An Attempt At Imitation

I really enjoy a particular blog by a woman living in New York City, called Encounters Witnessed and Conversations Overheard. She takes random but later significant encounters with people from her everyday life, and reproduces the conversation for everyone to see. They say imitation is a form of flattery, so I'm going to attempt to do just that.

It's late Sunday night, past one. The young man walks from his car home towards his dorm, passing betwen buildings. He twirls his keys in his hand. He spots a cute young woman hovering outside the door of another dorm. She seems lost, afraid, perhaps locked out. He decides to see if she's alright, as his path approaches the building. As he nears the door opens, another young man walks out. The sparkle of their immediate smiles can be seen from a distance. They kiss, and embrace, before walking slowly down the hallway, arm in arm, as the door swings shut behind them. Out in the cold night, the man sighs, and shivers. He puts his keys back into his pocket, and continues home.

I decided to italicize it and future attempts of this sort so its clear when I randomly start talking in the third person what's going on. Seeing the way such simple things affect people in such a multitude of different ways is amazing to me. I guess these types of entries will help show another glimpse into the world that only I see.

A War By Any Other Name, Still Kills.

Just arrived home from a theater excursion, where a friend and I witnessed the power that is We Were Soldiers the latest in a string of recent war movies, this one starring Mel Gibson. Going in I'd heard it compared to Black Hawk Down, but frankly I didn't see many similarities at all other than the obvious fighting factor, and the fact they were both true stories. However on the gruesome/violence scale, if you the previous one made you queasy, I highly suggest you avoid this one. The opening scene is an excellent litmus test, within about thirty seconds of the movie start you've seen a good sampling of what will take place for the remainder of the movie. Easily the most graphic film I've ever seen, and that's saying something. The only thing I can compare it to is the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan. That said, I felt it was a very well done and extremely powerful movie. I guess advances in technology is what causes this one to go even further than previous gorefests when it comes to graphic realism. Plenty of slow motion deaths in this one, there were many a gasp in the theater from the soft hearted. This one didn't cause me to shed any tears, but I think that was mostly due to me being agape with awe at what was going on, amazed that someone experienced it in real life. As for a rating, I'm going to have to go with 6+ M's out of 7. Pretty hard to make it better than it was, or any more powerful, thought provoking, or mind boggling. It made an attempt to show the major battle involved from both sides, allowing us to get to know characters from the other side of the lines as well, largely the general of the opposing forces. This allowed for pivotal scenes when known characters from both sides would clash, causing the audience to feel the pain of whichever one came out on the short end, regardless of whether they were "good" or "bad." The acting was superior to most, I've always like Gibson in movies such as Braveheart and The Patriot, and this one is no different. Also some amazing supporting performances, that just contributed to the overall horror of the situation. Little tiny men making an effort to change the great big world, and not knowing whether they're treading water in quicksand.

Floatin In The Clouds...

Sometimes saying somethig nice goes a long way. Its one thing to get a compliment from your family or a close friend, that tends to be a common occurrence, or even something they feel they "should" do from time to time. Its a completely different thing to me when I receive a compliment from a total stranger, or someone I know but not very well.

Last night I was just walking down the hall when someone pulled me aside to tell me that I was an excellent writer, something I really don't hear too often. During most of my life and especially high school, I've been surrounding by amazing writers, and was always considered by them as a mediocre one, occasionally entertaining. A certain event in the Academic Decathlon managed to kill my confidence for quite some time that I would ever be able to write something worth a decent grade. Still have to get around to telling that story. Some day when I'm already depressed. Anyway, apparently the person had made it to this page at one time or another and thoroughly enjoyed it. The person was adamant to the point they thought I should drop Business Econ and pursue a writing career. Usually I'd shrug off the random comment from someone as B.S., or them trying to kiss my ass for some reason or another, but something about the way the person said it made it seem sincere. They weren't looking me in the eye, as if they were almost embarrassed to give such a bold and random compliment. Who knows, maybe I got all excited over a joke, but regardless, it made me feel really good inside.

Those types of random acts of kindness always tend to keep me up in the clouds for days at a time. People don't realize how much it means to me, especially when I'm down in the dumps for some reason or another.

