The Man in the Hat

Many questions are raised by this video, but the two I really want to know are the following. One, where can I get an awesome hat like the one that guy at the bar is wearing? And, two, could I ever win a staring contest with him? (About that last question, the answer is clear: NO!) Side note: I actually have a CD of music written by the father of the man who composed the song in this video: S.D. Burman. He was also an uber-popular composer of Bollywood music.

It's on like Donkey Kong!

Part of the problem, I think, about my not posting anything lately is that I feel that I should always post a picture of something with every post. Unfortunately, I haven't felt like photographing anything lately. In order to photograph something, you need to get out of the house and do something interesting, and I've been reluctant to do much of anything. Instead, I've been spending the majority of my time in Azeroth and the Eastern Kingdoms fighting dragons and exploring dungeons and such.



Yes. It's true. I've been spending most of my time lately playing the World of Warcraft game. For those who know, I have a level 70 protection Paladin and have been doing my utmost to gain enough reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive to get that one shield. If I sound like a huge nerd, I suppose that's because I am one. It's useless to deny it. I just signed up for the lottery to play in the Beta Release of the upcoming expansion. I might get in, and I might not. Thankfully, I am an old fart, so I am not going to be crushed if I don't manage to get accepted. This is not 1986 and, despite all appearances, I've gained a little wisdom and maturity since my teenage years. It could be fun, but I'm not going to be losing any sleep.

My history with video games goes way back. I had a ColecoVision for crying out loud. A game system with one of the worst controllers ever! The box art on the cartridges were way more exciting than some of the games which, looking back, strongly indicated the need for imagination when playing them. If you could pretend that square dot on the screen was the barbarian from the game's box-cover, or that suspiciously duck-like looking object was actually a fire-breathing dragon, then you could enjoy these games like I did back then.

My favorite character in the history of Video Games is Cranky Kong (who appeared much later than the ColecoVision). Cranky Kong would frequently tell his younger relatives, Donkey and Diddy, about the hardships he faced in the early days of gaming. "Back in my day, we just had one button: and it was for jumping! And we were grateful to have it!" Sometime, I feel like him when I talk about these old systems. My sister nearly killed herself laughing when I showed her an original Atari 2600. ("OMG! It has wood panelling?!") Um, yes. Yes, it did.

When I was about eleven or so, I got in big trouble when I spent nearly $25 dollars on the Wizard of Wor game at the local 7-11, a convenience store about a mile and half from where I lived. I had to walk through a couple of trash-filled empty lots of tall scrubby weeds to get there. And I must have irritated more than my share of convenience store workers by turning in 100 dirty pennies, some of which had turned green with oxidation, and some which had been previously lost in couch cushions or on the floorboards of an old Toyota, just so I could get four quarters and spend about eight whole minutes playing the original Donkey Kong game.

I'm not that bad now. I have a Playstation 2 that I haven't touched in several months, and I can't even imagine spending $600 dollars on a Playstation 3. Even if the thing could make coffee and serve me breakfast in bed, $600 would be just way, way too much. But, when I have the spare moments and the inclination, I'm probably on my computer trying to gather enough netherbloom and slay enough demons to get that stupid shield. In a few small ways, it will be nice when the summer vacation is over and I can forget about shields, save the $15 bucks a month I spend for flying around on magic gryphons, and focus on school again.

Grinding the Gears

I think I can feel my blogging gears grinding down. I say this because I'm feeling more at a loss about what to write on here, online, than I have before. Maybe this is the result of my not reading as much as I used to? When I was reading novels more regularly, the inspiration to write struck more often. Or perhaps, the revision switch on my brain is stuck in the up position, taking my thoughts and re-working them again and again to create an endless loop where thoughts bloom but action withers, leaving the writing that was to have been dry and unwritten.



More than just occasionally, I would have a dream which would lead me to think about blogging again. Perhaps, I would write about the dream I had where I was searching the town for the antique store, finding an old typewriter there, and then showing a stranger-friend how to operate it or use correction tape to fix the mistakes. Or I would write about the dream where I was searching for the little balls of light hidden in the pools of a garden, collecting them as I lowered myself into the water to swim through a watery park labyrinth. But, my motivation never built itself up enough for me to log online and start typing. I don't know why I never wrote, except perhaps to note how my mental state hasn't been what it should for the past few months.



School was perhaps the biggest stressor. I missed a couple of assignment deadlines and my grade consequently suffered. Frankly, it was a little hard to find the enthusiasm to design a fashion label for a T-shirt or create a recipe page for a cookbook project. Thankfully, I managed to salvage a passing grade in the two classes I was most worried about, but I since I consider myself a good student, I am a bit disappointed in myself that I didn't do better.

There have been a few things that I did that I am proud of during this period. For example, I took a lot of photographs in my effort to be a better photographer. The pictures in this post come from a recent hiking trip that I took in the local woods. It was nice to be in the fresh air and think about things in laid back way. One day, I would like to get a telephoto lens and play around with that, but I'll have to save up for that.

My short term plans for now is to enjoy the summer break and not worry about deadlines for now. I plan to draw more, and perhaps work on my silly comic, but if I don't get around to it, I won't worry. I'm thinking about going to the gym soon too. In any case, I'm going to try and not overthink things and just let myself "be." With the summer, I think I will have more time for blogging, drawing, and the unfinished projects on my plate, so I might have something posted here soon, but I'm not going to force anything either.

Another Video

I've told myself that I should write a regular blog post and not just do another video, but that changed when I saw this. It was just too good not to post. Very entertaining. My personal favorite is the ferret, but you'll have your own I'm sure. (Oh, by the way, this is my 300th post. It took a few years to get here, more than it would have if I posted regularly like I had planned. Oh well.)

Tigershark Dancin'

The above video is exactly why the Internet was created in the first place. And, it is yet further proof that bears have the most awesomest dance moves. Videos aside, I'm still hanging on the boring corner of the world that I always do. I'd write a more official blog post at some point, but at the moment, I am hip-deep in design homework, so that will have to wait until some future point.

