I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T
A-L-E-X-B-E-R-R-I-A-N
Two different words.
It is just about the time I came to Paris for; I expected it much earlier, which is why I've been so thrown off and nervous here, yet it didn't come. Finally I have the chance to make friends with French people. Well, hopefully! I called the treasurer of the team again 20 minutes ago, read, 2:08 PM, to remind him about me going, and I think I woke him up. Fuck! He seems to be a nice person, though, and he told me to call back in half an hour. 5 minutes left? Wow, I'm so nervous. Well, I hope that's not another bad start!
I'm running out of starting time to make. I've been extending the countdown from the start of the race for awhile, and I haven't allowed the gun to fire. When it does fire I fear it might shoot faster than 330 m/s ± .6ºC at STP. That wouldn't be good.
Seriously, I've done nothing here. I've worked to understand things without doing school work. That doesn't work. Needs more (line) integrity. Over dS.
I'm about to go to a French library and do work. My friends are mostly not around this weekend, so I am again alone. Alone in a time of testing.
This is difficult. -2 minutes left. And not the phone call. Just being here is.
I'll be back for the summer...
金曜日, 3月 20, 2009
Where I'm @ → now
I guess I'll give you an update on what's happened to me since Saturday.
Since then I've been pretty damn jovial. I've run in the forest park known as the Bois-de-Boulogne 4 days out of 5, and since they've got all these neat wooden exercise structures all over the place, I've been able to work my upper body too. Speaking of, I know I have no upper body whatsoever. Lifting weights would be a good start; that, however, would require signing up for a gym, and since I have no experience thereof I don't think that would be a good idea.
I climbed (obviously part of the way up) the tower of the Bastille the other day and that was pretty cool, but my upper body strength was all gone by then and it didn't help that I was carrying my bookbag, so I needed this French guy's help to get me up to the first platform. And man that was hard. I had no pull left in the muscles up near my shoulders because I had used it all earlier that day and this week. The guy who pulled me up was young, probably my age, as were all the other kids up there, boys, girls, all high school or college age. Really cool. This climb was possible due to the strike, another one of those general Paris strikes that I don't comprehend at all. Why can't they just write letters to their representatives en masse? Well, I guess they could also lobby like normal people, but I hate lobbyists and don't think they're essential to the government at all, especially not ours, not at the federal level where all that shit's supposed to be irrelevant via Amendments 9 and 10. Whatever.
I am way behind in my work. I am way behind in finding what to do for the summer, too. Great.
You know what's interesting with the title: if you look at it from the mathematician's point of view, you'd see a function that requires everything to start from a set of where I'm at, and then create something in the field of "now." I wonder if I can draw any symbolic meaning from that. I don't really feel like it, but okay. I don't think the function is bijective--- specifically it's not surjective (onto).
Munch on that.
Since then I've been pretty damn jovial. I've run in the forest park known as the Bois-de-Boulogne 4 days out of 5, and since they've got all these neat wooden exercise structures all over the place, I've been able to work my upper body too. Speaking of, I know I have no upper body whatsoever. Lifting weights would be a good start; that, however, would require signing up for a gym, and since I have no experience thereof I don't think that would be a good idea.
I climbed (obviously part of the way up) the tower of the Bastille the other day and that was pretty cool, but my upper body strength was all gone by then and it didn't help that I was carrying my bookbag, so I needed this French guy's help to get me up to the first platform. And man that was hard. I had no pull left in the muscles up near my shoulders because I had used it all earlier that day and this week. The guy who pulled me up was young, probably my age, as were all the other kids up there, boys, girls, all high school or college age. Really cool. This climb was possible due to the strike, another one of those general Paris strikes that I don't comprehend at all. Why can't they just write letters to their representatives en masse? Well, I guess they could also lobby like normal people, but I hate lobbyists and don't think they're essential to the government at all, especially not ours, not at the federal level where all that shit's supposed to be irrelevant via Amendments 9 and 10. Whatever.
I am way behind in my work. I am way behind in finding what to do for the summer, too. Great.
You know what's interesting with the title: if you look at it from the mathematician's point of view, you'd see a function that requires everything to start from a set of where I'm at, and then create something in the field of "now." I wonder if I can draw any symbolic meaning from that. I don't really feel like it, but okay. I don't think the function is bijective--- specifically it's not surjective (onto).
Munch on that.
