how much time went into the personalization.
Unfortunately, I'm hungry and tired now, so I don't really have the energy or time to channel into other interesting topics.
G-MAIL
So I finally did it. I transitioned to gmail.
I will continue to receive e-mail at imailbox until my subscription with them runs out, but please expect to receive replies from my gmail address.
Please bear with me and make the switch over after you learn my new e-mail address.
Thank you.
CHARLIE JADE YAHOOGROUPS LIST
So I started a Charlie Jade Yahoogroups list for discussion, news sharing, etc. etc.
To subscribe, go onto Yahoo Groups and search for it or please send an e-mail to charliejade-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
Thank you again!
Today, it's snowing so much that the supermarket closed. Will have to tomorrow after work and after an appointment that the fiancee and I have.
Took a nap and shoveled the driveway today. May have to shovel it again.
I'm going to try doing the dishes and catching up on my e-mail.
I have negative space left in the box, even though my e-mail program and I just deleted about eighty or so messages. I don't know how much of it is left in the actual mailbox, though. Ugh. . .accessing my e-mail through an e-mail program from two different computers and trying to have a system to it can get so difficult.
Otherwise, not much to report other than had a great Valentine's Dinner at a Morroccan restaurant called Tangierno in Charlestown. They have some great tea and soup. The entree tasted OK, but I'm starting to learn that I like spices the more east that they originate. . .or at least, the use of spices.
I've also done some thinking and reading up on the thesis topic, but I have more pressing things to address like a job search. That's one reason I need to address the e-mail situation. . .all the job related e-mails have become entrenched in the regular e-mails, both on my e-mail programs and emotionally. I need to seperate them and address the more regular ones.
Yay.
Now to go do it.
I feel good today.
I can't pin down why. I've gotten more exercise than usual (skating on the Frog Pond in the Boston Common), I've made sure to have some starch goodness in the morning, I started taking Strattera for the ADHD study I'm taking part in, last week I started taking these protein/vitamin shakes then mid-week started putting peppermint flavoring in it because it tastes horrible without it, got plenty of sleep with some good quality time with the fiancee the last couple nights then today, we've decided to celebrate Valentine's Day instead of on the weekday that it's scheduled.
Normally, I would try to isolate what's helping me feel good or figure what part of the equation deserves what credit. I'm thinking right now, though, just go with it. . .keep doing what you're doing it and enjoy the ride.
I don't want to overload the new things in my life at the moment, however, so as to skew any results for the study. Hopefully they have ways to take into account that kind of margin. Then again, I guess I'm not necessarily a typical person.
For instance, one side of my heart might be bigger than the other. . ..
But I should start getting ready for dinner at the Morroccan restaurant. After a little more than three years, we finally will make it to a Morroccan restaurant with belly dancing. Woohoo!
I have a feeling that the restaurant will beat down the raw food buffet we went to last year. Horrible. . ..
Honestly, I really don't have much to say lately.
I've done a bit more research on my thesis than I should as compared to working or searching for a new job. I've also been trying to catch up on e-mail that I've let load up since October.
But other than that, I really haven't had many articulate thoughts or much action going on since I finished watching Charlie Jade, which we need to get brought into the US so it can be watched here!
I just finished watching the first season of Charlie Jade. It's really one of the best genre show I've seen since Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Farscape.
I felt bad after the cancellation of Farscape and especially after Angel, thinking it was the last great genre show on TV. Lost came along, and I felt satisfied a little, but Charlie Jade drew me so much more effectively than Lost. The show got me to care about the characters, second guess other ones and even shed a tear in a way that I haven't since the heart touching scenes between John Crichton and Aeryn Sun.
We need to get this stuff into the States!
I just read in a NYTimes editorial that the cartoons originally published in the Danish paper were originally intended as an experiment to see what would happen someone published some sort of satiric expression of Islam.
Well, now we have our answer. . ..
The editorial also said that the cartoons weren't a problem until some Muslim group in Denmark distributed the cartoons along with three even more offensive cartoons THEY added to the Muslim community.
Bastards.
Personally, I think it was stupid for the European papers to have printed them because it was so predictable that there would be violent protests. I think it was especially stupid for French papers to publish them because of the recent protests in Paris.
And all this talk about it being a "Freedom of Expression" issue just feels moot to me because no government has tried to stop the printing of these comics. There was no coercion.
I guess I can see some issue of self-censorship and some degree of "coercion" in that not printing them would have avoided violence, but. . .on the flipside, I think it would have been more productive for these newspapers to try printing something more constructive and creative to help resolve all the tension rather than incite it more for some kind of fundamentalist expression of "Freedom of Expression."
In the end, I think it falls back onto an editorial decision of each and every newspaper that printed the cartoons, and I, personally, think it was a bad decision because other than the violence incited by them or the intent to poke fun and reject, there really wasn't much point to printing them.
Yet. . .I don't support the violence of the protests, even if it was predictable.
I'm still in the mess of moving to another city and the job search.
Tragically, I'm mainly getting to your e-mail as a way to sort through my e-mails for my job search rather than getting a better grip on my time management skills. I find it somewhat ironic though that I have to return to what's REALLY important to me to deal with more "immediate" survival needs.
But anyway. . .even though I was ready to "refute" your hypothesis when I first read it, think you're right on except like you said about the hypothesis I sent to you, I think you're selling utopianism short, too. Better put, I think you're providing an example of utopia but one that grabs the term by the jugular.
Hard to figure out where to start --
Overdetermined text: exposition, contracts, etc. etc.
Indeterminate texts: literature (unfamiliar then becomes familiar when indeterminacy removed, making the text part of you. . .room for interpretation)
Indeterminate experience: Muddling through reality with challenge, duress, unease or possibly some kind of existential unease or terror (?)
Experience with (existential) indeterminacy removed: Accepting reality, moments in the "flow" (eg getting so into something that time "disappears" or everything just fits -- Hakim Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zone -- me right now, conceptualizing all of this). . .utopia?
Overdetermined experience: Dystopia
So I would reach a conclusion that you're describing a cycle between indeterminacy to indeterminacy removed then back to indeterminacy then back to indeterminacy removed with an occasional foray into overdetermination (McCarthyism, the Third Reich, Stalinism and I'm sure we can think of plenty of examples. . .and I guess it's possible to even say too much indeterminism become overdeterministic until someone steps in to remove the indeterminism like I wish I could do in the Middle East, most importantly, Palestine and Israel). Of course, there's the element of perspective when determining indeterminism, indeterminism removed and overdeterminism, but I guess that's half the fun.
(This one took me about an hour of research to recall. . .) I think my main issue with your conception of "indeterminacy" to utopianism back to indeterminacy then back to utopianism as a form of social progress is that it feels too linear. It pulses, but history doesn't pulse backward. . .only forward.
