out of the blue

Today I went to my high school. Perhaps some of you were traumatized by your high school experiences, but I have to say that it was one of the best timtes of my life. The best time to date. So, visiting my high school made me very happy, rather than bringing back disturbing memories. Okay, maybe that's not quite true; SST does bring up some disturbing memories, but at least they're funny disturbing memories. (Anyone for the sexual behaviors of spoons, forks, sporks, and various combinations of table utensils?)

So, I had a very good time. After an epic game of dodgeball, a chaotic version with twenty people or so, all going after one another at the same time, requiring amazing spatial skills and no small amount of diplomacy, I played frisbee. Now, playing frisbee at Gonzaga is one thing. The people there are more experiences, in general. But playing at SST has a certain element of joyous nostalgia that I can never pass up. So, I took part in the rapture that is the SST field. It's only perpendicular to one of the boundaries of the grass, and the ground ranges from mud and puddles to hard packed dirt (depending on the time of year). Today, it was perfect.

After the delightful game of frisbee, I sat and talked with the slackers in Wendi's room, and after school was let out I took part in Drama club. It is much less intimidating than G.U.T.S., because I am actually one of the better improv players there, so I wasn't afraid to jump on into games. I especialyl enjoyed the game where the guy is late to work, and has to guess what his excuses are supposed to be. It was one of the few I have ever played the part of the person who has to figure out why he's late, and I did it very well, I thought. Apparently, I had been digging a hole to China, and I bought a sombrero. I got these in very little time, which amazed all of them!

So, I played chaotic dodgeball, rapturous frisbee, and entertaining improv games. A very good visit :)

An Apology to Ter:

I'm sorry if I seemed like I was arguing over trivial things; it seemed that way because I was. But I really didn't mean to annoy. I know that Elana and I enjoy arguing over random things, just for the fun of it, and I'm used to doing that with quite a few people. So, I'm sorry if something that I tend to do has offended you. I assure you I didn't mean to make you angry.

I can't remember if I noticed that you had asked to stop arguing. If I did, I took your continued responses to Nathan's points to mean that you had changed your mind about it. Next time I will know better.

I don't feel terrible about it, because I don't think I should have been expected to know that you were getting angry (such things are very difficult to communicate through text; you did it very well in your recent LiveJournal entry). Nevertheless, I do feel sorry that I caused you to become mad.

I would appreciate it if you were a little less antagonistic next time about telling us off, but that's your choice. I won't hold it against you if you do. I hope you don't mind my being blunt.

Sorry.

I am feeling completely content right now. I am excessively happy, but in a calm way. It seems odd…

Have you ever had that feeling?

I just read a part of a book in which something very cool and good happened, and things are looking up for our heroes at the moment. It seems that I've invested so much of myself in the book that I am even more affected by it than I am in movies, which isn't something that has happened much recently. (It happened a couple times while reading Stranger in a Strange Land, and during a couple of Dunsany's short stories.)

When I was young, I would throw so much of my mind into being inside the story that I was able to completely forget about the words. A bit of my consciousness was partitioned for the necessity of scanning each row of characters, but that seemed almost superfluous to reading. I would engage in many long happy hours where I found myself lost in Narnia, or Redwall, or any of my other childhood story-worlds. Sometimes, I wished I could just go away into those worlds and live there. Wouldn't it be wonderful to Impress a baby dragon? Wouldn't it be exciting to have talking bears as friends, or to dance with the satyrs at midnight under the unfamiliar sky? I always dreamt that I wouldn't be forced into the mundane job that my father had.

I always knew that it was impossible to launch myself into the skies over Benden Weyr, always knew that I would never set foot in Cair Paravel. So, I dreamt about the next-best thing: to forge my dreams into reality through the same medium that transported me worlds away during my free time. I wanted to become a writer.

And what do I do now? I study to become an engineer. I prepare myself to do nothing but make realistic dreams come to pass. One day I bring into being the mundane, never the extraordinary. Of course I might one day bring some more fanciful dream to pass, through my pursuit of the mechanical arts. I might just dream into being a better way for mankind to take to the skies, or I might even throw my will towards space and help tame that frontier. But what are the chances of that?