日曜日, 3月 15, 2009
土曜日, 3月 14, 2009
Sigh. Every day I
Sigh. Every day I walk through the streets of this city and I find no evidence that anyone has ever loved anyone else. I see people cold, faces bold and defiant, of what? I see art and I don't see what other people see in it. I see museums, treasure troves of the richness of days past, an old, free currency that they give to me and that I can't spend. Nobody's telling me any stories that have any point to me. No love behind them; histories of conquering, histories of Napoleon, always Napoleon, histories of socialism and radicalism. People homeless, begging because the government won't let them get any other job. I won't go on about how the French government spends half its country's GDP. That's irrelevant right now.
I see groups of French people. They kiss each other, left cheek, right cheek when they see each other. No hugging-- that's considered too intimate. What? All I want is to be hugged. Fuck kisses. They talk amongst each other. When I go to Dauphine I talk to myself in my head beside them. This is torture. Thinking about this is torture. I want to throw up.
Two months of reluctance, and nothing of it. I am tired of looking sad so I don't want to look like an idiot any further. Sad idiots are always the ugliest. And yet that's what I have to be... ugly. Well, it's gotten ugly. I guess I'll have to remain that until I can blossom again.
Spring is coming; no evidence so far. Paris is a bunch of buildings all the same height; they won't let them grow any taller but they're tall as it is, what's the point? All the buildings look the same. Then some older building that I'm supposed to call a classic. No nature.
When French people see nature they want to conquer it. French gardens are all about man's power over nature. Obviously it's not over man's creative power over nature because the gardens are the most unnatural, ugly, boring pieces of shit I've ever seen. I'm sorry. I'm not happy. But when you remove nature from the whole mess, what is left? A bunch of concrete. It might as well be a modern city because there's no evidence, no tick, of humanity in it.
Old classics, old museums have nothing for me. My heart is not there. Sucking it into the dark recesses of the past-- imagine how many people had to suffer while the government pumped money into these things -- cannot make me feel any better. Everything here is tired. I need to get out.
And so I will. Far, far away. Far, from this old room with no sunlight permitted to enter whatsoever, far from this chamber that, if you think about it, I am enslaving me and my sadness in, hiding me and my horrible state from the public, from my family, from my homestay family and fellow students who live here with me. I'm too embarrassed to tell them the full story about how I've fucked up in Paris. Too embarrassed.
And I'm not happy here. Nature buried under immense stacks of building material and fake, inadequate love. And my nature is stuck under Paris's foundation too. Fuck this place.
I guess now I have to beg for salvation. No.
I'm going for a run. If not outside, in my mind.
But...
I see groups of French people. They kiss each other, left cheek, right cheek when they see each other. No hugging-- that's considered too intimate. What? All I want is to be hugged. Fuck kisses. They talk amongst each other. When I go to Dauphine I talk to myself in my head beside them. This is torture. Thinking about this is torture. I want to throw up.
Two months of reluctance, and nothing of it. I am tired of looking sad so I don't want to look like an idiot any further. Sad idiots are always the ugliest. And yet that's what I have to be... ugly. Well, it's gotten ugly. I guess I'll have to remain that until I can blossom again.
Spring is coming; no evidence so far. Paris is a bunch of buildings all the same height; they won't let them grow any taller but they're tall as it is, what's the point? All the buildings look the same. Then some older building that I'm supposed to call a classic. No nature.
When French people see nature they want to conquer it. French gardens are all about man's power over nature. Obviously it's not over man's creative power over nature because the gardens are the most unnatural, ugly, boring pieces of shit I've ever seen. I'm sorry. I'm not happy. But when you remove nature from the whole mess, what is left? A bunch of concrete. It might as well be a modern city because there's no evidence, no tick, of humanity in it.
Old classics, old museums have nothing for me. My heart is not there. Sucking it into the dark recesses of the past-- imagine how many people had to suffer while the government pumped money into these things -- cannot make me feel any better. Everything here is tired. I need to get out.
And so I will. Far, far away. Far, from this old room with no sunlight permitted to enter whatsoever, far from this chamber that, if you think about it, I am enslaving me and my sadness in, hiding me and my horrible state from the public, from my family, from my homestay family and fellow students who live here with me. I'm too embarrassed to tell them the full story about how I've fucked up in Paris. Too embarrassed.
And I'm not happy here. Nature buried under immense stacks of building material and fake, inadequate love. And my nature is stuck under Paris's foundation too. Fuck this place.
I guess now I have to beg for salvation. No.
I'm going for a run. If not outside, in my mind.
But...
I almost got what I so badly wanted when I was happy. This was a week after I got here. Now I still want it and I'm not happy. Just one little thing can get me so depressed. I don't want to have a romance to rescue me from unhappiness. Because I know I'll never get such a thing. I just know it. I can't believe otherwise.