I like to think of history more as a spiral shape that moves toward the center (possibly up or down, too), but it moves through different directions of progress. . .time moves forward but human progress doesn't move with it. Unfortunately, we might be dead before the spiral reaches the center.
Many scholars like to think of utopia as something outside of history, but I really like my conception of indeterminacy, indeterminacy removed and overdetermined. It allows for it all to be located in history, but more as a reflection of an individual's or group's relation to a situation or text.
Just as an aside, I guess overdetermined/dystopia can be seen as an unsupportive indeterminacy removed that requires a radical leap into indeterminacy or the creation of a supportive indeterminacy removed.
Right now, I'm thinking of the novel that I'm writing as a criticism of unquestioning allegiance to a form of indetermination removed to such an extent that it becomes overdetermined because indetermination causes over exaggerated reactions to indetermination (another aspect?: negentropy -- increasing orderly tendencies, entropy -- increasing disorderly tendencies, syntrophy -- vacillations between the two that lead to synthesis and growth).
I'm throwing around ideas and it's getting late. . .
As "anarchy utopia concepts" -- (1) Man born good and society hinders the goodness so get rid of society, and you have a good man rather than man born with original sin and selfish and society is there to allow for men to live together with some degree of order. (2) Organic society based more on individuals creating relationships rather than having a society based on institutional relations. (3) Seeking moments of indeterminism removed then seek to solely extend those moments into eternity, if that makes sense.
This is all feels rather indeterminate. Any thoughts, comments, feedback on my random brainstorming?
And. . .thanks. :-)
Bibliography for organization
- Ernst Breisach, HISTORIOGRAPHY: ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL & MODERN
- Joshua Glenn, "Back to Utopia: Can the antidote to today's neoliberal triumphalism be found in the pages of far-out science fiction?" a review of Fredric Jameson's POSTMODERNISM, OR, THE CULTURE LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM and Russell Jacoby's THE END OF UTOPIA and PICTURE IMPERFECT: UTOPIAN THOUGHT FOR AN ANTI-UTOPIAN AGE as printed in the Boston Globe.
- Wolfgang Iser, THE ACT OF READING: A THEORY OF AESTHETIC RESPONSE.
- Wolfgang Iser, PROSPECTING: FROM READER RESPONSE TO LITERARY ANTHROPOLOGY.
- Fredric Jameson, "If I find one good city I will spare the man': Realism and Utopia in Kim Stanley Robinson's MARS Trilogy, an essay in LEARNING FROM OTHER WORLDS: ESTRANGEMENT, COGNITION AND THE POLITICS OF SCIENCE FICTION AND UTOPIA ed. by Patrick Parrinder.
- THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS (a collection of essays) ed. by Perry Miller
THE USUAL JOB STUFF
Posted a resume and cover letter on Hotjobs.com.
Otherwise, I procrastinated quite a bit over the weekend except for the time spent with the fiancee.
HAVE TO GET MORE OF THE POLITICAL STUFF OFF MY CHEST
I don't support or advocate violence or terrorism, but come on. . .how stupid do you have to be to realize that those cartoons printed in the European press wouldn't incite violence and protest. Even to support "Freedom of Expression," why the hell did they, especially the French, print the cartoons AGAIN?!?!?!
HEALTH AND FITNESS
Last week, to deal with my cold, sinus infection or whatever happened to me, I started getting ready for bed at 9, do up my chores and try getting to bed at 10.
Yesterday, I got a protein shake powder and have started taking it.
Feeling good, except for the two nights that I couldn't fall asleep in time. . .but those moments of insomnia had perks with the fiancee, so I can't give them all that much for bad connotations.
I want to get back into working out once I really get into the waking up early groove. Working out feels good.
Before waking up this morning, I had a dream. A part where I input "Forced to Write" into the Amazon.com search engine sticks in my memory.
This morning, I did just that and found some interesting entries. When I get my finances back together after this past weekend of planning and throwing a big party, I'll have to purchase one or two of the results from that entry. Hopefully they'll help me to structure my writing process better for my current thesis project and future projects.
UNCONSCIOUS MASOCHISM
Yesterday at work, I stabbed myself in my left thumb and hand with a screwdriver while taking apart something.
It has healed pretty nicely by now, but it looked pretty bad soon after, even though it didn't bleed right away. It also hurts a little when I put pressure on the cuts.
But oh well. . .I didn't have to call on worker's comp or anything. Such is life.
Lying in bed last night, absently flicking a cat toy to entertain the just awoken kittens, I got to hallucinate about Quebec City.
Sadly, though, the hallucinations got me to thinking about how I haven't accomplished the things I wanted by this time in my life.
NO DRASTIC CHANGES YET
And no. . .I haven't left the family business yet. I gave them my official last day as Friday, April 14 unless I get a great job offer beforehand or something.
The move to Chicago should happen between 4/14 and 5/1, since our lease ends on 5/1.
DON'T NEED PITY
I'm not saying that I'm sick because I need pity. I'm just venting and updating anyone who cares about me.
I feel good and affirmed, but I really should be in bed now. Goofed off a little too much, but I got some good preparation done for some competitive goofing off later. In other words, when I play Magic with the guys.
Now I have to get away from this computer, empty the litter boxes, clean up then slip into bed. Yay!
I just hope that I wake up easy enough tomorrow.
SOMETHING SUBSTANTIAL ABOUT FOOLISH TECHNOLOGY AND PLAY
From an e-mail that I wrote to the fiancee:
On topic of play, I just read an essay about using play as a form of finding values, hypotheses and stuff like that. I think, in a somewhat dramatic way, all those times that I get frustrated about my thesis and despair over cover letters/resume and stuff, my mind is playing in its #%$#%#$ up kind of way. Really sucks that play, for my mind, comes out as despair and frustration. I will just need to find a way to play without all that emotion.
- In reference to J.G. March, "The Technology of Foolish," as printed in _Organization_Theory_:_Selected_Readings_ ed. by D.S. Pugh, Penguin Books (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England 1985): 224-37.
Maybe I'll ramble a little more on this one later. And for those people who keep telling me to "just do it" with my Plan/thesis, I think this concept of "Technology of Foolish" and "Gathering Intelligence/Design Solution/Follow through on Solution" fits into my retort -- my mind likes to play and acts as a piece of "Foolish Technology."
Nonetheless, I think my mind gets influenced through affirmations/suggestions that I give it.
The human mind really does prove quite fascinating, if you ask me.
Egh.
I've always that we choose to be happy.
I've always chosen happiness, or so I thought.
Lately, I've learned that you don't choose happiness, you have to work at staying happy.
Darnit! Life just has to be difficult, huh?
I meant to make an entry last night.