Zombie Work Schedules

For some reason, it is far easier for me to stay up until 3:00 a.m. than choosing to fall asleep at a more reasonable 11:3O p.m. I'm not a morning person in even the remotest sense of the word, but I am discovering that I am pretty much going to have to be in order to have a normal workaday life. Living the zombie lifestyle is nice for the amount of quiet and peacefulness that is available after midnight. There is nothing like it really. But, waking up at 7:00 a.m. after falling asleep in the small hours of the morning is like trying to push four ice cold cinder blocks off your bed with your nose and trying to roll them into a warm shower in the neighboring town. It occurs to me that the reason why all of those zombies in the movies are running amok is not their insatiable need for the culinary delights of a brain sandwich, but rather they are working on a severe sleep deficit and are angry about being forced to go to their mall jobs extremely tired.


Rainy Tulips

School marches on with its various art projects that constantly need doing. The maddening thing about all these art projects is that you can always work on a single one trying to make it ever better, but there is ever a limited amount of time to work on it, so you pretty much have to decide to stop at a certain point. I recently did a silly collage for a book cover assignment in Type class. I would have liked to have another week to experiment with glues and whatnot, but I was forced to hand it in after a poor laminating job that left a sizable burn mark above the little illustration I had made. I think it is about as obvious a large red zit on the end of your nose.

I guess this is coming up for me now because I have a major project due on Tuesday that I have yet to start, and I am planning on going to Portland on Saturday to go the Stumptown Comics Fest. I haven't started on it because I (wrongly) assumed that I had a couple more weeks. There were also several photo assignments I was rushing to complete too. As for tomorrow, I have been planning on going to Stumptown for months, so Saturday is a total wash for working on projects. I have the rest of tonight, hopefully all day Sunday, and most of Monday to work on it. We'll see what happens. I think I will get it in on time, but I want more time to work on the damn thing! Oh well, whattya gonna do? I think the real lesson for me is not how to assemble or research a nice looking art project but how to assemble and research a nice looking art project quickly. Working fast is not one of my strong suits.

I hope to take a lot of pictures tomorrow at the comic fest. I'm usually shy about taking photos of people though, so I may not be able to get any. But in any event, I am pretty sure that I will be posting about whatever happens here on the blog soon. One day, I will have my own comic and table at this thing, but for now I am content to be an attendee and observe all of the cool things that happen there. Since this is my second time, I know more about what to expect.

Walkabout

The back wheel tire on the passenger side of my car had a slow leak, a problem that I had been putting off for a couple of weeks. It's not that I especially hate going to the tire shop, but, I guess I really didn't want to spend an hour waiting around in a soulless white tile lobby wondering if Jimmy the tire tech was going to discover something worse than a nail in the tire. It's pretty much a given that, with a nineteen year old car, something will need to be fixed.

And, of course, when I eventually made it to the shop and spent the expected time in the waiting room, Jimmy indeed came out and told me that the leak in the tire wasn't the big issue. The real problem was the fact that the front two tires were "completely shot." Thankfully, Jimmy didn't give me the "I really can't let you drive out of here on those tire speech," but he might as well have. Now, I don't have the $250 to have them replaced, so I thought that I would wait a few weeks before I got them fixed. But, later that day, when I took my car to another place to have the oil filter changed, the oil change people noted (without me saying anything) that my front tires were shot. In fact, they even had me sign a liability waiver assuring that I wouldn't sue them if something bad happened to me by driving out on those bad tires! Good grief.


Forest Path

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the bad news about my car, I decided that I would go for a hike in the local wildlife refuge. The hiking trails had just opened up, and I wanted to get some nice photographs of the spring scenery. While I knew that I could use the exercise, I thought the time outdoors would be somewhat relaxing, a counterpoint to the stress of the car issues I was having. And it was a nice hike; although, I think I may have overexerted myself on the trails. I'm not as in shape as I thought I was, so more trips to the refuge for exercise may be in order.

One thing that surprised me about this hike was how many animals that I saw there. Normally, I will see an occasional bird, or a deer or two if I am there just after sunset. However, this time, I saw more animals than I had before. I saw several Geese, a few interesting birds, some ground squirrels, and couple of rabbits.


Geese


Silent Little Bird


Ground Squirrel


Rabbit

All the animals above were ones that I saw on this single three hour trip. There were more geese than anything else, probably a couple of hundred, and they spent the entire time honking above, and on, the small lake nestled at the bottom of the hill and below the hiking trails on which I walked. But they were not the loudest part of the trip, although I could definitely hear them the entire time on my hike. Something like the sound of gunshots was intermittently coming from the surrounding valley. It was a bit distracting. I admit I was very puzzled about blasts of noise in what should have been, to my thinking, a peaceful and quiet walk through the woods. But, I finally realized that the noises probably were meant to scare away the many geese away from the farms and vineyards that circled the refuge. It wouldn't take long for such a large amount of geese to devastate a farmer's precious crop.

I did see some deer too, but I wasn't close enough to get a good shot of them. It didn't take many photos for me to start longing for a decent telephoto lens. There were some really great pictures that I was unable to get because I couldn't zoom in close enough to get a nice shot. Photography can be an expensive pursuit. Tomorrow, I have another photography class. I will be taking a picture of my artwork for the studio project, and if all goes well, I hope to be able to post it here soon.

Seven Paragraphs of Progress

Usually I try to post a photograph when I write these blog posts, but today, I'm not going to do that. Primarily because it is already my bedtime at the moment, and since I have to get up early tomorrow to get to class on time, I don't have the twenty minutes to pull up Photoshop and do the tweaks that I normally do to the pictures here.

Class went well today. I had a chance during the break to ask the instructor who were his favorite photographers. He listed, aside from himself (good grief!), John Sexton, John Shaw, Tim Fitzharris, W. Eugene Smith, and Ansel Adams. I checked them out online and each one is a technical master at taking photographs, which of course, I knew they would be. I discovered Todd Hido the other day, thanks to a link in one of the blogs I ready occasionally, and although I am the rankest of amateurs who know little about the field of photography, I think that I would have to list him as one of my personal favorites.

