The Chief Rabbit
(29 October - 7 November 2000)
7 November 2000
-Today, we get to find out (officially) that we have a new Fascist President.
Wahoo. For fun's sake, check out how close my prediction
of 2 months ago was to being right about the electoral college... we shall
see how it holds up tonight.
-From a few days ago, Brandzy has dubbed me "the boy who cried sheep".
He's actually using that slogan far too much nowadays.
-I'm writing cases like they're goin' outta style...
-So, it would seem that my new official job at the Library is finder-of-missing-books.
Just because I found 6 last night, they think I'm some sort of highly
skilled person in this regard. Frankly, I think I got lucky. But
I keep finding 'em, so I'll take it - it's a more fun job than going book by
book to make sure they're in order!
-Democracy is so antiquated.
6 November 2000
-Johnny needs initiative. Other than that, he's so good to go,
it ain't funny.
-My Dad cracks me up. He's got a whole treatise... "Thank You for
Not Voting".
-Man, if only I were as un-lonely as Brandzy appears to be. If only Brandzy
had had some of the urgency-inspiring experiences as I appear to have had. If
Brandzy & I combined, we could be hot stuff...
-So much of life is spent in this state... content, lonely, stable, focused.
Hopeful. Alive, but unfortuantely not lively.
-Be afraid, be very afraid: I just was bored & done with my usual
internet run (hunger site, fantasy basketball, links listed above, etc.), so
I typed in something utterly random. Not only did this lead me to an ACTUAL
website, but the website has been owned & operated under the name I typed
in. It's not just a domain name waiting to be snapped up, it's been a-snapped.
Click here to see the source
of fear.
-Beantown's 2-dimensional today. I mean, it LOOKS that way. It probably
ALWAYS is that way. You know what I mean.
-Hirsch's class was silly today! Simply silly!! Ay, I can barely
handle it...
-That'd Be Us. See?
5 November 2000
-Well, it was Parent's Weekend after all. If we can't have the
parents come, Ariela makes a decent substitute in many ways, I s'pose.
-I guess that resolves that.
-My window, between the clouds, the gentle sheets of rain, the fall colored
trees, & the colonial buildings of Waltham, looks alarmingly like a stereotypical
New England catalog cover. Good Lord, I'm living in a painting.
-That kid worries me a lot. But I think that's part of the idea.
-The nature of peoples' communication is so integrally revealing as to the nature
of everything else about them. I'm almost tempted to adopt an East Asian
linguistic approach & declare that people are not stable entities, but facets
of their actions... basically, to say that individuals are not nouns, but verbs.
I find it very compelling when multifarious forms of communication are
the verb(s) in question.
4 November 2000
-5-0, 273. That'd be us.
-Screw this whole winning & losing business. It's just not that important.
& it's not really going to work out, or at least often won't. Fletch
was so surprised by my level of fatalism about it all, but I think he just missed
the point that if I expect the worst & become comfortable with it, it makes
everything more filled by perspective.
-If he doesn't watch out, Brandzy's about to find himself floating in the waters
off Salem as far as this debate team is concerned. Comprende?
-I'm tired of contention. I'm ready for some support.
3 November 2000
-Barring something really weird, this will be the weekend where Zirkin
surpasses Steve as my all-time most debated-with partner. Steve &
I shared 42 rounds, whereas Zirk & I are currently at 39. We'd better
have more than 5 rounds this weekend, which will lead to said result. That's
kinda bittersweet, all told.
-So much weirdness. That's all.
2 November 2000
-I love Wednesday nights & Thursday mornings. Free time!
-Now THAT is funny. She's really trying hard to get me to fall without
even knowing it. I love it when people are clever & gutsy at the same
time.
-Okay, so I've expanded the historical posterity quest a bit. In the Archive
section (linked above), you can now see the 30 Waltham Weeklies I wrote over
the course of the first couple years of college. Most of you have already
seen 'em, but since they were the natural predecessor of this Intro' venture,
I figured I'd display them in the same Archive as a chronicle of my 'Deisian
existence. Just for reference's sake. Since I might not be taking
any more history classes at this school, I have to do some research, right?
-We're all a little schizo.
