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| It's been a most curious past few days. At least with respect to this one hazy part of my life. You know, that one little insignificant burning question: Is God real? I think it was Wednesday morning, as I got out of my lab early and was heading back to my car, I was stopped by two people on campus who asked if I was interested in learning more about the Bible. That was quite a wtf moment for me, b/c I had always previous identified myself as Christian, but with the recent storm/waves of uncertainty that I've been buffeted by, I'm not sure exactly where I stand. I politely declined their offer and continued on on my merry way.
Then the day after. Thursday afternoon, I get a text from a pastor from my church who I worked with in the youth group (who has now taken up the position of Youth Director). He shot me a text asking when he could call me. So I called him and he asked if we could meet up sometime soon. As strange and out of the blue this was, I agreed to a lunch the day after (Friday), seeing as I was unabashedly free with nothing to do. Even if it meant meeting up with a person involved in something that I could only say I view in terms of a skeptic. Our Friday lunch was a two hour affair which ranged from topics about the youth group, the (lack of) college presence, and my involvement in it all, and my uncertainty as to where I stand in this whole realm of things. T'was a decent meeting, but a little bit strange nonetheless in the way that I, a person who used to be spiritually involved w/ whatnot, has fallen to a point where it's all an unknown, talking to a person who is regarded as a authority figure in that region of things.
Saturday night, I get an IM from a friend I really haven't talked to all that often (unfortunately. While I've been lamblasting my friends over the past few months, I've realized I haven't exactly been the best friend type person either. But that's another entry). We also ended up talking about my (lack of) church activities and the reasonings behind that. I brought up a whole myriad number of questions, doubts, uncertainties about the entirety of it all, not in a sense to attack him/it, but genuine concerns that I have regarding.. it all. I don't want to go into something I'm not entirely sure about, even though I'm not sure anything in life is certain, except death and taxes. But, looking at the Christian circle, there's so much hypocrisy, ignorance, complacency about their way of life, and sometimes it just seems so ridiculous. But is it? This was like a two hour conversation in which nothing was really resolved, but it was still good to get it out and hash some things out with someone. The conclusion: I'm obviously sitting on the fence, perhaps too comfortable, which is why I've been so apathetic about things. But it's only when it comes to the point where I feel a sense of urgency will I approach this with the dedication and fortitude it requires. B/c it's not merely a religion or something, but it's one's entire lifestyle. Hohumz and food for thought.
And then I went to church today. For inexplicable reasons, but a lot of collegiate folks were around, which was nice (Mother's Day).
The meaning of it all? Hell if I know. The faith side would say that they're not just coincidences, that something might be happening here. That "God is chasing after you." Haha. Or are they just that, mere coincidences that happened to follow in a sequence of events. I really don't know, but I thought it was worth a observational entry here.
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| So there was this one little demonstration my Social Psych professor did a few quarters ago. He arbitrarily divided the room in half, and told half the room to close/cover their eyes, and then proceeded to show the other half of the room something on the power point slide. Everyone was then told to continue as they were, and he started to tap his podium to some strange rhythm. Upon its conclusion, he posed the question, "who knew what song that was?" The side of the class who saw the powerpoint slide did, while the other half was mostly clueless. I forgot the exact term the Prof used to describe this phenomenon, but I *think* it's the Curse of Knowledge. But I'm not sure. Too many damn terms/phrases/labels used in psychology. And that term may or may not pertain to the body of this entry. (I spent an hour today looking for my old social psych notebook to find that specific term, but couldn't find it [the notebook]. T'was quite frustrating.)
So, I've kinda been watching this one show called "A Game of Thrones," which airs every Sunday at 9pm on HBO. It's based on this series by George R. R. Martin called "A Sword of Ice and Fire." It's currently running in season 2, and after watching/getting engrossed in season 1, I went ahead and read all the current books that were released, and was just in time for the release of the 5th book last summer (A Dance with Dragons), which took 6 years to write. There are s'posedly 2 more books in this epic fantasy, but the series was orignally expected to just be 5 books long, and there's even whispers that the tale may not be completed d/t GRRM suddenly dying. The future is quite unclear.
