wasted days

nuclear

I’ve discovered (reaffirmed, really) that the best way to deal with feeling like shit is to go do something. It’s the stagnation that breeds the pain and hopelessness, nothing more. The problem is that it’s such a vicious cycle: the more I sit around, the less I do, the more useless I feel. The more useless, the less I want to do anything. So it’s hard to get up, get out, break out of laziness. I need someone to force me to. I need a new hobby. I’ve got to go to church tomorrow. Not that it would constitute a hobby, but it’s something I’ve been putting it off for months.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

have-nots

Just got back from Zuke’s house. Dinner was nice, it was a welcome first holiday here. After eating we played Cranium, at the request (or demand) of Zuke’s 9-year-old brother Nick. Zuke, Nobu, Amy and I were all on a team. We lost miserably, but it was still fun. Most of the people there weren’t American, so we tended to get the pop culture questions wrong. We tended to get most questions wrong, actually. You’d think with at least half a dozen chemists they’d get the science questions right, but no. No matter, it was quite enjoyable.

Thanksgiving is a good time. It does a body good to reflect on his life, what he has to be thankful for. The cynic in me says that Thanksgiving is just an excuse for the spirit of the have-nots to kick us in the stomach and force us to become guilt-ridden. Maybe, but it’s necessary. Without that kick every once in a while we lose touch with reality. Or, more accurately, reality becomes to narrowly confined to only what we know, instead of taking into the account the lives of other people. And besides, its not as if those less fortunate are asking for this to happen; it’s certainly not their fault. So I’ll take my kicks. I need them.

These thoughts on Thanksgiving came to me after my dad turned a short story about lunch with one of the secretaries in his office into a lesson about the meaning of giving thanks. He did it rather well, too, I must say. It was my kick in the stomach. It did what it was designed to: made me think. For this I am thankful.

This is from last night, but I’m only getting around to publishing it now

feet on the ground

Dinner conversation tonight was more interesting than usual. Out of the daily dinner conversations we have, only one in every week or two is worth anything. It’s usually only decent once my sister leaves, too. I cannot understand why. It’s most likely just my relative perspective on a dialog’s value.

We talked for a while about boredom. My parents don’t want me to be bored in school. It’s very kind of them, but I’m afraid it’s a rather futile cause. My mom asks if I would want to skip a grade. I say yes, sure, but I won’t. It’s too difficult logistically. Even if I could handle starting in all sophomore classes right now, which I may or may not be able to do, I would first have to place out of the freshman classes. It’s a matter of volume; I just can’t learn all the information necessary to do so. This is why most people skip grades at lower levels: there it was more about thinking than content. Here it’s supposed to be about abstract thought, too, but this thought is achieved in a much more content/information-driven manner.

It’s such a waste of intelligence, Uni. Certainly within it there are varying degrees of intelligence, and very little (if any) true genius. But whatever there is, it isn’t fully used. So many of these kids have been forced into to dispicable mold of the A-freak. I would probably curse myself for wishing this to happen if it did, but we should be pushed to our limits. Instead of arranging it such that we can all work at whatever level we have to and be able to get an A, we should be all be stuggling to get passing grades. The emphasis must be taken off the grade and put upon actually learning something. Kids here don’t care about learning something (for the most part), they care about getting a decent grade. The A-freak does not learn much more than the kid who isn’t that concerned and gets a B or C. Furthermore, the kid who’s relaxed is more likely to actually remember some of it. The A-freak may get his (or more often her, for some reason) A, but they don’t stop to think about what they’re doing. It’s just a fervered and constant race for that A.

The problem goes beyond just the desires of the kids, however. There are a lot of kids here who are quite intelligent. Why not push them a little? Again, instead of setting it up so everyone gets a good grade, set it up so that we’re really, truly thinking, no matter what grade we end up with. Don’t waste this intelligence.

The key to all of this is the execution: don’t strain the kids by giving us tons of tedious work, strain us by making us think. It doesn’t have to be time-consuming, but it should be hard.

One of the problems with pushing kids is that there are such varying degrees of intelligence. To set up a uniform educational system that taxed everyone equally simply doesn’t work. Some kids are always going to “get it” faster than others. But that’s a problem I’ll have to tackle another day.

I’m bored because I’m not thinking. Writing this took more abstract thought than anything else I did today. Although that might just be because this is something that I care about more (and how sad is that?).

Once again I repeat: it’s all about limits. We cannot define ourselves in any way with intelligence until we know exactly what the capacity of that intelligence is. And once we define ourselves relative to intellect, we can take emphasis off of it and define ourselves in more unique ways.

Dinner conversation also dealt with Thanksgiving, but that’s going to have to wait a little while. I’m all worn out.

comedian

Creativity (and comedy) are hard things to come up with on demand. As is evident in English class: we’re staging short skits that are supposed to incorporate various elements of comedy (of our own choosing). Basically, we’re supposed to work with a couple other people and write something funny. For whatever reason, my group has come up with very little. The skit sucks in a major way, and its not even 1/3 finished. It’s a scene unfolding at a funeral… yea, situation that’s just hilarious. It’s so much easier to just go the ridiculous route, make people laugh because it’s just so goddamn stupid. But no, we’re going the “I don’t know what the hell this is” route. It’s going to be painful to perform this abomination. Ah, such is life.

