Forests of Azure

May I stay here?

A little while longer...

Stuff I Like

Celebratory kiwis
Driving around at night listening to "When You Leave" by Maps
REM
SKINS!
Last semester of high school
Reminders from the past
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, and my current need to graffiti "Read Ishmael" wherever I go.

Break is so awesome so far. Things I have done:
1) Played piano
2) Worked on "The Auditorium"
3) Played with rat
4) Sang Lady Gaga incessantly.

I want to have the story done by...well, I want to have it done. I'm actually going to submit it. Next I have Travel Songs to work on. I don't want to start real work. Actually, I don't want to do scholarship applications. Maybe I should juxtapose the awesomeness of Christmas with the heinousness of drafting essays.

Now I'm in bed with Discover and some social philosophy by Murray Bookchin. Good night.

This is my official Break Unfinished report:

A Tour of the Calculus: didn't touch it until Sunday, but I have until the end of the quarter to finish it.
English paper: Have about 2.5 pages of the first draft done. Two more weekends
Need to: Go to the library
Nasa: Read through about half of the resources on the website.
Need to: finish other half
Chem: Read ~half of Chapter 10. No work on 8, 9 suggested problems yet. May save until before test.
Nighttimes: Finished ~1.5 rolls. Want to develop to see if I'm doing the times right and then go from there.
SAT IIs: Bad. Not worrying about it. take last practice test Friday night.
Scholarships: Have my schedule all worked out. Applied for two. I am very much on schedule.
Internship: Started resume and letter. Need to finish
Environmental: Not started.

Everything else got done, mostly housekeeping.

I took a bike ride this afternoon and listened to the Mountain Goats all day. Good times.

Winter/Hard Times

December Plan:
School:
Kind of goes without saying.
Finish English paper
Get one more Public Affairs meeting in
Finish A Tour of the Calculus
Finish NASA research paper
Read all NASA papers

College:
Verify all information has been received at my schools
Apply to all December, January and February scholarships
Have working plan for scholarships up to Spring Break
Decisions, Decisions

*I want to not let scholarships overtake my life when I could be learning. Cost/Benefit.

Extracurriculars:
WoO will be underway
Newspaper issue-release day before break
SC:
Blood Drive
Promote Basket Drive
Chow one weekend?
Grecian Sing
Major Science Olympiad prep

Extra:
Environmental Science
Physics 211
Apotheosis/Other
Begin reading again?
Bake for Christmas on weekends


I want to try to do scholarships on Sundays and not let them encroach on the rest of my week.
Keep 9:30-4:30 schedule
Try to eat right, try to exercise.

up at 10:00 Post office, "library" 11:30 Breakfast-kashi and banana Albany check, Thank you notes, 1:00-4:00 Go through bulletin scholarship list Lunch 5:00-5:30 clean Vivian ?

Things to achieve by June, 2010:
Mind over Matter
Faith over Fear
Personal Integrity.

Tomorrow: Up at nine.
Bagel! (Diets the day after holiday meals is SEW tenth grade.)
Call Gertrude Hawk, Red Barn Computers
Draft scholarship essays-expedite
SAT II review book-finish reading
Chemistry?
...
...
Night photos

I'm okay.

Really.

But this doesn't feel nearly final enough.

There's a lot of growing to do in the next seven months, and I can tell a lot of wheel-spinning as well. I have no friends left, I'm bored of everything, I'm stuck in the same old obsessional ruts I've had for years.

What do I want. Can indecision still translate to a successful future?

I will record everything that happens for the rest of this year, and every memory of old times as well. Not for accountability this time, but for strength of remembrance. I want total recall of the tastes, sounds, imperceptible shifts in emotion.

Today I woke up at around 11, watched the bizarre parade and was force-fed oatmeal while I read summaries of the last few books in the Alice series, you know the series, then did calculus for a time. Eventually we went out to dinner. I wore green and gold. Maybe I'm tired of black. maybe I want to be dressed like a day-glo rainbow all the time or maybe i just don't care any more. Anyway, the creamed vegetables were almost as good as I expected though the desserts were disappointing. My favorite food is still noodles. I'm starting to sound like Uncle Frank. We drove out to Forks to see the falling-down barns, the Kenyon, and stopped to observe some chickens. After dinner I, in no particular order, 1) finished what caculus I could without the supreme authority of Roy Dando, 2) explored Binghamton with Dat and finished partial roll of film, 3) Showed "Look at this fucking hipster" to annette to rousing delight, and 4) dicked around on piano. Things I'm interested in: Life on Mars, Hey Jude, Here Comes the Sun. simple, emotional stuff. Office/Calculus and then read Brandon's livejournal from senior year, which actually inspired me to do such a meticulous account of today. I can't lose these years.