But the thing that struck me, as it often does these days, is how much everything costs. Art supplies aren't cheap, and the reality is you need to spend money to create art. I know that there are those who would argue with me on that point saying that a pen and paper aren't that expensive, but I would invite that person to go to the art store and shop for supplies. You can spend over 10 bucks for a single sketchbook, and for the very nice pens, around 6 to 8 bucks. I'd love to learn how to paint satisfactorily, but I'd hate to spend 50 bucks just to make a mess trying to figure it out. I've got an entire shopping list in my head of items that I know I can't afford. And unlike the video games I longed for when I was a teenager, these items might actually help my development career-wise and personally. But then again, maybe I'm delusional.

After the instructor let us go for today, I worked on a personal image that I put in my moleskine, a project for my typography class. It features an asleep cat character in a smoking jacket and fez reclining in a Victorian wing chair. It's a silly image that, frankly, could be drawn better. I'm not normally a very disciplined person, but I've dedicated myself to drawing more--at least once a day--and so far I've kept it up. Eventually, I will put that up too.

Finally, I am writing myself a reminder here to write a post here about the time I drove up the coast in the middle of the night. I was simulataneously processing the rejection of a woman that I was attracted to with the big life worries and concerns about my future.

Thoughts like those seem so grandiose now when I look back into my twenties. I really had no idea how insignificant I was to the grand scheme of life. Now, I knew I wasn't some monumental hero in the history of the world, but I figured that I would have more impact in the larger world around me. I guess this is the ambition of youth. No one ever grows up dreaming that they're going to be a patent attorney for the rest of their life, or worse yet, homeless. There are so many people that life has chewed up; my own problems amount to just so much whining.

Anyway, it was an interesting trip up the coast that I don't think I have posted on my blog before, so I am planning on doing that soon. This is my reminder.

Class Adjustments

Today, I woke up early for some reason, perhaps it was the noise from the cat trying to weave himself through the venetian blinds in my bedroom. For some reason that honestly I cannot imagine, he's been practicing advanced mountain climbing maneuvers and apparently the blinds are some kind of kitty rock-climbing gym. The cat tends to get an early start on his day, so on these days when he starts his morning ascent at 5 AM sharp, I lumber wearily out of bed, chase him out of the window and around the room, and eventually capture him and unceremoniously toss him outside.

But I admit, there is also an equally good chance that the reason I awoke early was simply because I'm not on a good (read regular) sleep schedule. I tend to work better at night, so it is not impossible for me to go to sleep around one or two AM. Obviously, this is not a problem when I have an afternoon class the next day as I can catch up that same morning. But on the days that I do have a morning class, like today, well, I just pray that the classes that day are interesting. Otherwise, I'm nodding off in the afternoon and watching the clock.


Product Photography Exercise

Today, classes were fairly interesting, especially in the morning, but the afternoon was more of a struggle. The instructor during the morning class gave her impression of the design conference that she recently attended. She said that the future of design lays in the development of making things "work" and creating "dynamic media." Clearly the instructor was excited by the ideas that were presented, but she was a little ambiguous so I was left unclear about what she meant exactly. She indicated that design students needed to learn to write (copy?) competently to compete in the design market of tomorrow, that the design job we might get in the future may not exist today, and that consultation was becoming more and more necessary in the field. No designer is an island unto themself, apparently. We spent the rest of the day talking about the letters we had designed for our homework.

The afternoon class consisted of lecture of art principles that I have heard a thousand times before, and the review of Adobe InDesign software, specifically how to use the tabs and the various keyboard shortcuts related to the functions in the character palette. I drove straight home after class, lay on my bed, and tried to rest as best I could. I didn't want to nap because that would have messed up my sleep routine even more. Later that night, after dinner, I drew in my sketchbook to try to improve my drawing skills.

Tomorrow's class is photography, and the picture above will be one of the ones I need to adjust. I took about seven photos of that pot in various positions, one of which will be used as the cover for the phony magazine cover we'll eventually need to create. It will be a nice class, and by then, I will have enough rest to get through the day without wanting to fall backwards into the sweet embrace of sleep and a warm comforter.

More Reflections

It slipped by quietly and nearly unnoticed: March 19th. Not only was that day the ominous start of the Iraq war, but it also happened to be the very day that this blog began. I had been sitting in the computer lab staring blankly at the copy of MS Word 2000, trying to force something interesting to say about Moby Dick. But frankly, I was a little bored, burned out, and anxious about finishing up my undergraduate career, so nothing was really coming to me. I listlessly flipped through the pages of Melville's novel and the loose sheets of notes covering my keyboard and glanced around the room. The room was nearly empty, only about seven or so students in a room of forty computers. A few fellow procrastinators were trying to write papers like me, but one student was watching an Anime show online.

I think I believed that if I did some "free-writing," a brainstorming technique we often talked about in my English classes, something about the novel would come to me, and that would magically help the words flow into half-hearted B minus paper. At least, I hoped it would. I surfed the Internet trying to force inspiration and motivation, and somehow, I stumbled on to my friend's "web log." From there, I surfed to a few others, and then eventually, to the Blogger site itself. I rationalized that a little free-writing on a blog, with the exciting prospect of an audience of some kind, would just do the trick for me and my paper.

Blogging then was slightly different, clunkier and less intuitive. Blogger, at least the free version that I was using, did not have the ability to host photos for you, that came later. I'm not sure if I remember right, but I think you even had to have your comments hosted elsewhere too. And, if you wanted to see how many people were visiting your site, you had to pay for their upgrade. I know it all sounds very silly to talk about the old days of something that is only a handful of years old, but, in the dotcom days before Youtube and Myspace, this all seems like ancient history.

