On Text

So much reading. You have no idea how much reading. It's scary. First; I am taking 5 classes in the humanities. That equals at least 20 pages per class. Then you make one of them a Lit class and the pages double. Add to that a Civ class that is also my composition class and you get in excess of 150 pages per night in rather thick texts. But that’s just me whining. Onto the entry.

One of the byproducts of the excessive reading is a huge number of, what I consider, and interesting ideas to blog on. One of them was the fundamentals problem of getting teens to talk in class. I don't mean over the teacher either. Participations in the class are a problem everywhere you go. Well maybe not everywhere... but you get the idea. In my Intro to COM class, we started discussing the fundamentals of classroom communication. Most people don't really like to put themselves out on a limb and talk in class because the social pressure is to appear less intelligent than they are. Current social patterns among the younger generations encourage stupidity. The recent Black Eyed Peas' hit Let's Get It Started was originally titled Let's Get Retarded and that lyric still exists in the song. In California, dance styles Hyphy and Krunk encourage dances to get really drunk so that the moves take on a life of their own. The two styles both mean stupid dancing and are rooted in drug and alcoholic cultures.

On television, the sitcom has always made fun of the stupid character but in recent movies and TV programs, the dumb ones are coming out on top more often. Examples like Ronnie and Michelle's High School Reunion Bring it On and Model Behavior, and TV show like Stacked and even Reba make fun of the ignorant but also reward them for a kind of innocence.

In the classroom, no such reward exists for those who appear dumber than they are. So, instead talking and breaking from a social pressure, students remain quiet and preface their few responses with "I don't know, but..." or "Um... well... I guess..." Now I'm not trying to say that everyone who does this is playing dumb. Certainly not everyone is suited for every class they take and there will be times when student legitimately don't know anything about a topic. In these circumstances, what should be happening is a question and answer dialogue between teacher and student or for the whole class to ask question and bounce ideas around. Instead, the lapse of wit becomes a jeering session for the smarter people in the class who knew the answers but wouldn't speak up when it would have hurt their images.

I make it a goal to speak at least once in every class and it's quite easy for me to do so, mostly because I have things to say. Even when I don't, it's important to ask questions and be able to catch um with the discussion topics.

More worrisome to me than the class behavior is the cultural inclination to act stupid. This is one issue that must be faced if the current education system is going to keep working.

SIDENOTE: And back to the business of me. People have started to leave comments. It's been almost two months since this blog went live and I would like to thank all my readers and especially those who left comments. I hope I keep up with your standards.

Muah!
Lyrinoir

Alchohol and Other Things

I have begun to notice that I am drunk. Of course, because I don't drink, this is purely metaphysical drunkenness. I was referring to the reason people drink in college. E.g. to have fun/remove inhibitions that would prevent fun having. On a broader level, people drink to remove fear. In college that fear is the fear of social awkwardness. I am drunk because I use another controlled substance to destroy my fear. That substance is a combination of acting (lying for a better class of people) and cynicism (hate for a more verbose class of people).

Some background is in order. I have a roommate, Kyle, who enjoys getting drunk. On this past weekend he got drunk Friday and Saturday night and is probably having a drink right now. I had a conversation with one of his friends about why I didn't drink. Long story short, he said he drunk to remove tension from a party. I contested that I didn't need drinks to have a good time. Which is true. I need music. Off the point. Later, when I thought about it, I realized that it wasn't really true. To replace the false confidence that alcohol would give me, I use acting to put a different face on. Someone who wouldn't be embarrassed by the situation. For me, this is a simple task, one I hardly think about. In fact it is rare for me to have a day when I don't use acting at some point. Only a few chosen friends see the real me. That's why I say I am drunk. The philosophy behind getting drunk and acting are the same. Remove fear.

Humans fear a lot of things. One of the caveats of having large brains is an increased capacity for fear and worry. We fear for the future, we fear our social lives and most importantly, we fear ourselves. When you look at if from this perspective, it's a miracle everyone isn't a alcoholic or an actor. The amount of self control it takes to overcome this inborn fear is astounding to comprehend.

Not that I approve of excessive drinking. There is a point where it isn't healthy. But it's really not my place to lecture everyone on healty or unhealthy habits.

Muah!
Lyrinoir

Late Night Dancer Funk

So my roommate and I redcorated our room with blacklight and a strobe light, creating the party room of our hall. Club 418. It is now 1:23 AM and the room is... "Jumpin." I hate Rap Music. Really and truely.

