Down, down, down

Well, every week it seems that I start off stressed, work my way up and down, then the weekend comes, I have plans to finish my work and get some reprieve. Usually, I have a nice Friday and get part of the way through Saturday before something hits me.

In this case, I'll start on Thursday. I started from school at a jog to a local guest home where I volunteer as part of my role in my school's Interact club (looks good on a resume, has scholarships, anyone in high school should consider it, sorry, I'm being told to recruit people). I had a nice few games of crib, and then I decided to go to Boston Pizza. I wasn't scheduled for work, but I had nothing waiting for me at home. I made it there, sat down for a while, and then my father (one of the owners, the other being my mother) told me that my aunt from out of town would be in for supper. So I waited and had supper with her, my grandmother and my great uncle. Afterwords, I received a text message from a friend about going to Don Cherry's for wings (which my friends and I do every Thursday). So I drive my, now slightly inebriated, relatives home, park their car and run from there to Don Cherry's. I make it there, worn and thirsty and my friends arrive a few moments later. We go in and I spot some of my hopeful friends. I go over to talk to them, I always try to do this, hoping that by making an effort to talk to them I'm making a good impression. They've finished their meal and soon head out. I sit down and order a pitcher (of beer) with a friend. Conversation, drinking and wings follow. We watch the hockey game, commenting on the fact that Canada's team should be doing much better. At the end of the game, there's a shootout, and the whole bar, ourselves included, cheer and sigh with every goal we block and shot we fail to get. It thankfully ends with local hero Sidney Crosby scoring the winning goal. We pay, leave and head up to one of our place's to play video games and by one o'clock, we're all heading home.

Friday wasn't quiet so eventful, but it did bring some measure of satisfaction. I bought a ticket to a Monte Carlo night for students, went home, got read and headed out. It was cool. There was music with a good DJ, tables for poker, blackjack, roulette and more. Everyone showed up looking well dressed and ready to gamble (with chips that could be traded in for tickets for a draw). I started at the poker table, where I lost sorely to two girls who had hardly a clue what they were doing; the dealer and I had to explain to them every time how they had won. I moved over to the roulette table, where my winnings almost evened out my losses, and from there I headed to the blackjack tables where I bled chips most of the rest of the night. I took breaks, tried other games, watched a dance competition (I wish I could dance better, or at least that I had enough confidence to try), and tried to find people to talk to. Twice at blackjack tables, myself and the other players had to explain to someone just coming on to a shift how to play. It was fun and I almost earned some chips. In the end, I didn't have enough chips to bid on any prizes, but it was funny to hear the comments on some of them. My name was called out as a mock winner of the Boston Pizza coupons (useless to me since my parents own it). And then everyone headed out, well mostly. I stayed behind with some of the people who had worked the night and some others just waiting. We sat and ate the delicious nachos and other food that had been out all evening, but had gone mostly unnoticed. All that meant was more for us. In the end I accepted a ride back home and wondered whether I should go the next day too. Saturday's was for adults, but being nineteen in grade twelve, I qualify for both. I decided against it in the end; I had my night and the parents should have theirs.

Saturday was boring. I just wasn't in a mood to do anything. I walked about nine kilometres to Boston Pizza to see if anything was going on just to walk back. But late that night (actually, extremely early Sunday), I got a strange message from a friend. To make a long and embarrassing story short, someone posed as a girl I know using her online account. They asked me something personal and then misinterpreted my deflection. They showed it to her, and now I don't want to have to deal with this tomorrow. Really, I think that this is just a good reason not to hang around her anymore. I seem to make friends (purposefully just friends) with the wrong types of girls. This, my crush and feelings of alienation are adding up to a lot of stress for me. Which leads into:

Sunday. I woke to my cellphone, which though a complicated history and setup is a Blackberry, which is only supposed to have phone settings, but also receives my father's e-mails, and my number has been changed and given to someone else. Basically, no one knows my number (which gets about two messages a week anyways) and now I'm getting message after message meant for my father. I checked it, and sure enough it wasn't for me. I went back to bed, it went off again. Again not for me. By this point I was awake, but I didn't care to be. I didn't mind it so much as I minded existing with all this stress hanging over me. In addition, I had plenty of work to do. I just sat there until somehow I got up and started my day. I wasted it. I just avoided doing anything. I tried looking for a friend, but there are few people I trust around, and few strangers willing to chat (I trust strangers because they have very little impact on my life and often have nothing to due with what I talk about). Failing to find a friend, my mind went crazy. Screaming and yelling, but you wouldn't know it from the look of me. Eventually I calmed down. I did some minor tasks, nothing important. I tried some diversions; I watched a television show (Stargate SG1), played Uncharted 2, but these just kill time. Nearing the end of the day, I finally started on my work. I got very little of it done, and I'll probably be busy finishing it all this week, but at least I got a grip. I'm better now, but I'm still stressed about what's ahead of me.