I have to have hope that this will all work itself out.

The Future's Uncertain and the End is Always Near. Let it Roll, Baby, Roll.

Sharon if we die at 80 that's like 1/4 of our lives
which we have lived so far
Annette 12:02 am
ouch
well, my life has been long and eventful so far
but i expect it will become less so

I just want....a positive outlook, and a mind like a child for the time I am here.
Can't get the picture out of my head of Brandon on Halloween, looking up through the branches of a dead tree at the spire of a church and the moon...man standing on the brink of forever, gazing into the universe.

God, Nature, The Origin as I personally like to call the energy...can we be friends? I don't want you to be my dictator. Let's just be friends, I need some familiarity on the other side.

I'm not an atheist. And even atheists have near death experiences. So I should be set for an afterlife of some sort, right? I'd really like one.

When I die, I'd like to be able to see some of history. I'd like to fly over oceans, and things like that. Indulge all my nostalgias. Maybe I could make a stop in fiction, too, Middle Earth at the next left! I'd like to see inside an atom, even though this promises to be rather frightening.

Existing in this world, or existing in another realm...sleep really makes the whole thing seem arbitrary, doesn't it? Well, off to sleep. I'll be back to this reality soon.

"You only like him 'cause he's sexually appealing,
But his psychic's prediction has him hanging from a ceiling fan
In eight months."




Got the extended edition of Almost Famous
Sent out all my apps

On its way.

I have a few friends in addition to myself who I believe are genuinely bisexual, and all the "relationshippy" conversations I've had with them have identified the same problems with longevity in relationships, with being comfortable accepting any one person as the "right" answer. I've heard it described as not wanting the same thing for a long period of time (need for novelty), the problem of falling in love with everyone you meet, and for me I believe it is too many pro-con lists. I see good and bad in so many people and rarely see any answer as right. Each of us are also drawn to spiritual exploration/speculation, reject the typical political interpretations...

Is this just a type of personality? (NF to be exact?)

I am trying "Accountability" again. Today, about 4 nonproductive hours I'd say, but many of them were researching stuff online. The damn English paper on poverty got me working on my social philosophies again but we won't get into that. In addition to Ishmael this December I want to get into Murray Bookchin. Essentially got through calc problems (no big deal), two chapters of chemistry and chemistry problems (epic, 80 pages) started the newspaper, started the english paper, and made brownies. Keep in mind this was mostly avoidance of UVA essays.

Tomorrow: Up at 7
ESSAYS READY FOR E&D BY 12:30!!!!!
12:30-4:30 Envirothon
4:30-9:30 Edit essays, practice song, put whatever I have into paper.

Egyptian kings they sing of Gods and pyramids of stone
And they left the deserts clean and they left the deserts
Golden and shinin' as a beacon for those that need a road
Into the day and through the night we go and find our way home...

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Too many thoughts. I know this is only going to get worse.

Excerpt from today's notes:

"This is the story of my life. Every story I write will take place in this context, or within the context of my life-the act of creation. I don't want to write fiction, I want to write fact-and these are the facts that will shape my future and the facts which have shaped the person I am. Even the beginning parts, (Warm and Shallow Sea), it's a story of my own act of creation, and my own act of discovering my origins which have, in turn, shaped my personal, ecological, ethical, political and religious philosophies which will shape the stories. The stories have fed my own development, a development which will, in turn, feed the stories. Beautiful. I mean, Apotheosis is my way of trying to help the world, but if I wasn't trying to understand my own meaning as well, would I have come to the conclusion I needed to save the world? Hmm...."

Yeah. Pretty much it.

Prescription: One Daily Epiphany

Rebellion (Lies) by the Arcade Fire is the song I want to wake up for the entire fucking winter.