In any event, rather than write a long free form post that I hoped would spark the idea for my Melville paper I was putting off, I surfed the net for various third party blogger addons (like comments and a site counter) and began learning how to do some basic HTML to adjust my template. The layout of the site is essentially the same now as it was then, with only a few minor changes here and there.


Finley Wildlife Refuge - April 08

I eventually wrote my paper, but I really don't remember any of that. I do remember watching the bombs explode in the night over Baghdad on CNN, and noticing, as I walked back to the computer lab to print something out, how eerily quiet the streets of the town were. It appeared as if everyone except me, a couple of other students, and a bored lab attendant, were at home watching the Iraq war begin to unfold on the television. 9 p.m. might as well have been 3 a.m.

So, in an odd spirit of things, perhaps in the spirit of changes and transitions, this blog shares its fifth year anniversary with the Iraq War. Tonight, I finally updated some of the links in the sidebar, and removed the links and image tags for the third part blogging services that no longer exist. (Blogwise and Feedster are no more!) Furthermore, partially because this is an old HTML site that I am sure no longer meets any sort of web standards (if it even ever has!), and partially because I don't have the patience to learn how to fix it, the comments have been, well, completely borked. I've decided to take them offline. In its entire five year lifetime, my blog has had less than ten total comments anyway, so I don't think they'll be missed. But if anyone is really dying to say something to me, I still have my [contact] link at the top of the blog page.

My current school issues are, for the most part, all worked out. I am in the right three classes that I need for this term, and the instructor that was seriously stressing me out last term is thankfully not teaching any of the classes I am now taking. His method of teaching did not mesh with my style of learning. During the very last session of that previous stress-inducing class, I literally held my head in my hands while I, and the rest of the class, listened to his tirade about why the majority of us were going to fail in school and later in our future jobs because we could not meet his ridiculous deadlines. I suppose this could have been his way of motivating us to work really hard and do well on the final, but it felt manipulative and condescending.

Today, I went to my usual bi-weekly meeting in the "Southern City," which, as it can be, was cathartic in its way, but it was cut short as we had run out of time to discuss every thing we needed. After finishing up at the meeting and grabbing something to eat at MacDonald's, I found my way to the art store downtown and bought a few supplies: a pencil, a fancy pen, a sketch book, and a presentation portfolio. Later wending my way back north to home, I stopped off at the Finely National Wildlife Refuge for a brief visit, it being one my favorite places to relax at on these off Fridays. The seasonal hiking trails had just opened up, but as it was raining off and on all day, I decided to stay in the car. Instead, I took photos like the one you see above, and listened to the birds sing their various songs while I tried to process the meaning of life in general, and my life in particular. I know I am trying to get back on my feet financially and career-wise, but I sometimes feel as if life has spun out into a direction that I truly did not expect and can, sometimes, barely control. If that sounds a bit gloomy, I suppose it is, but honestly, I am searching for that personal bit of meaning, an emotional meaning, not a purely intellectual one, that I think we must all find in life. I like to think that the birds and their songs were trying to help.

Beginning Again

I got my grades last week, and while they're not the best I have ever done, they're certainly not the worst. It was nice to have the spring break not to worry about turning in projects and doing the mental math necessary to allocate the right resources to the right assignment. (E.G. If I spend the next two hours on assignment A, I'll have just enough time to finish assignment B, which means that assignment C won't get completed in time, but that class is not as important, blah, blah, blah. It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I've always hated math, and these kinds of bargaining formulas are no different than the classical algebra one encounters in college.)

Spring Break is over and I didn't really do much of anything other than watch television or surf the net. I think I am halfway through my second viewing of the Star Trek: Voyager series that have been replaying on cable; and of course, the M.A.S.H. series is always good to zone out with.

But, truthfully, towards the end of spring break, I was horribly depressed again. I've often tried to describe what depression feels like, and somehow, I think I always come up short. Unlike cutting your hand, or breaking a bone, the pain is not entirely physical. It affects your outlook on things (of course!), so objectively noting what you're experiencing the very moment you experience it is a challenge.


Skinner Butte Blossoms

Despite that challenge, I tried thinking about it, and while reflecting, I came up with a few images. For example, I imagined that depression is like trying to run underneathe the waves of the winter ocean, akin to surfing on the opposite sides of the water. The cold tumbling currents wrap around your arms and legs, stiffening them, while also dragging and pulling on your body with the slightest movement. Or, I thought, depression is like having a companion monster who claims to love you, sit beside you on a little stool as it slowly, and remorselessly, eats your shadow, your shadow being that essential part of you which always keeps you rooted to the earth. The pain, the physical part, (aside from the lump that is just nearly in your throat), is a muscular hand clutching at the bottom of your brain stem, pushing blood up into your mind with a pulse or two. Fortunately, the grasp of that hand loosened today by a bit, probably because I had to get out of my own mind and attend to the necessary duty of going to school.

But school is not without its own problems. The instructors, all who appear to competent in the field that they teach, while discussing the course and its requirements, insisted that we must keep notebooks. Now, to my view, notes are a personal responsibility thing. The notes and the method of taking them should always be individual to the student and adapted to his needs. Yet, these instructors insist on regimenting a particular method for keeping notes, organizing them and the like, and, of course, I balked. It seems, yet again (with corresponding flashbacks to my previous class with which I had trouble), that the instructors are emphasizing behaviour over knowledge. Rather than trust that each student will learn to the best of their ability, the instructors try to enforce a one-size-fits-all study method to a diverse group of students, and I cannot express just how much I hate this. But, as I thought about it, I figured that the real issue is that I have already earned an undergraduate degree and, in the process, have already learned how to think critically. So, rather than just passively accept what I am told like many of the other students do (especially the younger ones), I think about what the best method of learning on my own would be. And frankly, this notebook scheme isn't it. And that thought further led me to the conclusion that I have been a student for way too long.