There have been many arguments about the purpose of an online journal, and I've seen many a personal attack towards someone suggesting they're just doing it for "the attention." I suppose that has to be a little part of it for everyone who keeps one, otherwise there's no real rational reason to make it public. Some people are more concerned than others when it comes to counting their hits and regular readers, but I don't think I'm one of those people.

I write for me, myself and I. If I didn't think I had anything to gain from expressing my feelings through words, I wouldn't. I really enjoy reading back into random entries and seeing how I felt at that time in my life. I tend to bust through each entry in five minutes or so depending on the length, so within a couple days I've forgotten most of what I wrote. When reading through it again, its like reading a book I've never read, by an author I've never met. I don't think I posses the creativeness to actually write a novel out of my head at this point in my life. Maybe its proof of self-centeredness that I'm only able to write hundreds of pages about myself on a daily basis. Then again maybe that's the subject I'm the most intelligent expert on. Yeah, I enjoy hearing that people were entertained by this journal. I am even more excited to hear that they thought something I said was profound, or something that happened to me has changed the way they go about doing something in their own lives. It's the personal closure though that sits me down at the computer every day or two to "blab at the world." Basically speaking out, without knowing whether or not its being heard, or even if it is, by whom.

My initial reason for writing was the concept that if the "perfect person" ever ran into me in real life and wanted to know more, they could read through these pages and basically get my life story, the whole thing, and decide from the get go whether or not I was quite so perfect for them. I figure it would save a lot of time. Maybe that sounds weird, but if I was interested in someone I would totally read all about them regardless of length, to see what there is to see. So, for those who read this regularly, I can only guarantee more of the same. Mostly boring, occasionally intelligent. Mostly random, occasionally exciting. Mostly unimportant, but most importantly, honest.

Strawberry Passion Awareness...

Yeah, its sugar water, but can't say anything tastes better after a hard bit of exercise than sugar water, be it Fruitopia, Powerade, or any other manner of juice. Finally got down to the weight room for the first time in a week or two due to the flu I picked up last week and random headaches and irritation this week, and it felt good. Going to try to make it out to the pool tomorrow depending on the weather, see if I can get a good string of workouts going again. Got a big hike with the hall planned for Saturday, should be fun, I've never been up in the area of the mountains we're heading to.

Finished up my last paper for the quarter, so there's some down time up until Finals in a couple weeks. Then comes Spring Break and most likely a trip to the Bay Area since I haven't been up yet this year and I know of several people headed that way who wouldn't mind company. After that comes Vegas at some point in the vicinity of my birthday in May, and then Texas come August. Things to look forward to, but I have a whole lot of studying to get done before now and then.

Also want to say hi to some of the kind souls blessing me with guestbook entries, and to the rest of you, what are you waitin for? Click away! :)

Rain Rain Go Away...

There won't be any other comments on the events of Sunday night, its now in the past, and nothing of the sort will occur again in the future. No reason to continue repeating myself when everything I could say has already been said.

Two nights ago a group of us were sitting in Ortega enjoying the usual dinner fare when a woman came to our table to introduce herself, and talk about how we should vote in the election the next day. The rest of the guys at my table assumed she was running locally, for some unimportant position. I'm pretty sure I was the only one who heard the name "Lois Capps" and was aware that she is a US House of Representative Congresswoman from our area. So anyway, Mike, immortalized by name here, proceeds to ask Ms. Capps what her opinion on the legalization of marijuana is, mainly because he's a fan of its recreational use. She gives a little schpeal about it without saying whether she was for or against, but after further questioning she admitted the federal government is "not a fan" and "that's who she works for" however she "can be persuaded." Mike follows up with "Well, want to go smoke a bowl?"

And so, UCSB is again represented to the world as having the intelligence of a marijuana plant. Classic.

The Day After.

So, last night's post has generated some response. Some being an understatement.

Apparently it was forwarded around the building somehow, because people who were never before interested in this page have become interested based on last nights events. I'd like to clarify some of that with the addtion of results from today.

First of all I'd like to make the point that I don't use names for a reason, and that its REALLY irksome for people to come to me in order to lambast me for saying something that they felt was directed at them, when it was totally unrelated. If you want the facts, talk to me personally, don't become all irritated over something you have completely wrong anwyay.

