With Stint

I have no idea why but recently I have felt very inhibited when it comes to my writing, the ideas are there but something seems to be missing. My original goal with this blog was to be more than a biographical writer. I don't really like talking about myself or writing about myself for two main reasons. The first being that except in special cases(nostalgia, getting advice, etc.) it feels like watching a movie for the 100th time except instead of it being my favorite movie its a movie that had good parts but I'd much prefer watch a different movie. I don't mean that in any sort of self deprecating way either, I have confidence that I will start to like my own movie much more as it plays out but right now it doesn't even have a female lead much less a real plot. The best way I can think of expressing the way that change occurs is to imagine it almost as the opposite of the career arc of someone like Tracy McGrady. Currently my skills are somewhere in the middle bottom of their potential and as I progress through my career I will peak around 45 or 50, my current "value" is fairly equivalent to what T Mac will be like at 45 or 50. The second reason is that a decent of amount of it is directed towards people who are asking questions to be polite or avoid silence and I feel a certain level of nobility in recognizing this and attempting to direct the conversation towards something containing actual entertainment value. It is very notable to me that there are many days in my life that I can recall quite well and give a decent account of but it is far from likely that I would be able to name a song I was getting into at the time or even less likely what I thought about certain things and the way I felt. This was unintentionally driven home by a conversation I had with my dad recently. He was asking me what I thought my brother might like for his 17th birthday and it hit me that I have very little recollection of what it felt like to be 17. Maintaining as much detail of those types of feelings, along with other details like my beliefs, ideas, and taste is incredibly important to me both intellectually and otherwise and It seems that storing ideas/beliefs here is what let to the aforementioned inhibition. The recent blank periods between posts don't represent a lack of ideas, they represent a lack of belief or certainty and who doesn't have inhibitions when it comes to writing about something they are still quite agnostic about?

Post #20

This is my first time having a two post week since last year. Furthermore this will be the 4th post I've written this year total which represents a 60% decrease in post volume so far this year. I'll probably make up for it this summer maybe, who knows. I write today for simple reasons. I got an email this morning from the lead producer at KCOU asking me to do a promo for the upcoming Cold War Kids show which I happen to be going to. That got me thinking about how many awesome little things like that I've gotten to participate in. Over the course of my working life I have yet to have a job without a large silver lining. I have gotten to work with my two favorite dudes ever matt and nathan, worked stage crew for the Doobie Brothers and B.o.B., gotten neurological tests done for a project relating IQ with racist tendencies, taught someone all of college algebra in two days, done lead production on the radio ads for some of my favorite bands, and I currently get paid $20 plus 4 free meals a week to be a mystery shopper for mizzou.

What's up my dogs?

A majority of the time I have a motivation to write, some big idea or feeling that I want to transcribe as soon as possible for fear of losing it. Recently the problem has been small things that continue to linger and won't go away. A major one has been the lack of continuity. Everyday I wake up and it feels as if I have a blank slate, but not in the traditional positive sense. It isn't that I feel freedom from my past or anything, I have that normally, the new feeling is similar to having to relearn the context of my life throughout the day. I get an invite for lunch and instead of my reaction being "yes, lunch with friends sounds great" its been "oh yeah, food is something I need. Additionally, I do like the company of these people". The differences sound somewhat subtle but that is more-so due to poor articulation in my writing rather than the true reality of these feelings. All in all things appear the same to professors and friends but when it comes to time spent alone it can be somewhat unnerving. It's not that I don't enjoy things or that I'm not happy, its that when those phenomena happen I'm taken aback because I can't actively recollect how I feel about things until they occur. It is reminiscent of an issue I've run into throughout my life when it comes to relationships. I hate being alone, love flirting, love doing nice relationship-y things for the person, love having a release for the sexual tension, but I'm pretty convinced that I hate the fuck out of relationships(or at least the kind I've been in I guess). It doesn't have anything to do with my ex's either, it's all me. Yet, it takes me getting to know someone, asking them out, flirting, etc. then about 2-3 months of serious dating for me to remember that I don't like this very much. The similarities do not end at the effect either, the cause is also included. Much like my relationship woes coming from not being with the right person my difficulty in making myself happy comes from being limited in my choices of activity. I've written about my affinity for basketball as an anti-depressant many times in this space so I guess this will mark the first time I mention withdraw symptoms. I went to a doctor last friday and she concluded that I was suffering from the symptoms of a chronic stress fracture and should take a break from basketball and other sports until a prognosis is reached sometime next week. If she is correct then I have an estimated return in May. If the MRI doesn't show a fracture or it shows something worse then I might have to wait any longer. The issue is not the lack of sports or anything like that, the sport itself is merely a means to an end which is a big part of the reason I am not very good at it. However, it did fill a very unique hole in that it helped with my fitness, it was something completely separate from academia, it is something that I can do alone at pretty and at much any time of day, and it was my "red button" of sorts. Essentially it was my "thing", and mostly because I decided it would be. Much like a security blanket being worthwhile out of principle rather than any intrinsic value. In lieu of this I have been focussing more on school(to the tune of 5/5 A's). My previous issues with mizzou's level of education shine brighter than ever now that I have to spend more time dealing with them but I just keep telling myself to get over it and it seems to be working. It's never been that I don't like school or my course subjects, the problem has always been and continues to be that there is a concerning lack of difficulty in my courses. I have been goofing off at brady since 12:00 when I got out of my last class and I feel absolutely no guilt. I don't feel guilty because I have gotten A's on every single test I've taken this semester, I have all my assigned homework done already, and I am a chapter ahead in all of my books. It is only due to my single figure debit card  balance and single healthy leg that I am sitting here blogging instead of doing something more enjoyable. I barely remember what the first 3/4 of this post was even about so I'm sure it's great.