I have a couple of school schedule anomalies that I will trying to work out in the next couple of days. It isn't anything too important, just another one of those hassles life throws at you. Speaking of which, I also need to do my taxes ASAP. And, I have a slow leak in the rear passenger-side tire of my car. Soon, I'll have those things done, but I really wish spring break was two weeks long rather than just the one.

Spring Break Respite

Well, if you were following from the last post, I did call my ISP, and after about ten minutes of back and forth on the phone, it looks like the problem was that the cordless phone on the desk next to the accursed modem was way too close and interfering with the wireless Internet signal. So, note to self, the cordless phone and the wireless Internet modem are mortal enemies. The phone, since it is not attached the computer, was consequently banished to another room and the problems have been dramatically less.

Problems with school are also over, at least for the next or so. I've really been having a lot of problems with one of my instructors, problems not over the work that I have actually been doing, but over his teaching methodologies which, in my view, are focused on the complete wrong thing. I've broken out in a mild case of hives (seriously) because of the stress induced by that course. Right now, I am in that limbo between the end of finals and the day they release the final grades, and I really hope that I do well. But this term was more of a struggle than most. I've been bouncing between a philosophical "what-does-it-really-matter" attitude and a worry that slowly encroaches on that equanimity.


My Cat in the Snow

Regardless of what happens on Tuesday (which is when I assume the grades will be released), I am looking forward to relaxing on this week of spring break. I'm very relieved that I won't have to worry turning in assignments for which I have no enthusiasm or meeting some instructor's slightly out-of-touch demands. I do need to register for next term. And I might try to do in the next couple of days, but only if the spirit strikes. One of the things that I thought I might do is work on my neglected webcomic during this break. While I managed to make 100 posts on it, no small accomplishment in the field of amateur comics, the last one was posted in early July of last year. In any event, this next week's time for myself to recharge will be a nice change of pace.

Curse You Cable Modem!

I've just tried to have a reasonable conversation with computer's DSL modem, a conversation which ended with the modem telling me--and I quote--to "go to Hell!" Therefore, this blog post telling you about it will not be very long (and of course there will be no pictures this time) because I only have a few brief moments to sneak a few sentences on to the Internet before the modem discovers me, gets itself into angry snit, and tries to strangle me with its USB cables. I see a furtive phonecall to the ISP in my near future. Let the Internet withdrawals begin!

Trauma in the Sea of Japan

Before I first officially enrolled in college those several years ago, I thought I would read Herman Melville's Moby Dick. I was in my early twenties then and, recalling now, I'm not fully sure why I wanted to read it. Perhaps, I thought that reading such a dense book would be a mental challenge that would somehow prove my worthiness to attend college. College had been a much-hoped for but still unattainable goal at that point in my life, and I had some insecurities about my ability to "cut it." Work was remorselessly grinding the human spirit out of my body with its incessant demands for more circuit boards and its general lack of concern about any personal need I had was demoralizing. Even though I had some measure of responsibility, the bottom line seemed to be that I was a meat-robot needed to press buttons, feed machines raw materials, and enforce humiliating human resource policies that I hated. The act of reading Moby Dick at the point was more important than the book itself. The act of reading Moby Dick hinted at the promise of a better life that would allow me a measure of control and therefore dignity.

So, after my evening shifts at the factory, right before falling asleep in the sleeping bag on my bedding pallet (I had no bed at the time), I would read a one or two chapters in the early morning dark of 3 or 4 a.m. I admit that, initially, I skipped over some of the middle chapters that I found especially boring. I didn't understand Melville's metaphysical point of describing the nature of whales or the natural world. Yet, the description of the harpooneers and the process of nineteenth century whaling was very interesting, and the end of the book was exciting. And, going with the popular interpretation, which I must have absorbed from the mythology and popular culture of the book, I saw Captain Ahab as a man whose faulty pride and inability to give up his own anger towards the whale was the reason for his self-destruction. And that was that. Moby Dick was an adventure novel with a cautionary tale against "monomaniacal" obsessions and prides.

In college, I was reintroduced to Moby Dick in a couple of my literature classes. BY the end of my senior year at my undergraduate college, I wrote a paper about the book that won me second place and one hundred dollars in an essay contest. Not only had I gained a new understanding of the book, I was developing a new language for talking about it in terms of literary high criticism. Moby Dick was Dark Romanticism, with a captial 'R.' For me, Moby Dick had developed from a mere adventure novel into a metaphysical exploration of the nature of good and evil. The instructors and professors would frequently try to convince us students that book was arguing that the natural world was a morally dangerous place that inevitably lured people to evil, but on that point, I was unconvinced. Instead, I saw the book as an exploration of character that was less about proving a point about world's evil and more about one man's (Ishmael's) search for the enduring truths about God and his world through the agency of other people, the sea, and his own heroic-or-not actions.

And then, I went to Graduate school where Moby Dick was again discussed. I was finding that certain middle-aged men, the professors, really enjoyed the book for its masculine adventurousness and were using the book as a mirror of their own thinly disguised and unconscious attempts to self-aggrandize themselves as heroes. Like the man called Ishmael, they were on a heroic quest to definitively explain the world and the way it worked, only instead of through whaling, they were going to do it through high literature. I suppose this is why I enjoyed my classes with the professors (who were mostly women by the way) who were intent on exploring or moderating a good conversation rather than making pronouncements. I am not sure that I gained any deeper understanding of the book itself, as by this point, it had become familiar. Grad. School, it seemed to me, was about taking a few minor threads from certain books in the literary canon and trying to spin entire blankets out of them. Still, even with my frustration with this improbable process, I enjoyed the seminars ont he book. I had my favorite chapters, my favorite characters and scenes, and had gleaned a variety interesting facts about the book, its author, and the period in which it was created. Part of the appeal could also have been Melville himself. As I saw it, he was an earnest, if somewhat tragic figure forced to earn a living as a customs officer at the end of his life. Hawthorne too mainstream and a little phony, Poe was an adept drunk and liar, and Thoreau was a weirdo camping out in his own backyard trying to talk to trees.