I think I should go see Jerry Seinfeld’s movie/documentary, Comedian. I read a review of it a few weeks back; it seemed interesting. And I saw that it’s playing somewhere in town today, as I was driving by some random theater downtown. There’s a good Thanksgiving-weekend activity.

more real than reality

All right, I ripped this headline straight from Drunkadelic, but its worth repeating. 11% of American between 18 and 24 cannot find the US on a world map. This is just pathetic. There are other statistics there, too, but this is the worst. I guess it just goes to show how little we think about the bottom of the bucket, so to speak. These are the bottom 11% of the intelligence pool. Reminds me of something I heard once: “Imagine how dumb the average person is. Now just think that half the population is stupider than they are.” What I wonder is where all these incompetent people are. All we ever hear is people asking this question. Maybe its just because only the more intelligent ones are asking the question, but it seems odd that no one can figure out who all these people sucking the intelligence out of the population are. *Sigh*, what can we do? Statistically there always has to be stupid people, or by definition smarter ones wouldn’t exist. It’s a cruel predicament.

joisy boi

Today in Driver’s Ed the video we watched had a terrible announcer. For one thing, she kept messing up her lines, and apparently they didn’t want to do any more re-takes. What bothered me more, though, is that she said “exspecially.” I don’t know why, but it just sounds so bad to me when people talk like that.

Thanksgiving week. It’s nice, going into the holidays. Of course, Christmas time is when the suicide rate is highest, but I suppose we all just have to deal. With luck I’m going home to New Jersey over the winter break, which is something I’m reeeally looking forward to. Assuming it happens. Still isn’t all final. But I need it, and hopefully the powers at be will realize this.

Social studies test tomorrow. I hope my studying method holds true: sitting around tomorrow at lunch and listening to the people who studied for three hours tonight reassure one anothe rof every little fact. I hate being a freeloader, but sometimes I’m just too damn lazy to be anything else.

i time bomb

Last night was the Turkey Trot, the November dance. I don’t know why they insist on these stupid names. But in a way, they kind of make sense. The stupidity of the name reflects so well the stupidity of the entire concept. Not our dances in particular, just the entire concept is…. odd. But that doesn’t make any sense.

The dance was fairly normal. Some vicious sophomore alpha girls tried to take my pants off (twice), but I was wearing a belt. “Always be prepared.” Zuke thinks its a bad idea, of course, but then he has even less of an idea what he’s talking about than I do. All I know is that I didn’t really want to be standing in the middle of a crowded room with my jeans around my ankles. It wasn’t that kind of night.

Other than that, nothing terribly special. Towards the end they played Nirvana’s “Smell Like Teen Spirit.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cordelia so happy. We went up towards the front, and she was screaming out the lyrics at the top of her lungs. It was a lot of fun, too. “I love this song!” she says, with this funky little smile on her face and her eyes all lit up. We ran headlong into a group of freshman/sophomore boys jumping up and down. I don’t think they quite expected a mosh, so it didn’t really work. Not that the teachers standing off in the corner would have let it turn into anything fun, but we’re proud of ourselves for trying.

Hooray for emotional roller coasters, for all those damnable influential little things, and for not caring what it means or what’s going on so long as it makes you happy.

I’m listening to blink-182’s “Anthem” over and over again while I write this. I don’t know why.

telepathy

I have just discovered that a bunch of my friends from New Jersey (all the asian ones, for some reason) have Xanga sites. This provides me with reading material for a while. And a way to figure out what the hell I’m missing. I shouldn’t care this much, because it’s over and I’m never permenantly going back. But I do.

quizzical

Damnit, why must I so desperately want what I can’t have? Even something totally unconsidered suddenly becomes more interesting (at least to some small degree) when its off-limits. How despicably human of me. At least its only temporary (as is everything, I’m finding).

The Barenaked Ladies are singing “Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel.” Say what you will about them, but I cannot help but like a band that comes up with a song like this. The lyrics are somehow very simple but seem important. Even if they’re just about a car crash:

“In all the confusion, there’s something serene.
I’m just a posthumous part of the scene”

But now it’s moved on to something Green Day.

I believe it when people say history repeats. It certainly seems to for me, at least. However, it isn’t such a bad thing; it’s just a second chance in disguise. If I’ve got enough grey matter to remember why shit went bad last time, this time it doesn’t have to happen. Part of me knows this, at least. The other part of me falls straight into trouble for the same reasons it did the first time around. It’s amazing, my stupidity that way. It’s like the dog who returns after being kicked away. Maybe he just doesn’t know any better. Or maybe he’s starving.

happy unbirthday

hooray for 300 hits