Galileo

03:37 am: Go go English major
This will be my final year in college, and it's about time too.

Still, there are some things I'm going to miss about being an English major. It's not uncommon for people to complain about text book prices, even here in Virginia, which has been a leader in reforming the text book industry.

It's not unusual for a full-time student to spend $500+ on books.

I'm a full time student.

My bill is $68 and some change.

Granted that's with my employee discount. All my books are dog-eared 19th Century novels with discounted used prices. And of course, the writing courses have no books at all.

02:06 am: Tired
But it's a good kind of tired.

I don't care what anyone says. A long day at work is always rewarding.

It can be grinding and soul destroying too, but it feels good.

12:55 am: Freshin
One of the interesting things about this job is helping out the Freshman who are very quietly panicking because they have no idea how university bookstores work. They never bring along the right information that would help us get them their books. It's amazing. If they bring in entire sheets of paper, they'll invariably leave out the one bit of info that would help me help them.

Now me, being paranoid, whenever I'm in that kind of situation I print out goddamn everything. Still doesn't help sometimes though.

There should be

A thing.

This thing.

Would tell you what information is important

And what is not.

It would be like a barcode reader, except instead of reading barcodes, it reads any given object in the universe and determines if it's relevant to you or not. It would have to be calibrated, of course, otherwise it would detect the subatomic quantum foam whose intersection with itself defines our existence. It would be like a radio telescope picking up cosmic background radiation. Everything would register as EXISTENTIALLY IMPORTANT.

(This would be the highest reading on the meter, of course. The lowest being so unimportant the machine would not even register it, your own senses wouldn't register such an object, it's so unimportant)

Unfortunately you would spend in infinite amount of time determining what the machine should consider important and what it shouldn't. And what is important would change as your life and situation changes.

On second thought, such a device should not exist.

01:00 pm: Work is fun


So for the past couple weeks I've been at a new job which is pretty nice. It's a college bookstore and my goodness are textbooks tempting. Working in a retail bookstore is one thing, but this here is a repository of learning. I could theoretically walk out with a textbook on nanomachines. If only textbooks weren't so ridiculously overpriced.

01:04 pm: Yesterday did not count
On account of me being tired. Yes. That is the ticket.

01:45 am: A. DAY.


All day today, I helped someone move out of his apartment.

It was quite stunning, the state of his living quarters. I don't believe I've seen so much filth. I tell myself that no human being should be accustomed to living in such a way, but then I remember that we can adapt to anything, given time and gradual degrees of change. No neat freak will stand for living in a mildewed corridor, but if you graduate him over a period of time from immaculate room to said mildewed corridor, would he even notice the change? Given sufficient enough time? Would he acclimate to successive degrees of grunge that he won't even remember what is standards were before?

Well I dunno, I don't do these kinds of things to people. It seems mean. But I think the apartment I've been in today does bear strong evidence to the effect, as I remember what it was like when he first moved into it. You could see the walls back then, rather than the layers of soot now.

I guess adaptability is a funny thing. We need it to engage in a world that insists on surprising us and laughing at our fragile routine. But being too adaptable, too able to readily accept change has its own downsides. Isn't it annoying how any number of life's problems are best answered by taking things in moderation? Don't be inflexible, but don't be too flexible. Don't do this, but do enough of it. And so on. I like to thing that life should have more depth than a fortune cookie turn of phrase, but there you have it.

03:13 am: A photo a day.


At the very least.

I am really, really very sorry to my friends, who I have not corresponded with or kept track of. You know who you are. I have no excuse, except that Things have happened. I want to get in touch again but I'm still unsettled. But at the very least, I want to restart this miserable little journal. Let's see if it works THIS time, okay?

07:27 am: To be or not to be or not to be or not
So for my Shakespeare in Film class (what do you want, I'm an English major) I've had to watch three film versions of Hamlet: Olivier, Branagh and Almereyda. I'll say right now that I'm glad we skipped over Zefferelli. I'm sure it's great, but I can't get over Mel Gibson as Hamlet. Try to look like Prince of Denmark all he likes, my brain won't accept it. "That's Mel Gibson," it always say. Never, "that's Hamlet." I don't even particularly like Mel Gibson. I just can't see him being his role unless it's as an out of control cop looking for revenge, I guess.

Anyway.

I am so done with Hamlet. I have been "to be or not to be"'d to the point where anymore soliloquies by moping Danish royalty could actually push me over the edge into a cackling abyss. At least Olivier and Almereyda had the sense to present a condensed Hamlet. Branagh had to go and perform the play to the letter. Four hours! Four! I had actually seen the movie when it first came out and I don't recall it being this tedious. Of course I was a hideous snob back then and could probably have forced myself to watch and endure any number of things so that I could feel superior to my friends (ah, high school).

Although the focus on filmic ("filmic". "FILMIC" hah)elements was interesting. I now know words like diegesis and mes-en-scene. I cannot wait to torture people with this the next time I go to watch a movie. I will be terrifying.

01:48 pm: I don't "get" haircuts
I catch haircuts. Most like other people catch colds. For me a haircut is an affliction. I just don't look good with them. For a period of about a week I don't look like me, I look like a parody of me.

Today is no exception. Thanks to a mall salon I now have a revolting bowl cut. Bowl cuts in and of themselves are not bad. Moe Howard was a man who could sport a bowl cut, and you wouldn't tell him differently because he could poke an eye out faster than you could react. Leonard Nimoy could do a bowl cut, although technically he played an alien while his hair was like that so maybe he doesn't apply. I don't really approach them in being able to wear one of these things, and I mean "wear" in the sense that it looks like a bad wig, or a type of failed hat.

I know part of the problem is me. I've never learned to effectively communicate how I want my hair, this stems back to when I was a surly teenager and didn't actually care about my hair, but had to get it cut every now and again or the JROTC drill sergeant would yell at me.

The strange thing is that barbers love my hair. Every single time I go, without exception, they always comment on how thick and straight and well behaved it is. Oh yes, it's well-behaved. Around them. But when it's just my hair and me, it'll do its best to torment me.

Of course, the alternative is just letting it grow out, but really, I've tried that and it's just not me. Between letting it grow or getting a bowl cut, I say bust out the scissors and a picture of Moe, and at least try to make it work.

10:39 pm: Curly update again
He's doing much better now. He's had his stitches taken out and requires a lot less medication, so it looks like he is making a recovery. His left eye is partially blind, but healthy, so it looks like things are looking up.

whew