And, now, with my academic literary life over, I find myself thinking about Moby Dick again. Thankfully, these thoughts are no longer encumbered by the high literary theories or concepts of Deconstruction, Dialectical Marxism, Perfomativity, Phenomenology, Signs, Signifiers, or Signifieds. Instead, I think of Captain Ahab. Rather than a villian who destroys himself and others over his foolish pride, I see him as a much more tragic figure. He was whaling in the sea of Japan, essentially doing his job in order to earn a living. There, he has an accident and a whale, the white whale, rips his leg from his body. I imagine the trauma and pain of such a physical assualt on the body and try to think about what that might be like to experience that. To feel your leg being pulled from your body, to feel the fear and panic of the event as it happens, to feel the fear of instant death or the worry of a lingering one, to be utterly afraid of leaving the world and your family before you're ready to linger for weeks just moments away from dying, to be fitted with a wooden leg replacement is nearly unimaginable.

And, often, it seems to me, for every physical trauma there is a deeper mental anguish that is at least twice as worse. The body always heals much more quickly than the mind. So, in light of this, what else was Ahab to do? He was a wounded man desperately searching for a way to absolve his trauma. He, of course, thought that he should hunt the whale and kill it. But, emotional traumas aren't as easily resolved and are never, ever purged. The challenge is not striking back at the embodiments of our pain but figuring out how to coexist and cope with the tragedy if it. And yet, how was Ahab to know this? He did the best he could. In a sense, Ahab's real death did not occur when he was dragged below by the whale, but when he suffered an emotional trauma that completely devastated him. The time between is Ahab as a ghost, a shade that represents what he used to be to others and only emptiness to himself. He is the present absence that captains the ship unswervingly to the death that began in the sea of Japan.

And, I suppose, for me, that is Melville's message: figuring out how to live with the pain that tries to destroy us, figuring out how to bear and endure the traumas that we encounter in life without sinking under to our own self-destruction. This where the application art to our own lives come in, which is for me, the message of literature: how do we learn about ourselves in a way that betters us individually and our condition as a society. So, speaking personally for just one example, I have a genetic tendency to depression that I have to figure out how to coexist and cope with. Before, I suppose I've always sort of thought about my depression as something to cure and be completely rid of. Instead, I figured I've learned that I need to manage it properly, so I am master of it rather than it being master of me.

Broken Shack

Okay, so it has been forever since I last posted something here, and really, I am not too sure what to say about it. I guess I needed some kind of hiatus because of the demands of school have been a little much. As for December, it was nice just to have the break and "veg" out.

But, thinking further, perhaps the most difficult part of the last couple of months has been the emotional adjustments I have had to make to my new life. I'm in a transition in more ways than one.

For example, I went from having a regular source of income (okay, student loans, but still it was nice) to an income that is significantly smaller and a bit less reliable. I am eminently grateful for any amount of cash I can scrounge, but not having as much as I would need to live as independently as I would like has been a major stressor. Career-wise, I am in the midst of retraining from an Literature Academic to a "creative," which is what people who work in the field of Graphic Design apparently call themselves. That bit of jargon seems little arrogant to me because it seems to imply that everyone else in the world of work is somehow less creative, which of course is not true. For example, the creativity needed to keep a mindless job like flipping burgers or pumping gas interesting is significantly huge, and the creativity needed to please an insane boss is about as creative as one can get. But, as they say in academia, I digress. Essentially, I have been in an emotional malaise, in which depression plays it meager part.



In our North American society, a man my age has typically built up a series of resources and accomplishments: a steady job, a savings account, a retirement fund, a house or a car, a family, etc. And yet, it seems like I am still preparing for all of that. As much as people try to reassure me that these materialistic goals aren't the ultimate purpose of a life, they don't seem to acknowledge that not having them is a major distraction from finding or following that other true purpose. Once your basic needs are met (food, clothing, shelter, etc), you can move on to thinking about your emotional needs, and once those are met you can move on the next step and so on and so on. Now, most of my basic needs are being met (thanks to the generosity of others), but I worry because in a single moment, all the security and things you depend on can be taken away just like that.

This ability for things to change drastically (and not for the better) in a single moment is deeply unsettling. This was what I learned from my experience in graduate school. The course of my life significantly changed when I left it. So, um... so yeah. I am still trying cope with all of the realities of life that are a result of that experience and the current place I find myself.

There are a few things that I think I need to do. In no particular order, they are as follows: cook healthy food for myself, develop a regular (and reasonable) exercise schedule, develop a regular time for working and doing homework, develop a reliable time for relaxing from that, and developing my personal life to include more friends. I guess the basic message is that I need to take care of myself. In some ways, I feel like an old shack with broken slats that is leaning over, or a jumble of old and ragged clothes. I know I can turn things around, but it's hard.

Turkey Trot

Wednesday morning, as I was driving into school I nearly ran over a group of four or so turkeys. Yes, I said turkeys. And yes, I know it sounds ridiculously improbable. I mean, what on earth were a group of turkeys doing wandering out in the middle of the road, just one day away from Thanksgiving? Escaping? Getting one final look around at the world before accepting their honored place in the Thanksgiving oven? At the time, I felt a small panic expecting an impending explosion of turkeys into a catastrophe of feathers, but I managed to recover enough to find that all of the turkeys, largely unconcerned about their near death experience, were in tact and casually meandering from the road to the field nearby. After puzzling over such questions, I figured that either the turkeys escaped somehow, or that someone had intentionally let the turkeys out in order to give their surroundings the appropriate decorative touch for the holiday. Wild turkeys aren't native to our area. The turkey episode actually helped in way because I had hardly any sleep the night before, so the brief terror I felt and the attendant adrenaline helped me feel more awake.

As if you couldn't tell from the previous posts, the last couple of weeks of school have been pretty stressful and unhappy, primarily because I had fallen behind on some important projects. I spent almost eighty hours! working on just one in a period of only a week and a half. I know this because, as part of the project, I had to keep track of the time I spent on it. It may not sound like so much, but remember, this was in addition to the other work and obligations I had for other classes.

