Dear LiveJournal,

How are you? I'm sorry I haven't written in a long time. It's just, you know, we're both very busy. I have plenty of school work to do, and you're a fairly major web site catering to sometimes dramatic users.

I'm doing rather well. I've got a wonderful girlfriend, and things are going really well with us. And also, I got accepted to graduate school! We'll see how that goes, but I'm pretty excited and I have a few ideas of what I'd like to do. I'll be sure to keep you posted!

I should probably write more, and I think I might make an effort to, you know? It's good to get things off my chest, and sometimes I have interesting things to say. So, maybe keep an eye out for that? I don't know how much time I'll have to put something down, but hopefully more often than once a year.

Sincerely,
Jason

( oh my god, huge Heroes and Firefly spoilers )
/me really doesn't watch that much TV...honest...

In my Models of Computing class for the past few weeks, we've covered assembly language. It's kind of interesting, but annoying at the same time. Basically, it's the "lowest level" language there is. To get any lower, you have to write out the 1's and 0's (the machine code) of a program directly (which we actually did, a little bit).

It was very educational, but also very tedious. The version we used (Pep/8) gives you exactly 39 commands, and none of them do very much on their own. For example, in order to add one to a number in memory (which in most languages is a single command, name++) you have to load the number from memory into the accumulator, add one to the accumulator, and save the accumulator back into memory into the same spot. That's three commands to do one simple thing.

( A bunch of technical stuff )

So I thought I had written about this next part, but now I remember that it was actually a conversation I had with someone in real life. At the time, I had kind of felt like I had missed out on the "glory days" of computers -- the days of people making incredible new discoveries, laying the foundations for the industry today and generally doing legendary things. I guess I still have that feeling, but it's not as strong anymore, now that I've seen and used what is nowadays mostly a piece of history. This section was unique in that it's the first time we've actually gone "backwards" so to speak. It not only teaches you more about how computers work and what's actually going on, but it also helps you appreciate what you don't have to do anymore.

Good news, everyone! I got a job for the summer that doesn't require me to be in another state! I got a research grant to work for one of my professors over the summer, and all of next year, and I can live at home and do my work online. Ha ha, I'm so excited! I'm so glad that I get to actually spend a summer hanging out with my friends, instead of just seeing you guys every two weeks for a day.

The old plan: Look before you leap, think before you act. Adopted after making a few pretty stupid decisions without considering them carefully at all.

The problem with this plan is that it doesn't work well under pressure. That is, it began to feed upon itself, until I was practically applying the scientific method to, say, whether someone liked me or not. Even though I knew that all the "evidence" that I was collecting was far from valid, I felt compelled to try to make sense of it, to weigh each side and never managed to draw a conclusion. That was the real problem, I guess, there wasn't a logical conclusion to be found because nothing substantial was going in in the first place. Garbage in, garbage out. Well, I'm getting sick of garbage and I'm sick of worrying about what to do and whether to do it. For an analytical person like me, this plan is begging me to over think, and I am. Besides, things like this aren't logical anyway.

The new plan: Let things go. Don't worry about things that aren't under my control. Don't try to force my life to be a certain way just because I think I want it, be content with where I am now. Plan ahead without panicking about uncertainties.

I think I put too much stress into finding somebody to love. It's important to me (obviously since I seem to always write about it), but it shouldn't be this all-encompassing desire that prevents me from fully enjoying my life the way it is now, because my life is enjoyable now. I've got great friends at this great school, and even more great friends scattered across the globe, and I'm happy. So now instead of carrying a torch, watching at a guarded distance, and fretting "Does she like me, or is she just nice?" and "Should I ask her out?", I'll just wait for the opportunity to come up naturally, and when it seems like the natural thing to do I'll do it. I don't want to be completely passive and wait for someone to ask me out first (sadly, it seems that guys are still somewhat expected to take charge most of the time) but at the same time worrying about it is doing me no good. Of course, there is the problem of waiting for it to be the natural thing to do, since casually asking people out is not my specialty.

We'll see how well it works. The hardest thing will be staying calm and centered when I could be analyzing my life to little bits in an attempt to see what's going on. And already the back of my mind is asking "But what if you miss out on someone because you wait endlessly for a 'natural moment'?" to which I am responding "Then it wasn't meant to be." Making it public will hopefully keep me honest, too.

