It's Funny to Look Back

You know you changed when you read something you wrote a very long time ago and go, "What the f---?"

I've been on a cleaning spree in my house recently. I love my room now. Everything has this zen-like appeal to it. I spent hours, days even, throwing away old things and shifting things into their proper order. It was like defragmenting my hard drive. After so many years, junk piled up and needed to be filtered.

A lot of people hate being home for so long. They say there's nothing to do. I beg to differ. I love being home as much as I love being in my dorm. I like to think of my home as my secret base, while college is going "back on the field."

I had my hair cut a while ago. My barber said something funny to me. We chatted like always and he grunted, "You know, you're like me. You're an old man."
I laughed. Indeed I was. I've been going to the same barber for years and never once did I stray from the usual treatment. He brought it up. I shrugged and said, "I don't really care." He mentioned how people my age were always so worked up about how they looked and self-conscious. I just wanted to get it over with. That's good enough. Whatever. It's ironic that he too is like that because he's the stylist.

In reference to my first statement, I found that I've done away with a lot of things. I tend to have little to no opinion on things. And yet I can still get fiery when I need to. There's an issue surrounding one circle of my friends. Everyone is making fun of this one couple, and friendships have even broken because of it. Poor girl has almost nobody now except her boyfriend. It's not like he's a douche or anything. The guy is perfectly alright. It's just that no one likes him. What the hell, guys? Whenever someone brings it up I have the tendency to mumble it away or grunt, "Oh shut up." Seriously. I don't care if you're lesbian or gay or if you're going out with a prostitute. Whoever you sleep with or go out with is none of my business. As long as nobody is hurting anybody. And for God's sake, put some protection. As an aspiring virologist, I'm touchy about that.

In a sense though, I feel as though I've always been like this since birth. It was just expressed differently. Adolescence is such an awkward phase after all. It's like a Cold War, paranoid about what others are thinking and therefore doing or thinking something else. At some point, I don't know when, I said, "Fuck it." But the old, angry little man was always inside me telling me, "Go on, just screw it!"

I want to make a list next entry about books I think you should read before you die. Of course, there might be more that should be on the list but clearly I haven't read them yet. Like Catch-22 for instance. I know. I'm terrible. I need to get on that. I'm finishing up the last of the Bond books. Then I need to get back to the Scarlet Pimpernel. Then I also realized Hammet's Thin Man has been on my library untouched for ages.

Bond, James Bond.

I've been on a Bond binge recently because my roommate re-inspired me to read the novels. I read them when I was younger, in high school. They were good books to grow up with. I stopped at "The Spy Who Loved Me." I tend to read things chronologically. It's the little bit of OCD in me.

I'm currently listening to one of the soundtracks, The Living Daylights. I actually really liked that movie, and it's one of my top Bond films. My list is something like From Russia With Love, Goldeneye, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and The Living Daylights.

My 21st birthday is coming this Saturday. I honestly just want to go to a casino and play blackjack while sipping a Cosmo or something like that.


So to date, I have 20 short stories and 14 novels on my list. Less than a quarter of that is actually written. Well, now, there's no time to waste, is there?

It's weird juggling this science and writing parts of me. I go to school and I don my lab coat. Then when I'm off on weekend or a break, I put on my writer's cap.

I'm thinking of doing a segment for my youtube channel called "Book of the Week." I'm trying to really update my channel. A lot of people like the music videos I have and I keep getting comments. But I want to post other things. I'm also doing it for YWO, the writing forum I've been in since I was in high school.

But anyway, back to the writing bit. I've always felt the need to work quickly. I get the paranoid feeling that my ideas will be obsolete or cliche once I actually publish them and get it out. I saw the Adjustment Bureau yesterday (It's based on a Philip K. Dick story) and I cringed when part of the plot was revealed. Apparently the Adjustment Bureau controls the world to bring humanity to glory. They stopped it at the peak of Roman civilization to see what would happen and instead the Dark Ages came. So they interfered again and the Renaissance and the Enlightenment happened. My major fantasy series, The Lost Legacy is the reverse of that. There's a conspiracy involving a race of beings that have tried to put down humanity and influenced them into the Dark Ages.

But I'm starting with my short stories first. I'm close to finishing the first collection of them. People like the stories. Just need some editing here and there. It's not so much that I have writer's block. I hardly do. It's the overwhelming amount of ideas I get and how I become sidetracked. I write one fantasy story but then I think, "That story about the busboy at the club who unknowingly serves the mafia sounds like it could be amazing." So I go to that and write the first page when I slap myself in the face and go, "FOCUS, FOCUS. Back to the fantasy story first! Then you can do this!"

There's no such thing as gloomy weather. . .

. . .only gloomy people.

That's one rule I love to live by. We've got to learn to stop personifying things and instead treat them without judgment.

I haven't posted in a while. I'm starting to lag on that. But I'm here now waiting for my next class and I've got nothing better to do for the moment.

I apparently got nominated for some "Junior Class Recognition Award." To which I thought, "Uh. . .ok. . . cool?"

I never thought the things I do in school amounted to anything, but apparently they did. Someone somewhere here appreciates me.

I've done/do other things besides my radio show, but I really don't feel like rambling about them.