So I got to make an appointment with the RD for Wednesday, and fill out an IR on the incident. Later today my R/A came into my room to talk to me about the issues of the hall as a whole, and how he can better improve the way he is dealing with things. I ran down a list of basically everything that had been irritating me about the hall, with the main issue being a complete lack of respect shown by some people on the hall. The maturity level of the hall as a whole has just dropped in the last few weeks, as people get used to be on their own and get away with greater and greater incidents.

What most surprised me about tonight was that shortly thereafter the two guys a couple doors down who have tended in the past to be a source for a lot of the complaints came to me personally to discuss how they can better improve the situation on the hall. I'm pretty sure the R/A had a talk with them about it prior, but they did seem to be genuinely interested in improving the living situation and respect level for everyone here. I mentioned a few of the things that had bothered me personally about them, such as one of them lighting up cigarettes in our hallway sending me into coughing spasms and making the whole hall smell like ass, and the humor of the other one which is just sometimes misplaced, such as the concept of flashing other people on the hall, something not enjoyed by everyone participating. They seemed to seriously take to heart the fact that they've been at an unacceptable maturity level lately and now that someone is finally having to take some of the heat for it they're going to "mend their ways" so that it doesn't happen to them. They assured me it wasn't all talk, and I sincerely hope that it isn't. We came to an understanding that I personally have no problem with the ways they choose to have their fun as freshmen, but when it begins to affect me or others personally negatively, and they receive a complaint, they should make the correct judgement.

The remaining issue is the seemingly twelve year old boy who was on the tail end of the punch last night, who appears to have no intention of changing his ways at all. Last night is far from being the only issue, previously there have been situations where up to six people would be studying in the lounge (adjacent) and helping each other out to study for a midterm and he's shown a total disrespect for all of them buy yelling and carrying on right outside the door, or playing his music at an obscene volume, even after REPEATED attempts by both everyone in the room and the R/A to lower the noise. He is the only one on the hall who feels the need to pump his speakers up to a volume where everyone can hear it clearly, and isn't concerned with it when people ask him to shut it off, regardless of how politely. He's been written up on multiple occasions due to his stupidity, such as smoking weed by himself in his room with the door open, and getting caught after the smell has wafted over the entire hall. Even today, he continued to talk trash, referring to how "girly" my punch was, and telling friends how many "gangsters" he knew up in King City where he dug ditches all summer (yeah, I know, that explains a lot) who are willing to drive hundreds of miles to "do his dirty work." I find it humorous. The one time he could have actually fought back and used his "mad guns" to "beat the shit out of me" and claimed self defense, his solution was to cry. The phrase "all talk" is most appropriately used here. He just recently started smoking cigarettes again, so if nothing else, that will do him in eventually. He goes out of his way to cause problems in other people's lives, I guess I should just say what goes around comes around. (edit: That's not a threat, don't read it as such, I wouldn't waste my time. I'm done with the situation with him, he'll get what's coming to him regardless of whether I'm involved.)

Luckily it would appear that the situation with everyone else has resolved itself to the point that they're more concerned with him than with anyone else, and a general understanding has been reached among those of us intelligent enough to hold a coherent conversation. So basically, everyone on the hall is now going to thoroughly enjoy the next time he gets caught, and gets to deal with the same situation I'm going through, except to a fuller extent, because it will be his 3rd writeup, grounds for removal from the dorms. The amount of slack he's been cut will be eliminated completely, and he'll have to be very careful if he does want to finish out the year here. I won't be sorry to see him go, and I'm not the only one.

So, resolution, major strides have been taken today to improve the situation on the hall by its various members, our R/A has pledged to deal with future occurances appropriately before it reaches this extent, and one little boy cowers in his room waiting for the walls to close in on him.

In other news, the nickname "Muhammad" has been coined in reference to me, I found that to be quite clever.

Not Your Typical Run Of The Mill Sunday Night.

Everything was normal until oh say, 1am last night. That was when I decided to use the restroom, heading halfway down the hall to where they're located on this floor. While I'm in there, I hear the door open and soon after I see a camera appear above the top of my stall and the flash goes off. Immediately I hear two people crack up and go running out of there. At first I was relatively cool about the situation, acknowledging that freshmen will be freshmen, and this is the kind of crap that they'll pull.

