E tenebras, lux dormiens

Grist | Main Dish | Pauling around | 18 Feb 2004
It's tempting to say our fate is going to be determined by Iraq and armies and terrorism and stuff, but it's not. We have to be careful not to think that power is the ability to destroy. That is powerlessness. As my friend says, "Power is the capacity to implement reasoned intention." And that power just does not exist in Washington, D.C.

Are greenhouse gases drying Africa's dust bowl?
Rainfall records for the past century show that the Sahel is suffering a prolonged drought that began some three decades ago. This coincides with the period during which the global warming trend has become most obvious, Prospero told the AAAS.

i may have another blog, though, because i can't stand him hurting me like that. it's personal, dude. what i talked about here is private and shouldn't be used to hurt me. IM that you keep records of shouldn't be used to hurt me. he thinks it's a game though. because of this experience, i feel like i shouldn't post anything personal again, that i should post it somewhere else, away from prying eyes.

of course, why do i need the internet? i have my own writing journal, my own computer. maybe this blog will evolve into a political blog, but after what i've experienced, i don't know if i could ever open myself up so much again. maybe here'll be fine, but elsewhere?

good-bye guys.

geez, i can't believe i waste two hours with this online dweeb, and wasted some posts with poetry and essays analyzing my thoughts about the cyber-thing with him. don't think anything sexually, though, because i've thought of nothing of that.

in fact, i don't know, but i might never post anything on this again. at least, until i feel better, because i'm now depressed.

I have been busy in the past few days studying for a biology exam.

Yes, that's it. That was all I wanted to say.

Of great montage stood I there to use.
To explain where was that greater thing
But what was there that to sore abuse
That set the bell in my head to ring?
What was there, there that I cannot calm?
So rather than fixing poorety
By conversing, I have in my qualm,
The ghost to chat, ridding nicety.
Mean am I, so cruel are you, too
That to set me helpless in defense
Calling me malleable. Bid adieu.
Say that I'm dang'rous, I'm speechless here
You left, I can't respond, you are so queer.
---Alan JF 2004 February 23 (c)

For thee I large apology do make
For thee, but then there was the reasoning
Which was forgiveness rationed there to take.
For now I see how thou art suffering.
And what thou shares with me, I with another
Though wrong may I be, this just best explains
Why you emote so much, brother to brother,
And how I cause thee feeling so much pains.
'Mused stood I, pacing in and quite about.
Wondering whether it was this or that
I desire you not, that I want you out,
That I embrace, combating tit for tat.
Whether pleasure or disgust confined.
Your spirit stands, still staying in my mind.
---Alan JF 2004 February 23 (c)

after thinking hard all night, before i began to dream of other things. and spending part of the day when i have time to myself. i realized something crucial but i've forgotten it. all my energy is spent, plus i want to sleep.

maybe it is not me, because it was never my fault. of course, i am part of what started the conflict, but i didn't go into such conflict with the intention of doing malice. it was how he interpreted my words that he construed the meaning that i was being a stupid apple [changed expletive].

there is something in the manner that makes him very suspicious. so i suspect he has been in a depression, and i might have driven him further in that direction. well, i hope very much that he will forgive the fact that i didn't say the right thing, because i have never believed that we were supposed to be anything more than just friends. of course, i did initially have an attachment problem not entirely Platonic, or more sexual than spiritual. for that, he says that it "digusts" him. sometimes i wonder whether i am wrong or i am right.

having mulled it over the night, i have decided that i am totally right, but no one is wrong. the damaging anonymity of IM can be healthy for those with social skills not to get caught in the web, but absolute destruction for those who have no social skills at all.

i am closer to the latter than the former, and i forgive myself and have tried to change it. everyone is so different, and i can see why so easily. it is as if i had not seen it before.

i must go to sleep soon, but i hope to talk more about it.

the point of my meandering in the passage above, as i read it now and see how confusing it is, was that i was already not quite as sexually attracted to him as i thought i might be, not on the basis of what he says he looks like--i have not seen a picture of him--but on what his personality has been so far. i would have thought that being less sexually attracted would mean that i was less disgusting, but i guess his mind does not think that way, just as mine doesn't.