Unfortunately, it took an hour or so to make another new resume in Monster.com. Every time I tried to make some kind of edit to it I would get some kind of crazy error, so I would have had to reload the page, go backward or forward and once even closed the browser then signed in again.
But I guess Monster.com is one of the bigger job site to post resumes and such.
In that time, though, I had a pretty good IM chat with someone from college that I haven't seen in years. He offered to keep an eye out for editorial assistant, copy writing or literary agent assistant jobs for me. Thanks, old college acquaintence!
And I have nothing against people keeping their eye out for me, either.
The fiancee and I also had our first couples counselling appointment straight out of work. We decided to do it as something of a maintenance issue and also because of the stress of moving, job searching, etc.
Not much to say about it. We mostly talked about ourselves, listed some of our complaints about ourselves and stylistic differences. The two of us heard it all before, so there wasn't any tension or surprises or anything.
It would be nice if we could find some quick fixes, though, but I doubt a good productive one will present itself. . .ever.
Now to get back to work.
I've really fallen out of my Blog writing routine, huh?
I think I've got a good excuse, though. Thursday night, I decided that I would send out a resume and a cover letter. I sent a resume to an editor friend that I met with the night before but never sent out the cover letter. I didn't have one made.
Mind you, I originally intended to send them to a company I wanted to work for. After a couple hours of working on the resume and frying my brain, I decided I needed sleep. I couldn't not send anything out, though, so I just sent the resume to the editor friend.
Friday, I took a hack at the cover letter after spending the day unconsciously brainstorming what I would write. I come home, take a couple hours to write, realize that we have a lot of cleaning to do around the house then melt down because I can't write a cover letter about myself, let alone help clean the house.
I wake up freaking out the next morning, so I grab a bite to eat, go into my office then watch 7 episodes of Charlie Jade on my computer. Last Saturday, The Philosopher Queen (who doesn't really philosophize too much on her Blog) gave me some DVDs with the show on it and got me addicted.
Too bad they don't show it in the US. I really would love to get a bunch of geeks into the show then campaign the Sci-Fi channel to pick it up. They've only produced one season, so we wouldn't get too far behind if we caught on now. But it's the Sci-Fi channel. I guess they can only have one cool show on at a time.
Maybe I should give Battlestar Galactica a chance. I've heard a lot of good things about the show, even though the fiancee and I hated the first couple minutes of the pilot.
So anyway, I holed myself up in my office, wearing my bathrobe all day, in my office, not wanting to think about the job search or anything real life serious. I just wanted to watch the intrigue between three parallel universes.
I originally didn't want to go to the birthday party that night. I thought I would bring it down. For some reason, though, I ended up going. Something just clicked in my head.
The party turned out enjoyable. Had some good drinks and mexican food at a mexican restaurant then went over to the birthday boy's place for coffee, tea and whatever tickled people's fancy. No big exciting discussions or anything, just some good light, relaxing conversation. Even with coffee, I think the socializing helped me to calm down.
Next day, Sunday, I finish up watching the episodes of Charlie Jade that I have then go at the cover letter again.
The two of us feinted, thrusted, swung and just had an intense melee with each other until I tamed the beast. The fiancee had given me a good tip the day or night before. I had the cover letter the career counselor I saw made for me (it had some good parts and some bad parts). I had the Cool Careers for Dummies book.
My original idea and all these other things just blended together to formulate this cover letter that didn't say it all but probably said enough to get an interviewer to look at my cover letter.
I sent it off to McGraw-Hill then when the fiancee came home, we went grocery shopping.
So that's why I've gotten out of the Blog writing habit.
Not much more to say on that topic. I have a lot of it to sift through and not much time dedicated to doing so. Fun, fun, fun. . ..
Even though my thinking about climate change, the environment and our (spiritual) place in the world hasn't change, I've come up with a new way to phrase it.
The universe, the galaxy, the solar system, the world, the ecosystem, the region, the environment, the climate, all of that (and God) has given us a flexible lease on the right to live. With the rapid increase in climate change by our hands, we have begun reaching the end of our lease and have shortened the lease of other entities that depend on a certain type of climate. So basically, our lease on the right to life runs short because we destroy the elements that allows this lease to exist.
DANG IT!!!!
On the good note, while chatting with a friend last night, I came up with my professional purpose. It will provide me with a foundation for my job search and doing interviews. I will now have confidence in this endeavor of mine without thinking, "I'm want this kind of job because hey, it feels right."
Because honestly, what happens when that jobs feels wrong and it will most certainly feel wrong eventually if I just follow my feelings. Feelings don't stay the same. They become very vulnerable to every factor that we observe, from internal thoughts and conditions to our outside environment. Without a solid principle that guides me, my feelings would act as a tyrant over me, and I don't want my will bowed to a tyrant.
So my professional purpose, at least for the short term: "I want to practice communicating concepts in appealing language and rhetoric." The details of it may change with some more thought and reactions from other people. I'd actually like you, my readers, to provide some reaction so that I can refine this purpose and possibly make it easier to understand.
But alas, even though I've got this great purpose, I still face frustration. I want to lay down in bed about an hour and fifteen minutes ago. Instead, I ended researching more on the whole Tradable Renewable Certificate product that ClimateSave sells so I can write some great copy for them.
From what I've read, the certificate just says that someone should be using the money used to buy it for pretty much funding renewable energy generation. Sounds pretty good, but I just feel that something's missing, especially since the certificates have expiration dates and are called 'Tradable Renewable Certificates' within the industry. Why call them that when once bought, a consumer really can't do much with it?
So to try understanding the whole thing better than just what I believe the customer service people and the marketing materials would reiterate (I even checked with the marketing materials for the organization that acts as the certifier for the certificates. . .and they don't really say much other than what I've said above), I have asked the Conservation Services Group to supply me with the agreement or contract that they have with their customers upon the sale of the certificate.
If anything, should be an interesting venture.
And yet, an interesting venture won't provide me consolation tomorrow when I'm feeling exhausted, tired and slow in the head because I didn't get the sleep I wanted.
I feel like I should learn a lesson here. If only I knew what it was other than go to bed earlier.
Well, if I say so myself, I've done well today.
I woke up early enough to read a chapter in one my job/career search books, did some e-mail networking with people and worked a small bit on the copy for ClimateSAVE.
Before entering the evening activities of getting ready for a party and heading out to the border of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, I'll do a little research on McGraw-Hill to see how compatible we could be.
Unfortunately, no exciting developments for my audience except that I've realized that I'm unprepared for informational interviews. I'll have to work on that tomorrow night because I sent an e-mail to someone for one such interview Monday night.
Ulp!
I've had a pretty typical but annoying last 48 hours.
Two days in a row, I was late to work. Yesterday, I just plain woke up late. I kept on wanting to stay in the dream in which my cat got resurrected. I even took the car and got to work fifteen minutes late.