I got my laptop and it's working now which is the only reason I am even able to record this... night. One of the intersting things about my new computer is that it can be a TV reciever with a little work. It came with a remote control for that reason. My roommates computer is IR active. I, therefore, can control his computer wiht my remote. This is the only reason the party hasn't brought the cops down on us. I have been reducing the vollume of the music throughout the night. Good times.

Oh well. Share my pain.

Muah!
Lyrinoir

Little Touches of Insanity

I just finished my first day of college level classes and I have come to the opinion that I love the little touches of insanity that each professor has. The little idiosyncrasies and habits that make a class fun and strange. I can't really give you any examples right now because of the time it would take but look forward to an entry about them later.

It looks like I'll have to re-work my posting setup. One: I don't have time to post every day now. Two: I don't have anything interesting to say that I can condense into an entry that I can type in the time I have. This will become easier once I get my laptop and I won't have to go the Library every time I want to blog stuff.

For the time being, deal with it. I'm too tired to right now so I'll have you do it for me.

Muah!
Lyrinoir

Moving and such

Quick entry:

Sunday: Moved into dorm at Bradley U in Peoria, IL. Weather was hot and I died. End of day

Monday: 1:00 AM, was woken up by a room full of crazy party people and a strobe light.

Monday: 3:00 AM, was woken up again by some ladies from a nearby hall looking to bother my roommate. Received strange note from one of said ladies asking to be my "Gunslinger Girl." Laughed for about an hour.

Monday: Finished moving in and shopping. Lots of fun. Wrote quick entry on blog.

More college fun when my brain revives.

Muah!
Lyrinoir

"I know we're cool"

So there are two days left till I leave and I can't help feeling like I've left some loose ends. In fact, the closer I get, the less time I seem to have. I can't belive it took a genius to figure out that time is relative.

I'm guilty of letting a lot of my friendships go stagnant and I have left far too much too be done here to leave yet. This entry is kinda to make up for failing in a few of these areas.

One - To Aaron: I kinda failed to say goodbye to you. Not that we're going to be out of touch by any means but still... I feel a formal farewell and good luck is necessary.

Two - To Kiki: Well I let things slide on my end. I promise to make it up to you over x-mas break.

Three - To Steph: We didn't get a chance to talk at the party but I wanted to tell you that you will have a great time and to call me if it gets rough. I am always here for you. Muah!

Four - To Reid: I really f*scked things up between us last year. You have no idea how much that bothers me. Call me and lets try to work things out.

Five - To Jas: Wow. I made a friend I never thought I would. Let's make a pact to stay in touch and always buy wonderfully inappropriate clothing. Much love.

Six - To Travis: I need to say this but I can't to your face. You hurt me but it was my fault too. I owe you an apology and probably something more but you never called me so you don't get anything.

Finally - Erik: Talking has always been a problem for us. I just wanted you to know that I love you so much and I will miss you dearly. Please call me or drop me an E-Mail.

Gwen Stefani may have totally lost her mind but there is a reason her song is the title of this entry. I have had many friends over the years and many loved ones. I guess this is kind of a call to say that I regret some of the things that have happened to us over the years but I know our friendship will stay strong. I love you all.

Muah!
Lyrinor

The Surreal Life

Twelve days left. It seems both an eternity and a blink of an eye. Please pardon the excessive use of cliché in this entry. It is a cliché subject. I'm leaving for college. These things happen but I am struck now with an incredible sense of surrealism. It's almost as if I have been split in two. One part of me is very exited by the whole thing and can't wait to get on the plane next Sunday. This is the part of me that has taken over these past few days as I go about buying the things I need and making sure that I get to school with books and bedding and such. At the same time there is another me who is, not scared but, wanting to remain the same. To fall back into the stability that I had created for myself. This persona has been taking a backstage role in all the chaos that is happening. The creepy bit is I can almost feel me watching myself sometimes.

I blame this totally on a breakdown of my mental process, caused by... well, chaos. It's a breakdown in the way I operate. I guess a lot of people are undergoing this. For me it's manifested mostly as an inability to keep social plans organized. Not the most important of things but as I approach a time when I won't be able to see these people anymore, it seems I should at least try to see them one last time.

I have also started to listen to bad summer ballads which is inexcusable, no mater the circumstances.