i don't know. i remember he asked me whether i am fine with dumb guys. maybe i'm not fine at all, maybe i prefer intellectual people. but you know the darn nagging question i have? he's actually more intelligent that you can think because he does well in school (from what he tells me).

so his personality . . . he was enigmatic. he says that he refused to be toyed with his emotions, and implied that i was the one doing so.

seriously? i have sometimes gone online on AIM hoping to talk to him. but of course, he may say that i talk about myself.

i did not perceive myself as playing with his emotion. but i should not take responsibility for what he has interpreted himself because i had no idea until just nights before.

so he has emotions, for me? maybe i am just too dumb to think that i can separate my own sexual desire with "emotions" of the spiritual kinds. but i do have emotions for many people, i like to talk to my friends in real life, although i don't ask them what is happening in their lives because they're just my classmates.

i do have some close friends with whom i share some aspects of my life, my childhood history, with whom i just simply gossip (not in a bad way, just in a useless way).

i toy with him? my god, i don't even have sexual feeling for him, just sexual hoping. and of course, the anticipation might collapse if i did know what he looks like.

then he coarsely accused me of being unable to stop talking to him. i said that it may be that i am unable to commit. then he said, how amusing, cannot commit yet unwilling to stop the conversation? i do not see the logic, but i felt his pain, frustration, and tried to empathize. but unfortunately, i said the wrong things. only problem is, i don't know what the wrong things i've said are.

maybe words can't fix things, but what can i do except send more words. should i say "lo siento mucho"? i feel it so much, buddy. i am so sorry, buddy. i can't! for what am i sorry? i don't even understand. maybe i should not try, because it is not worth it.

at last, here's the thing. i do not feel that having a friendship with him is worth the trouble of maintaining good and friendly relations. i might just have a thick-headed skull. protection of my brain, but also a side effect of not being able to empathize with someone.

then, after the falling out, he abruptly left the conversation by saying that if i couldn't end the conversation, he would do so himself. then he left. i had assumed that he was blocking me, because he said that he was pushing the block button. but now i see him online. from what i know of reading the FAQ, that should not be possible. blocking means that i will never know if someone is online or not. i simply believe that he is never there.

so i am musing on this possible invitation to re-initiate a conversation, and be back on speaking terms. but i cannot simply forget what he did. it is irrevocable, and i am unable to forgive him for what he did to me. i may forgive him in the future, but i will never forget it.

i simply cannot because what we did was irrevocable and communicated without any hope of turning back. there is no clean slate. because i will always say the wrong thing . . . even if not now, i will again. he will provoke me again, he will test me again, and i cannot answer correctly even after many times because i don't understand. i have no comprehension. all my words, all the English i have spent my life learning not only in spite of my deafness, but because of it, cannot put to words what is going on.

alan_mpg.mpeg (849KB)

I'm signing in this mpeg. I probably won't post it up very long because it's a large file.

[Updated: 2004 February 21]

well, chalk that up to number three. i've said it before and i will say it again. i have a habit of driving people away when they get too close to me and to my own thought.

so here was someone there, and i have hurt him. i will not apologize because i am the one of whom I complain most, an ass. and now i am blocked, and probably blocked twice, because i am twice-denied.

overall, i know not what to make of it. at once, as he said, i have trouble breaking apart because i have an abnormal close ties to anyone i meet and know. whether or not i know them, whether or not i have grown up with them or know their every habits, their favorite colors, the teachers that inspire them, each time i see them, i feel like they are my friends.

now i feel very cold, my hands are shaking. i don't know if he is reading this, or fully dissolving the acquaintanceship, for i won't call it a friendship or even an occasional meet and greet.

i suppose it arises from my low self-esteem. i suppose it arises from my self-conceitedness. my god, i feel so cold. i cannot type this post very well because i am shaking, my body, my hands, my both, my teeth are all shaking.