This morning, I woke up at a relatively good time. I just had to shave and using the funky new between teeth brush takes a little work. With some elbow grease, though, it doesn't a great bang up job cleaning up and making my mouth healthier.
Not much happening at work. I've spent the last couple weeks mostly doing ad hoc tasks prompted by callers and walk-ins, following up on tasks that take, at the most, an hour or two, cleaning up my Internet e-mail and cleaning up and associating my database e-mail. None of it really has to do with productivity, but it's a slow time of year and will free me up when things get a little more hectic.
Next on the task list includes: filing and organizing a bunch of miscellaneous paperwork that my mom gave me, offering my services to a co-worker or two who have gotten backed up on their work then if nothing comes up by then, I'll ask my mom if she can come up with some work for me.
I'll be the first to admit that my days don't really have much excitement to them.
The last 24 hours gave me a little distress, though. Last night, I started doing some work on the volunteer copy writing project that I've taken on for ClimateSAVE. It got me frustrated because the design for their Website feels inefficient and their copy doesn't do a great job explaining their product.
I guess another person's bad copy gives me a good opportunity to make good copy.
Last night, I didn't get too much work on that project done, one reason being that I had to put some effort, in addition to the work from about a month ago, into figuring out the idea behind their product and the vehicle that it takes. I will hopefully come up with good copy that will explain these two factors, even though I feel like I'll have to go up against some industry and company entrenchment on this one.
You'll probably hear more about this one later.
I mainly didn't get work done last night because I go hyperfocused on this wooden cube puzzle. You take it apart. It has magnets in different parts of it. The goal is to put it back together without any magnets facing out and all the magnets attached to another magnet.
I thought I would just take a break from the job search and projects, but I ended up staying up to midnight or one working on the thing. I worked on it for three hours, dang it! And I wanted to get to bed at a good time.
Getting so focused on the puzzle and staying up so late infuriated me, combined with all the other distractions in which I have indulged over the last few months when I hsould have been doing other things. I ranted, I raved, I felt frustrated with myself and wondered how I could get myself to do all this stuff. In Biblical times, I probably would have ripped my clothes off.
I woke up, still frustrated, so when I got to work, I looked up Procrastination on Wikipedia.
The fiancee and I also had a good rant at each other through text messaging, e-mail and in person. It provided some good catharsis and helped us to address some emotional issues with our projects, future plans and the meaning of things to us. I regret the feelings that I got her to feel, but I'm happy that we could communicate a couple things that we had under the radar.
We had a fun little spontaneous date. Picked up a couple more puzzles for her collection then had some Thai food at Duk Boa in Brookline. For you Boston people out there, if you haven't eaten there yet, go. It's on Harvard St., between the intersection of Harvard and Comm in Allston and Coolidge Corner in Brookline, across from Buddha's Delight, a pretty good vegan restaurant.
Then we came home, and I did some good job search work. I kept up some communication with a guy who has become something of a copy writing mentor for me, I e-mailed a thank you memo to the Web designer at ClimateSAVE then did some research on McGraw-Hill. The fiancee found an editorial assistant job posting for McGraw-Hill.
Tomorrow, I'll do a little more research on McGraw-Hill then send off a resume. I'll also try to work on some of the ClimateSAVE copy. Hopefully I'll remember and have time to read some job searching books.
Then off to the border of Massachusetts and New Hampshire to hang out with the old crew that has stayed loyal to the undefined cause before one of us heads back to LA. Bastard. . ..
Now, though, I will romance the fiancee and get some Zzzzzz's.
While being brought up with my parents, we've had three cats. The first one was put to sleep because it got sick.
The second one, Mrs. Kitty, died of natural causes under our porch.
Binky was put to sleep because she got a hit by a car very late in life. She had osteoprosis, so her bones wouldn't heal, and she'd be in tons of pain. In her life, she had gotten hit three times by cars, so it's strangely fitting.
So, last night I dreamt that Mrs. Kitty came back to life, whole and everything.
Even stranger, she gets along with Binky. In real life, Mrs. Kitty couldn't stand Binky. She would hiss at Binky all the time and sometimes take swats at her.
In the dream, Binky has never died.
We have Max and Miriya around, but they're pretty mean to Binky and Mrs. Kitty. I think Binky and Mrs. Kitty form a defensive alliance against Max and Miriya.
The main crux of the dream focuses around the miracle of Mrs. Kitty rising from the dead and how happy it made me to have her back.
I wish I had the same feeling about Binky, but for some reason, in the dream, I forget that she died.
The dream really gave me some joy, though, and made waking up difficult because I could just keep going back to dream. . ..
=/
I overslept this morning. I get to drive into work. Good thing I won't be late.
Last night, a friend from out of town stayed the night. The fiancee and I drive just outside of the other side of Boston (Malden) yesterday to eat at a steakhouse.
I'm an ovo vegetarian, practically vegan. I had three options on the menu, if really that many. I had to adapt.
My friend chose the restaurant. It's just like him. Even one of his friends who I hardly know felt bad for me. What a bastard of a friend of mine. . ..
He's great, though.
We got home late. I brushed my teeth with a new brush the dentist gave me yesterday. It allows me to get in between my teeth in ways that floss and regular brush never can. My mouth even feels cleaner after about seven hours of sleep.
WHERE'S THE MEANING?
Other than hanging out with my friend and fixing up my favorite Magic deck a little nicer, I kind of had that wasted time feeling. I would have rather spent my time working on my projects.
Having that feeling kind of annoys me, since the friend is a pretty close friend.
Nonetheless, I guess the just going out for a bite to eat with him, my fiancee and a couple of people I hardly know didn't provide me with tons of meaning. Nothing against them. . .I just think I'm in the midst of all these projects and searching for work when I get to Chicago and such. . ..
I find it annoying when I don't allow myself to enjoy my friends and getting to know new people more. It kind of encourages me to feel like a jerk or something.
Oh well. . .same crap, different day.
Having and making meaning has a profound influence on us. It creates ethnic and national ties. It pushes people to blow themselves up and sacrifice themselves for what they believe is the greater good. It also pushes people to commit suicide and sometimes to accept Jesus into their lives in reaction to the despair of lacking meaning.
I've lately felt a little despair from my lack of meaning. I can't say that I've found some kind of universal ever present meaning other than to promote life and the ever increasing search for meaning. It sounds circular to me, but life has something of a circular cycle to it and circles have a great tendency of continuing into infinity.
Sometime later, I may say some more. It's late now, though. I'm tired. I should get to bed soon.
Goodnight.
Yeah, I'm feeling a little better now.
I had a pretty good New Year's weekend. Went out with a bunch of people Friday night for Italian food, had some friends from out of town stay the weekend, went to an interesting party on Saturday at an artist friend's loft then had a bunch of people over for brunch in our pajamas, hanging out and movie watching.