Spring break is coming up. It's only a week. I finally got a week to breathe. The start of this semester has been weird with all the snow. I got pumped up for the semester after winter break, but then the snow was like, "LOLLLLNOWAYKTHNXBAI"

I've assigned almost each day in spring break to do something. Each day I'm going to focus on a particular short story and finish it on that day. I've been on a roll with my writing but I want to separate it from my real work, which is my aspiration to be a biologist.

So if it's raining around where you are, don't get sad - go around and jump! Run!

And now for something completely different!

I contacted an old friend of mine and it seems like I'm finally getting this video game movie I've been planning for ages rolling. The story has been in limbo forever and I could never find the right folks to help me out.

It all started with a very old game people still play called Jedi Academy. I was fascinated not with the game itself but all the modifications you can download. That led to endless possibilities for stories. Then I found a program called FRAPs. It's a program people use to record their gameplay.

There are two drawbacks to FRAPS.

1. It records at 30 second intervals. That's tedious to work with.
2. The resulting video file takes up HUGE AMOUNTS OF SPACE.

And, although it depends on your computer, it also freezes.

I used FRAPS to record scenes from DVDs. I used to have a series on my youtube channel called "Secrets of the Scenes." It's a series where I talk about movies and critique them and point out, well, secrets. It was going fine with the first movie I had in mind - Raiders of the Lost Ark. But FRAPS proved too messy to use and the series has been on hold ever since. Thus began my quest to find a free program to record scenes from a DVD.

Instead of doing all that "Blah blah of the week" stuff, I'm just going to post something random I found interesting or funny.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110113/sc_livescience/34000yearoldorganismsfoundburiedalive

In the land of giants. . .

there's hardly any room for more pioneers.


This is probably the first time I've written two blogs in one day. Technically the earlier one was late at night. Whatever.

I feel pretty dumb since I tried to make a society at my university where we'd critique all work of all media. But then someone told me they have that already. So I was like, "Oh." I had written a note on Facebook and tagged a bunch of people. Then I just deleted it altogether. I hope not too many people saw it and now were like "Wtf, where is it?"

Ah,it breaks the heart when an idea is already taken. But never fear! There's always something else to do. Like in an earlier blog, I sometimes wish we were coming out of the Dark Ages and I was but one of the many scientists discovering new things in the world. It feels like there's hardly anything left to discover. All the lands have had their flags planted in them. A part of me hoped that we'd develop space travel better than what we have now. If we ever do, and I'm still physically able, I'd want to go out there somewhere and be one of the first to discover something.

At least there's my radio show. I'm content with that.

Wow. . .

I haven't posted in a while now. Been slacking. Well, ironically because I haven't in everything else.

So happy new year, merry Christmas, all that jazz.

What's on my mind? Disney's on my mind at the moment. I've been writing a lot of stories lately and handing them out like an assembly line to my friends. It made me think about fairy tales, thus it made me think about Disney. There are some stories I really wish I created. Like Aladdin. If they ever make a time machine I'd be really tempted to go back and stop whoever wrote them so I can have the fame for myself. Mwahahahahaha! I would have to go back to the medieval period in Persia or something to change that one. Also I really liked Beauty and the Beast. Yeah, I said it. And I'm a guy.

But I'm looking at this clearly from a critical viewpoint. I love stories about guys who are lowlifes and fall in love with a girl who's obviously higher than him. They truly tell what love is about. "Yeah, I'm fucked up. . .but. . .I'm trying this anyway. . ."

And the mythos these stories have created have become timeless and endearing. A street urchin who gets his hand on a magic lamp. A prince in a castle who gets turned into a monster. They've become so. . .legendary. Household names.

My favorite though has got to be 101 Dalmatians. It's so. . .classy. You know? Pongo, that ol' rascal. I love the very beginning when he's trying to find a good mate.

Is today like the worst day ever around the world or something?

So many people had shit go down. I didn't have that much personally, but I was still bummed out after meeting this professor.

One of my friends is still breaking down after a break-up with some douche. I've been trying to tell her how college doesn't have to be the best time of your life. That's the media talking. And that being happy doesn't mean having a man and a stable relationship.

Then another friend is dropping a class. That sucks.

Then this other girl I know is having relationship issues, so I steered her in the right direction.

Then an old buddy needed help with an essay because he's going into college next year. It's a big step and I know exactly how overwhelming it can be. And irritating.

It's just been a weird day. I'm only 20 and I've long been passing things on to people, giving them a reason to continue. I feel like I'm 80. But there's so much more to do.

I hate it though when I have to help people. I'm going to be honest. It's not that I hate DOING it though. I hate it mostly because of the things I say. I don't believe I'm a genuine person. So I hate it when people praise me. I try hard to keep my ego down. I don't acknowledge it. I wouldn't want people to praise nor criticize me.I mean, criticism is good but I'm not an extreme fan of it either.

But as I was saying. I sometimes am paranoid that I'm just a mash-up of things I've seen and admired. I'm just reiterating. I'm really nothing but a reciter. That's a philosophical argument I've always been obsessed with. Are we really who we are because of who we are? Or because of what's around us? But even if it's the latter, doesn't that mean that at some point down the line there were genuine people?

I try not to worry over words so much.

I'm so goddamn tired though right now. Lately, I've been really crunching time over things. I met the president of the school the other day. That was cool. I just wanted to get my name out to him, but mostly it was to address this activities club I'm in.


Anyway, I'm off for the night.