i don't know what the hell it was. what a strange new world, instant messaging that allows many people to contact me from out of the ordinary. acquaintanceship is probably the best word.

i suppose there is such a thing as me being untrustworthy, which is what he says. but he does not know me because he cannot overcome himself. i suppose he would have severed the acquaintanceship sooner if i had shown myself who i truly am, the two-faced gemini.

i don't like being severed. it is as that passage says, "no man is an island, in and of itself. i know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

two-faced gemini. i am my own worst name, JanusRat. did you ever hear that janus was two doors, one of beginning, the other of end? did you ever hear that janus allegorized the story of Noah's Ark? where the man and his family saw the world before and after the flood?

and then there's the rat. a clever animal with so many meanings in so many culture. but the western perception is that the rat is the thief, the stowaway, the epitome of untrustworthiness.

i suppose it is what i had wanted, what i had envisioned from taking an acting class in high school. for i was not willing to tell it to him, but here's yet another disclosure, that i had hoped acting would give me a talent to hide mi homosexualidad.

i have to tell you what my naïve mind was thinking that it could acquire with an acting skill. i actually thought that i could become a womanizer, flirt, and do things with her.

what an innocence, but i will forgive. i suppose it is the fear of growing up alone, of dying alone, no family to take care of me, because i am the last of the line. there is no more lineage of Alan to carry me. where life presents immortality, i bring only the end. where life has staying power, that stays alive continuously through the propagation of animals, i bring only death.

i don't know what he wanted from me, though i know what i wanted from him. i suppose i never asked. and now that i know through his telling me, i suppose the "purpose is defeated" and i am deafened once again.

i suppose my disability is only of the ear, and his is of a multitude.

i know now why i am so cold. i have been cynical at heart. maybe his is doomed, but i wonder one thing though: why did he lie to me? i remember he said that he was learning sign language, and then he said, "but you can hear, why do you learn?"

what a curious phrase! i replied, "when i don't want to talk." i could not bring myself to say that i am deaf, and i had thought that he might not have read my blog.

i had already resigned myself to finding a relationship with someone who sees me and i see him first, instead of through IM, because i had been twice forsworn, and did forswore once. all three with heavy heart at my own superficiality. now he did say that i am superficial, and so that is where i stand at my young age.

i think one thing is also that i do not like being despised. i prefer to be regarded well, to be thought of as well, to be, as i foresaw myself once, the confident leader arising from the persona of the thinker.

maybe it's good to be disliked. does it change who i am? i know not what i do.

who am i? as always, i have asked myself this, and perhaps he of himself as well. i have never come full circle to dealing with my deafness, but he might have come full circle. so why does he attack me for wanting him to out himself?

i could not answer . . . it is just as well that it had to be him to break apart from me, because i could not do it myself. it does seem so dramatic though, because i never understood his true reason . . .

maybe that is the true reason, that he thinks i am all the wrong stuff. i am the stuff of sex, of desire, of superficiality, of being the horny boy who will soon burn out and have nothing left to show but AIDS and death. but i don't know, i've never had sex, never kissed, never done anything. and he didn't either.

if so, then i have the true arrogance that he didn't like, because i am incapable of seeing or understanding other people's reasoning ability. that is why i keep asking this question on the post, because i am always seeking the reason why people would butcher a snake for the purpose of butchering it. why people would toy with me at Fry's and also why i would take so much emotion from it.

so therefore, i am close-minded. maybe i should accept the cynicism in my heart and embrace the darkness of ignorance, for it is where blissness lies. and i would so very much like to live in darkness, live in blissness, where all the words i cannot hear and all the objects i cannot see can together unmake me and my senses.

i am an old man growing young, that is what i say. no, i am a young man growing up.

everything has its time and place, i believe that is possible. i have free will because of the limit of free will. things happen because they happen with their own decisions, their own beliefs that influence them. how i react to them is a process of my biology. how i think about them is a process of my mind, and what my body, my genome, my everything offers it. what i eat is what i am. how much i sleep is how much i think carefully. today can be a bad day for me, but a good day for some others. it is this randomness that is at once coherent, but any attempt for absolute order is the same as death. for it is when the heart beats at the same rhythm, with no variation that is the same as the heart not beating at all. for every heart must vary with the minute, with the second. so i must now take this chance and look upon myself once again.

one thing is true though, i cannot change without others to define me.