I had a pretty good conversation with an out of town friend (who got pretty excited that I called him "a friend from PA" on this Blog previously. . .immortalizing him on the Internet) about bitterness, work, etc. etc. Along with an e-mail thread going on with someone else who plans on a career search sometime, I realized that I have expected too much of myself and the meaning of this job for myself.
I also realized that I expect too much from customers at work. As much as I'd like them to look out for their own finances and such, I really need to accept that I can do only so much. Once I pass that line, they won't do it and they won't like our agency anymore and another agency may not show as much responsibility as mine. I just need to take a more passive aggressive approach when I try to take care of them.
I really need to just see the new job in Chicago as a flow of income until I get my writing career going. If the job ends up in a field that I enjoy, awesome. Otherwise, though, if I get that income and I can be myself at work, I'm good.
On another note, my friend from PA has dome cool points to make about stuff. I'd love to hear him commenting about stuff in the future. =D
BOOKS
I finished reading The Ender's Quartet. Awesome series.
I recommend everyone read the series. The last two books go a little slower, but I still read them quicker than the first two books. I kind of felt an obligation.
Finishing all four of them in three weeks also helps me to believe that I haven't lost my reading edge.
THE KITTENS
The two of them now get along. Woohoo!
Now they ignore the fiancee and us, though, and don't get off the bed. . .lazy kids.
Oh well. . .they just started getting along last night. And with all the people we had over the weekend, they probably got a little stressed out.
CONCLUSION
Go back to work tomorrow. Hopefully I can take my lessons to heart and don't have such a bad week.
I also hope that I can take the expecting too much with the job search lesson to heart and get some stuff done on it.
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
-Bertrand Russell,
philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)
My mom lectured me and had her panties all curled up about the fiancee and me showing up 5 to 10 minutes late to Christmas dinner. I insulted her. This fact angers me.
There's a lot of issues below the surface. I don't even want to go there until I move to Chicago. Hopefully not until I settle in quite nice with a job that I like. I want my independence before I take on the angsty Crusade against the low on substance, high on image philosophy that my family follows.
If she reads this Blog, I'm probably in trouble. She has never mentioned it to me, and she usually would, if following her past behavior provides any indication.
But yeah, I don't plan on holding myself back once I move to Chicago and settle more than I ever did here in Boston.
Two New Members in the Household
The fiancee and I picked up two kittens over the weekend. We got Max Saturday night from a co-worker who had taken care of him since then summer, then we picked up his sister, Miriya, Christmas night. Too bad Max tried to hump Miriya when she brought her home. . .one night too early for that horny little guy.
Tomorrow, the fiancee takes them to get fixed. We can rest a little easier. They can intermingle and leave the rooms in which we've isolated them.
Otherwise, though, we love the two of them. They're both very sweet. He's kind of a buddha meditator, but I worry that he might have gotten more depressed than relaxed with all the commotion. Besides, the little guy had the chance for some action (albeit, from his sister) and got rejected pretty hard.
Miriya went into heat the next night, after she had gotten put into isolation. She ahs acted really really affectionate when she doesn't hide under the bed. Hopefully she doesn't lose her affection after the surgery tomorrow. She's just really fun and cute.
But anyway. . .after all this playing with the cats and venting about family, I should probably least put on the pretentions of a job search. . .. =(
I need to teach myself how to view my interesting and fun projects as rewards rather than as things to do whenever I want. . .AGAIN!
Argh.
I just finished reading the introduction to Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead, the author's definitive edition.
He brought up the Romance genre. He said that the main characters of the "old school" romance are adolescents, seeking after identity and adventure but without the responsibility of adulthood. It makes sense, but I still have some more to learn about the genre. . ..
For instance, how do academics make the connection between utopia and romance?
I'm up to my old tricks again.
Tonight, I spent a little too much time organizing Magic cards and play testing a couple decks. I made one of them a little more deadly than before, and it still has room to get even more powerful.
Another deck needs some more work. I also need to learn a little better how to play it.
But man. . .I bought a ton of cards yesterday. I will have to take a lot of time to organize these things. . ..
At least with my Christmas bonus and having finished this last big Magic purchase, I'll have money to get some more Christmas gifts and a little left over to get some binder pages for the cards.
Tomorrow, I cash the Christmas bonus then go get some last minute gifts for the family. If I still have some open hands, I'll try to get a thing or two for some friends. The friends presents aren't as urgent, though, as the car should be fixed on Wednesday, so the fiancee and I can go driving all over the place and shopping. Besides, I probably won't exchange gifts with friends until sometime after Christmas.
Did minimal work on the resume and minimal work on the thesis. The minimal resume work feels kind of good and somewhat not so good. I like to see that I can talk myself up, but I feel bad that I really don't have much demonstrable experience in the skills that I have.
I'm really not 100% cognizant at the moment.
I also finished Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Good book. I continue on with the series tomorrow. I'll probably have something to say about the book and series a little later.
For now, though, I should sleep.
I've played a lot of games and felt tired a lot lately.
I think I've done some other things, but I can't remember them.
Hopefully I can collect some thoughts later.
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
32nd US President (1882-1945)
Yeah, Thorn, I know you've got something to say about this one. . .C'mon, say it! =D
I have this tendency to think big at work. Plans of doing a lot of stuff when I get home pop into my head. Most of the time, I don't do as much as I plan. I usually end up procrastinating with playing a computer game, playing around with Magic, reading productively or unproductively or just generally dicking around.
When I didn't have this job search to do, I sometimes thought I might just be pushing myself a little too hard. I rarely rest or play to play.
Usually, when I do end up playing to play, I think about the projects to do and worry that I'm not getting the projects done.
I've feared that once I get these projects done and have time to play, I'll just think about not having projects to do and worry about it. I liken this pattern to the whole idea that once you retire, a person will generally get depressed because they have nothing to do.
Then there's those people who don't mind having nothing to do. They kind of live a Zen existence without the enlightenment or practicing to reach that point. At times, I've felt jealous of people who live that way.
At the same time, though, I can't respect those people when they don't have the enlightenment or having practiced to reach that point. A good way to phrase it: doing it but not understanding what you're doing. . .so, in a way, if things enter the gray zone from the black and white those people know, they don't know how to adapt.
They don't seem to enter the gray zone so much, though, which I look down upon, also, for no other reason than I feel that we should challenge ourselves because the gray zone will find us, either which way. But that's not necessarily always true.
And when I follow this line of reason, I reach a circular argument place that falls back upon emotion and intuition. I don't really have a reasoned out argument for the importance of enlightenment and practicing to reach that Zen state except that other people are getting screwed over and there's suffering in the world.
But on some philosophical level, that argument doesn't work if you come from an individualistic viewpoint of say. . .a Libertarian or a Republican.