In case anyone is worried, I still think logically. My logic sometimes gets twisted, and that's usually from being alone too much, a fresh perspective (second opinion) usually fixes that. And for most major issues, my mind has a good track record of keeping me in line. I've though about suicide, drinking, moving out and other ideas at different times, but in each case I eliminated it as an option. I don't need anyone to tell me that. Right now, all I need is a little bit of wit and a lot of luck. And it always helps to keep a Card up my sleeve (it's capitalized for a reason).

Lone wolf

First off, lone wolf is an irony, or at least, it should be. Wolves are pack animals and are rarely found a "lone." A lone wolf is not as common a theme in wolves as popular culture makes it seem.

Next, it's not a term I would use to describe myself, nor a regular wolf; I don't like packs, maybe a dog; a familiar. I'm not a party animal (sorry for all the animalia references), but I don't like being alone. The silence would be good, except that when I'm alone I'm not usually silent, my mind can be deafening. I prefer being one-on-one with people, even in running, I often run beside someone, even though it doesn't suit my strengths. The reason I'm so used to walking is that walking home with people used to be the best way to have face-to-face chats with them, but now that everyone has cars, the drive home takes minutes at most, drivers are sometimes distracted by driving and music blares.

In Japan, I went on walks often. I thought it better to get out and learn about the city than sit at home, where I was often expected to study (what?) silently. So I learned the lay of the land, I explored shops, took pictures of the scenery and occasionally ran into people (not literally). I'm starting to get the same feeling here. My room is full of things, video games, movies, but most of it is just pointless distraction. I want to get out.

School is similar in the way that it's beginning to remind me of Japan. The pre-formed cliques that are so hard to break into, I've noticed that the grades still have the same feel; the grade tens are energetic, the grade twelves are more relaxed and the grade elevens are an in between. The grade tens are more willing to take me in, but the grade twelves interest me more. I feel like an outsider again and I don't want to be.

If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? It depends on your definition of sound. If you define sound scientifically as vibration, then yes. If you define sound as something heard, then no. If no one checks on Schrodinger's cat, is it still alive? I'd rather have people around to find out, and hope it is. But enough philosophy and physics.

This week has not been a very happy week so far. On Valentine's day, I was playing solitare (which would make for a good pun; a card playing solitaire on a valentine's day because I am a Card and I was playing cards, I was alone, playing solitaire, and I was listening to Linkin Park's On a Valentine's day on Valentine's day). Then, today, it snowed and school was cancelled. I would have prefered to go, to have had something to do and people to see, but instead I'm sitting at home, having finished all my homework for the week, my residence application and a platinum in Uncharted 2, and now I'm looking into scholarships and doing next week's homework. My grades might not be suffering but I am. And I'll end it there, this is getting to depressing. There might be good news on the horizon, but for now, this is all I have.

How I think

Before I get into it, I'm just going to digress into the sujbect of "sophistication." Sophisticated is one of my favourite words. It has similar roots to philosopher and sophist, probably more to the latter. I like it because sophisticated means high class, and a sophist is someone who uses misleading arguments. I like to laugh at how high class and deception go hand in hand.

Going of on a tangent of this dirgession, I've got a bit of both, I use sophistry in arguments and while I'm not high class, I do have my own personal manners. Among these manners, I find that people should always say the greeting that suits the other person. That probably doesn't make much sense until I explain that I often chat with people in different time zones. I wish them a good morning and then they return it and I remind them that it's not morning but evening where I am. Second, I don't see much point in making fun of people in other languages, since if they don't understand it, it has as much meaning as any fake garbage of a language you make up on the spot, and if they do understand it, then I think you've chosen the wrong language. And lastly, if it doesn't hinder you to help someone, then you should do it. Anyways, that's enough.