Kristin Thomas Spam Poetry

The subject lines of the spam I'm getting don't even make sense, not like the spam poetry in the link above.

Re: shade speak painful roof composed grant talks looming
Re: talks principle lucky comfortably nature
Fw: Overdue Account
fat person dislike by all level of people dullard collective

Someone I know actually support Proposition 13. It's good for property owners. I still have doubt about it, but since it was passed before I was born, I didn't exist to have any say in it. I'd prefer if people didn't live in a house, but in a condo. It's because of the pollution that's happening world-wide. Having a house means that people need to drive, and needing to drive means that people pollutes. So Proposition has a good and bad thing about it.

---

For want of discourses, I understand that conflict is an essential and integral part of what makes us human. Still, why should I feel so badly? Perhaps it is the worry that what I have has been irrevocably terminated, or changed to a state that has the sums and subtraction of what I have done and have not done to effect its status quo.

Though he lives far away, and I am not likely to meet him (from online), I still feel a strange tie to him, as the online presence. Perhaps it is a show of the lackadaisical social skills that I have, that I did not develop in my time at the hearing school.

There is of course, no reason that I would have done better at the deaf school. I still have the same personality and would still have been shy. After all, my hearing disability is no excuse or reason for not being active in clubs and social events. It is only by having high self-esteem that I can make friends. Though many would argue that I need friends to have high self-esteem. To them I would say that depending on friends is awkward and stupid.

Ah, what do I care? It's in the past. Now I must reckon with so many a different thing, but I have a more clear-headed reasoning than I had in my teenage years. Can anyone be clear-headed though?

I repeat this mantra:
The journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step.
A step backward is a chance for a long leap.
Your life is not a series of destinations.
Your life is a journeying where you cross many milestones.
Some are born great; some achieve greatness; some have greatness thrust upon them; and some will never be great.

I don't say them everyday, because I would be a hypocrite if I actually preached these kinds of things.

I've noticed that some people are getting into my website, but looking for a solution to the "Unable to Initialize Windows Sockets Interface," so I've posted a solution to fixing that pesky Windows problem.

Fix that socket.
Unable to Initialize Windows Sockets Interface Solutions at Microsoft.com: I think Microsoft has the tendency to move pages around where they can't be found, so if you get a broken link, just follow the instructions from Fix that socket.

In the future, go to support.microsoft.com and search for help over there. Google can't help nothing because it's too stupid to rank anything that cannot be or are not linked to very often, i.e. Windows problems and solutions.

However, there's a problem (of course). Microsoft is planning to remove support for Windows 98, which was where I had that problem. So I've copied all the instructions necessary to re-initialize the windows sockets at Fix that socket.

I read a story that I've been unable to find again. Here's the paraphrased version

There were two boys who were scheming to outwit the wise man who knew everything. One of them found a baby bird and held it in his hands. He told his friend, "I will speak to the wise man. I'll ask him what I have in my hands. He will say that it is a bird. Then I'll ask him whether the bird is alive or dead. If he says that it is alive, I will kill it. If he says that it is dead, I shall show him that he is wrong."

So the boys went up to the wise man and the one holding the bird in his hands asked, "The thing I have in my hands, is it is alive or dead?"

"It is a bird." The wise man replied promptly.

"Yes, but is it alive or dead?"

After thinking for a while, the wise man said, "It is as you will it. For if I say it is alive, you will kill it. And if I say it is dead, you shall let it live. I would rather you put the little mewling back to its mother's nest."

The morals of the story?

1. Boys are pathetic. What are they trying to prove?

2. You never know how people are going to respond because until you ask the question, you're just guessing.

Puh! She makes me sick. My childhood friend. How much she's changed. "You've become the typical drunken Asian teen, huh? You went from being a young bitch to being an old, huh, you bitch. I guess I've always known you to be like that thang. And your website's on xanga, huh?" Ew. I hate how she writes sentence on her website. It's probably just for close friends, and she considers me a friend from long ago, before she moved to Hong Kong, her birthplace.

