lost belongings

I lost my wallet today and it took me an hour to find it. Now by chance (or maybe something else), the hour that it took to find it also happens to have been the same hour that I was supposed to drive to school and go to my second favorite class this quarter (multivariable calculus). All in all, though, I don't wish it didn't happen. I experienced a lot of things this morning that I otherwise would not have had the opportunity to experience.

On my way back to my house from checking my car (where my wallet wasn't), I followed a stray cat toward my front gate. It was watching me and walk/running away from me at the same time, and it totally ran into my gate head first. I've never seen a cat do that before.

I also found my old usb drive that I have been missing now for a few months. And, I found a sheet of paper where I wrote down a bunch of really creative ideas for a video game I was going to make but decided not to. It's inspiring me to rethink making that game, even though I have two on my plate at the moment.

You'd be surprised at some of the places I looked (more than once) for my wallet. Or... maybe you won't, if you've ever lost something and looked in the refrigerator more than once. It's almost as if you're drawn to recheck the places that you've already checked, just to confirm your creeping suspicion that it doesn't exist anymore no matter how hard you look. Or, maybe you're just hungry.

Anyway, just because I know you're wondering, it was in a really obvious place, under my dresser.

Actually, it's been a pretty good day so far.

Picture Post!

Yes, this is my closet.

In conclusion, everyone has the ability to bring something unique into the world. This is my contribution. =)

on the nature of justice in blogs

I've discovered something really cool about blogs, and it makes me think about Plato.

Apparently, you can go back and edit previous posts! That's not the cool part. The cool part is that when you edit previous posts, it doesn't change the post date OR make any note of the post having been edited.

This has pretty incredible implications. Say I made a huge mistake on the last post, like I said something mean or incorrect by accident. I can go back and fix it, and it won't even say that it used to be the old way! And that happened! Or, say I wanted to go back and change what happened when I woke up on March 31. I can do that! Actually I did do that. In my hands is the power to rewrite history without anyone even noticing!

Why does this remind me of Plato? There's this part of the Republic where Glaucon claims that all personal benefits of justice come not from being just but actually from appearing to be just to other people, and that when there is an opportunity to be unjust without anyone noticing, the benefits of being unjust in that situation far outweigh the benefits of being just in that situation (of which there are supposedly none).

I don't actually buy that claim, but it's an interesting one to think about.

And, I do also understand, I suppose, that the power to rewrite my blog posts isn't quite the same as the power to rewrite history.

sexual assault awareness month

My school has these thematic months where they promote their views on stuff on little picket signs that line the walkways. The theme usually corresponds to the time of year that it is. During February, they post signs promoting abstaining from sex (because of Valentine's day), During September, they post signs promoting abstaining from drugs and alcohol (most likely because it's a new year and people are adjusting to the dorm lifestyle or whatever). This month is sexual assault awareness month.

I don't really want to write about sex. Instead, I'm going to write about J-walking.

Let me explain. At another month sometime in during the year, the theme for the month is, "use the crosswalks!" The signs they post around say things like "Kenny died. He didn't use crosswalks." (with a picture of Kenny from South Park on it) or "Edna Parker has been alive a long time! That's because she uses crosswalks!" My favorite one is "Hi! It's me, the crosswalk. USE ME!!!"

For whatever reason, every time I see these signs, I have a serious urge to j-walk every street in my path. I really haven't figured out why. Maybe it's because I don't like crosswalks telling me what to do. More likely it's because whoever is in charge of these signs feels like I need to be coerced into doing things that I would otherwise do anyway.

It's like when you're about to clean your room by your own decision, and just before you're able to start, you mom or dad demands that you do it. At that point, you can take no credit in having instigated the cleaning of the room.

Not that it's all about credit or anything. I think it goes deeper than that.

The road that goes downhill both ways

I wrote a blog today, but it was wordy and boring, so I erased it.

I'm keeping the title, because I read it in a book this morning and I like it.

In conclusion, writing interesting stuff that people might actually want to read is hard!!!

They eye of the storm

It's raining today. it's also Wednesday.

Sometimes, I'll quiz myself on how to say trivial things in the various foreign languages I'm trying to learn. Today, my quiz was 'Today is Wednesday'. in German, that's 'Heute ist Mitwoch'. Mitwoch, or Wednesday in German, is translated literally into 'mid week' or the middle of the week. In Japanese, it's '今日は水曜日だ', pronounced 'kyou wa, suiyoubi da'. 水曜日, or suiyoubi, is literally translated as 'water day'. I don't know how to say it in Chinese yet. So the Japanese call it water day, the Germans call it the middle of the week, and I don't even know about the Chinese. What in the world does the English word 'Wednesday' mean, if anything?

I think The Japanese are closer to the true meaning of this Wednesday in particular, as I see much wetness about me, however, I might have preferred the German word three weeks ago during dead week of last academic quarter, more just for the sole reason of knowing that it was half way over.

Then again... my favorite Wednesday greeting isn't, "Happy Mitwoch!" or "Happy 水曜日!", or even "Happy Wednesday!" for that matter.

no...

it's "Happy Hump Day!"

more on Hump day another time maybe.