Doctor Check

It's about time I saw a general doctor, one that could solve all my problems. Because they're all tiny, but they're just kind of there. And I might as well get them fixed while I'm young, or for the less permanent ones I should get them fixed as soon as possible. Let's start at my feet. The feet are the foundation, of course.

Foot 1 (左足, the left): Well, so one day I was being rather Filipino and I was dancing, mimicking my grandmother a little, and guess what, I brought my foot hard down upon one of the chairs in my kitchen and boom. Now my second toe on my left foot leans to the left side, which actually might have resulted in me cracking the third toenail when I had to stop suddenly in Carrefour (lousy French supermarket, they're all lousy though) because the soles of my shoes are all torn up. My dad told me I might as well get it fixed while I'm still young.
Foot 2 (右足, the right): Well, this one's different. You know how everyone has a callus on the outer side of their big toe? Well, I have that, plus this weird small bump where part of the surface hurts very, very much if I touch it. I think it's a "corn" but I don't really know what that is. My doctor could tell me. Would that be acceptable nowadays in the world of complicated-ass medical care management? Like, just during an appointment for something else that wasn't a medical checkup, like the next time I get an ear infection if there is one? Could I just phone in and ask? I'd be better off asking Rakesh's dad, actually. Or my mom. I remember her rubbing lotion on her feet when I was a kid, she probably knows everything about them. Actually, when I put that corn remover thing on it to see if it worked, well, it might've, because since then it has apparently gotten less severe. Well, let me put another one on. Okay, there.

(I put the thing on after typing "Okay, there.")

Mouth: So I got a gum infection right before I left Japan. I freaked out because I had no idea what it was, maybe a tumor??? Apparently not, since ever since I got back to Paris and used mouthwash it receded. My mom told me to still go find a dentist because that could lead to a blood infection, like the one that killed my uncle. Uh... I still haven't made the appointment. But the bump totally isn't there anymore. Still, it's been replaced with an awkward patch of "help, I'm trying to recover from bacterial invasion"... Also, ever since I returned from Japan in December it's happened to me 3 or 4 times that my jaw just starts hurting really badly around my tooth or something. This obviously comes from stress, but it's still a big question mark that I never went to see the dentist about. I just waited 'til it went away and it did, given more sleep. But still...

Mind: Ah, this is the freewrite part.

Where on earth am I? the ever repeating question. Is what I'm saying sincere? the other ever repeating question. Especially after everything that's happened here, it's become very important. Listen. I think that we all have some sort of act. Making jokes in itself is an act, no matter how small the joke is. And via that act or by playing that role you inevitably break someone's rule about what's honest, or what your role is. Maybe I'm just trying to defend myself from... myself, or a future opponent. But I have been thinking about this on and off. Oh, man, what was the thing I came up with?

I watched my housemate refuse to answer his phone twice when my other housemate (who was drunk) called him. The latter has the tendency to be aggressive when he's drunk, and it is annoying. Then housemate one, when housemate two came upstairs to greet us at Starbucks all of a sudden (to ask if we wanted to go eat dinner), proceeded to outright lie very easily and pretend like he had his phone in his bag the whole time, when he had just put it there. Then he went as far as saying he was just about to take the phone out of the bag to see if he got a call from housemate two. I don't know how good I feel about that. It didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, but honestly that's not the kind of person I could pair myself up with for life. Because I see some of that in myself, and I don't like it.

There's nobody you can really trust to tell yourself if you're being honest except yourself. Check that, there's nobody you should really trust. Friends can help you out, but from then on you have to solve the problem, or they'll call you for plaigarism on the exam. Your own solution, please. I guess that's how I feel about my approach to the question and what I've learned about answering it.

Is what I'm saying even understandable about being honest or why there's a question about it or vague spots? I guess what I'm saying is that if you seek a doctor, he won't necessarily tell you the right answer, but you should still go. Just as people around you won't necessarily give you the right advice, but it helps to talk about it. But talk needs to be followed by an action.

Next time I'll be the one who takes the action first.

Longing. Shorting

I guess all I wanted was to be forgiven - for it to be acknowledged that I did something wrong and to be forgiven. It was never acknowledged that I did something wrong. Now it is, oh boy, and I won't be forgiven for awhile. Does that ever happen to you?

I'm waiting for my flight to Japan. I have a complicated enough situation to explain that I might not be permitted to enter, or re-enter, that is. My student visa wasn't crossed out - why not, guys? It's not valid anymore; I'm not enrolled at a Japanese university. So I'm gonna have to explain that, plus the fact that I want to return so soon for a vacation. Plus that I'm staying over my (non-Japanese) friend's house whose address I wrote down and then forgot to bring. Ugh, horrible. Actually, the irony of it is that I might have thrown the paper in the art history notes that I packed.