Cold War Kids- Skip the Charade

mp3 download on OOnly


skip the charades cold war kids mp3 download

It's been too long

Hey, I'm back again. The busyness of school has been keeping me down, as has a good bit of writers block. Unless my reader demographic has grown substantially all of you know that I ended my most recent relationship between the last post and this one. That is partially where the writers block came from, I easily get an idea "caught" in my head and usually I write it out but there are certain topics I don't feel like writing about so I have to wait until they go away to write about something else. Breakups are a topic I don't see the point in writing about, at best they reflect a bit of nostalgia while also communicating what you see as the difference between being single or being with someone while in the wake of the transition and when the feelings are still vivid. At worst you make a post with an over/under of 3.5 cringes per paragraph and you emasculate yourself to potential future partners reading the post. The other reason I didn't feel compelled to write about this one is because it felt like a flash in the pan, there were good times, and then I stopped it before things got rough, we both exited as if we had ridden a mediocre roller coaster, remarkably un-phased. I bet there are some of you out there who were willing to accept what I just said about the unimportance of it up until you almost by reflex realized how much I had written about something I described as unremarkable which is admittedly suspicious. My reason for this is that it theoretically should have mattered, not only was it my first "college relationship" it also ended a 2 year streak of being single. My expectations were obviously too high but for reference what I expected was pretty similar to the best end of a "streak" I've ever had. I was with Matt and Nathan in St. Louis to see Boston/Styx. As an aside Boston has a disappointing female bass player, disappointing not in categories involving the bass-arts but rather on the "female bass player hotness scale" on which she hits a 4/10. The hottest female bass-user I can think of is the girl from My Bloody Valentine(When she has long hair) or the current touring bassist with Jeff Beck. Letting them be the standard for a 10/10(they're really 9.5's even on their own scale but whatever), having established the reference 10 one can find the constant error which is equal to the difference someone will have between female bassist hotness scale and the general hotness scale, in this case the error is about 2.5. After adjusting for error Boston hits a 1.5 on the hottie bassist scale. It should be noted that the female bass player hotness metric does not factor into the awesome concert scale, is a small constant in the the overall attractiveness scale, and in many cases is inversely proportional on the value as a person scale.
At the time we were at the Science Center and we decided to walk to the zoo, given both the summer heat and the distance between the locations we all ended up incredibly thirsty and fortunately we had decided to pack a cooler filled with ice cold cokes. To this day the best thing I've ever tasted.  The point of this being that I would like to someday have a relationship that is at least as enjoyable as cold soda on a particularly hot day. I have no reason to not expect this to happen at some point, so the reason I bring this up is that I don't necessarily think that the universe corrects for fairness. For some reason it really bothers me that we have philosophical schools of thought for so many other minor ideas but there are very few writings referencing views on fairness. I feel like the interpretation of fairness or lack there of is central to identifying the differences between similar ideas such as between Athiest-Existentialism and Deist-Existentialism, a clarification that is important to me. All in all things are going well for me including classes for once as demonstrated by this. feels good man. I'll be around somewhere.