I guess I will also answer Ryan's call for updates as well...

Um. Well, there's not much to say, I guess. That's why I haven't updated, I suppose. Music Theory's been kicking my butt lately, partially because it's just harder, and mostly because we have a different professor this year who's been asking a lot more from us. In fact, I have to go in tomorrow to finish a test because it was too long for one class period. Ugh. That, and I've had to learn some piano, which isn't much fun.

Let's see, what else? I guess I don't have that much to say. I've actually been a little down the past few days, although that's probably just from stress from all this theory stuff. I feel like I don't really know what I want, nothing really seems like a great idea. I don't know, it's hard to describe.

I believe I witnessed the end of a tradition tonight.

There is a field between the two 'big' freshmen dorms on campus here. It's sort of an anti-hill, actually. It slopes down around all the edges. In the winter, though, they make it into a sort of ice rink by spraying water into it and letting it freeze. Because of this, we usually refer to it as a body of water, not a field, even in non-freezing seasons. The specific name depends on one thing, one event.

The tug of war.

Specifically, a tug of war that takes place between Independence Hall and Gay Hall during Homecoming. This has been going on for quite a few years, since the 1970s, I think. There's a trash can lid that serves as a trophy, that has a record of all the victories. More importantly, the hall that wins the tug gets to name the lake for the rest of the year. They are typically unimaginative and name it either "Gay Lake" or "Indy Pond". While Indy had traditionally been in the lead, in recent years Gay has stepped up their recruiting campaign and had caught up. Last year Gay tied it up, so this year was the tie breaker.

I live in Pine Hall, the 'other' freshmen dorm (it is obviously open to returning students as well), which is completely excluded from the competition. There have been attempts in the past to voice displeasure at our disenfranchisement, including trying to disrupt the event, but last year our hall managed to strike a chord. We protested the war, with a banner reading, "Pine for Peace."

I unfortunately was not there, but a few people went, and brought their sign, and protested. The effect was profound. There was a surprising amount of anger, to the point of one person actually forming a noose with the rope and showing it to the protesters.

So of course we did it again this year.

We had a lot more people this time, because we were better organized and prepared. We made signs, and planned chants. We tried to recruit people from the non-freshmen halls. We even had someone with a guitar and a harmonica playing some Bob Dylan. I formed the "I" in a PINE4☮ shirtless male line up. At halftime during the Powderpuff game, practically the entire crowd took to the field for the tug, and we stood in the middle and protested. We were vastly outnumbered. The two teams were easily more than 100 each. But during the game we had been just as loud or louder than any of them, shouting out slogans and singing songs.

Unfortunately, the war began despite our best efforts. The two teams dug down and pulled with equal might. For a few seconds, the knot in the middle shifted slightly back and forth. And then....

POP!

It sounded like a large balloon popping. Both teams fell back. We started cheering, because something had obviously gone wrong. From the back of both lines, people started celebrating, assuming that they had won. In truth, of course, the rope had snapped. It was chaos, until people started figuring out what had happened. Then we saw that some people who had fallen down hadn't gotten up. The sheer force of the rope snapping and then being pulled by people in the back had ripped the rope from the hands of the people in front. The rope was also unraveling as it flew back at high speed. Eventually, we all cleared the field as ambulances began to show up. One person that we all know from Pine last year who pulled for Indy couldn't move his fingers, and they were beginning to turn black and blue. There's a freshmen living in Pine who had been second or third in line, and got taken to the hospital.

It's the talk of the halls now, and I'm sure will be for some time. There's a lot of questions about what the result is going to be, how the people who are hurt are doing, and what will happen next year. It's pretty clear that things are going to change. I suspect that they'll reduce it quite a bit, probably have designated teams instead of having everyone who wants to participate. It's one of those things, though, that you know was important. At least locally. It's interesting that it happened now, of all times. It's a bit odd, that the record was tied, and our hall was preaching to everyone that we shouldn't have a war, that we should seek peace instead. I suppose our message takes on a bit of a different tone now.

Umm...http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4666213612

*points furiously at above URL*

By somewhat popular request, a tale from the F&PW portfolio that you may not have seen before:

( It's right here! )




I still think it's pretty good, although there are a number of things I would change/add now that I read it again. The weirdest thing is that I read it, and it seemed like something I would like to read, not something that I would actually write. Hmm.