But what drew me to pen (type) this entry is the dichotomy between the book narrative and the narrative being portrayed out with the shows. Season 1 seemed to follow the first book quite faithfully, but season 2 has just seemed to be a mesh of stories taken willynilly from here and there. Of course, the timeline flows laterally between seasons, based largely on the book, but season 2 has incorporated elements from books 2 and 3, and has even taken some artistic license to splicing/merging certain parts of the story to "help it along" or something. My only complaint is that I can't exactly work out where the writers of the show deviated from how GRRM told the story in the book. And then, after having watched the show, there's a third state of mind, in which I can't tell if this event occurred only in the book, movie, or both. And it bugs the hell outta me. Thankfully, there're websites with bloggers/people who do this sort of heavy lifting, but ugh, my mind!
Similarly. I've recently caught onto the Sherlock craze that's a currently just a kindling amongst people. My god, this is an amazing show (and after having seen how different the actual pilot and the original pilot were, all I can say is, Wow.) It's based on the story of Sherlock Holmes (duh) written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, adapted to our modern 21st century world. The series adaptation is done by BBC and has episodes of about 90mintes in length for each ep, and each season consists of 3 episodes. Watching these amazing episodes (that have great actors, music, editing, screenplay, zomg) has made me want to read the actual books. And once again, the problem of keeping the knowledge of the shows separate and distinct from that of the actual book arises. From the point of view of a person who wants to slowly unravel a plot, this is killer, since my brain believes I've already heard (seen) this story, but in actuality, it's a whole different tale. Bah. What madness!
And of course, the list goes on. For many various things which have been screen adapted (be it TV or big screen), and of which the Hunger Games and Harry Potter jump to mind. The Harry Potter series I can't get over how drastically different the movie world and the book world were, whereas the Hunger Games just seemed more rushed than the pacing the books had. But these two were incidents where I've read the books before taking to watching the film adaptation. For GoT (season 1 at least) and Sherlock, I've seen the shows before diving into the books.
It's such a pain that the human mind is cursed with the problem of knowing. (I guess another social psych situation in which the professor explained to us was where a professor has trouble seeing what a student might not understand b/c he just.. *knows* the material. And can't understand what (from the student's POV) is unknown.) It would help if we could just block off certain compartments of the brain, or remove the data like a USB drive or something. But alas, nope.
And. If someone knows the term that describes this dichotomy of knowledge one can have, pleaaaase do share. It's bothering me to no end right now.
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| I was driving to school today. You know. The hour plus trek from the eastern portion of the SGV to the Westside (of LA, that is). I was doing my thing, driving along, drinking coffee, eating breakfast in the car, when all of a sudden, a suicidal (male) peacock comes running out, streaking across Michillinda Ave up in Arcadia. Luckily, I'm following the car who'd be first in line, and that guy swerves out of the way, and I throw on the breaks, and everyone goes wtf. The psychotic peacock continues running on its merry way. Dem peacocks be crazy.
But no. Sorry, off tangent. As I was saying, doing my thing on my drive to school, listening to Pandora (tuned to a RnB type nature, I s'pose), when I make the distinction about the change in topical nature music has gone through as I've grown up with it. Today's music is of the club/trance variety, w/ subject matter usually including sex, drugs, alcohol, living in the moment, objectifying women('s body), and all that good stuff I'm sure everyone loves. (I guess I should preface this by saying I'm generalizing to a large extent, b/c yes, I'm quite aware that not all the music put out together is of that nature. It just seems like an overwhelming majority of it is.)
I guess the only thing I do like/enjoy of it is the nice beats/rhythm some of these songs have. But then I catch myself singing along to the lyrics and I go, wait, no, that's something I'd never want to do. Time to change the station (or in this case, on to the next song on pandora). And over my drive, I'm treated to some songs that I would go out and say are more of the oldies (given my age and the relative nature of songs from my point of view, my oldies are songs from the 90's). This was the era of boy bands and pop princesses (although, it does seem like we're getting treated to a resurrection of this, at least w/ the boy bands. But they're so much more terrible this time around. Anyway) that seemed to dominate my childhood. Their songs consisted of pining for that one boy or girl who you'd have in your arms, or talking about how good the guy would treat that girl if only she were his. I guess it's a lot more Romantic in a sense, and at the same time, it has echoes of an innocence lost which this generation might not get to recover.