I end up thinking this way a lot when I think about utopia and dystopia.
Tonight, though, I really haven't done much in the field of utopianism. I modified some Magic decks and play tested them for a couple hours then did a little work on my resume.
Proportionally, I focused more on Magic than on the job search. I guess after about nine or ten hours of working and commuting, I can't blame myself. I really want to work on the job search stuff, though!
I don't think there's much to be done about it, really. Until I get on some kind of ADHD medication (meetings with psychiatrist postponed because of study rules or something at MGH) or something, I figure I'll just have to deal with it, as long as I get the inertia going good. Until then, though, I'll just have to deal.
But yeah, I have this type of stuff going through my mind most of the time.
I'll admit it. I would make a bad protagonist for an adventure Romance. Danger and me don't really have a good chemistry. I don't like the idea of dying prematurely, and pain doesn't look very appetizing, either.
I'm not really a guy who takes big chances.
Unless you consider traveling halfway across the country in a couple months without a job or place to live secured yet as adventerous. The fiancee and I don't really have too many friends out there, either.
Despite the lack of security, we're doing it.
But I've taken something of a step tonight closer to security. I finished up a proposal letter for a volunteer copy writing project proposal and formatted up a couple writing samples. Tomorrow, I put them in the mail, wait a little while then, if I don't hear back from them, I give them a call to see if they got a chance to read my proposal.
Not incredibly exciting. I'm not going to fight a dragon. I won't find great wealth. I may help save the world, a little bit, though, as I try explain Tradable Renewable Energy Certificates and encourage consumers to buy them.
All the while, I work a day job, write in a Blog, have an exciting relationship with a great fiancee, go out and meet people at interesting concerts, have some interesting food at restaurants and the usual types of things that happen in Modern Boston.
Ah crap. . .what am I talking about, Boston's gotten pretty darn boring, or is it just me? Do I just not go out enough or do enough things for self betterment and such because I want to finish my adventuresome Romantic dystopian novel or want to land a copy writing career in Chicago? Am I wasting away my life with these ambitions that may never come true because I could die tomorrow, or do these not-so-social ventures have some kind of virtue, value and adventure to them?
Is Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City our contemporary adventure Romance? How about Law and Order? The OC? What makes the contemporary Romance other than just love and sex?
December 12,
2005
Mr. Lex
********
*****, Massachusetts *****
Dear Mr. Lex:
Thank you for contacting me to share
your views regarding Iraq. I appreciate
hearing your input on this extremely
important subject.
First and foremost, I would like to
commend our men and women in uniform.
American troops have done a remarkable job in
Iraq, and all of America should be proud of
their selfless service to our country.
It is important for us to succeed in
Iraq but it requires a leadership that the
Administration has not provided. The next
six months are a make or break period for the
Iraqis. Following upon successful elections
in December negotiations will begin for
amendments to the recently approved
constitution. It is imperative that the
process result in a sustainable political
solution that is supported by all the major
groups in Iraq including the Sunni minority.
As we enter this period we must now talk
honestly about the steps we must take to
promote that solution and bring our troops
home within a reasonable timeframe from an
Iraq that's not permanently torn by conflict.
We cannot pull out precipitously or
merely promise to stay "as long as it takes."
To undermine the insurgency in Iraq, we must
instead simultaneously pursue a political
settlement that gives Sunnis a real stake in
the future in Iraq and reduce the sense of
American occupation by beginning a phased
redeployment of combat forces, linked to
specific political and military benchmarks.
At the first benchmark, the completion of the
December elections, we can start the process
of reducing our forces by withdrawing 20,000
troops over the course of the holidays.
We must make it clear now that we do not
want permanent military bases in Iraq, or a
large combat force on Iraqi soil
indefinitely. The administration must
immediately give Congress and the American
people a detailed plan for the transfer of
military and police responsibilities on a
sector by sector basis to Iraqis so the
majority of our combat forces can be
withdrawn - ideally by the end of next year.
Immediately after the elections, the
President should call a conference of Iraq's
neighbors, Britain, Turkey and other key NATO
allies, and Russia. Together, we must
implement a collective strategy to achieve
the much needed political solution among
Iraqis including mutual security guarantees.
To enlist the support of Iraq's Sunni
neighbors, we should commit to a new regional
security structure that will include improved
security assistance programs and joint
exercises.
There also needs to be a renewed focus
on the lagging reconstruction of Iraq by
providing the necessary civilian personnel to
do the job, setting up civil-military
reconstruction teams throughout the country,
streamlining the disbursement of funds to the
providences, expanding job creation programs,
and strengthening the capacity of government
ministries.
If President Bush follows these steps we
can have a plan for success that will better
able Iraq to stand on its own and allow our
troops to come home. The Administration owes
it to our troops and the Iraqi people to
choose the responsible path.
You may be certain of my commitment to
support our troops and I will continue to
press for an effective strategy in Iraq.
Thank you for taking the time to share your
views with me on this important issue.
Sincerely,
John F. Kerry
United States Senator
I spent the last two hours reading e-mails, junked e-mails, checking out links in e-mails and deleting e-mails.
Over the last half week or full week, I somehow accumulated something like 400 e-mails that I hadn't addressed at home. I dealt with them at work mostly. No wonder I don't really have much time to have good, quality e-mail conversations and don't really have much energy for productive things.
Ugh.
Our Society Needs Its Own Romance and Mythology
Last week when I went to see Aeon Flux, I saw a preview for Isolde and Tristan (or is Tristram?).
A bit ago, I read some reaction to the "Before there was Romeo & Juliet (and West Side Story and. . . and. . .)" line. I think the reaction pretty much said that Romeo and Juliet trumped Isolde and Tristan story because Romeo and Juliet was told much better.
Nevertheless, I want to see Isolde and Tristan. I don't really know why. I think it has something to do with this comic I read a long time ago in which Isolde and Tristan both got reincarnated as women then remembered that they were Isolde and Tristan. Tristan had a hard time accepting that she was a woman but, in end, accepted it and ended up a romance with the Isolde character.
I'm a man. . .can you blame me?
Nonetheless, I always wanted to know the story. Of course, the Hollywood version won't tell the original story, but it'll give me an introduction.
While watching the preview, a thought occurred to me: Our society has yet to make or has stopped making great movie romances. At least, the quantity of them have gone downhill recently in the last couple years. We've just been re-making old TV shows and movies, good literary books or, almost as worse, going all the way back to Roman history and even further back to make movies. . .and besides, most of those have turned out pretty trite.
This phenomenon feels particularly telling since it manifests itself on the movie genre, which I guess could be considered something of a dying medium, anyway. The great romances seem to occur on TV these days. . .Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Farscape and probably many others. Could Lost be considered some kind of Romance or should we consider more of a Modernist thriller that meditates on the point of everything and some people die along the way.
