Screw you

It's all so god damn cliche. Everything. It's all been done before, and it's probably been done better too. No room to be original anymore. Originality is dead any way. Replaced unceremoniously with irony and gosh if that hasn't been swell for every one. Nobody means what they say any more, it's all filtered through more and more layers of ever complex irony. Whatever. Getting angry is passe. But originality is still dead. There's no where left to go that hasn't been mapped, photographed, and put on Wikipedia. There's nothing left to do that doesn't have a corresponding greeting card. We're too late for tall ships, too early for spaceships. We're all out there looking for some kind of authentic experience, dulled and numbed as we are by tv, the internet, whatever, but even looking for legitimacy, for something real is just another cliche. Just another thing we're expected to do. Europe is out of the question, and not just because the Euro is making us all look bad. Everybody's been there. You go there for a week or two, or however long your budget allows and then you get back and you tell the same two stories over and over again and adopt stupid accents and every other sentence stars "Well, when I was in...".

You Don't Care What I Think

God everybody has an opinion, don't they? The internet is fueled by them, just every opinion imaginable, just every stupid idea gets representation somewhere. I used to have opinions, or, I used to have opinions I cared to share. I used to write about my opinions and I used to think that the best job in the world would be one where I got to tell people what I thought, where I got to tell people what they were doing wrong (everything). There are lots of people with jobs like that, all you need is a big enough mouth and the confidence to shout them.

I don't know if this is just because I'm young and restless but I don't have any confidence in my opinions anymore. Do you ever reach an age where your beliefs just get locked down? Then maybe you can get on with your life and worry about tangible crap and not whether that band is good or bad or just what? It doesn't feel right speaking my mind when I can't even be sure I'm going to feel the same way a week from now.

I read stuff I wrote just a year or two ago and already I wonder what I was thinking. The problem was that I had an opinion and I was damn sure the internet was going to hear it. People who have all the answers worry me. What makes them so sure that they're in the right? Do they ever sit themselves down and reevaluate where they are and how they got there?

Maybe this phase will pass. Maybe in a few years I'll look back on 2008 Horatio and think god what a pussy, couldn't he take a stand on anything? Yeah maybe. But right now I don't feel up to defending myself on anything. I'm trapped in this total perspective vortex - I try to see every side, I try to look around every corner, try to counter every counter-argument but that always always seems to leave me in the middle. Maybe this isn't a bad thing. Maybe more people should be in the middle.

I don't know. Right/wrong, good/evil, true/false, so many stupid dichotomies. What can I say. You don't care what I think about Tibet, what I think about the Obama, what I think about Canadian politics. Of course I have opinions and I like to think that they are reasonably informed, maybe even nuanced sometimes, but I know better than to put them in writing. I know better than to say I know what's best, because nobody does. They know what they think is right, I guess, and if we're lucky things turn out ok, and if we're not, at least we won't run short on opinion as to what went wrong.

I try to pervade this blog with, I don't know, a sense of uncertainty, a sense of confusion. There are no answers here. I don't hit the publish button until I've met my quota of "I don't know's". I don't know how compelling a moral morass may be to read, but I'm stuck in it. What are you going to do, complain? God, everbody has an opinion, don't they.

I'm a fool on a stool in school

School: A big chump factory, or what? Discuss, making specific references to the reading and citing at least three examples from popular culture that tie directly into your argument. Should be no more than 4000 words, excluding title page, your name, and the first three pages of your essay. Papers should be written in that font that makes it look like a kidnapping note, you know with the cut out letters? I really like that font. Late papers will be docked 2% per day, 25% if the day is also a prime number.

I don’t know.

Lectures are ok, usually. I am not opposed to learning. I’d call my self pro-learning in fact. A good professor uses his or her hour and change to tell a story, to engage us, to try to give us a new, a different, a maybe unexpected way of thinking about the world. Shift your friggin paradigms. Ask better questions. Why and how, not just what and when. Ok cool the Magna Carta was signed in 1215, 95 Theses in 1517, a civil war in 1861 but so what so what so what? Most professors are good that way I think. But some aren’t. Some use powerpoint because they need a crutch, couldn’t tell a good story even if they found themselves backed against a wall faced with an angry mob that just needed a gentle bedtime story and a glass of warm milk.

And then it just becomes a laundry list, fact by fact, fact by fact, memorize maps and stupid kings, and pottery that went by in one slide and then you complain to us when you hand back the exams. I thought I made this one easy for you guys. Some professors are just dicks. There’s this blog, Rate My Student, written by a uni prof; I only glanced at it because I could not stomach the self righteous stupid posturing for very long. Students are stupid and they are useless and I hate my job I hate my job I hate my job. Sometimes some students try to cheat I guess, and now this guy is the colour of Chinese jewellery, all jaded and snarky and boy these kids sure are stupid if they think they can pull one by the free world’s last defender of academic integrity. I’m sure other teachers love to read that kind of stuff, makes them feel tuff enuff, recharges their moral superiority for another week of grading papers, all of which are just awful awful hack jobs, by the way, made of mangled English and poorly cited references. What do they teach those little punks in high school anyway? Advanced Quoting of Wikipedia before lunch, and then Intro to the Extended Paraphrase, am I right?

I don’t know. I’m just disheartened at the idea of teachers talking about us in their staff rooms over weak coffee, comparing notes, topping each other with bad excuses they’ve heard - hey did I tell you about that one dumb kid who actually tried formally challenging a grade he got? Man it’s like they never learn.

Whatever. Some teachers don’t love their jobs as much as they should. I’ll deal. It’s not like I put any effort in for them. I’m probably their prototypical zombie student, star player in too many of their student complaints.

School school school. Still have to deal with another month of these funny games.