Of course, I won't post such thing on her website, but I won't link to her as well.

I cannot help but be bemused by Mayor Gavin just up and allow same-sex marriage without even the legislator. Hey, this is the advent of the executive power, huh?! But you can't help except to feel that his action was politically motivated to draw the Greens into the Democrat flock.

Not only that, all the Democratic candidates may have a hard time wording their ways around this.

I just learned of this watching the news yesterday, but I did not hear of it when it happened several days ago. This is a point where the television news trumps the internet.

Advocate, The: Why Milk is still fresh.(Harvey Milk)

TIME Online Edition Feb. 16, 2004

The only time I can foresee myself never voting would be on the day that I have a choice of legalizing marriage for gays and lesbians. I am so conflicted by this issue that I don't think I could bring myself to voting either yes or no.

Should I vote no, and deny myself a right that so many people have fought for? Or should I vote yes, and solidifying in public record a vote that would go against even my own view of marriage as that between a man and a woman?

"Change is good," says one.

"Every generation redefine traditional meanings."

"Rules are meant to be broken."

Neither of this means that I would not support civil union or domestic partnership, because it sounds better than calling a same-sex relationship a marriage.

How could I ever get around to calling someone my "husband"? It's not something I've grown up in. I mean, when they were playing sports, I would think about marriage and having children. So, yeah, I've always thought I would have a wife. And yet, here I am, explicating on a view that has me so paralyzed . . .

See where the road bifurcates. I am still standing there, unwilling to choose a byway, and would rather delegate the heavy responsibilities to an elected officials, who must learn to balance what is right and what his constituents desire.

Now you see that which such tremendous power that voting can bring, and I would toss it aside, and let the "people" choose. Perhaps it is that, I am not qualified to vote on such a matter. It is because I am shifting between want and don't-want, flip-flopping in other words, that I am simply not qualified to vote.

Same-sex marriage is simply not an attractive proposition, not attractive enough if so many people are opposed to this. It's not like the Civil Rights because the majority of Americans did support Civil Rights, they were aghast enough by the "police brutality" that they wrote to their congress supporting civil rights.

It is also not like the Deaf President Now! movement, where the Deaf people went on a campus boycott to protest the instatement [right word?] of an unqualified hearing president in the Board.

I hope the Californians are wise enough to make an informed decision on Propositions 55, 56, 57, and 58.

The problem is that Proposition 13 has made it extraordinarily difficult to raise tax because it requires 2/3 of the votes. We NEED tax. I might seem arch-liberal, but taxation is necessary to safeguard our resources and services that the government pays for us. By requiring such majority of votes, there is no way to pay for anything that we want. If you want to live in the sunshine state, you better be willing to pay for it, buddy! So Proposition 56 is needed to make it easier for the legislature to pass tax increase by 55% of the vote, still a majority, but not as difficult as 2/3. It should reduce partisan bickering because in a 2/3, there's a lot of special interest making sure that the votes never make a 2/3 majority.

Some people have made sinister accusations that Proposition 56 could spell a never-ending increase in taxation. Hah! If that was the case, we'd go Republican! Besides, there are certain things we value, such as efficiency in money allocation, so we have to trust our politicians to do the things we want them to do, even if it hurts us over the short run. We can trust the Democrats not to tax and spend and tax and spend because that's what President Bush is doing, and even his conservative base is angry.

Proposition 57 is a stupid proposal, using bonds to pay of debt than to pay for construction and other projects? Oh, Arnold, I know you'd promised not to raise tax, so I understand that you don't want to break that promise. Boo hoo. That's what makes being a politician sucks, and that's why I have some sympathy for those politicians. I guess what could happen if Proposition 57 is not passed is that you will, or the Republicans in the legislature will, be willing to raise tax to balance the budget. Besides, I don't even agree with having a constitutional requirement to balance the budget. That's why Proposition 56 also has a sticky point for me.

