*sigh*
Thanks to the retard who spammed all those comments: I don't need Viagara or any other shit. Go fuck yourself.
December 22, 2005
December 20, 2005
Ap English
Got confirmation that my request to drop that crap second semester was allowed. I feel like a huge load has been lifted off my back.
I'm annoyed by anything I can't prove. When I turn in a math test, I basically know how I did. When I turn in an essay, I have no idea how I did and when I get it back, I have no idea why my grade was a 74/100, and not a 73 or a 75 or a 98. In math, nothing is hidden or taken for granted. Every tool, theoreom, equation, "dishwasher" as my math teacher would say, is opened up for anyone to examine, prove, and understand. Math allows you to take a seemingly chaotic event, say, bouncing a ball down the street, and reduce it to a series of equations that dissect and predict everything the ball will do. I like to read, and I like to think about what I read. I'm really just not that good at it.
You know what else bugs me? Time. It gets faster and faster as I gain more experiences. What was a lifetime in elementry school is only a year now, only a month, a week. As soon as I get comfortable in one grade, I get dumped into the next. That's how my whole life will work out. The second I start to get accustomed to college, I'll be figuring out a job. Once I get good at it, I'll have to retire. It's like being swept down a flood-swollen river.
So what do we, as humans do to solve this problem? There are two true constants: life and death. To avoid dramatic change, we can embrace one or the other. In this lies a reason for suicide, as well as a reason for finding the secret to eternal life.
Death is a constant. It won't change, you won't have to be kicked off somewhere else as soon as you think you've figured it out. The same goes if you live forever. If you live out the stereotype of the guy who lives forever, you're guaranteed no sudden changes in your life. Presumably you disappear off to an island in the Pacific with your fortune, but that would not be the case.
Living forever is the pick of the insecure. Death is for the ...secure? The confident, strong. This is why I sometimes think about suicide, not in a practical, actual sense, but purely as the thought-experiment, the philosophical. Only to end the constant change and turmoil, the things I can't prove and the things I don't know, those things I can't stand.
I'm annoyed by anything I can't prove. When I turn in a math test, I basically know how I did. When I turn in an essay, I have no idea how I did and when I get it back, I have no idea why my grade was a 74/100, and not a 73 or a 75 or a 98. In math, nothing is hidden or taken for granted. Every tool, theoreom, equation, "dishwasher" as my math teacher would say, is opened up for anyone to examine, prove, and understand. Math allows you to take a seemingly chaotic event, say, bouncing a ball down the street, and reduce it to a series of equations that dissect and predict everything the ball will do. I like to read, and I like to think about what I read. I'm really just not that good at it.
You know what else bugs me? Time. It gets faster and faster as I gain more experiences. What was a lifetime in elementry school is only a year now, only a month, a week. As soon as I get comfortable in one grade, I get dumped into the next. That's how my whole life will work out. The second I start to get accustomed to college, I'll be figuring out a job. Once I get good at it, I'll have to retire. It's like being swept down a flood-swollen river.
So what do we, as humans do to solve this problem? There are two true constants: life and death. To avoid dramatic change, we can embrace one or the other. In this lies a reason for suicide, as well as a reason for finding the secret to eternal life.
Death is a constant. It won't change, you won't have to be kicked off somewhere else as soon as you think you've figured it out. The same goes if you live forever. If you live out the stereotype of the guy who lives forever, you're guaranteed no sudden changes in your life. Presumably you disappear off to an island in the Pacific with your fortune, but that would not be the case.
Living forever is the pick of the insecure. Death is for the ...secure? The confident, strong. This is why I sometimes think about suicide, not in a practical, actual sense, but purely as the thought-experiment, the philosophical. Only to end the constant change and turmoil, the things I can't prove and the things I don't know, those things I can't stand.
December 18, 2005
Nature and nurture
Today I was thinking about the things that make me, me. I think about 1. what traits I get from my Dad and which from my Mom, and 2. what events in my life have led me down the path to where I am now.
One is difficult. I tried, but realized I don't know my parents well enough to do it. I know them pretty good, but parents act differently around their kids than their peers. I don't know how they acted as teenagers. I don't know what they think. I basically gave up there.
Two is also hard. I thought of the earliest memories I have and tried to find the place where I changed from that kid to me.
The first thing I can remember that would apply is the first day of preschool. I didn't know anybody, so walked right up to some random kid and said, "I'm Rob and I'm 5. What's your name?" He replied that his name was Frank. We were friends for the rest of preschool.
I would never do that now. I actually hardly know how I'd even react in a situation where I don't know anybody, but from my experiences at work, there would be a fairly low probablility of me walking right up to somebody and making friends immediately.