Ever since getting caught up with TV after getting out of college, I started seeing the potential for great Romances (and I mean the adventure Romance over the love Romance. . .but love is part of that Romance, anyway) on TV while the movie screen really doesn't necessarily hold as great of potential for it.
It saddens me, though, this lack of original Great Romance at the moment. I hope to one day write Great Romances along with pieces in other genres, too.
I would like to see more original Great Romances, though. . .I would like to see more.
The snow has fallen,
White, clean, pure, smooth, without mar.
But cars will dirty.
The Chronicles of Narnia:
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
I saw the movie last night. I really don't have much to say. Any real problems I have it with it come from CS Lewis's original telling. Hunting the stag at the end always annoyed me for some reason. Otherwise, I would really have to see it again to think about it more except to say that it made me choke up more than Return of the the King.
Last night, I realized that I should pay attention to Illinois and Chicago news because of the 2006 elections.
Until I move, though, I should still contact John Kerry, Edward Kennedy, Barney Frank et. al. for political activistism.
Not a huge deal. I just never thought of it before.
Aeon Flux
Saw Aeon Flux last night after a little holiday shopping, instead of wasting time with Magic or computer Texas Hold'em (and in fact, playing real Texas Hold'em at a friends) or doing some productive pro bono freelance copywriting work.
I'd call it just above a B movie, a B+ movie, if you will.
Off the wall action scenes, but at the same time, realistic within the world created.
No plot holes really existed. The only ones I saw came from the characters, their motivations, history and so forth not getting fleshed out.
Also, the characters didn't really show too much chemistry with each other, nor did they show much emotion and when characters did show much of it, many came off as over acting. A couple of actors pulled off some good restrained emotion, though. Overall, though, the minimalist emotions go with the mood of the cartoon that inspired the movie along with the genre of the movie.
I guess I would have also taken out a bit of the verbal and beginning textual narrative clips. After that, I would have cut and pasted some of the scenes to add little mystery and confusing mystery. The cutting and pasting would have also helped make the movie a little more arty and stronger.
For those who know the 10-minute clips that they showed on MTVs Liquid Television or the TV show they broadcasted briefly, I guess they keep the characters and the names of political institutions. Instead of action sequences without any necessary plot or even simply selfish anti-heroes and villains, the movie makers raised the bar to create a dystopian world reminiscent of Yevgeny Zamyatin's We interlaced with a more realistic Matrix and one similar theme from the old '80s animated and later novelized series, Robotech.
In general, though, I would say go without huge expectations. Go for the kicks. If you know the Robotech references, I think you'll figure out the major idea of the movie pretty quickly and predict a good amount of it. From what I've heard from reviewers, though, those not familiar with the Robotech series may not totally get into the overarching theme and may find the overall plot full of loose ends. If the latter people keep an open mind, though, they could still have fun watching Aeon Flux
Oh well, to each their own, I guess.
Well, I've found something of a groove. It doesn't necessarily lead me on the most direct route to getting me that job I need in Chicago.
From my research, though, I've begun to see that no one direct route will lead me to getting that job that I want. Unless I want settle for some silly customer service job or something in insurance, I will need to have a portfolio, or at the least, a writing sample or two.
Last night, as I've already said, I spiffed up a writing sample from years ago. It works all right, but I'd like to have some more variety. I'm not really so sure that a band bio will cut it.
I already mentioned that I have volunteered to write copy for a friend's carpentry business Website. He hasn't gotten back to me yet.
Tonight, though, I wrote up a rough draft proposal for this company called ClimateSAVE. It sounds OK for a first draft, but I think it will need some work. It probably came out a little long and could use some tightening up. That I will leave for Thursday, as I need to sleep now.
Too bad it took me something like two hours or so to get into this groove because it has gotten late.
I had trouble getting up this morning because I went to bed late last night. Avoiding that kind of thing would be good.
In other news for me today: my supervisor gave that silly little project given to me on Friday to someone else with less of a workload. Woohoo! I also snapped at my supervisor/mom for teasing me.
Otherwise, not much happening in my world.
Tomorrow, though, a little bit more gift shopping then going to see Aeon Flux.
Not my groove THANG, but my work groove. Last night, I figured out my problem with productivity has its source there.
My thesis or novel, I can go easily back to it because I've got plenty of momentum and groove on it.
Playing Magic or poker on my computer does give me much of problem creating momentum or groove. They give some relatively instant interaction and gratification.
Christmas shopping and job searching, that's a WHOLE different story! I've got the problem of inertia there. You know, the objects in motion tend to stay in motion while objects without motion resist motion. Well, I'm resisting that motion, but I'm pushing. Oh, am I pushing.
Too bad I'm a big lug.
On the bright side, I put together a writing/press release sample. Thanks to a friend and former colleague who found some old text that we collaborated to make. I spoofed it up a little, as I have improved my writing skills over the years. I feel real good about it.
I've got the beginnings of a portfolio!
I also made a volunteer proposal to write the copy for a carpentar friend's Website just put up.
I also found this energy certificate Website that, to me, has some badly written copy. . .if not grammatically, syntactically and so forth, than in the simple presentation and appeal creation. I want to volunteer my services to them, too.
So does anyone know when a freelancer starts charging?
Now to stop playing poker on the computer (even though I have gotten much better) and start focusing on my job search!
They taught us a whole bunch of stuff. They told us once we figure out the thing that we love doing, we can make our livelihood from that love. They also gave us tests to do to show us that we had an aptitude for something or that we would like doing it. If you go to a career counsellor, you'll go through all that testing again.
At least the the career counsellor will teach you better at something that pre-college school didn't teach you well. They neglected to teach us that we would have to market ourselves and our product and how to do this marketing. Without the marketing, our love and our dreams can simply go down the drain.
I would like to get deeper into this topic, but I haven't thought enough about it. I have an e-mail that I wrote to some people that starts to concieve of this topic. The people to whom I sent it didn't respond. I'd like to hear from someone about it.
Warning. . .I have edited it to fit into the context of this Blog, but I haven't editted it for brevity. Also, the e-mail originally reacts to the question I had been asking about people's susceptibility to commercials and advertising.
I've gotten into philosophical thinking with all this talk we've done.
I've somewhat resolved the ads/commercials side of things by realizing that they, much like any TV or the radio when people talk, catch my attention and distract me from doing other things. Even at a bar or something, if I'm facing a TV, I have a hard time staying in a conversation because I'm glancing at the TV a lot (maybe that's what my friend was referring to when he said that it affected him emotionally, even when he tried to ignore it).
Music doesn't do it so much, relaxing me instead, so it makes for great studying, writing, project work background and such.