They all touch on the idea of a lost summer love, which is cheesy, but at the same time I can't help feeling a kind of connection. Not about love but with friendship. I have also been trying to talk to people I have met over summers past, either at camps or at conventions. I feel very much like a spider, sitting at the center of a very large web, pulling at strings to see if the outer parts of the web are still intact. It's a long process.

I guess the one thing I have been hesitant to write about on this blog is my relationships but that is also a part of what is happening to me. I've been getting over what a friend of mine called, "My first love: unrequited." Which is a really dramatic way of saying a big crush. The thought of leaving with out bringing that to a close has really been bothering me.

But I won't bore you with lots of details. I'm sure that everyone goes through a time like this. It's what makes us human.

Muah!
Lyrinoir

Faith

My friend Goldom has lost his faith in humanity. Or rather that he never had it. It came up today during a discussion over teamwork. I was advocating that we trust our teammates to get their assigned jobs done and he was cretin they wouldn't and felt that we would be sunk by trusting them. In this particular situation, everyone came through but the fact that Goldom didn't believe in everyone else was a little disturbing. I did some personal reflection and found, despite my optimistic outlook today, I mostly don't believe in people. Sure, I trust people to handle themselves but I have a problem letting them take control of something that affects me. I've always had some trust issues but I didn't think that it applied to mundane things like work. Despite this realization, I think I have a healthy attitude toward people. I'm not a total pessimist and it's far better to be right about someone than it is to be disappointed by them.

Total lack of faith in people is still somewhat troublesome. Although, the events of the past five years have caused me some doubt about humanity in general, total loss of faith seems irrational. Sure, for every competent person out there, there are 10 more messing up but even the average Joe has something to contribute to society. I am certainly no perfect human but I do try to think about these things, which probably puts me in the top half of our countries inhabitants. I guess my point is that everyone has some redeeming feature, no matter how useless they may seem.

And I call myself a cynic. That was positively... cheery. Augh...

Muah!
Lyrinoir

Rosette in Black

I got the last DVD of Chrono Crusade (Chrno Crusade in Japan) today and now I'm all depressed. I won't spoil the ending but I will say that far too many main characters died. It was like reading the last two Harry Potter books, smushed into a half hour segment. Bleh.

On the plus side, I also got Steamboy, which was pleasing in a childish way. I had heard of Cyberpunk but this was my first experience with Steampunk. It was refreshing.

Such is existence. Balance between Yin and Yang, depression and uplift.

That's all for today. My life feels boring for the moment.

Muah!Lyrinoir

Datalinks

I am struck at just how digital I have become. Maintaining my blog, posting on my forums (3 of them) checking in with The Facebook. Not to mention E-mail, (9 accounts) IM, (200+ contacts) MMORPGs (3 currently) and reading my webcomics, keeping up with current events and just browsing. I can't live without at least 3 hours set aside to keep everything straight. Well maybe 2.5 hours. Keep in mind that I am currently operating off a 56k modem. You can see the fun time, can't you? At the same time I have to notice that, while I am certainly on the extreme end of internet usage, most people spend a significant amount of time online. Particularly the younger generations.

The internet has offered us much in the way of communication. I now can send a message to all of the 400+ contacts I have in my 9 E-mail accounts in less than two minuets. While writing the entries for this blog takes some time (about a half hour per entry) it only takes few seconds to publish them, letting everyone with an internet connection, who reads English, to see them. And that's with a 56k connection! Not that I have a problem with my speed. My only problem is with my ISP, AOL. Which has stolen the souls of me and my family to provide more verisimilitude for the "You've got mail!" chime which I have come to loath. At the same time, AOL has provided more opportunities for connectivity than almost anyone else. AIM is the most used IM service online and it spawned a legion of copycats, from the complicated ICQ to the cloned MSN Messenger. Kids and teens make the most use of these IM services but even my techno illiterate mother now uses AIM to keep in touch with my sister and our extended family.

But as much as the wonderful World Wide Web keeps us in touch with friends and family over great distances, it also divorces us from our local surroundings. I am a perfect example, spending an excessive amount of time just keeping up with online commitments. A recent MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) set up a message which appears every time someone logged in. The message was a warning advising players not to become too engrossed with the world of the game. It advised that players make time to go outside and spend time with RW (real world) friends and family. While it may seem trite, such messages are based on actual events. The game Everquest (aka Evercrack for it's addictive nature) boasted some players who were logged in more than 10 hours a day. Because of the nature of the game, players became engrossed with a living, mutable world that they could directly control. Other game aren’t as infamous but are equally addictive. The online game of Diablo II is the best example of a micro economy forming around a game. Because of the nature of items in the game, it became possible for high level players to acquire high level items and sell them to low level players for real money. The transactions took place in online auction houses or on websites built for the purpose. People could actually make real money by playing a game. Such people could isolate themselves totally from the world around them, becoming completely net-based.

