A few random thoughts.

For mood music: Demon Hunter: Fading Away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaRVDbd_iSA

...For someone born and raised in the south, I don't very much enjoy the company of stereotypical country bumpkins.... Note that there actually aren't that many around here, but they do indeed exist.

...The campus is almost deserted because of the holiday weekend. Hardly any cars in the parking lots around here. The only difference between day and night now is the color of the sky and the presence of joggers. Thanks to said Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, I've got a three-day weekend to enjoy (thus the desertedness of campus). At least something good came out of the Civil Rights movement.

...I've also noticed that the main social group I've been in and greatly enjoyed is busting apart; be it graduating from college or relationships dragging them away, this group is more or less dissolved. I'm in other groups, yes, but this one I enjoyed the company of most. Sometimes, you just have to heave a heavy sigh and start again with new friends.

The problem is, I've had enough of making new friends; I want closer ones. On a more positive note, over the past few days, I've made the acquaintance of five new people. Maybe they can lead me to new social groups who have more time before they have to go away...?

Also, since there is little homework for me to do currently (that'll change very soon), I've been debating with a couple of people on Facebook about the topic of creationism versus evolution and another about gun ownership rights and the second amendment. It's a lot of effort to do so, and I'm always surprised by what people will believe without logically analyzing things for themselves. I couldn't imagine such an existence: accepting things around them and not questioning their factual basis...? No offense intended toward anyone, but I wonder why some people stick to incorrect views even in the face of irrefutable logic and evidence?

Anyway, the hand is doing much better now; thanks for asking.

[It actually took until 20120124 in order to post this because of spotty internet access.]

_BlueScreen, 20130121 [I'm dropping the time-of-day numbers from the date stamp; it's too much effort to keep doing it and it doesn't offer much useful information anyway.]

I walk alone.

For mood music: Greenday: Boulevard of Broken Dreams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_1PMEfUMQI

This post is a little along the lines of the last post. Kind of like a continuation and explication....

Have gone through the first day of Spring 2013 classes. I see so many people's mouths move at once, and hear sounds come out, but do not understand the words. The dull roar of this continuous cacophony of irrelevance begins to give me headaches. Such a noisy campus.... 

I see couples everywhere around here. They look blissful, and I'm happy for them. But it makes me so lonely in the crowd.... Going to a technical school has turned out to be the most lonely thing I've yet encountered. It's hard to maintain focus and motivation when there's nobody to share the experience with....

The lyrics to the linked song describe my feelings, and situation well. So well.... I wish the situation would change, but I'm powerless to do anything about it. Am I, really? I don't know anymore....

It's been a long day. Too long. Only one day of classes down, and already am ready to move on. It's time for a change of scenery; ...let's just get this semester over with. 

I probably shouldn't express such personal things on the Internet, but what else can I write but the truth? How can anyone expect me to keep wearing a mask of constantly shallow, ever over-optimistic happy stuff that ends with a witty quip? It's what people like to read, but not what I like to write. One of the many benefits of writing in a blog and not on Facebook is that everything you write is not splattered in the readers' faces, so you tend to panic your friends and acquaintances less when you write depressing posts. Oh well. I wonder if anyone will read this blog and learn to not make the same mistakes I have? Or at least realize they're not alone in such thoughts?


(Excerpts from the lyrics of Boulevard of Broken Dreams; for those of you who don't want to click on the mood music link)
I walk a lonely road/
The only one that I have ever known/
Don't know where it goes,
but it's home to me and I walk alone/
I walk this empty street, on the boulevard of broken dreams/
Where the city sleeps, and I'm the only one and I walk alone/
I walk alone/
I walk alone/

I walk alone/
I walk a/

*Chorus:*
My shadow's the only one beside me/
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating/
Sometimes I wish that someone up there will find me/
'Till then, I walk alone/*end of chorus*

I'm walking down the line/
That divides me somewhere in my mind/
Of the borderline of the edge and where I walk alone/

*other lyrics*

Check my vital signs and know I'm still alive/
And I walk alone/

*more lyrics*

I walk this empty street/
on the boulevard of broken dreams/
Where the city sleeps/
And I'm the only one and I walk a/

*a few more lyrics before the song ends with a guitar solo*


_BlueScreen, 201301172315

And so another semester begins.