Concerned about my ability to pass the class with my being behind in my work, I talked with the instructor which helped to clarify which homework had priority. The instructor indicated that while the late work will have an effect on my grade, it isn't as disastrous as I had imagined. Her concern was that I continue to come to class despite being behind in work. At least four students have dropped the class, two of which have dropped the entire program. Attrition is showing more and more, but on the plus side, the less people who complete the program means there is less competition from my design peers.

And, while I still feel unhappy about my prospects for a good grade in the course, I feel much better about passing the class as a whole. "Passing" this class is my academic goal right now. I can work on "passing and exceeding" in my future courses, and I feel confident that, in those future courses, I can better avoid the mistakes I made during this term. Today, I even managed to impress the instructor and the other students with the work we did in class, which was nothing more than construction paper cut-outs of small icons, but it felt good to get praise nonetheless.

The stress will ramp up next week (Dead Week) I am sure. If I had Adobe Creative Suite Three at home, I would be able to do much better with the homework I think. It's easier to work in bursts of varying length at home rather than try to hammer out marathon sessions in the computer lab. It might be better if I lived closer to the lab, it takes me an hour to drive to school one way, without turkeys of course. Tomorrow though, I set aside all of these concerns and will focus riding out the chaos of family Thanksgiving with as much equanimity as is possible to manage in a house full of crazy people.

Knitting Sea Chanteys

Well, as if you couldn't tell, I've been a little stressed and depressed lately, mostly having to do with school and my life being in general disarray. While the threads of depression are still woven into my spine to some extent, I think I am over the hump on this latest bout of it. Wednesday will be the next day I will have to prove myself, so tomorrow and Tuesday will be full of work.

Today, I slept in for as long as I could, 11:00 a.m., before I had to raise my dizzy head from the pillow and get in the shower for work. Work was largely uneventful except for the appearance of creepy man skulking about the back of the shop. I only found out about him after he left, but I did make sure to tell everyone to let me know if he showed up again. It wasn't anything he did; he just gave everyone a bad vibe.

I guess I was preoccupied with the boss' computer. I noted her firewall was down, so I called her to ask about it. She explained that her Ebay account was hacked because of a weak password, and when she was corresponding with someone from Ebay to sort out the mess, took her firewall OFFLINE!?! to send them an e-mail. Frankly, I was a flabbergasted! The closest analogy I could think of would be if you were driving along the highway, saw a police barricade up ahead, and instead of slowing to a stop--the reasonable thing to do in said situation--you slammed the gas pedal completely against the floorboard hoping you could jump the gaping chasm ala Dukes of Hazzard! I tried to not sound too incredulous and consequently make her feel unduly defensive, but I don't think I succeeded. I did forget to write my time down, so I hope the boss catches my mistake before the checks go out. I will have to tell her about it soon.

After dinner, I settled in to watch television and surf the internet for cartoons, art inspiration, and illustration tips, something that I do more often these days as I seek to improve my skills. For example, Little Dee is one of the comics that I occasionally surf, and it is a pleasant read, especially seeing it develop as it has. I think Chris Baldwin, the guy who draws it, is really talented, and I missed meeting him at his booth at the Portland Stumptown comic fest this year. Little Dee, for those of you who don't know, is about a silent little girl who lives in the forest with a bear named Ted, a dog named Blake, and vulture named Vachel. One of Vachel's hobbies is knitting, which helps to explain the following bit of inspired creativity, a knitting sea chantey!:


We Rogues of Wool

I have never posted a video before, but this was too good to pass up. One of the reasons that I think it works so well is that the characters are so strong and developed. And, somehow, the combination of characters really manages to evoke a childlike sense of the world and the overall comfort of creation that children seem to feel. It was a nice boost and uplift in what has been a dreary past week or so.

Bad Surprises

When it was clear that my graduate school career was pretty much dead, I had to do some hard thinking about what I was going to do next. I was deeply depressed, out of money, way in debt, and had met enough homeless people to know that I was only just a few steps away from sleeping out on the street.

I had spent eight years supporting myself with a bad job and going to Community College. After earning my Associate of Arts degree, I took a leap, got expensive college loans, and transferred to a State University where I spent three years earning my Bachelor of Arts in English. Then, I spent three years trying to meet the demands of grad school. In one way or another, I had been in school for fourteen years in school. Let me repeat, FOURTEEN.

But during grad school, personal troubles, most of which I couldn't help, overwhelmed me, and I found myself facing a personal crisis that, in many ways, is ongoing. In a period of months, I lost my apartment, my girlfriend, my career, and my remaining self-esteem. With the help of counseling and medication, I picked up what pieces I could and re-enrolled in Community College, this time in a design program. However, as a result of the grad school disaster, I am left with my share of emotional scars, one of which is anxiety about being out and around people. It may not make any logical sense, but there are days when I can get ready to go to school, put on my jacket, get my keys, and then find myself sitting on my bed unable to move. This happened to me on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Sunday, I had to work.

So, in class this Monday morning, I find out that the major design project that I believed was due next week is actually due this Wednesday. I am way behind on it. If I had found the emotional fortitude to go school on those three days the previous week, I would still be slightly behind, but I would be in much better shape.

Also, in a discussion of due dates for the remaining weeks of winter term, the instructor asked how many people had their own copies of the software we use in the course, software that costs hundreds of dollars by the way. Everyone--except me--raised their hand. This means that the other students can work on their stuff at home without being required to drive into campus, an hour away from home for me, and can work without having to worry about when the computer lab opens or closes. (The hours for the lab are pretty restricted for a College in my opinion.)

Suddenly realizing this morning that I was imminently facing a poor grade, or a zero, for this major project was depressing. So depressing in fact, that after class I drove the hour it takes to get home, turned off all of the lights in my room, closed the blinds and went to bed and slept for four hours in the middle of the day. When I awoke, I drove back to school and skipped my evening class so I could spend until 9:00 p.m. in computer lab working on the project. At 9:00 p.m., the lab closed.