Aw man that was a total film reference right there. Don’t study film. Watching movies to get a degree sounds easy street but it does bad things to you. You lose perspective. Who knows what’s up or down. I mean, I can appreciate black and white movies now, which is nice, but you still have to share a theatre with a group of people who probably fantasize about fellating Ingmar Bergman. To study film you have suspend your disbelief, you have to convince yourself that movies are serious business, that four years of this stuff is worth the future debt. You have to deal with jerks who get worked up if you can’t sit through Bella Lugosi without giggling – look I’m sorry if film norms from seventy years ago look high camp today - dudes who watch films from Africa in their spare time and then pretend to enjoy them.

I don't know.

I don't need first year psych to know that I am all sorts of passive aggressive towards school. It manifests itself all over the place. Just so much lethargy. Just so much blah blah blah. Who knows the last time I emailed a TA. Who knows the last time I disputed a mark, asked for an extension, talked to a teacher after class. Late assignments, no assignments at all, maybe I should check my email soon, maybe I should actually go to school today, maybe I should start that essay, save the whales and make a cup of tea while I'm at it. I don’t know. Blah blah blah. Hit the snooze button four or five times. Man just make it six.

Hey, read this comic if you like grayscale and awkward pauses and stick figures with problems

http://picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php

This one makes me feel like everything is going to be ok one day.

Bachelorhood

My family is in a part of the country where snow in March is just non sequitor and I'm alone at home. It is good. It is ok. I like it. House to my self. I'm not naked, but I could be. That is a powerful thing to know. Anything I do here, I could do naked, and there wouldn't be any one to say anything. They could extend their March break and I wouldn't mind.

I've colonised the living room. It happened quickly. It felt weird sequestering myself in my room when the rest of the house was so empty. The tv is down here. I've parked my laptop here too. My room is a mess. Clothes from Saturday still lying everywhere. I should hang it all up I guess. But who's going to say anything.

I've been training my computer with its speech recognition software lately. The technology is not perfect and doing anything requires four times the effort of a single mouse click. However however however it is still delightful having your computer respond to your voice, in a quirky retro-futurist way, like I was in a IBM promo video from 1990. I told my mom this before they left, after she wondered what I would do with myself for a whole week. Don't worry mom, I have my computer to talk to, and she just laughed, and laughed.

I made real food the other day, out of a cook book with heat and ingredients and everything. I made a mess of it. It did not turn out right. I'm glad no one else was here because then they would have had to eat it and I would have had to endure their stares, their pained, confused stares that asked why? what did I ever do to you Horatio to deserve this? as they tried to choke down soggy vermicelli noodles. I couldn't get the food processor to work, and the noodles were almost done and I didn't know what to do so I mixed the peanut sauce by hand furiously trying to get some sort of consistency while the chicken was cooking and the noodles were overcooking. I drained the noodles but not very well and the water from the vermicelli mixed with the oil from the sauce, or didn't mix as it does, and the whole thing was an ugly mess. Wooo for bachelor life.

Just Don't Feel Like Class Today

just really don't feel like going to class today

yeah?

yeah

well...

i know i know i should

well yeah you should

don't think i will though

you know i'm all about doing what feels right

you think i should go though

i do

well...

don't let me stop you though

man...

what

don't guilt me like that

like what

like that all passive aggressive

hey no way. do what you have to do you know

i know

so you're not going

doesn't look like it

you could still make it if you left now

if i wanted to make it

yeah if you wanted to

i don't

just be sure about it

man you make such a big deal out of it

you are paying for it

well, i'm not

somebody is

yeah

somebody is paying for you to be there

it's not like i haven't done it before

yeah

i mean it's just one class

sure

it's not even a class

oh?

just a tutorial. an hour long

just a tutorial

yeah i mean it's no big deal. it's not like we do much

if you say so

just our awkward TA and a bunch of film snobs saying stupid stuff
like they can't even hear what they're saying

yeah tutorials can be pretty bad

and the awkward silences and the stupid little quizes.
that's what i get for taking a first year course

so you definitely aren't going

definitely not

slippery slope...

i know i know i know but don't worry

hey you're a responsible adult. who's worrying

man... people turning twenty all around me. i don't need any reminders

just go to class

and waste bus fare for an hour of class? i'm just going to turn around
and come right back you know

you don't have to come right back. there's stuff you can study

we know how that will turn out. it won't

hey whatever

it's now officially too late. can't make the bus

that's too bad. i was hoping you would reconsider

decision is out of my hands now

yeah blame the bus schedule

hey whatever. i'm an adult now and i get to define what that means

hahaha ok

what

what what

what's so funny

you'd sound more believable if you weren't still living at home

low blow

the statement stands.

you know the situation. hey and i have statistics. more and more kids stay home later.
it just makes financial sense

right no that's cool. just stop pretending to be all big and grown up then

man when do i ever act like i'm grown up ever. never. i'm not working under any
false pretenses here

yeah but that's more out of fear than anything else

you say that like being afraid to grow up is abnormal

whatever peter pan

i'm not even that scared. i'm kinda excited a little. nervous but cautiously
optimistic, you know

what do you have to be optimistic about

well...

that came out harsher than i meant it to

i don't even know what i'm optimistic about. school is awful

i gathered

i need a job, a decent ok steady job before i can even think about moving forward

what about school

what about school? school can jump off a bridge. i'll take a break

are you sure?

i'm hoping it will scare me into going back to school.

school or a life time in retail

yeah. either that or i'll realize i can do my own thing without having to go back.

i think that once you leave it might be hard to jump back in.

maybe. but then maybe that's the way it has to be. it's not like i'm on pace to
graduate any time soon.

if you left right now...

yeah, i'm really not going to class today.