For mood music: Ian Van Dahl: State of Mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVr0ugSZir8

Back in Cookeville. Again. Time to go through another semester of eating cafeteria food (which is okay, but it's never anything like home cooking), doing homework late into the evening, not getting enough sleep, then doing exams early in the morning, dodging crowds all day, and then walking the deserted, lonely streets at night in order to de-stress and re-focus. Been there, done that. I don't mean to complain, but I fail to see the potential for adventure this semester, but I dearly hope that changes.

Maybe it's time to stop living so vicariously; passively.

But this is not to say that campus life at Tennessee Technological University is bad. I'm just a little... I dunno what the right word is....  Don't want more of the same this semester. Sure, things are going great, and I've gained much social skills, friends, and academic knowledge, but it seems like things are slowing down, stagnating. It's time to try something different. No clue what, but the current routine is... going nowhere. Boring, even.

_BlueScreen, 201301162250

Reflections upon transitions

[There are a lot of mood music links here mainly because the ones linked to are extremely short.]

For mood music: Temple One - Eternal Light (Original mix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfXDMBvs8lk

One of the many consequences of maintaining an active mind is the inevitable result of continually having great ideas, half-baked as they initially are, and no matter how good of an idea, it always gets forgotten (memorization is not exactly one of my strengths). So, I always keep a notebook nearby in order to allow me to remember the ideas better, improve them, flesh them out, perhaps even bring them to fruition at a later date. There have been countless nights where I've long gone to bed, but been kept up by the flickering seed of an idea, but it keeps me tossing and turning restlessly. The noise of its tenacious cry to be remembered permits no rest until it has been recorded for posterity. Then I get a flashlight out and record this piece of thought on paper. Once done, my mind is cleared of material to work with, and it falls asleep. Over time, the notebook becomes completely filled with schematics, drawings, miscellaneous text I've jotted down, etc., and so from time to time it has to be ended and another began. With a 70-page spiral-bound notebook, there's only so much room of course. After filling a couple of these, I began to name them.

People name important inanimate objects all the time; cars, ships, buildings, even guns. I name my notebooks, because they hold liquefied cogitations; a distilled piece of my own personality.

Another thing needs to be explained before I can get on with the main ramblings here: calendars. Since about a year ago, I've had a paper print-out calendar. Just plain squares with numbers; no colors or fancy stationery. It's stayed with me for most of that time and when I need to remember or record a major event, like submitting an assignment, or someone's birthday, it is written in. Granted, it's not as detailed or emotionally significant as, say, a diary, but it's interesting to look back over what has transpired and have those short, sloppy scrawlings cause one to remember the circumstances under which they were made, and the events that became associated with them: the people met, things done, memories made. If it were not for this small bundle of humble paper, my life would have been that much more difficult. Why? Think about it: because a calendar allows a conscientious note-taker to effectively possess almost flawless recollection of tasks that need to be done on a deadline. Thus, having a calendar within arm's reach at all times in order to record a reminder at a moment's notice has become second-nature. No, I do not name my calendars.

For mood music: Ron Van Den Beuken - Overdrive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0QM9F9v-bY

Alright, alright, here's the point. As stated in a previous blog post, this past semester beheld many first's to me. But this winter break has been almost completely a time of relative solitude, contemplation, introspection, and mostly retrospection. Sometimes you have to spend a few moments to escape distractions, seek some quiet in order to do some long-neglected soul-searching to remember who you've been, who you are, and who you want to be. I'm not explaining it right, so try to see the ideas behind the words used... You have to simply be distant from a situation in order to have a more complete perspective on what you're looking at.

Let's try a sports analogy: when you're a football player on the field, all you can see is what's in front of you. Everything else going on is out of sight or partially obscured by other things going on. Other players move around, preventing you from perceiving their formation; deafening cheers of the crowd block you from hearing any possible communication from your teammates. Now, take your perspective and throw it into the livingroom of a sports fan watching the event on television. Not only do the cameras allow the fan to simultaneously see what everyone is doing, the instant replays emphasize important details and events that otherwise would have been missed by a less-observant eye. And there's the entire microphone network allowing the fan to hear many things going on. And don't forget play-by-play interpretation by the sports announcers.

Such is the difference between involvement and distance from an event or series of events. The distance need not be actual physical removal; it could also be emotional or time distance. In this case, it's time. As they say, hindsight is 20/20. I'm inclined to agree. This December, it feels as if the intro- and retro- spection coupled with deep contemplation has made it a time of transition. Looking back, I see a nerdy person who is unbearably awkward around other people and bumbles about clumsily in almost every conversation. Today, when I look in a personality mirror, the nerdiness is just as present, but not as dominating a feature. The awkwardness has faded considerably. A different person is there.