So, I know I got more introverted somewhere along the line. I moved on to kindergarten.
The first day of school, I've been told I got lost and went to the office for help, but I honestly don't remember this at all. I do remember having a total crush on some girl and following her around and making her a special valentine, and I actually just realized a few weeks ago that this girl was one of the few kindergarten classmates who is still in Urbandale. I sit behind her in German. I mentioned that we were friends in kindergarten once when the subject had been brought up, and she said she doesn't remember me. That's probably good. :)
Again, that's totally the opposite kind of behavior that I would display now. Still straight of course, just shy.
First grade: Friends with a kid through 3rd when he moved. I always argued and debated with this kid during recess about the dumbest things. Maybe that's why I like to argue and debate so much. I don't remember how I became friends with him, but it was through this period that I think I started to not really hang out with anybody but my friend. Math was a 'work at your own pace' kind of thing, we were tracked on a sheet that anybody could look at. I was always first. I think this might have led to a self-ostracization kind of thing. I obsessed over this sheet, I always had to stay far ahead of anyone else. I had to feel superior. I think this theme has lasted throughout my life, but it may or may not have come from the math progress. I wonder about its effects on the slower kids.
I had other friends, too, friends not in my class or school, several of them around the neighborhood or church. They all moved away. There was one year, not sure which one, but I remember crying in my bed at night because I had lost 5 or 6 friends. I had to find new friends, two kids that moved in 4th grade were my friends, but one moved after 5th.
6th grade was rough, friends-wise. The one remaining friend I had from elementry school was in a different class making different friends. He got 'cooler' than me, I tried to be cooler like him but it didn't really work out. We lasted through 6th grade and basically fell apart. I was friends in 6th grade with this big dumb kid, kind of a bully actually, but he was my friend. I also tried to act cooler like him. He moved.
7th and 8th I was friends with two kids from Boy Scouts. I felt I had to act cooler to be like them. One made other friends in high school, the other got really annoying for some reason and I basically stopped doing stuff with him.
There was this girl who lived down the street from me until maybe 8th grade or 7th. I had a crush on her in 6th grade and she kept dropping hints, like "We should really do something together sometime" and I, not knowing what to do, would say "OK", and that would be the end of it. I was so incredibly shy, I couldn't even talk to her.
Luckily in High School, another kid had moved in, freaking genius and sat next to me in band. I'd consider him my best friend to this day. A girl who I liked in 8th grade thought I was funny and was nice enough to be friends with me, even though I was a total loser, although I have changed some of that since then. Her friends followed. Another kid from band followed, and before I knew it, I had several friends. Only one problem. My years of trying to act 'cool' had left me confused, in a state between cool-esque and smart. I couldn't really commit to either one, something my friends seem to have mastered.
I have made a lot of changes throughout high school. I never really paid attention to what people wore until freshman year in high school when I realized that 5' 10" 125 lb kids don't wear XL t-shirts. For some reason I thought that was cool in middle school. I got contacts, made my hair 'cooler', stopped saying stupid things. I used to laugh at everything and look like a loser, but not anymore. Still can't master that whole social thing, conversation and whatnot. I can do the group, not the one-on-one.
Well this was a pretty lengthy essay...that felt good. I remember why I have a blog.
One is difficult. I tried, but realized I don't know my parents well enough to do it. I know them pretty good, but parents act differently around their kids than their peers. I don't know how they acted as teenagers. I don't know what they think. I basically gave up there.
Two is also hard. I thought of the earliest memories I have and tried to find the place where I changed from that kid to me.
The first thing I can remember that would apply is the first day of preschool. I didn't know anybody, so walked right up to some random kid and said, "I'm Rob and I'm 5. What's your name?" He replied that his name was Frank. We were friends for the rest of preschool.
I would never do that now. I actually hardly know how I'd even react in a situation where I don't know anybody, but from my experiences at work, there would be a fairly low probablility of me walking right up to somebody and making friends immediately.
So, I know I got more introverted somewhere along the line. I moved on to kindergarten.
The first day of school, I've been told I got lost and went to the office for help, but I honestly don't remember this at all. I do remember having a total crush on some girl and following her around and making her a special valentine, and I actually just realized a few weeks ago that this girl was one of the few kindergarten classmates who is still in Urbandale. I sit behind her in German. I mentioned that we were friends in kindergarten once when the subject had been brought up, and she said she doesn't remember me. That's probably good. :)
Again, that's totally the opposite kind of behavior that I would display now. Still straight of course, just shy.