Senior Year Song List so far:
Origin of Love-John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch)
Change in the House of Flies-Deftones
Rebellion (Lies)-Arcade Fire

Oh, ok, apparently 7 hours is the "golden zone" and people who get more than that have an even higher mortality than those who get less than 6.5. i had always heard "more than nine." they probably haven't factored out comorbidity, and who knows if they included cancer patients in that "more than seven" group, but...I'll take whatever justification I can get.


Ask yourself, every time you have an unoccupied moment, "what could i do right now to enhance my experience of being alive?" in other words, GO TO THE FORESTS!

SUCCESS!

I awoke PRECISELY seven hours after I went to sleep.

That still sounds like so much :/


Let's get our math brain on.

So, why am I updating this at 6:30 am? Shouldn't I still be struggling out of bed?

FALSE. I am on morning...four or something of a relatively new schedule in which I go to bed early and *attempt* to get up early in order to 1) feel more scholarly/like a monk, 2) Do my homework (well, at least chem and calc) when I am fresh, 3) Avoid the dark. Seriously, had last night not had a fucking mayoral debate to go to, i would have just come home, gone for a bike/run (which I did, it's gorgeous out,) to the due-tomorrow work, and get up at 4. Well...yeah. First couple days have been kind of rough but I at least heard my 4:30 alarm today, although I didn't get up till five, although I didn't actually start any math until 6, but hey. I'll try it. It's helped me to feel less panicked, like last year when I tried to get up and meditate every day....but i feel this plan might actually be sustainable if i go to bed early instead of bed-at-two-up-at-6. Bed-at-9:30-up-at-4:30 if i have to. I still need to do homework, but i won't be able to get up if i don't go to bed at a reasonable hour, so...incentive? The rational part of me knows that if I am habitually sleep deprived, I essentially subtract years from my life. I know it's a necessary evil, but I just want ONE YEAR with some semblance of balance until I go to college and nothing makes sense anymore.

Once again, school has presented me with the impossible dilemma of figuring out when I'm actually going to learn.

K, speaking of school...I have a certain teacher, who I *actually* don't think is as smart as I am, but who has some of the same questions as I do. Yesterday something came up about "selling" a solution to the world and I was just waiting for him to say it...hahha. Lots of new thought efforts yesterday, coming to the same concept of god-never-existed-we-are-evolving-towards-him + ??? ultimate blasphemy? I say, imperfect world = imperfect creator. What about a world in which the tribal societies are once again supreme? Here's the big one I came up with yesterday: Is it possible for a society to become widespread that has no intent or desire to become widespread? The societies with the most sustainable, successful ideas are precluded from being successful because they have no desire to compete. And, Can those driven to conquer transmute their energy into something constructive? If it weren't for owning God and Deserts, what would we have to aspire to? They're thinkers, I told you!

Well, I guess I'm fucking required to go to school now. College is going to be so nifty. All I want right now is a research position and the freedom to structure my own time, is that too much to ask? AKA-I want to be Colin Lu. Half-high school, Half-college. I guess I have to win Chemistry Olympiad before I get to that point, though.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



More later, in my own words.

Yet another facet of my obsessive personality makes itself known to me...preoccupation with the pasts of others. I spent maybe 20 minutes reading Brandon's journal this weekend, and some how that has spiraled into a feeling of nervous inadequacy. Not that I haven't done all I could do to succeed, but that these are the standards i have been given to transcend; these are the shadows on the walls of my allegorical cave. when i think about how much there is left out there, the people around me fade into ghosts. maybe this is just the winter talking, i know it's like this every time the light starts getting short. but i absolutely MUST hold on to my feeling that my life is worthwhile, that what i am doing will "add up to one" so to speak, or i will start to panic. Winter is just a cave, and ever since Plato, i've realized the cave i am ALREADY in.

Mr. Motell, i can tell he is lumping me in the same group as everyone else who just follows what others tell them to do, and i guess in part i am. but maybe i'll come back and give him a copy of the manuscript later on. i need to integrate myself into the system to change it; enzymes and substrates. although, with a decent sum of money, i could sustain myself outside the system, i at least need ties to it, for no other reason but the technology. why the technology, do you ask? spaceships, duh. otherwise, what's it all for?

my horoscope today was frighteningly prophetic given some of the things i was thinking about in the car. it scares me to hell this is all out on the internet.

i can't think of the cave, or i will descend into darkness.
can we just move to california and get high already?
fuck my late-blooming prison of weeds.