For mood music: Thomas Bronzwaer - Resound

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF_C8yqo1Pk

What does this have to do with notebooks and calendars? Well, a week ago my most recent notebook filled up. I looked back through it, examined the progression of thought patterns during a lengthy trip down memory lane. The earliest entry is from August 13, 2008. That was a full year before entering into college. That entry was written by a homeschooling teenager who had no formal training in any profession, never had a "real" job, had no friends, had the vaguest of ideas as to a direction for his future path. He never had had anyone to talk to, go on a walk with him to eat lunch, or any connection with a like-minded individual. No idea how to talk to a girl, much less hold a conversation. That poor kid had no idea how lonely he was....

And the calendar only went to December 2012. Naturally, a new one had to be acquired beginning January 2013. That makes two major changes occurring, both of them marking the end of one chapter in life, but the beginning of another. No, this is not about cheesy new year's resolutions; the fact that it happened at this time is entirely coincidental. This is about progress.

For mood music: Thomas Bronzwaer - Shadow World (Mix mash up)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oxxo9RpoSc

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it would seem the mark of maturity is not what you've gained so much as what you've let go of. It's nearly impossible to embrace who you are turning into unless you let go of who you've been. Sure it sounds like mushy identity crisis jargon, but at least it makes sense; you have to close the current chapter before you can turn the page. Improvement doesn't happen by sitting still. But now I'm being didactic. The last thing you need is a piece of pedagogy from me in your face.

For mood music: Temple One - Silent Nature [Original Mix] HQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTDOLfj4ao

...Sigh, it makes me uncomfortable to talk about myself and semi-personal thoughts so much; but I can't help but write about things. The only other options for writing in a blog are the robotic projects I've been doing, which few people will understand (and I'd much rather DO the projects than talk about them), or writing short-story fiction, which can be interesting sometimes. Short-story fiction can allow one to express feelings and emotions, but the alternate settings, characters, etc. either depart from reality and become irrelevant to the things I'm going through, or risk becoming parables of a daily drama with thin masks over the character's faces when we all can figure out they are just codenames for real people that the author wants to gossip about but can't do so directly without alienating the rest of their social network so the author dresses it up as pseudo-fiction....

None of these situations are desirable, but on the other hand, talking about oneself for so long just smacks of ego. How to avoid doing such? Haven't the faintest idea, but not much is going on where I'm sitting besides said technical projects and reminiscing. No worries, once the semester begins, there will be plenty of events to write about.

I'll probably be embarrassed at some later date that any of the personal stuff in this post, or indeed this entire blog, was written by me, much less posted on the Internet, but how else is someone to know me if not by my mother tongue? The spoken word stumbles haltingly, and trips over my lips, whereas text flows with graceful ease. Ideas, emotions, events, most of them can be effectively communicated with the written word.

My heart sees in color, but my mind only understands black and white....

While in a digressing mood, we might as well mention the current mood music, Temple One - Silent Nature from 4:10 to about 4:37, seems to portray a kind of inner calm only silent, introverted people seem to have and enjoy. All else is still and the peace allows one to relax... rest. A moment of pure calm where there is no agitation or inner warfare. A conflicted, lonely soul like mine craves and cherishes these brief slices of time....

Well, it's getting late in this time zone. Time to stop rambling so much.

_BlueScreen, 201301120357

12-gauge tactical goodness.

Had the opportunity to shoot a gun today. Always is a fun event.

But today, I'll tell you one thing; shooting a pistol-grip 12-gauge tactical shotgun one-handed (yes, one-handed) will make you look Slyvester Stalone-esque macho awesome for about three seconds. Then, about a minute later when feeling comes back to your hand, you'll wish it didn't because then you've got a little cut on a knuckle, a bruise in your palm, and possibly a pulled muscle in your thumb. You people just have no idea how much a Mossberg model 500 (a comparatively light weight and short-barrelled pump-action shotgun) will kick with No.6 ammo: a lot. 

It seems almost every gun I shoot cuts my skin in some way. Then again, it doesn't seem to happen to anyone else, so it must be that my hands are delicate or something...?

Apologies for the relative brevity of this post; I know I said this will be the repository of rants too long for facebook, but I'd rather not strain my shooting hand for a few days. It's kind of sore.

Remember: the moral of the story here is that shotguns rule! :D

_BlueScreen, 201301101620