First grade: Friends with a kid through 3rd when he moved. I always argued and debated with this kid during recess about the dumbest things. Maybe that's why I like to argue and debate so much. I don't remember how I became friends with him, but it was through this period that I think I started to not really hang out with anybody but my friend. Math was a 'work at your own pace' kind of thing, we were tracked on a sheet that anybody could look at. I was always first. I think this might have led to a self-ostracization kind of thing. I obsessed over this sheet, I always had to stay far ahead of anyone else. I had to feel superior. I think this theme has lasted throughout my life, but it may or may not have come from the math progress. I wonder about its effects on the slower kids.
I had other friends, too, friends not in my class or school, several of them around the neighborhood or church. They all moved away. There was one year, not sure which one, but I remember crying in my bed at night because I had lost 5 or 6 friends. I had to find new friends, two kids that moved in 4th grade were my friends, but one moved after 5th.
6th grade was rough, friends-wise. The one remaining friend I had from elementry school was in a different class making different friends. He got 'cooler' than me, I tried to be cooler like him but it didn't really work out. We lasted through 6th grade and basically fell apart. I was friends in 6th grade with this big dumb kid, kind of a bully actually, but he was my friend. I also tried to act cooler like him. He moved.
7th and 8th I was friends with two kids from Boy Scouts. I felt I had to act cooler to be like them. One made other friends in high school, the other got really annoying for some reason and I basically stopped doing stuff with him.
There was this girl who lived down the street from me until maybe 8th grade or 7th. I had a crush on her in 6th grade and she kept dropping hints, like "We should really do something together sometime" and I, not knowing what to do, would say "OK", and that would be the end of it. I was so incredibly shy, I couldn't even talk to her.
Luckily in High School, another kid had moved in, freaking genius and sat next to me in band. I'd consider him my best friend to this day. A girl who I liked in 8th grade thought I was funny and was nice enough to be friends with me, even though I was a total loser, although I have changed some of that since then. Her friends followed. Another kid from band followed, and before I knew it, I had several friends. Only one problem. My years of trying to act 'cool' had left me confused, in a state between cool-esque and smart. I couldn't really commit to either one, something my friends seem to have mastered.
I have made a lot of changes throughout high school. I never really paid attention to what people wore until freshman year in high school when I realized that 5' 10" 125 lb kids don't wear XL t-shirts. For some reason I thought that was cool in middle school. I got contacts, made my hair 'cooler', stopped saying stupid things. I used to laugh at everything and look like a loser, but not anymore. Still can't master that whole social thing, conversation and whatnot. I can do the group, not the one-on-one.
Well this was a pretty lengthy essay...that felt good. I remember why I have a blog.
Myspace
*sigh*...Myspace has stolen my soul. I made one purely for the purpose of making fun of myspace with plans of abandoning it within a week, but I just spent an hour changing the background. And picking out music. And looking at other peoples' myspaces. And now I can't help myself, I'm going to post the URL... myspace.com/grawwhh. Yeah, that's me. My anti-Myspace jihad is crumbling.
December 10, 2005
That was close, kind of... We were talking about myspace and xanga in chem today, I just had to mention that I had a blog, then back out and say I would't tell anybody where it is. Now they'll probably look for it, but I took out the picture and name a while ago so I think that will make it difficult. I need to find a new avatar.
After reading the Bradbury biography I realized the true value of this blog. When I'm famous, it will be perfect detailed material for my biography. Or autobiography.
I got a letter published in the newspaper today about the face transplant surgery. It seemd not a single person at school had read the paper before breakfast, so I didn't get any comments. Jazz band competition tomorrow though, maybe people will have seen it by then. It was just a dumb letter off the top of my head that I wrote because I was bored, so I'm kind of glad people weren't talking about it. I'm sure someone will notice it sooner or later. All these insane classes don't leave me any time for the deep thoughts I used to think. I'll get back to that sometime.
After reading the Bradbury biography I realized the true value of this blog. When I'm famous, it will be perfect detailed material for my biography. Or autobiography.
I got a letter published in the newspaper today about the face transplant surgery. It seemd not a single person at school had read the paper before breakfast, so I didn't get any comments. Jazz band competition tomorrow though, maybe people will have seen it by then. It was just a dumb letter off the top of my head that I wrote because I was bored, so I'm kind of glad people weren't talking about it. I'm sure someone will notice it sooner or later. All these insane classes don't leave me any time for the deep thoughts I used to think. I'll get back to that sometime.
December 05, 2005
Church and Ray
Church again this morning, augh. I just grit my teeth and get through it, but I wish there was some way I could tell people I'm an atheist without being ostracized.
I finished my biography and three novels of Ray Bradbury in about two weeks. That was painful, but not near as painful as writing the 15 page biographical analysis will be. I'm asking to be allowed to drop the class 2nd semester, but I have to write a letter to the principal and they announced that they would only be allowing schedule changes in 'extraordinary' situations. Fingers crossed.