Now on the reason for this entry. First of all, most of this is a consequence of a mental debate I had about five years ago. I was trying to figure the world out by overthinking everything I knew, taking every idea apart, anaylsing it and looking for some sort of ultimate paradigm. Needless to say, it was unsuccessful, but it had some effects on me.
First was science, I became almost obsessed with the idea of it. I wanted to figure out everything, and science became my new best friend. Ideas, theories, principles, laws, all of it intruiged me. I thought about it all the time, my head was full of it. Everytime I went around a turn in a car, I felt for the centrifugal force (which I now know doesn't exist). I did calculations in my head, even if I didn't have numbers I would still think about how the equations worked (and my math mark enjoyed a year of a ninety-nine per cent average). Then I got to where science didn't have answers. Scientists are still debating theories, coming up with new ideas and no one really knows what's going on (also, I hate quantum and string theory).
And as an added bonus, I tried to get rid of my emotions. I saw them as distractions and things that would get in the way of more logical thinking (which does have some truth to it, but it just a bad idea).
Then I moved into philosophy. Not the "you should live your life this way" cultist kind, but the classic greek "this is how the world works" variety. I tried to imagine what our world meant, how it could of begun, what could be behind it and all that jazz. This broke down a few things, morality no longer made sense, and neither did religion. I was depressed and confused and the more I overthought it, the deeper the rabbit hole went.
Eventually, three things happened. The first was that my emotions came back. I found a girl (not as in a girlfriend, I just an aquaintance). Everything I said seemed to make her sad, and something inside of me didn't like to see her sad, so I tried to be more outwardly positive. I didn't really succeed, but in doing so, I found my emotions and didn't throw them away.
The second thing was I lost my belief in religion. It happened while I was still a memeber of the parish, and so I continued on as if nothing was different, I was even confirmed while thinking "I don't believe this." I didn't speak true because for me it had nothing to do with my personal faith, it had to do with the community. The internal backlash of this has had some negative effects, but I know that I don't have faith in a god.
And the last effect is my way of thinking. I mentally debate many issues. I split my mind up and argue a point. It works well for debating. Though I'm still sometimes partial to one side, and have trouble seeing anything on the other side. And my mind enjoys tearing things apart with criticism, which can be a good thing, except that with all my time to overthink, it often goes overboard.

The issue of morailty, of good and bad and how they fit into our world was solved for me by sujectivity; everyone has their own views. From the objective point of view, there is no good or bad, only thinking makes it so (thank you Hamlet). While I don't believe in good and evil, I've realized that it does help to be selfless. If you give to others, it makes them more willing to give to you, and by not doing "bad" things, you usually avoid problems like enfing up in prision. Though I don't think that giving and recieving isn't directly proportional like some dogma make it seem (golden rule and karma).

Aside from that, I've always had a different way of thinking. When someone asks how something can be done, I answer them, I tell them all the ways I can think of and I often inlcude ways most people would avoid (but I make sure to add disclaimers). I can use sophism and often play the devil's advocate, sometimes just for fun (and agan, with disclaimers). I'm also a lot less attached than most people, even to myself I'd say (and no, video games did not cause my problems, I was a very violent and arrogant child). And I play life like I play video games, not as if I had a reset button, but occasionally taking chances, trying to keep things interesting but most of all, trying to progress.

And while I'm here, I think I'll give my thoughts on something which I think many people misconceive: chaos. Most people think it means death and destruction and all things bad, but really I don't see it that way.

First, let's get down to basics. Let's say you have... Lego makes a good example but I think I'll go with letters. So, the letters "f," "o," "u" and "r" make the word "four." But to do so, they have to be in that order. If I write "ofru," "oruf" or any of twenty one other combinations, it wouldn't be "four." So "four" would be those letters in order and any of the others would be those same letters in chaos. That's just forming the word "four," but those other combinations might have other meanings and really the only difference is the order.
To sum up, chaos is just the lack of that order. Let's say that you're building a house and you have all the materials. There's only a few combinations of those materials that you would want as your house, the rest are just random messes. In art, this chaos provides freedom and what most people call abstract (actually, and abstract is a summary like on the back of a book and true abstract are is supposed to be a representation or a summary of something).
So choas isn't really a bd thing, it's just that most of the time, you want things in a specific order.

Destruction can be chaotic because it often gets things out of order, but there are ways to destroy things very orderly and build things very chaotically. Also, because of the random nature of chaos, it's usually unstable and eventually reverts to order. There is no such thing as perfect chaos, as anything perfect would be orderly.

I like the idea of chaos because it's interesting, it's not straight forward. True order scares me because it leads to perfectionism, and nothing is perfect, id est perfect is nothing, and I'd rather something than nothing.

Anyways, I think I've shared enough of my thoughs for today.

A bit late

So, time to play catch up (sort of like the "last time on..." of television shows).

The week before last there was a hockey tournement in the area. I'm not very interested in hockey but I attended a few games in order to get whatever of a fraction closer to my new friends.