We are the music makers- aphex twin

Reflections n Shit

I wrote a couple posts ago about certain events seeming like they mark epochs in life and I certainly feel like the past couple months have been one in mine. Partially due to the end of one of the worst semesters of my life and certainly the worst on grade wise, but primarily due to the reconnection I mentioned in this post(Also contains a now working link for the song I mentioned in that post). I have written several times about my ideas on relationships from outside of one so I figure it's only fair to write a post from inside of one. Beyond anything else what stands out to me is the fact that all of the aspects of me as person both good and bad: actions, thoughts, physical traits, etc have combined to make me a person that is a perfect fit for someone else. The same idea applies to a lot of things, but there there is always something special about something no matter how great it is alone, being able to make something else better through being put together. In my case this means being able to make someone else happier than they would have been without me and being able to direct my energy towards communion rather than solitude. It's especially nice to know that the man I am right now and the woman she is right now reconnected and clicked at the perfect time. It certainly makes life seem far more logical.

As far as other things go I've been working about 20 hrs a week all break, have been buying a lot of clothes and records, and reworking my spring schedule. 

Work:Obviously awful

Clothes:Several new pairs of pants including some suit pants which I'll hopefully get to use sometime soon, a bunch of sweaters and vnecks, a duffel coat, and some real boots.

Vinyl:Pablo Honey(Radiohead), Yankee Hotel Foxtrot(Wilco), Pauls Boutique(Beastie Boys), Countdown to Ecstasy/Aja(Steely Dan), Late Registration/College Dropout/808's & Heartbreak/My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy(Kanye West)

Schedule: A lot of CS which is...odd.

The best part of the schedule is probably how well it fits with baileys, that was stressing me out a little bit before we got ours finished. I'm also quite excited for the web design and philosophy courses. Should be a pretty good semester all things considered. 

Mmm Steely Dan

P.S. Hopefully at least some of you noticed the month of not posting that just happened, I will try to get back into a better habit of writing next semester. Basically I've just been living life more instead of constantly thinking about it and overanalyzing everything. I hope you guys can understand.

Oh hey, whats up?

This blog has become a neglected red-headed stepchild of sorts. I haven't given up on it though,  I guess the first spree of posting was a lot of pent-up stuff I had been waiting to write about and had finally found an an outlet for and now I have returned to a normal flow of ideas. Things for me have been good lately, it really provides contrast to some of the lame times I've written about previously. Specifically I'm pleased that I was able to stay happy through all of it, albeit I'm definitely even more happy now. I think I'm coming to terms with being a stats major, at least enough to not retake math 3000, as much as I enjoyed it. I still get to do a lot of critical thinking which is all I liked about math anyway other than the curiosity aspect. Today I did my first tutoring gig, it was for college algebra so today is also the first time I've ever profited off my math skills, it felt really weird yet its nice to have money. I get to use the money to go on a date today which is even better, especially considering the girl. It certainly doesn't feel like it should be December but it also doesn't feel like we ever left the 2000's and even more-so it weirds me out that I have nearly two decades of experience factoring into these feelings.

This is where I'd like to delve into something that's been on my mind recently or some adage I'd like to share but I can't really do either mostly because its so damn late and my brain is already asleep. Just try to do things that scare you along with the minor things that make you unconditionally happy and you'll probably have a pretty good life. Oh, also try to ad-lib things as much as possible.

Till next time

A special request

I haven't written a post in a while and unfortunately this will be short. I guess I haven't posted in a while because the past weeks have been a little bit hectic in a lot of ways and I have sworn not to post under duress. However, that same duress along with Thanksgiving gave me a little bit of inspiration for a post.

In Philosophy of Film we discuss a lot of bullshit, I'm sure you guys knew this from the class name but still. There are two things that have really hit me in that class. The first is a quote from Grey Gardens that goes roughly 'All things are good that never happened'. The other came from our lecture about tragedy. In it the professor detailed the idea that tragedy within film is able to happen because we allow ourselves to bond to the characters. We allow ourselves to take on their romances, heartaches and burdens. The part that stuck with me is how that applies to my relationships with people. It seems to me that just like a film becomes more tragic as someone takes on more emotional burden a relationship becomes stronger the same way. When a stranger tells me an unfortunate thing that happened to them I have empathy for them from being a fellow human being but I would quickly revert to my base emotion. When one of my very close friends does the same thing there is a good chance that it would truly get to me and I would have trouble going back to a passive emotion. This applies to both wonderful and awful circumstances of course. My point is essentially that we shouldn't take the people around us for granted because they often hold a large burden by simply caring. My friends are there to empathize with me when things are rough and show up with high fives when things are great. I don't really know where I'd be without that other than far worse off. Heres to embracing the good, and riding out the bad with all the people you care about.


p.s. I actually didn't post all week because I was listening to the new kanye album on repeat

Good things come to those who wait

That title doesn't have much attachment to this post other than this paragraph. It's a classic idiom but my favourite use of it is probably from the song "If Rap Gets Jealous" by K'naan. His use of it refers to finally being able to leave Somali during the horrific civil war to start a career in Canada. Mine just refers to feeling like I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Over the past couple months I've had some lame stuff happen but its definitely coming to a conclusion and as naive as it might be I feel like part of it has to do with making a point to never succumb to the bad parts of life and embracing every aspect of the good. I guess what I mean is that I never stopped being happy, but over the past weeks I haven't even had the choice.