Proposition 58 gives the Governor a lot of power, wow. Well, I thought the governor already has a lot of power, but I guess I was wrong. For some reason, it may have been stripped.

Well, I probably would not support Proposition 57, but I would support Proposition 58. We'll see. I'm expecting to see a LOT of commericals for and against different propositions. Sometimes I wish they were all captioned . . . Anyway, I'm all for state's spending not to increase income, but there's a problem with that.

Once you try to lower tax, it is extraordinarily difficult to raise it. For some reason, Americans have a propensity toward lower tax, but are not willing to give up any services that come from taxation. I guess it was part of that Boston Tea Party traditions. I still have doubts about that. I wouldn't be a British supporters, per se, nor the "American patriots." I very likely would have kept myself out of the action, waiting to see who wins.

However, if someone suddenly drafted me to fight for American independence, I very likely would have been influenced by the writings of Jefferson and Paine, and angered by British actions to the point that I would actually fight for American independence. It's hard to tell, though.

A picture of my desktop. Yeah, I have a fantasy, but don't make a big deal out of it. I'd take everything with a grain of salt. Anyhoo, I'm studying now, but I was getting bored, so I decided to play around with an evaluation version of Paint Shop Pro.

baltimoresun.com - Parties shifting on rights of states

Hot Dog! So fighting for state's rights may now be becoming a sign of liberal policies! It does seem inconsistent, but I'm all for it to defeat Bush for his environmental intransigence.

The only reason state's rights became a conservative policy was because of the Civil Rights' movement, which I won't try to dog because I'm one of those generations that benefit from the act of desegregation.

Now, of course, the government isn't doing too well.

Policies that I support most highly:
1. Environment (each state would innovate its own policy of protecting the environment, which in turn, could be adopted by the federal government. Of course, I would want Texas to save the environment, but that isn't likely since it's a conservative state. Well, the best thing about the United States is that the 10th Amendment gives each state its rights not defined by the Constitution, so one state at a time, one step at a time, it's all a "grassroot effort," which both the Democrats and the Republicans have forgotten about. Except for Howard Dean!)
2. Gambling (if regulated by the states, and done carefully. I don't support propositions, but I would rather have government officials create agencies that decide things for themselves, away from the political bickering and pressure of the public.)
3. Euthanasia (mercy killing, usually in case of terminal and painful illness)
4. Lowering drinking age to 18. (Parents should take responsibilities for making sure their children don't DUI, rather than, say, deferring to the state. As well as educating the teenagers on DUI. It's also important that we don't treat teenagers like criminals or children, but as adults and thus, remind them of their responsibilities as citizens of America. Last resort, raise driving age, which should lower the environmental pollution and increase usage of public transportation.)
5. Lowering age of consent to 16. (With education on STD and pregnancy issue, and with trust in their abilities to take care of themselves. Abortion should not be made available, and decided on a case by case basis with a mediator or an authorized arbitrator, NOT a court judge! Parents should be involved in this as well.)
6. State's creation of a separate mediator/arbitrator officiality to handle cases and streamline the judicial system. (From what I see, the judicial system is clogged with litigations, which are not worthy of the judge's time. A mediator to resolve conflict without the court's win-lose mentality is necessary.)
7. Lowering the federal income tax and cutting "big government" to give the state's more responsibility to raise income tax and sales tax, which could in turn lower "pork-barrel spending" by Congress officials. (This means that if a state wants to have something only a federal government could supply, it will have to get the money itself through raising its own tax than to depend on the federal government.)
8. Universal state-run health care. (This would be the precursor to a universal health care like those provided in Canada or Europe. If not, then each state would have its own responsibility, but should not be told by the federal government what to do.)
9. Legalization of marijuana medicinal use. (maybe city by city, citizen by citizen, not state by state)
10. Allow each state to educate its children. (I understand that conservative state might educate its children "wrongly," such as not teaching evolution in biology for example, but to prevent that shouldn't require the federal government. If only there were businessmen who could industrialize and revolutionize those southern states . . . The problem comes from the fact that the industrial revolution, which brought the western and eastern states to such prosperity as well as Canada and some parts of Western Europe, simply passed the southern states and every other countries by.)