Reading all that Ray Bradbury made me want to write a short story. Maybe I'll start one sometime...but it'll never finish.
I finished my biography and three novels of Ray Bradbury in about two weeks. That was painful, but not near as painful as writing the 15 page biographical analysis will be. I'm asking to be allowed to drop the class 2nd semester, but I have to write a letter to the principal and they announced that they would only be allowing schedule changes in 'extraordinary' situations. Fingers crossed.
Reading all that Ray Bradbury made me want to write a short story. Maybe I'll start one sometime...but it'll never finish.
December 04, 2005
Tuba Christmas
I went to Tuba Christmas at the mall this morning, a bunch of my friends were in it. Basically a bunch of tubas and baritones get together to play christmas songs in the mall. I want to learn baritone for next year, since it's similar to trombone.
It's snowing here a lot, got several inches already and no sign of it slowing down. Roads were very slippery this morning, took forever to get anywhere on account of driving slow.
It's snowing here a lot, got several inches already and no sign of it slowing down. Roads were very slippery this morning, took forever to get anywhere on account of driving slow.
December 03, 2005
I promised myself I'd bring this thing up to date sometime, here I am and I don't know what to write.
Did I ever mention I got into all-state? Apparently another district didn't pick anyone, I got called a week later. They took one [bass trombone] for orchestra from our district, I was 2nd alternate. Me and the 1st alternate went to the band, I got 1st chair which was very sweet. Usually my audition is the week part of the all-state process, but the chair audition couldn't have been better.
I've been so busy on account of my AP English class, we basically have to write an essay and read a novel every week, lately I've been working on a 15 page biographical analysis of Ray Bradbury. Great writer, but this paper sucks. I'm trying to drop the class for 2nd semester but they might not let me...
Sometimes I think I have friends, then suddenly I don't. I'm not trying to be all emo, but I really have no socal skills at all. They're just nice enough to take me in and talk to me sometimes. Sometimes I'm funny, sometimes I say stupid things and act annoying, then brood about my suckiness all weekend.
I've always found a way to define myself, if I wasn't popular then I was good at band, when I wasn't good at band I could always fall back on being smart. So then those times when I'm not so smart, when I fail a test or get a bad grade, I really have nowhere to go. That can start a whole process of being apathetic about school for a while and really regretting it later. Snowball effect. I was worried about my chemistry grade, but I think I have time to get back up to an A. I was worried about AP US history, but that should come also. AP English has really screwed me over because even when I'm motivated, I don't have enough time.
I suck at jazz improvisation. We have a concert on Monday, and half our trombone section, even though we're all all-staters, sucks at improvisation. The only thing more embarassing will be the contest the Saturday after that.
I wrote a letter to the editor on how great that face transplant was. Hope it gets published. I got one published 2 years ago for a science project on the environment. Some of my friends' parents loved it.
Guess that about sums it up for now. I really should take my picture off my profile.
Did I ever mention I got into all-state? Apparently another district didn't pick anyone, I got called a week later. They took one [bass trombone] for orchestra from our district, I was 2nd alternate. Me and the 1st alternate went to the band, I got 1st chair which was very sweet. Usually my audition is the week part of the all-state process, but the chair audition couldn't have been better.
I've been so busy on account of my AP English class, we basically have to write an essay and read a novel every week, lately I've been working on a 15 page biographical analysis of Ray Bradbury. Great writer, but this paper sucks. I'm trying to drop the class for 2nd semester but they might not let me...
Sometimes I think I have friends, then suddenly I don't. I'm not trying to be all emo, but I really have no socal skills at all. They're just nice enough to take me in and talk to me sometimes. Sometimes I'm funny, sometimes I say stupid things and act annoying, then brood about my suckiness all weekend.
I've always found a way to define myself, if I wasn't popular then I was good at band, when I wasn't good at band I could always fall back on being smart. So then those times when I'm not so smart, when I fail a test or get a bad grade, I really have nowhere to go. That can start a whole process of being apathetic about school for a while and really regretting it later. Snowball effect. I was worried about my chemistry grade, but I think I have time to get back up to an A. I was worried about AP US history, but that should come also. AP English has really screwed me over because even when I'm motivated, I don't have enough time.
I suck at jazz improvisation. We have a concert on Monday, and half our trombone section, even though we're all all-staters, sucks at improvisation. The only thing more embarassing will be the contest the Saturday after that.
I wrote a letter to the editor on how great that face transplant was. Hope it gets published. I got one published 2 years ago for a science project on the environment. Some of my friends' parents loved it.
Guess that about sums it up for now. I really should take my picture off my profile.
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