And it hurts. It hurts so bad.
And it hurts. It hurts so bad.
水曜日, 3月 11, 2009
アイディア
There's nothing more fucking annoying than the sound of the train passing by underground when you're trying to get to sleep or when you're trying to relax. Right now I'm trying to do the latter after failing the former.
Slept for two hours tonight, 12-2. Felt like I was awake the whole time. Could not get back to sleep afterward. Actually feel like sleeping now but have no faith that my body would cooperate with the obvious best idea.
I hate this, this state that I'm in. Yes, I'm pretty sure it has to do with the country that I'm in, too. Why did I come here? Did I really think I would fit in? I fit in like a sore thumb. There's no problem for me with sticking out like a thumb but if you're gonna be sore it's not worth the trouble, thanks. No, seriously; I like sticking out, but this is too much, just too much.
I played piano today, or keyboard rather. A good keyboard but still a Yamaha thing. My host father has it in my host mom's room, and I just never got around to asking him to play on it, finally forced myself to do so today. Sang and played a little. Saw a piano performance the day before, wasn't completely pleased but it at least got better and gave me something to constructively think about. The Yamaha he played on and/or the acoustics was/were totally inadequate. I felt like I could've played better. Probably could've two years ago when my technique was still there. I still could've done the easier Chopin pieces better; he had no touch for lyricism, at least not at the beginning of the performance.
Ugh, too tired to blog no more. I can at least go back to sleep, not back to bed (I'm in that)... this new BEP song is helping me relax. They're so good, the Black Eyed Peas.
Slept for two hours tonight, 12-2. Felt like I was awake the whole time. Could not get back to sleep afterward. Actually feel like sleeping now but have no faith that my body would cooperate with the obvious best idea.
I hate this, this state that I'm in. Yes, I'm pretty sure it has to do with the country that I'm in, too. Why did I come here? Did I really think I would fit in? I fit in like a sore thumb. There's no problem for me with sticking out like a thumb but if you're gonna be sore it's not worth the trouble, thanks. No, seriously; I like sticking out, but this is too much, just too much.
I played piano today, or keyboard rather. A good keyboard but still a Yamaha thing. My host father has it in my host mom's room, and I just never got around to asking him to play on it, finally forced myself to do so today. Sang and played a little. Saw a piano performance the day before, wasn't completely pleased but it at least got better and gave me something to constructively think about. The Yamaha he played on and/or the acoustics was/were totally inadequate. I felt like I could've played better. Probably could've two years ago when my technique was still there. I still could've done the easier Chopin pieces better; he had no touch for lyricism, at least not at the beginning of the performance.
Ugh, too tired to blog no more. I can at least go back to sleep, not back to bed (I'm in that)... this new BEP song is helping me relax. They're so good, the Black Eyed Peas.
火曜日, 3月 10, 2009
La noche es after mí / Magnets
Long story short, I had about 3 hours of exercise in Japan per day if you add up all the biking and the frisbee. You might say biking and frisbee ain't shit, but frisbee for 1.5 hours is pretty considerable and biking involved a 1-gear bike and hills all over the place, and, naturally, being who I am, biking hard and fast, always. That's what I wish shopping in the US were like-- go out, buy only what you can fit in your bike basket and bookbag, go back home, and have spent very little money but very many calories. I apparently came home from frisbee I mean Japan looking much healthier than before, at least according to my aunt. I'm afraid I'm going to come back home from France looking rather gaunt like I always do after Tufts semesters. That's no good. Fuck.
Well, absent the (perfect amount of) exercise I have been staying up to horribly late hours and not gotten much out of Paris. I tried to go to bed at midnight four hours ago but that didn't work. Zzz. I'm tired now but who knows whether I'll be able to fall asleep?
You know, there's something about magnets. Their attraction depends on their distance, no matter what you put between them, as long as that thing doesn't exert too much magnetic force itself. You can put a terribly dense brick between two powerful magnets and they'll stick to the brick.
I might need some distance.
Well, absent the (perfect amount of) exercise I have been staying up to horribly late hours and not gotten much out of Paris. I tried to go to bed at midnight four hours ago but that didn't work. Zzz. I'm tired now but who knows whether I'll be able to fall asleep?
You know, there's something about magnets. Their attraction depends on their distance, no matter what you put between them, as long as that thing doesn't exert too much magnetic force itself. You can put a terribly dense brick between two powerful magnets and they'll stick to the brick.
I might need some distance.
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