Why I Support Gay Marriage, and Why I Will Never Be Angry At Those Who Do Not provided by Andrew Sullivan.

It makes a good point for marriage, but I was particularly fascinated by the proposal that people, both straight and gay, could consider civil union as the first step before marriage.

A relationship could follow this order:
1. Meeting/friendship
2. Dating
3. Steadiness/Relationship
4. Cohabitation
5. Domestic Partnership
6. Civil Union
7. Marriage

Everyone should allowed to follow this. I'm more inclined to support gay marriage if there's a way to reform the institution. I know I keep flip-flopping on this issue, I guess that's why I'll never be a good politician. :-)

just get this over with

Let me just post this and get this over with. I don't care about whether people define any domestic partnership or civil union between same-sex couple as marriage.

The thing is that, from what I see and have learned of traditional Asian family, the idea of a man and a woman being father and mother raising their children is simply a byproduct of the industrial revolution and is not the way children have been raised in a family household hundreds or thousands of years ago.

I haven't grown up in the traditional Asian family because my mom moved away from Hong Kong as a result of economic and educational mobility. However, what I do know (which I'll acknowledge as not very much) is that the children in Asian families are not raised only by their parents but also by their older brothers and sisters as well as their grandparents and uncles and aunts.

When a conservative asks how a liberal could prevent the creation of a three-person marriage, or a communal marriage of polyamorous individuals, I am dazed by the word choice, and there is no good answers that would not be harped on by the media. The thing is (unfortunately, this could be the thing that makes me ultra-liberal radicalis of the flower-loving group) what is wrong, morally and ethically, with such communal living? If it can be done for the best of childhood, then why should it not be so?

I gag as I am reading this because I actually am not willing to go that far.

Traditional family, hah!

I have many things due next week.

• Monday, I have an Biology midterm as well as an Anthropology paper I have to type up examining my "dispute logs." I also have to enroll in classes for the spring quarter.
  
• Tuesday, I have a Spanish test, as well as a translation of an ASL story.
  
• Wednesday, I have an Anthropology midterm.
  

Quarter has three terms in a year, each of which lasts 10 weeks.
Pro: More classes can be taken in a year, which give you greater freedom and flexibility to decide which class you like or don't like. With the choicest array of classes, it's not hard to graduate quickly for those who want to do so.
Con: It's pretty fast to have a class last for ten weeks, which is not long enough to cozy up to a class and the friends you make. You don't get to have a long paper you have to write be far in the future. Everything is due in just weeks, not months.

Semester has two terms in a year, each of which lasts 18 weeks.
Pro: You take your time. You get to go partying every week without worrying too much about deadlines. You won't need to register for classes just weeks after you pass the add/drop dates.
Con: Classes are usually inflexible. A class might be offered only in the fall, so dropping that class means that you need to wait one full year before you can take it again. Some people just go to a quarter school and transfer the credits from there.

Every time I have lack of faith in humanity, circumstances often show me up to say that my perception is wrong. And yesterday and today, I smiled at the complexity of humankind and then I believe, that whether or not the human race succeeds, no one cannot deny that it has not brought forth at least some people who are kind or who have the capacity to think beyond his or her present self.

(Hey, that was not a double, nor a triple, but a quadruple negative!)

First, I had lost my umbrella and when I returned to the room where I thought I had left it, I could not find it. I immediately suspected wrongdoing, and for several minutes I fumed about how people can be such a thief. Then I checked at the science office and I found that the receptionist had the umbrella all along. Someone dropped it off at her office because he or she had found it, rather than steal it.

Second, today, my mom told me that she donated $25 to Howard Dean yesterday. I was shocked. She explained that she believed Howard Dean was a victim of the media. She thinks that the media causes people to think a certain way, in other words, the media influences the populace and is not fair to the candidates.