The reason I clicked new post has to do with a conversation I had wednesday night. The girl I was with brought up the thought that certain moments in life will not look like we idealize mentally. Her specific example had to do with not knowing which family members will be alive to see your wedding. Who knows if you've met your best man yet, who knows if your fiance will have a "baby-bump" at the wedding, you get the idea. In math they have what is called a deterministic process. It is a process in which there is no randomness, if you know the current state you can with full accuracy determine the future state. We all secretly imagine that life is like this, we make ourselves guilty of the thought process wherein knowing our plans right now somehow gives us a guarantee that the future will be just how we like it. Oftentimes , mostly from motivational speakers, life is described as a series of choices. Stay in school or drop out, ask that girl out or keep walking, etc. The overlying philosophy that I've been trying to knit with this blog refers exactly to that. Possibility A: Go to college/drop out and end up very happy, Possibility B:Go to college/drop out and end up unhappy. I think you see the pattern but I enjoy spelling it out. There are two sides to all of those choices that lead to other choices and it can become a giant tree that shows where your life is going. I say that we should all look at the third side of the coin(*wink*) which is choosing to love your life no matter what choices are made or what happens to you. You can't count on your Uncles and Cousins all being there when you say "I do." but you can absolutely count on yourself to make the best of it whether they are or aren't.  Mathematicians and Physicists rarely get to work with deterministic systems but they make due, there is absolutely no reason that someone can't do the same with life. Enjoy your friday night everyone, or like my Dad said to me everyday he dropped me off at school, "Make a great day!"

"Well, how did I get here?"

Today's post starts off with a bit of background information for my readers that haven't taken a calculus based stats course. In Statistics there two different types of functions, discrete functions and continuous functions. A discrete function is only defined for a given set of values, i.e. {1,2,3,4,5}.









A continuous function is the type of function that is traditionally dealt with in math past algebra I, a function defined over an interval i.e. (1<x<5).








The reason those two ideas are important has to do with how the flow of ones life is perceived. It is clear that realistically life can be either one depending on whether you look at it from the present tense or past tense. If you look back over the last five years things seem somewhat discrete because life appears as a series of big events with essentially "blank" spaces in-between much like a discrete distribution. However, if you look at say the past week everything flows very smoothly and appears discrete. The reason I bring this all up is that today for some reason felt like a discrete point to me. I have been living in an apartment for 5 months now. I am no longer a math major. I am happy for legitimate reasons rather than just because its my personal philosophy to never waste time being depressed. None of those things are individually a big deal but I still have those moments every once in a while where I ask "Well, how did I get here?"(be sure to click that link, great video). I ask this question because much like I mentioned earlier everything this semester seems very discrete.  It feels like it was just yesterday that I ate lunch for the first time with Koleen, Morgan, and Dorothy but it's actually been about 4 months. The only legitimate explanation I can think of for this phenomenon is that this is a result of me not letting a day go by where I am not enjoying my life. Much like how some people might slip into several unmemorable months due to depression I think I may have slipped into a streak of completely fluid bliss. To be clear, I am 100% ok with this.

I was contemplating saving this for another post but I've got a solid 20 minutes until my plans for the evening start so I'll throw it in real quick. Yesterday was awesome, really awesome. I got to partake in two guilty pleasures that I assumed were lost in my childhood and best of all I got to enjoy it with my bros. The two aforementioned activities were playing around at a local "crick" and enjoying the innocent pleasures of a park. It makes me very happy to have people around me that are willing to let loose and just enjoy themselves. Hope you all have a nice evening, I'm off to start mine.

Sup dudes

My life has been more of the same, time with friends, school and basketball. Sports have been keeping me happy recently, for some reason Derrick Rose is free from the reign of season affective disorder. Yesterday was pretty great:basketball at the rec, watched the mizzou game, watched a movie, and then hung out with someone I haven't hung out with for months...for 6 hours. I've been having to "think happy" a lot recently which is worse than merely living happy but it comes with the territory. Between friends, music, and sports I'll be ok.

This is definitely my shortest blog post I know, but I'm not at all in the mood to write anything thoughtful right now. To compensate here is a song I made using just garageband this summer, it's a bit sketchy but I like it. 

song