Such examples are extremes but as fads like online grocery shopping and home delivery become more and more common, it is not a great stretch to see a world where people don't leave their houses. Dire predictions aside, what we are witnessing is a marked separation of cyber-world and real world interactions. As the virtual distance between people decreases, the real distance increases. The online domain is becoming smaller and smaller while the real world becomes more difficult to navigate. The increase in gas prices and added difficulty to travel in general only serve to further this gap. Why fly for a business trip when the deal can be made via teleconferencing and E-mail?

One of the possible futures we face today is that of a truly Virtual World. An existence where all human life is confined to houses or cocoons, existing freely in cyberspace, while advanced robots care for us. While this Matrix like future may seem out there and impossible, we are already taking the steps to put it into effect.

Muah!
Lyrinoir

Setup.exe

I need to re-learn HTML.

So I think I have a system for this blog now. I'll try to update at least once a day. Those updates will be more personal and simple. At the same time I'll try to have something a little more meaningful on the back burner at all times. In theory, every third day or so, I'll post a reflection on current events, a short rant, or a review of something (theater, TV, movies ect). We'll see how well this works out. If you want to see a topic in one of these more serious posts, leave a comment or drop me a line (e-mail is in the profile) and I'll see what I can do. I'm still in the experimental phase here so comments and suggestions would be helpful. I'm also looking for a co-writer or something. Someone to provide contrast to me and add new stuff so you don't have to read me drone on and on about... whatever. Again, send me an e-mail if you are interested.

On a side note, I need to re-learn HTML. I have used Dreamweaver for so long, I seem to have forgotten the basics. And Dreamweaver can't alter the template for the blog directly. The two programs are speaking slightly different packets. Please bear with me as I re-work the front page and the interface.

Muah!
Lyrinoir

I'm a book!

Well not realy. Kinda

I love SRPGs. They make me sooooo happy. And consume all of my free time.

It occurs to me that not everyone who reads this knows what a SRPG is. Let alone a RPG. Lesson time! RPG stands for Role Playing Game, a genre of game where the player takes on the role of a main character and develops him/her through battles and/or social interaction. Common stereotypes of these games include EXP points, young girls with ungodly power, and melodramatic villains. The S stands for strategy. These games put you in control of a single character and put that character in control of an army. It is your job to create a diverse and powerful fighting force to take on the forces of evil (or good). Your army isn't a standard one of soldiers and medics. Spell casters, monsters and gods are some of the more unusual mercenaries you could employ.

ANYWAY... I love SRPGs. They make me sooooo happy. And consume all of my free time. Nippon Ichi Software is responsible for a lot of the really good SRPGs out right now. They just released Makai Kingdom in the US last Wednesday. I, of course, bought it immediately and have spent more than 20 hrs on it since. The main character in the game is a book. Well ok, he's a demon overlord trapped in a book. It's really quite funny. All the other overlords have to write wishes in Zetta (the main character) for the story to progress. (lit: I wish for the next episode to begin.) The whole reason this is even one here is because of my favorite character currently. He is a SaberKitty (actual class) named NekoBox and he carries a Katana. So cute and soooo deadly.

Anyway...

Muah!
Lyrinoir

Excesses

Free time is one of nature’s blessing/curses. On the one hand, I now have free time to write in the blog, catch up on my world news and generally breathe a little easier. On the other hand, I am wasting time which could be spent on something more productive. Like getting money. At any rate, it has been said that "once is an event, twice is a coincidence, and three times is serendipity." The reason I mention this is because Aldous Huxley has achieved serendipity status today. Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World, is an interesting person in and of himself but not a character I expect to turn up in everyday conversation. The first time was in a BBS discussing the movie The Island. Someone had asked if the movie had any relation to Huxley's novel by the same name. I had read the book and quickly responded no. The second time was when a friend e-mailed me to ask if she could borrow my copy of Brave New World. Finally, it was brought to my attention that he had been quoted in the most recent edition of The Week. "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad as hell."
I left the post overnight and forgot where I was going with this ....

Anyway... Serendipity is kinda weird... oh bugger.

Saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... Loved it.

Watch my brain melt... weeee!

Muah!
Lyrinoir