And in the middle. Again, this is just what I seemed to observe based on what Pandora decided to offer me today. Songs seemed to have a yearning for the return, where for example a girl has left, and the guy is offering to change everything of himself to get her back. Or that he's just so hurt from it all that he's sick of relationships and can't take it anymore. You (I) could almost feel empathy towards the hurt and void and the sloppy nature of it all. Lesigh.
Of course, this, in no way, shape, or form can encompass all songs of the time period. Nor am I an expert on music (quite the opposite, actually). But I could help but notice the contrast in musical talent between then and now, and lament what dominates the radio waves these days. Most of my music is gleaned off youtube covers now. Haha. (I mean, I want to try and respect "artists" like Nicki Minaj and Ke$ha, but.. seriously?)
Oh, and on the drive home, people just had to go 55mph on the freeway the entire time. So I tailgated them. And they moved out of my way. And all was well. (B/c it seems my driving habits are cyclical. I've either a need for speed, or a desire to be economical w/ my gas mileage. Looks like the needle has swung to the need for speed side for now.)
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| College. A time for new friends. New sights. New experiences. I guess I failed to get that memo, seeing as how each year that followed seemed to slowly make me entrench myself more at home rather than out at school. And the culmination of all that has led to this, where I'm currently living at home (commuting to school) merely for the sake of classes, and have absolutely zero interaction/ties with life on campus. No, I think I'm all "ranted" out about my situation, so you won't get another dosage of it here. But what this does serve to do is once again paint the picture of where I'm currently at, even in the midst of the final stages of college (undergraduate) life.
As such, with the winding down of the school year, seniors are getting ready to close this chapter of their life and once again, move on to the next great adventure life has in store. Over graduation weekend (in about 6 wks for us quarter system folk), fellow students will "walk" and turn their tassels and engage in a huge celebratory gathering all together with the many people that they have shared their undergraduate experience with over the past four years. From classes to clubs and organization, from dorm/floor mates to coworkers, there've been a many myriad number of individuals who have touched the lives of everyone, surely to forever change them, hopefully for the better. Ah, how touching.
I'll probably be asleep for the departmental ceremony (Psychology AND Psychobiology students together. That's gotta be one of the larger groups on campus, I'm sure). Saturday morning at 8am (6/16). And for the general College of Letters and Sciences ceremony at 5pm Friday (6/15), I guess I'll be bumming it at home, like any other Friday. You see, I've managed to talk my parents out of attending my graduation. I mean, I have no desire to go to my own graduation, either the College's or Department's. I don't want the parentals to sit through the boring droning of speeches and name calling. And seeing as how the many various bonds I've forged with sooo many people over these four years would leave me too inundated with sentimental memories of the ceremony (/s), it's just not a hassle I'd like to undertake (/s = sarcasm, in case you didn't pick up on it).
I hope I'm not being selfish. My dad seemed more than happy to be on board. The madre, I could sense some trepidation with how I've presented it all. Yes, the parentals have paid for all four years of my collegiate tuition, and for that I am terribly grateful, and I think maybe the mother would've liked to hear my name called for the entire 2 amazing seconds I might get at the department one(/s). Not to mention that would be on a Saturday morning, where both parents would be working, but yes, I'm aware the counterargument is that they'd prolly be more than willing to miss a weekend's morning of work for this. I'm hoping I can make it up to the madre just with pictures of the fambam and me in the celebratory garb. I do think I'll have one more conversation with the madre tonight just to finalize that she's okay with this decision (we've had three already, lol). The father's condition of forgoing this whole shebang was that we'd make up for it when I get my Master's or something (cue nervous laughter here). Cuz the ideal timeline for most people would be within a few years time of getting their undergrad. I'm... not so sure that'll happen for me. Oh dear.