This, my current situation where um I'm apparently never seeing or communicating with someone again, is probably good for me in the long run. But in the 3-month run it might not be very good. I'm hoping it is, though. But honestly I hate it when shit like this happens. This is only the second time in my life it's happened really. Did he have to lose patience with me? I'm still angry about it. Told him I'm a different person when I'm tired, but he forgot... whatever, we'd only ever met up like 7 times. How can you understand or know a person after only having seen them 7 times? You can't.

That's why this feels like it ended so prematurely. I guess it's really over.

This is so fucking lame I can't believe I'm still thinking about it. No wonder I was so good academically senior year and so bad at college interviews despite the preforeseen, almost obligatory senior slide: I had to turn to something, and academics were there. Now they're not the only thing, I'm glad. The bad at college interviews part, though... I don't think that would be a problem nowadays. Luckily a lot of grad schools don't care for interviews. They care for essays, though...

But since I care about my future and I've had it with this bullshit, well, I'm angry, and I'm going to do something about it this time around.



This is kind of the way in which I was typing that night. Fuck Internet communication. Fuck any communication that isn't face-to-face. It just doesn't work if you aren't close enough people and nobody understands each other that way.

But that doesn't mean you can't be understanding and considerate. Unbelievable. He'd had enough of that, I guess. And now, me too.

It's done. And I will hopefully sleep this whole plane flight. If he could see how tired I was now... I would punch him in the face.

A house of plastic

I don't consider my house to be a house of plastic; I don't apply that metaphor to it. But I consider it the image of something that could be.

I saw a clear, plastic bag full of varied plastics that had been assembled by general entropic use and readied, tied up, for recycling. I imagined a scene where we had to bury the plastics ourselves in our own backyard, for whatever reason. Difficult to imagine. Then I imagined if we kept them in our own house to see the effect of our own recycling. I imagined a whole room, a whole hallway, a whole house of recyclables.

How many houses of that have we created, since I was born?

In a way, we are a world of throwing out. We spit, snot, sneeze each day (well, I wouldn't want to try going a whole day without doing any of the three) and use the toilet, and aside from the bodily wastes we get ideas out of the way, get stress out of the way by sleeping and think about chores, and so on. It goes on, of course, and of course it doesn't help that I've got so much to do right now, like emailing 5 people, no, 6, and seeing my advisor and all of that stuff. But it's time to throw in. Myself. Into this mess, instead of seeing it all go to waste.

I always had trouble understanding why in laser tag you get rewarded for bad offense way more than for good defense, when I was a kid at least. But of course it wouldn't be exciting otherwise.

And I've drifted away from the house of plastic, right? No, no matter what I do, I'm still going to be throwing out a bajillion things a day, so I might as well clear these things too, even if I don't manage to sink the shot into the garbage bin perfectly.

As I didn't on this freewrite, really. But somewhere you have to end things.

Which way?

I'm going to be unashamed about my excitedness for thinking about this, and in doing so get more excited about it.

I feel like lately I have had choices between two good things, the most obvious one recently being Japan and France, and have not found a good way to make the decision between the two. You can't have both. And yet I keep thinking about it. But it's like flipping a coin over and over, not being able to stop, trying to decide when things are decided, and ever approaching that 50% for both sides, making the decision look less and less... decisive.

Haha, I'm done with this freewrite. That's decided.

Soul stutter

My uncle in Oklahoma was found unconscious in his house last morning US time, so about 20 hours ago? He's currently in the critical care unit of a hospital out there. My mom's flying out there this morning. That's all she said and that's all I know at this point. I can only wait, here.

From that, I don't know where exactly to go. A song in my head right now is "Love Is the End" by Keane, off their new album, which I was so excited about a month ago when it came out without my initially knowing it. But right now, the question in my head is, "the end" of what? I haven't paid enough attention to the lyrics. The end of what? It's the end of the album, at least, but further than that, what?

Further than this, what?

There's frisbee. Again, there's frisbee. I went with a few friends to Osaka this weekend to play frisbee with people I assumed would be better than us. They weren't, but they did do a tournament last month, so we did go for and receive competitive play. I haven't really enjoyed that thrill for awhile. I wish I played in more games in high school, got over myself for a little while. There's still time in college...

haha, but I won't force myself on that. I wonder what opportunities for frisbee there are in France. If any. I wonder what I'll be doing if I go there...

It gets really cold here in Japan. Well, I shouldn't use the present tense there; how would I know? It's only been a few days. Not enough data. I think that's why I haven't been able to make decisions so easily. I still don't know whether I'm staying here. I'm going to have to make a decision soon because my mom wants to book plane tickets. I'm gonna start applying for the visa anyway so I might as well pick France now and save some time.