Actually, I'm not sure if friends is the right word for it. I don't make connections with people very easily; my first host father apparently didn't like that I didn't consider him like m own father. "Friends" sounds too assuming; they have yet to invite me to anything and we've never done anything outside of school and related events. I would like to consider them friends, but for now I'll go with aquaintances.

There was also a dance that friday. Normally, I don't bother going to dances, but it's another chance to be with people, especially my new aquaintances. My excuse was to sign in* a friend of someone in the group of aquaintences. I knew neither person well, but it gave me a reason to go. I showed up fifteen minutes early and waited. I was among the first in line, but I just sat there and let people go by me, waiting for the person I had to sign in or anyone I knew. A few minutes after it started, I got a text saying he wasn't coming, but I didn't really care. I waited, and a few minutes later I went in. I met a few of my friends and followed them to the dance floor. I'm not very good at dancing. I thinking too much, and it makes me tense, I can feel a beat, but I usually just use them for running, and I never know what to do with my hands (I'm guessing I'd be better drunk because I'd be more relaxed and using my arms a lot more). I eventually got a bit into it and it was fun, but effectively every try I made to dance near my crush failed and in general I didn't really feel like integral part of the group. About twenty minutes before it ended, I started thinking again and that made me tense up and get depressed. I went to the cafeteria alone and waited for it to end. It ended with me walking home on my own.

This past week little has happened. I've thought of asking my crush out, but I'm very sure that if I had tried, the answer would have been a quick "no." The debating club was selling a service where they would deliver cards and candy to valentines for a price. Apparently there were a lot for her, but she wasn't there when they were delivered. I didn't bother. Cards are nice, but they're too indirect. If I ask her (or anyone for that matter), I would do it face to face.

Other than that, this past week has been pretty quiet. I played video games with my friends last night, I found out how to make my favourite (alcoholic) drink, and I've stopped refusing rides, but I'll get to that in a later entry. The reason I haven't written in so long is because I was waiting for that crazy weekend with the dance and the hockey tournement to end, but when it did I was left in a melancholy that would have seeped into anything I wrote, and the last two nights I've been up for video games and an English project (below).

It's a collage of favourites, likes and cetera: movie (The Shawshank Redemption), television show (House), an interest (kanji), like (computer), dislike (computer), pastime (running, bike, piano), place (mountains), character (The Dark Knight's Joker), food (pizza), book (Ender's Game), subject (math, the equation is derivative), children's book (Dr. Seuess books, represented by the cat's hat), song/writer (I don't follow much in music, but I have a lot of Linkin Park songs) and saying (「完璧ありえない　この世界は不完全だ　だから美しい」 "Nothing is perfect. This world is imperfect. That's why it's beautiful" -Shou Aikawa).

*students from other school need to be accompanied to our dances by someone from our school.

Down time

So the next semester starts tomorrow. I'll have advanced physics 12, chimie avancee 12, calculus 12 and advanced English 12. I have a head start on physics and calculus because I took them in Japan, I need to learn how to do chemistry in French and I need to actually read the book I'm supposed to know for English. The book is Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, and I've only made it through the first few chapters. I have no idea why, but I have trouble reading it. It's not the style, because I breeze through Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, and though it is long, I usually read at a pace of one page for every two minutes (calculated from when I stayed up all night reading The Kite Runner over a nine hour stretch, still accurate). Maybe it's just Dickens. Anyways, I'll try again before falling back on sparks notes.

I'm looking forward to physics. I always like physics classes, probably because the teachers are all academics, I understand the subject and the classes are filled with toys. It'll also be nice to meet people with a common interest, or helping those who just want to get through it. Even in Japan I was able to do something in physics.

Chimie is French for chemistry. Because it's French and advanced, I'm expecting a very small class, which will be good. It'll also keep my French fresh, but I'll need to learn some vocabulary.

Calculus will probably be good. I'm good with the subject, the only question will be the teacher, we have some pretty terrible ones.

And I'm afraid of English. I get the language, I love to play with it (almost as much as I love playing with physics and math), but it's not very easy for me. I'm a slow read, a slow writer and I mix languages. I'm also a bit long winded because I always want to assure that my point makes it across. Unfortunately I can't write bullshit very well and long essays could easily be the end of me. I just hope that the teacher has the same opinions on the subject and grammar as I do, as English is nothing if not varied (which is why I think the Japanese have so much trouble teaching it).

Also, in case I didn't mention it before, I got accepted to UBC a few days ago, that'll be where I'm going. I love Vancouver (also close to Japan), it's well known for its engineering and it's a chance to get away. There's nothing wrong with where I am now, but I prefer to move around.

Anyways, I have things to do, but I'll probably procrastinate instead.