In other news, the progress of this final quarter seems to be going alright. B- on the first midterm for my first class, and a B for the first midterm of my second class. There are three component grades for each class, so while I'm not out of the water yet, it's definitely a good start (as opposed to my fall quarter, which I hope to never experience a similar situation ever again). Have I ever mentioned that, were I to fail this quarter (sub-2.0 or 1.5 GPA, I forget what.), I'd be kicked out of school? S'a terrifying thought. And of course, the flip side of the coin is, pass my damn classes, and I get that wretched diploma that's all so important. No pressure or anything. lol.
I've also just booked a nonstop flight to HK from Aug 15-26. It cost just under $1200, which was the cheapest I could find all summer, even cheaper than flights that had a stop or two. Gotta head back for the HKD $6000 which the government is dishing out to all its citizens. Something about having a crazy surplus in the budget and yeah. Oh, and the US is running a Trillion dollar debt? Lesigh.
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| I've never really understood people who religiously subscribed to a show's progress over a season. And then, adding to that, people followed multiple shows over a season, always going about "omg, did you see what happened this wk on ...!?" Or, "oh crap, I missed ... last night!" How do you have so much time to waste on these things, and why do you bother since it's scripted and really pointless anyway?
Uhm. So, yesterday, I caught up on Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time, and a friend wanted me to check out Revenge (watched 2 eps of this). And then today, I've gotten through the entire first season of Sherlock (3x1.5hr episodes. I'm kinda tired lol).
So. What do you make of me? I intro-ed by complaining about these things, then openly admit that since yesterday, I've consumed 8.5 hrs of television shows. I'll help you out, since I really don't see how to properly continue on with this entry without making it look like each paragraph is only 2 sentences long. Yeah, I've recently fallen into a period of watching shows, suspending my disbelief, sorta willingly allowing myself to indulge in a false reality.
I'll admit, this is a pretty weak basis on which I'm trying to qualify my watching these shows, but I do believe there definitely exists a demarcation between shows of value and shows that are merely pumped out to occupy screen time and to capture the mindless television viewing cohort (is it too stereotypical to lump most girls, aged 18-25, and 26-40 or something into it? Cuz most guys (that I know) would rather be gaming or outdoors (read: gym or basketball or w/e) or watching sports (NBA playoffs!) instead of following these shows to which no real value is added to one's life). Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time, and Sherlock are all based on literary items (A Sword of Ice and Fire, Fairy Tales, and Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) that have been adapted for television. Well, it also doesn't hurt hurt that the shows include great actors, mind-blowing twists to the plot, and a cliff-hanger at the proper times to continually keep drawing you in.
Then, there are other shows at the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm using Revenge as my example b/c it's had the bad fortune of recently showing up on my items watched. The opposite range of this gamut seems to have shows that have some half-assed premise for which the show tries to hook you in on and utilizes one dimensional characters and a sublime predictable plot to unravel it's story. I'll admit, I was a bit surprised at times, due to the occasion that the plot twist presented an underwhelming response out of me, in the form of "that's it?" I couldn't even immerse myself into the storyline to allow it to come to life. And yet this show draws apparently solid ratings and has a decent following.
Now who am I to say a show is good or not. No one. But through my likes and dislikes, it seems to me that shows that are churned out and feel too scripted tend to draw in people (stereotyping again: girls) who want to get drawn into any other life that they don't live so that they can experience it vicariously. Makes sense I s'pose. The living vicariously part. I don't know why people would hook onto various pieces of trash though, and make (read: waste) time blocking out parts of their schedule for these so-called shows. At the price of neglecting friendships. (But that's not a bitter point for me. Nope.)
Here's the kicker. It seems I'm slowly falling into that. Earlier in the year, I mentioned that I was apparently going thru some sort of escapism phase, turning to video games (FFIX and FFX!) and fanfiction (some people write better than the original authors) to pass (or complete obsess/dominate) my time. And now that I briefly have an open window of time (just finished midterms for both classes + no new material yet), the very thing that I was bashing on, I succumbed to. Irony at its finest.
The night is dark and full of terrors. — Melisandre
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