Desperate, I called my sister and asked her if she could give me the number for the library at her University, which she did. When I called, I found out that it was possible for me to use their computers as a "community member," but only for a limited time, two hours a shot at most. My best option, I realized, was to go home and try to do as much on this project as I could offline. On a hunch that only comes to those who are truly panicked, I discovered that I can download a 30-day trial of the software I need, something I am in the process of doing now. I've spent three hours downloading it so far, and it will probably take a few more hours. The trial software is not going to help me tonight, but it is possible that it will help tomorrow night if I am still not done by then.

It is not at all certain that I will be able to finish this major project in time. Tonight, I was in the lab until it closed, and early Tuesday morning, I will be back again to work all day. And, I am still depressed, but not as much as before.

Cross Species English

A bird bit me this morning. Specifically, a cockatiel. And while I thought it would be a nice surprise for the bird to join me in a warm shower, the bird decided it would be a nice surprise to bite the ever-loving fire out of my index finger.

It was one of those cross species misunderstandings that often occur because none of the animals I know can speak English. Heck, none of them even understand English all that well. The dog does much better than the rest, but he has no motivation to improve his meager comprehension unless there is a treat involved somehow. The dog's first and best language is the language of food.

But, if I could intelligently converse with the bird, I would have said something like: "Hey bird, let's go for a shower. I know how you really like playing with the mist and water. And to be totally honest, you seem a little bored of the fabulous vistas of the living room. A visual change of pace might really refresh you." The bird might then be able respond with something like, "Wow that sounds awesome! Let's go!" Or even say, "Gee, I'm not feeling up to that today; I'm stuffed from eating that delicious millet you gave me earlier!" Instead, ignorant of the bird's mood, and faced with the bird's obvious ignorance of my good intentions, I blithely stuck my hand in the cage only to have an ornery bird open up a can of proverbial whoop-@!& on my finger mere seconds later.

Cross-species English could have also helped with the above picture of Busby the cat. I would have been able to ask him to keep his pose for a minute longer so I could properly get his face in focus. As it is, the fence at his feet is in better focus than his face. You may not be able to see the difference in focus all that well with the above small picture, but you can really tell when the picture is at its full size. One of the basic skills of photography seems to be bringing to mind all of the variables and making the corresponding adjustments as quickly as possible before you lose "the shot." I have several more pictures of this cat on that same fence, but they are all terrible. The funny thing to consider though is that in the scant few seconds just before those shots were taken were really great "potential" pictures that are now irretrievably lost to the Fates.

On a personal front, I am still dealing with a lot of anxiety. I make several fantastic plans about what I am going to do in day. I even get dressed up and ready to go, but when it comes to actually getting in the car and driving off in order to put those plans into action, I run into an internal brick wall and sit in my room to stare at the wall instead. I tell myself: "O.K. I'll give myself just another moment, and then I'm off to run my errands or accomplish some meaningful work," but each moment slides by without much of anything happening. I don't want my school to suffer because I am having trouble getting out of the house, and I don't think it will this term, but it's going to be tough. Unless you've been there anxiety-wise, it is hard to understand. Sunday, I am going into work and so, in a sense, I will be forced to get out of the house. But the deadlines for some pretty important school projects are looming, and I am getting more anxious and nervous about finishing them on time. This next week will be crucial.

It seems like in this last year or two, I'm constantly discovering some new facet of feeling, some new emotional scar, that affects me more than I ever would have thought it could. I think I am healing them all and am becoming a better, healthy person for the future, but then again, I wonder if I am making progress or just wishing that I am. If you gain spiritual virtues through suffering, I suppose I am making some spiritual progress despite my seemingly outward failures. Sometimes though, it can be hard to tell.

Creativity and a Rut

I've thought about posting to the blog here about a million times, but when I think about what to post, I find I am completely out of ideas. All the writing classes I took in college suggest that I shouldn't really worry about what to write and just start writing. Free writing they call it. It's good advice I guess, but something holds me back. The last few months have really brought home the difference between intellectual knowledge and emotional ability. Knowing what to do, and mustering the will to do it are two different things.

And, of course, while I felt a little lacking in creativity when it comes to writing, my dreams have apparently taken up the slack. I've been on a train, part of an early 20th century comedy team much like Laurel and Hardy, a tour guide on a small ocean trawler, and an antique dealer in a bizarre musical instruments. In one memorable dream, I lived in an ocean-front town, bright and summery, will several million people (including myself) milling around a large cliff-side estuary. An impossibly gigantic wave would occasionally sweep up the estuary and take a few of the happy people out to sea. Most everyone, however, was unconcerned about this seeming tragedy as it was an apparently normal everyday occurrence. I've had a couple of dreams that take place in ocean-front towns. In one, I lived in a small apartment that housed a few people who were part of an artist community. I'm not sure if any of this means anything.

I think I've been in a rut for the past few weeks. Other than school and television, I haven't done anything of note--except, perhaps, attend the funeral of an old friend. I hadn't seen him in over 15 years, and of course, I thought I had at least several more years to make a visit. His death was a little bit of a surprise. I made a special effort to attend his commemoration. Although he was not an Indian, he had a lot of Native friends to whom he meant a lot. I arrived just as things were beginning to start with a drum circle and singing, much like a pow-wow. Towards the end, they passed around an eagle feather fan with the idea that whoever was holding the fan could say a few words about the departed. I enjoyed hearing about my friend from the people he touched, but it also made me regret not having made the effort to have visited him earlier. Every once in a while, I find I'm thinking about him and his spirit and the stuff he had to deal with in his life.

As for myself, I am hoping to overcome my rut soon. I just need to work a little harder at it. I might be thinking about the past and the future too much rather than living in the present, but then again, I don't like that thought either. I can think about whatever the hell I like as long as I get what I need accomplished, right? It's a complicated balance that I guess I am still searching for. Maybe things will look better in the next few weeks.