I dream. I wonder whether I could pass beyond dreaming.

Perhaps it is not my lot in life.

For now, I am content, because I partake in someone else's dream. But soon that dream will fade, and I will be left to my own imperfect strivings that never quite reach my desire to create wonders. Fortunately, these thoughts have not made me sad; I'm still just as content as before writing this, but perhaps more meditative.

Maybe I should pursue my vision, but for now, I will be content to echo another dreamer.

Two images were featured on DeviantArt today, and they're both rather insane. (More were featured, but these are the two that were insane.) The first is an example that you can make beautiful art in ANY medium, no matter how restricted. "powerdraw" is a work of dedication and no small personal stash of madness: A detailed painting of Venice (I assume) in none other than our friendly neighborhood Microsoft Paint!

For the second, titled "Grand Canyon Panorama", you'll have to make sure to look at the very impressive full view. It was made using a relatively new 3-d modelling program for landscapes, called Terragen. I've used this a little bit, and it's pretty hard to get AMAZING results. Good-looking things are easy, but things that blow your mind are much more difficult.

Aaron Brown just posted this, and I thought it was very interesting.

I was taking a picture of this the other day, and suddenly the light began to call evil spirits from the aether. So, I took a picture, and quickly ran away.

Actually, I was painting as an excercise from a picture of this blue light I took a few weeks ago, and when I was satisfied with the light, I began to add other stuff. It was very fun.

Aaron Brown posted this, and I guess I'll do the same for my friends that aren't at Gonzaga.

Apparently, MIT is hosting a time traveller's convention. They're trying to publicize it so well that people in the future (who have already invented time travel) will already know about it, and will attend, bringing a whole bunch of interesting people, culture, and technology to the present time. They ask that if you're from the future and you attend, you should bring some proof (their examples: "things like a cure for AIDS or cancer, a solution for global poverty, or a cold fusion reactor would be particularly convincing as well as greatly appreciated").

Here's all of the information from a guy at MIT's site.

And here's the location:

The Time Traveler Convention
May 7, 2005, 10:00pm EDT (08 May 2005 02:00:00 UTC)
(events start at 8:00pm)
East Campus Courtyard, MIT
3 Ames St. Cambridge, MA 02142
42:21:36.025°N, 71:05:16.332°W
(42.360007,-071.087870 in decimal degrees)

As I get busier and busier, it seems like I devote more and more of my time to painting. Three in the past two days, and I'm working on another. Anyway, here is the most recent. It is a painting of a picture by a cool photographer whom I admire. (This is a thumbnail. Click for a larger image on DeviantArt.)

The current dictionary definition of Writhe, from the American Heritage Dictionary:

intransitive verb
1. To twist, as in pain, struggle, or embarrassment.
2. To move with a twisting or contorted motion.
3. To suffer acutely.

transitive verb
To cause to twist or squirm; contort.

noun
The act or an instance of writhing; a contortion.

We have a question.We have encountered the term "writhe" in two cases. One of the cases is (as in the major dictionary definition) "writhe in pain", and the other is not in the dictionary: "writhe in pleasure". One of us is of the opinion that there is enough usage of "writhe in pleasure" to have it qualify as a valid definition, but the other disagrees.

What do you think?

I just painted this. I'm pretty happy with it for how long I took. :) And the story is funny!

Here's the description I wrote for DeviantArt:

"I know the name isn't entirely in line with the painting, but it's the idea from which I came up with this. I was writing some site design guidelines for Nathan's page that I'm working on, and I started to laugh because I noticed that PANDA was in exPANDAbility. So, I went over to photoshop, and made some text with black letters for the word, and white for panda. Then, I decided that it needed a background, so I started playing around with greens and fun plant-ish stuff, and before you know it, I was actually painting a scene. I threw in an actual panda for good measure, and then finished it up. Added a border. Title. Signed it. And now I'm uploading it."