People like her to give money to what could be a lost cause . . . it inspires me a lot. It's the reason that I'm posting now. Even though I support Howard Dean, and I wished that the media hadn't trashed him for the scream.

But I see her point. When the political commentators say, "I don't think people will look at this as Presidential." Everybody listening to them agree.

If they had instead say, "Wow, what a rousing speech, it could be the sign of a strong president."

Who except the media is the one that determines what is presidential or not? Everyone wants to know what everyone else thinks before they form their opinion. It's part of those desire to join the bandwagon.

It is very clear that California has a different culture from some of the states. After all, neither I nor the majority of Californians seem to care about the Dean scream, except perhaps that they believe it screwed up his chance for the presidency. I mean, here in the Bay Area, we have such a different interpretation of what is presidential or not. Look at how we've elected Arnold.

Okay, bad example. But it's just a simple rally.

How civilizations fall by Kenneth Minogue

An essay on the attack of civilization from within, rather than without. Small sample:

It has been men who have invented things and found challenges in nature, such as climbing high mountains or sailing alone around the world. And once men have done it, women will also do it. These remain highly notable enterprises, well beyond the reach of all but a few men, but they also exemplify the fact that innovation remains largely the specialization of white males. Women can do marvellous things with a house, but they do need the house to be there in the first place.

There are some aspects I don't agree with, but I can see his perspectives on different things.

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Politics -- Roots of Dean collapse were flawed candidate, flawed strategy

So now we know that Dean will not be capable of making a comeback, from what we can see. Well, that is just too bad. I've been secretly rooting for you, but as the article says, "The campaign is only as good as its candidate."

You've simply made severe missteps, that while loved by those who support you before Iowa and New Hampshire, ultimately brought about your collapse. Oh, how the pride does go before the once-mighty falls!

Dean should still win though . . . He's the only candidate I really support!

"So full of smut am I," I said sadly, "that all the world should look upon me as full of dirt and hypocrisy, as one born for the place of cin. I cin against heaven with my own thought, and for so long have I seeked to change myself, that I would not partake of such lustiness toward the untoward.

"But the world does not look upon me. That's the thing. The world composes not of any large body that care for what this little dude with a whacked-up hair does. The world does not care that I am going to take a shower now. The world could care a thistle about me. It could not care less. The only comfort I can seek is the, the real, the person that stands en frente of me. Fugaces labuntur anni (The fleeting years glide by)."

I took a shower for fifteen minutes, brushed my teeth, flossed, and clipped my fingernails. I made a pantomime of a robot, but as one, I signed. I did not need to talk, but let my hands made their robotic movements. Oh, if those Japanese companies could produce a robot that will sign to me! But now, all it does is talk, bark, or mew. These things I hear only with great concentration.

I continued, "Qué hora es? Son las doce. No creo que sean las doce. Why do I stay up so late?"

For so long have I struggled, that I do not remember what I've done. I looked at the photo album of me from years and years ago. Had I any thought, that years and years hence I would be where I am now?

Years and years ago, I was so pimply-looking. My God, how ugly was I! I was red-splotched! It wasn't the worst, but it was terrible. I got to show you how ugly I was when I was little. This should turn any of you off! But not now, not now. I don't have a scanner nearby.

I really didn't take care of my face. I rarely washed my face in the morning. I was probably also so stressed, and stressedness enforces the mechanism that create acne. I also touched my face a lot, and touching transmit germ to my face. I also didn't take care of my hair, so before I cut it short, it was always sticking up. To make up for my lack of grooming habit, I took this pillow-headedness and called it, "my bird's crest."

Oy.

I guess, since I didn't look in the mirrors very often, I had no idea that I looked unsightly enough for me not to have much friends. Though I know it's not the only reason for why I am the way I am. The time will come, or it will not come, or it comes only halfway. And I will be ready for it to bring me out of my shell, meet it at its mark, and make it mine.

I disgust myself, though. It'll be a while before I fully transcend that, before I truly understand and accept it. But until then, I look with disgust that I would reject a favor, and still look on visual display for easy, free, and quick orgasm.