Unfortunately I was not in the best of moods last night, and that's not how it went over. Especially lately, there have been a string of issues regarding disrespect involving some of the people on my hall. I've had to remove everything off my door, because anything I put up such as a sign to show people where I am when I'm out, or various posters, are either lit aflame, or just defaced/damaged or ripped off. I figured with nothing on my door there was no way I'd run into an issue with the people again, until this happened. My R/A this year is only a sophomore, and when it comes to responding to complaints he basically doesn't do much of anything. So tonight I go into his room immediately following the incident and explain what happened, and he proceeds to tell me that he's heard of it happening to other people, and there have been no complaints, and there's not much he can do about it. Frustrated and pissed off, I then run into one of the ringleaders generally leading the charge in causing problems, recently he's been seen both with a keg in his room doling it out to anyone wanting to get trashed, or smoking in the actual hallway, making the whole place smell like shit. He proceeds to claim he had nothing to do with it, but names two people who he thinks did. Further down the hall the door of one of the two's room opens, and out leans one of the aforementioned people. Quite pissed off, I asked him if he had anything to do with it, and he immediately starts laughing and giggling before I even mention what the incident was and saying that "he heard."

So I clocked him. Those of you who know me are aware that its been a VERY long time since I've dealt with things in a physical manner. Generally I go by the "ignore and it'll pass" or "what goes around comes around" rule, but that just didn't happen this time. Its the same time every year that the freshmen decide to come up with new ways to generally disrespect people, and find new ways to show their immaturity at the expense of others. The R/A generally is powerless to stop them, and gives me the usual "freshmen will be freshmen" defense. Unfortunately each year at about this time I've had to make a point that I'm not amused by any of it, and that if they feel like fucking with someone, it had better be with someone else. So this year I made the mistake of resorting to physical retaliation.

Don't get me wrong, its not like I hammered on some innocent schoolgirl, this guy was a high school wrestler, wears nothing but wife beaters to show off his "mad guns" and is supposedly one of the "toughest" guys on the hall. I've had to deal with him having many a "friendly" wrestling match in the middle of the hall, as he and his buddies slam each other around "all in good fun." Apparently though, one hand can cause half his face to swell up. I'm not even a lefty, and I was holding my bathkit with my right at the time. Personally, I think he went in and hit himself again eight times harder afterward to cause a greater effect before he immediately went to the R/A to complain. So of course, the one time I'm on the other side of the issue, all of a sudden the powers at be know exactly how to deal with the situation.

Unbelievably, within a half hour I'm downstairs with the ARD and two police officers, explaining my side of the story as the stupid boy decides whether or not he wants to press charges or not. Apparently two people beating each other up in the hall is fine, body slamming is fine, smoking in the hall, kegs in the room, these are all examples of upstanding young citizens, but someone getting what was coming to them is grounds for immediate reprimand.

So anyway, law enforcement resources were wasted for about an hour as I calmly described the recent events, and basically eventually made it quite clear to the officers that not only had their time been wasted, but the little boy who can't form a coherent sentence whether intoxicated or not is someone they should keep an eye on. I made no attempt to deny that I gave him what he deserved though, so apparently I get to have a meeting with the RD and possibly go before the student judiciary committee or something or other to decide if "further action" needs to be taken.

I'm not worried, this isn't something I can't handle. Three years in the dorms with a perfect record will stand up a lot better than someone who's been written up twice for marijuana and various other delinquent activities. Just not something I needed to deal with, and gladly, it appears I won't ever have to deal with it again for the remainder of the year. Everyone's been giving me a wide berth this morning, it appears the word is out.

Comments? Other than hitting people is bad, I don't feel there's much for other people to say. The world is not a perfect place, pretending like you're going to be able to get through life without ever defending yourself is a pathetic fantasy.

Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away...

Wow, absolutely beautiful day. You could see the islands more clearly than any day in recent memory, and the mountains seemed much more prominent than usual. Managed to get out to enjoy the scenery today and had no regrets.

There's something in the wind, a whole lot of my friends are telling me stories about recent breakups and how they're dealing with them, its really weird hearing various stages of the same overall scenario from different people, as the process goes through initial bitterness/denial, anger/revenge, jealousy, and eventually acceptance and acknowledgement of the actuality of the present situation (that being the fact that he/she is not coming back). I don't get too excited though, just when the singles pool seems to be getting larger they all seem to pair off again. :/

Hm, LCDs are getting cheaper, but still not cheap enough. The VP230MB is down to a whoppingly cheap $3400. Heh. Spare change anyone?