1 November 2000
-Holy crud. It's November. Remember looking ahead to the
Year 2000 like it was some monstrous beast of incomprehensible future? It's
like that commercial where the man stands looking around the modern world &
demands flying cars. "I was promised flying cars!" he yells.
I think I have that yell deep within me; maybe it's innate in all of us.
& now I'm in November of the year where promised flying cars are absent
& the Internet is a poor excuse for rampant change & breathtaking levels
of hope against a backdrop of a world that might just deserve giving up on.
Something's gotta give. I refuse to believe that this just goes
on. It certainly has yet to progress... look to my almost completed History/Philosophy
degree for evidence of that. But really, change must be in the works.
Otherwise, the works will be upon all of us.
-I decided what my thesis will be yesterday. In the middle of class. Seems
like the only productive use for class these days is giving my mind its only
really ample time to wander, & I end up thinking up thesi & the like.
Anyway, it's going to be my treatise on the best society, its guidelines,
& the steps we can take between here & there. Sound ambitious?
Kant wrote the "Critique of Pure Reason" as part of a dissertation
project. That's ambition. I'm merely trying to follow in footsteps,
only not in Konigsberg.
31 October 2000
-Happy Halloween! I think this has still retained itself as my
favorite holiday somehow. I love the spookiness. Though when the
elevator stopped halfway between Farber 3 & Farber 4 at midnight, I wasn't
so down with said spookiness. I was, well, spooked. But otherwise,
I love the last day of October every year.
-So, guess what? I could really honestly graduate with my double-major
after this year. I figured out exactly what I need to do it. In
fact, I'm taking all the classes to do it next term even though I'm not going
to go through with actually graduating. Yes, it's almost entirely debate
that's logging me in for the extra year of undergrad, but there's also wanting
to write a thesis & the possibility of a 3rd major! Who said I was
satisfied with just a History/Philosophy degree??!
-What's between me & this alleged graduation? Doggone requirements.
To this end, you'll never believe what classes I'm taking next term. No,
you really won't. Try out this one... Physics 9b (Introduction to Physics).
Or how do you like Math 23a (Introduction to Proofs)? Next, we see
Theater 1b (History of Theater). & finally PE 38a (Indoor Soccer).
I'm not kidding! This is 2/3rds of my courseload next semester.
I've become a combination of all my friends!
-When I put my mind to things, they just get done. I like having important
tasks to do all at once, like doing the first laundry & room-cleaning in
over a month. The room desperately needed it, my clothes even more desperately
needed it, but now I get to relax after hours of straightforward organized work.
This coming after a 4-hour shift in the 'brary. I need to be disciplined
more often.
-So, yes, we're all dying all the time. From the day we're born. Especially
our bodies. But if we get saved in some way or another by someone or another,
well, maybe the former dying process slows. Or halts. It's when
we get saved & then the bottom of the salvation drops out that we really
get slammed. I'm not saying anything new & I haven't been for years.
But each passing day gives me an inkling more insight to the effect it's
all having on me. Like an incubating disease. Or, not surprisingly,
a "Timebomb". Eventually, though, someone's really gotta defuse
it. Or try. Otherwise, I'll feel awfully scattered. Like I
do today.
-Frickin' Brandzy... grrr...
30 October 2000
-Go see "Pay it Forward"! It's not perfect, but it's
up there, close to "Magnolia" for best movie of recent times, say,
the past 4 or 5 years.
-Y'know, I just try to have dinner & a movie by myself, & everyone gets
all uppity about where I went. Sheesh. Well, "everyone"
herein means 2 people. But still. These days, it feels like everyone
'round here.
-Maybe I just end up alone. Maybe that's the way it goes.
-Today has the motivational verve of month-old jello.
29 October 2000
-Daylight Savings switch! Jake's favorite day is upon us!
-So, with this voice loss, I don't recommend that anyone call me for a few days.
In fact, I may be forced to not answer my phone in the first half of the
week. As long as this doesn't lead to further sickness, I might be okay
with it. Keep your fingers crossed...
-Last night there was snow in my dreams. Upon waking, there was snow in
the air.
-My window is the perfect place to watch everything. Especially falling
snow. But I wish I weren't mute.
Introspection, My Worst Friend* (Current)
Ye Olde Archive (Past)
Tell me this is not the end...*
*-lyrics from an as-yet unreleased song, "The Same Old Frontiers",
by SWClayton.