All the discussions I've started on this topic have gotten broader than I intended. Not a bad thing because I've gotten more enlightened about something else.
The broader discussion has turned more toward the philosophical direction, though. Pretty much, by nature, humans must consume for basic survival. For sanity, a healthy mental life, interaction with other people and society, we need to consume, also. I think, to some degree, many of us agree that excessive consumption can create results we don't like.
On a semi-spiritual level, I can accept our place in the consumption/excretion cycle of life on this Earth and possibly the Universe. We transform things through food, respiration, metabolism, etc. etc., which creates a substance good for other life. Earthworms do the same thing.
But that doesn't seem to be enough for me, and I don't believe it is for other people than just me. I'm feeling somewhat uninspired lately because of a trapped feeling, as I feel like I'm creating wealth to just consume for survival or to create wealth to consume for better survival later. But I'm creating wealth by something that doesn't necessarily excite me. . .or at least, not on a day to day level.
I feel lucky that I have the chance to start over again, to a certain degree, by moving to Chicago in a few months. I feel even better armed than I did when I first moved to Boston five years ago. I believe that I'll get a job that will bring me fulfillment and happiness more than I'm feeling lately. I think the fiancee's feeling somewhat the same as me, since she's filling out grad school apps and such. . .she's also facing some bits of her past, as I'm facing the ignorance that I have.
And part of my questioning about ads and commericals is that I'll probably be headed into copy writing for marketing/ad campaigns or doing public relations. . .which seems somewhat shallow to me unless it's for the right cause. Doing something shallow for work isn't a bad thing, really. . .I guess I've just gotten disgruntled with working at a job that I don't enjoy the job, I don't connect with the people at the job (except for one or two co-workers or a few customers now and then) and it just doesn't really hold strong meaning or anything for me on the everyday level.
I want that community while I'm working. I want that meaning. I don't want to work just to continue my existence.
I remember something a friend said the other day about making music as something not necessarily all that great because it advocates unneeded consumption. I don't really agree with that so much. I guess I appreciate music, books, good TV, good movies and so on and so forth as important to culture, people, etc. etc. by perpetuating that culture and for inspiring people in the now and possibly in the future. I think a compromise can exist for cultural consumption and the consumption of material goods. . .the culture reproduced doesn't necessarily eat materials. The materials are just a vehicle for the culture.
There's a lot more I could say in this ramble fashion. I don't really have a conclusion. . .if anything, I want to find one, even though I know life's about finding those conclusions, losing them then finding another one and so forth. I just want to feel inspired while searching for those conclusions, not as if I'm just consuming to survive.
Party!!!!
The past couple nights, I went to parties, of sorts.
The first one was the insurance agency's holiday party at some restaurant. I got to stay a couple hours at work for logistical reasons and work a little more.
Unfortuneately, I didn't do any catch up or urgent work. My supervisor decided to give me some random work that she used to give me when I first started there. I didn't have to do it then. I know, though, she had decided that this random administrative clean up the database work was important enough to get on my case soon if I didn't do it.
In the meanwhile, I have either customers breathing down my neck or I have to put together presentations and policies for when I get to annouce that the poop has hit the fan and something needs to get addressed NOW! Otherwise, they could possibly not have coverage. And even worse. . .if something happens while they don't have coverage, they could always sue the agency for an Errors & Omission claim.
They probably would get something from filing that claim, too, because my supervisor wanted me to address some administrative matter to make their job easier. Ahhhh. . .I really must admire the the short sightedness of some people, even when they get the full picture explained to them. They still can't see the whole picture and how they need to find a more efficient way of addressing this matter than having the full time backbone member of a department address.
Honestly. . .I don't wonder why I feel excited about heading to Chicago. Even if I stayed in the insurance industry, just finding a much better organized company/agency would make my life so incredibly easier!
But yes, the party. . .can't forget the party! Not too much to say about it, really. I didn't have a good mood when I got there. Thankfully, the waiter had the intelligence and iniative to pick up on my vegetarian diet and offered a consolation dish in lieu of the all meat entree and greens menu. I expected the menu, but my compliments to the waiter and chef!
Otherwise, I just entered into random conversations and mainly hung out with the fiancee and the one person in the office that I can socialize with honestly. I possibly should have socialized with others from the office, but well. . .I didn't feel in the mood, really couldn't think up any topics that I could fake well that night and don't really think any detrimental effect will come from not socializing. After all, I'll be gone in a couple months. . ..
Last night, I went to a much better party. A couple friends who met at a housewarming party I threw a little more than three years ago had decided to move in with each other and decided to throw a party. The hour drive there and back went by without incident, and the drive to party ratio made the party quite worth it.
I had some pretty cool conversation with just about everyone there. A lot of them came from New Jersey, from where one of the home boarders originates. A minority originally came from New England, including myself. Socializing with all them really hit the target for a big reason why I want to move out of this area. The people here really are very reserved and, dare I say it, come off as a bit eltitist and snooty in attitude. I guess it can happen anywhere, but I just really haven't had the most positive experience in New England lately.
Either which way, I had a great time socializing with these people. I even felt like I could act myself and let down some of my barriers. On the way home, though, I did mull over the fact about my social anxiety of letting down my guards. Maybe I should say more mulling over the way that I can get really involved on one topic in a conversation, which can cut down on the light hearted attitude of a party.
Getting anxious about it and pulling back, however, kind of complicates things. I kind of feel like I possibly pull back too much and don't go far enough into a conversation. This whole thing doesn't worry me over much. I just like to think about these things and try to find a good middle point so that I can best enjoy a party. I haven't found a good way to approach this one, though.
Overall, though, the small house warming party last night gets 4.75 stars out of 5. Only the smallness worked against it, and size really shouldn't make a huge difference. I really just enjoyed and felt inspired to meeting these interesting people and feeling welcomed by them into the acquaintence party fold.
Good fun.
Last night, technology got me to disappear again. The new router came in the mail yesterday (did I mention that I had problems with the previous one, and I started the warranty process over the weekend?). I took a couple hours to make it work, learn a couple new things about the cable modem and wireless networks then troubleshoot some problems. Now it works swimmingly, though.
The other night, I felt way too tired to blog. That day, I had taken another insurance class in Framingham. I stressed out about being late and felt generally miserable. Fortunately, I got to bed at a good time.
Right. I also played some Magic that night and watched Lost then went to bed because I felt like crap. I've got my priorities, after all.
After a conversation about commercials and advertising that night after playing Magic, I've started asking people if they feel susceptible to advertising? Does advertising persuade you to buy a particular product or does advertising persuade them to "buy into" our materisalistic and consumerist society?
I've gotten a lot of interesting answers so far. Nothing totally solid to put together, but interesting, nonetheless. I don't know how seriously I will take this research project, but it provides for some interesting conversation and knowledge, at the least.
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