But I've learned so much...

...Japanese. At least. That's not limited against other things, like about myself, about other people, about peace, about unstable peaces. Like Ben Franklin said, though, was there ever a bad peace? But anyway, I think it might be time to go. I will email CUPA (Center for University Programs Abroad) and ask them whether they have succeeded in finding an introductory abstract algebra course for me. They probably haven't. That, too, will influence my decision. Would've helped if Greg and/or Justine were going there, too. Que vous êtes fous!

I noticed that sp¹ was updated yesterday, but I couldn't find where the update was. I guess it was the reversal to draft of the last post. Makes sense, though, to end the blog more visibly on the high note Ashish unknowningly ended it on. There are a lot more exclamation points on that blog than on this one. Maybe our souls need a little stuttering.

In the good way.

I'm back, for now. Time to go play frisbee. I'm hoping, praying that this won't go bad tomorrow, today, in that separate time space, whenever, or that it hasn't already gone bad. Please pray with me.

I'm bringin' mojo back

I'm listening to one of my favorite albums ever, and it's one of those great three albums that came out in the summer of 2006. Keane's Under the Iron Sea album. SO perfect- and the guy sung perfectly in concert too, everything was perfect, just, wow.

This is the kind of album that channels my creative energy and just puts it all out there. But, right now, it's coming slowly. Thanks to all this mathematical analysis, I pause too frequently to make sure everything's right. I haven't really been able to just put it out there--especially not today at work; today was completely wrong, just wrong--but I think it's getting time that my creative spirit revive for me. And it's doing that, I'm pretty sure.

There was this one day that was just kind of bad at work, a few weeks ago, and for some reason I just broke down. I'm not afraid to admit it. I died, felt horrible, went to sleep, woke up a creative zombie, and I felt everything come back. Piano, I got the lyricism back. DDR, I remembered what's good and what's bad. Frisbee, I knocked down like 5 passes. Math, I got a corollary. But forget math for now. I still don't see how math involves being creative. Being creative is pulling something out of a formless nothing. Doing math is always pulling back from something with a lot of form, too much form. I'm getting sick of it--just in time for a year of no math.

The one thing I don't like about this is that I look in the mirror and I can see these ugly bags in my eyes. What I've been looking for since the end of senior year was a way to be this creative and not have this horrendous feature on my face that seems to indicate I'm not fully alive--to separate sleeplessness from getting shit done and having fun doing it.

That's what I had freshman year, first semester. I know, I know--but not everyone has a good first semester. I did. I don't intend to relive it; but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to have what I'm talking about. Especially during the summer.

Well, work ends in 12 days. Good.

By the way, that makes three friends in about a week talking about going somewhere far away and not coming back (one of them actually did it--though I haven't hung out with him seriously since before high school started). Make sure you know that's fantasy, or at least a fantasy called the unknown, distant future. I shouldn't be talking (junior year ahoy, raise the top-sail), but I guarantee you I'll come back. And I already know I'll miss home. But I knew that before I left for Michigan. I already missed home.

I'll point out something, though--the end of the freewrite below is one of the best things I've seen in a long time... it's in another world, though... be not confused; it's not this one.

And sometimes worlds intersect.

Been awhile.

I'm not even writing in my summer journal-- what's up with me?? And there's not too much time left to start really filling it up; I'm gonna be busy, busy, busy. Oh well. At least once I'm done with, um, surgery, I'll have plenty of time to sit on my ass and put pen to paper.

Well, here's some thoughts for today. Or... well, the day's over, the night's descended as a new Monday begins. So, so much for that. But it's about muffins!

So I was making muffins this morning, well, this early afternoon, and I cracked an egg on the table and it made the most delightful sound: it sounded exactly like when Yoshi breaks out of his egg in Super Mario World! Virtual reality is invading reality and staying, I swear. After everything was done and out of the oven (they were PERFECT today; for some reason, they take longer to bake if you put thicker milk in them), I spread what I thought was blueberry spread on it. Then I looked at the jar and saw that it was black raspberry spread. It was only when I ate the next muffin that I realized what it tasted like.

Strange; I wonder why that is. Are some of my aesthetic senses turning off? Do I have to look at something and know it's good beforehand in order to really enjoy it? I fear this is part of growing up, somehow... something's getting screwed up, or turning off. Or something.

Maybe what I'm missing is the really critical, intense atmosphere I experienced at the Prep. In that case, well, haha, that's fine c'est bien I can do without it.

No; I'm just getting older. Soon I won't be old enough to make a mathematical discovery on my own, or a really cool one, or something, because my brain will be so incapable. Wait, what? What exactly did they say?

Should I care? And what exactly characterizes being 20 years old?