Emergence

I have barely used this blog at all this year. I also have not written much in my journal, or any of these things that I already have a record for not doing.

And yet. Here we are.

 As I mentioned last year, I think I actually am accomplishing more than I am giving myself credit for. From last year, I completed AKP, I got to see Noriko again and visit Ghibli. I traveled all around Japan, and traveled well. I learned a little more about just asking people for things, information, or favors. Grandma died, and I am still working through that when the topic is broached. I got home, and I got an A in my biology course. I got to see Alex again, and launched into school. After a 37 hour car trip, Karen Tracy and I got to Whitman and the rest is history.Spencer and I have been a delightful roommate pair and the house has been helping us both respectively figure our shit out.

I let Skyrim and Halo happen a little too much, as well as reddit.

Over the summer, while at Mari's cabin, I came into the better realization that the people who get ahead and do things, just keep working. I've even mentioned as much here on this blog, but I started internalizing it a little more. And I realized how simple that actually is. Most people are lazy, and don't apply themselves. Even if you just do 30 minutes a day, you're better off than so, so many others. And that brings me back to here. I'm glad I brought up batman last year. I needed to read that. I'm doing a good job at rounding out my skills and knowledge base. But it can be better. I need to start doing and building and working. I need my weekdays to be workdays, and my weekends to be for play. I need to forge myself before I charge ahead into this new life that awaits me after college. There is still a rough and tough battle between there and now. I am able, I just hope I prepare properly. The first challenge will be writtens. If I am worth my beans, I will start figuring that out. But I am tired of essays, tests, of academia. I need to be able to do my projects. I mean to take a gap year at home, and I want to build. I want to shut up and put my money where my mouth is. I've flippantly vomited my plans onto anyone who will listen. Let's get our tools. Let's get our plans, and let's build miracles.
End: A Year of Placement
Begin: A Year of Building

10/20/2010

BUUURrrr.
: )

-pics and wandering to be added later

Awaken from Hibernation

It has been far, far too long since I have written anything down here. This follows for anything else that I have meant to keep a semblance of routine updates in. PWS, writing in journals, taking pictures, drawing, etc. It's been so long since I've taken the time to really, personally take a good look at the things around me and gleam anything meaningful from them. For the moment I feel this is because I have been lulled into a legitimate sense of security.
Nothing is wrong here. There are good friends, good work, good professors, good weather and activities, good books, great house/housemates...There is almost nothing missing. Years ago I may have felt a small drive to continue to pull back and consequently review and predict everything for hope of a different interpretation, or even just another perspective. I believe that for the moment, I am just calm. I don't feel like I need to look into everything. If it bothers me enough, or seems important, than yes, surely I'll look into and try to understand a speech pattern or watch how a duck walks, but for the moment. I don't think I really /want/ to find another interpretation.
This is great.
This is where I want to be.
This is where I LIKE being.

Just Maybe

I forget the exact time, but I remembered something I posted earlier this year, and was more aware a thing.
A shift of thinking from "How will a Sam deal with those around him and the world" to "How will those around me and the world deal with a Sam?"

(Pic to be added later)

Chewy Bar

I've recently returned back to Whitman after being home for the first time in about six months. The break was much needed, but was not complete until I returned. With fresh memories, I now can better compare today to last week. I am so happy that I live here. I was unable to get to my room without first being hugged by everyone in the first two sections, my own, and then a mass section hug. There was too much care going on. These are the people whom I am going to live with for the next few years, and I am confident that I am in capable hands. Here I feel a more intense concentration of self, or at the least I am aware of it more. I am safe here, and I can live here.
I need to stay focused and keep going. I need to keep writing here if only to help fuel my momentum. As usual. Work needs to be done. Today is a great time to start.

Keep playing piano.

Keep moving.

Like the Alchemist who tried to make gold out of lead, I must first try.

Hello Present

The world around me is finally feeling like a concrete area in which I live. This may sound just a mite hard to understand, but I believe that I have taken large steps in definitely coaxing myself out of the perspective of reality with a thin veil covering everything. Many things have been swirling around, but at least I have stayed in the same place, and have not been bullied by the winds to change stances. I will try to add some pictures to this post later once I get my camera uploaded, or charged. At the moment I am living back at Reed for a night. It is a little relaxing to be back here. Probably the aesthetics, but still, just a different buzz of people than I am used to seeing at Whitman. Even in this small windy day nothing is actually pushing itself to insistently. There are tremors and reminders, but they are not the type that try hearts. Settling continues to occur. Motivation still needs work not surprisingly enough.

Passions

hope

"I found your sister in a Reed article. Why didn't you go there? You would have done well at Reed."
-Craig Gunsol

Perhaps..

Something that the following discussion brought up was the safety of Whitman students and how they act within the rules. They don't do as well at going crazy and whatever they want. I kind of miss that from the few days I stayed at Reed and the ambient feel of it in surrounding Portland. While I can expand here a little better than at Reed, I feel as if in order to stay within social confines, it would be unwise to reveal just how impassioned I am about the randomness of my knowledge. I would love to speak to people all day long about things, or make something using an idea a friend heard in physics or do something. I feel this is a great place to learn, I am not sure I am in the right place to do. Or maybe learn to do. This nerfing of passions must not be allowed to happen I have decided. I have for too long been a shell of borderline apetheticness and am in desperate need of resurfacing to the qwirky and the emotional. I need to love my work and I need to know that the work loves me. While I know those around me have superpowers, and would not be here if they didn't, I can't always get the sense that they are using them. That being said expansion must continue. Expand until all is one and understanding is living.

Mask of a Proxy

Remembering patience, value and time, I am still having trouble with staying in the concrete now.









From: The Alchemist
A certain shopkeeper sent his son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The lad wandered through the desert for 40 days, and finally came upon a beautiful castle, high atop a mountain. It was there that the wise man lived.

Rather than finding a saintly man, though, our hero, on entering the main room of the castle, saw a hive of activity: tradesmen came and went, people were conversing in the corners, a small orchestra was playing soft music, and there was a table covered with platters of the most delicious food in that part of the world. The wise man conversed with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn to be given the man’s attention.

The wise man listened attentively to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in two hours.

“Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something”, said the wise man, handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. “As you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill”.

The boy began climbing and descending the many stairways of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was.

“Well”, asked the wise man, “Did you see the Persian tapestries that are hanging in my dining hall? Did you see the garden that it took the master gardener ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”

The boy was embarrassed, and confessed that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.

“Then go back and observe the marvels of my world”, said the wise man. “You cannot trust a man if you don’t know his house”.

Relieved, the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the works of art on the ceilings and the walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around him, the beauty of the flowers, and the taste with which everything had been selected. Upon returning to the wise man, he related in detail everything he had seen.

“But where are the drops of oil I entrusted to you?” asked the wise man. Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone.

“Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you”, said the wisest of wise men. “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon”.

Whitman is watered with Rainbows

 

Assassins

From Whitman

It has begun. Not too much has changed just yet. Equilibrium is slowly swirling down to settling. I feel as if there is plenty of time to get everything I want to have done, but I am not utilizing my time well, as always. Friends are becoming more abundant which is of especial joy. I need to remember to keep drawing and reading when I don't have things to do. Pictures too. I have been lax.

From Whitman

Despite I died within 24 hours of assassins (very sketchy kill) things are inversely growing and connectivity is becoming alive. Tendrils are forming and this pleases me much.

I live here now.

From Whitman

And this is indeed my home.

I have done a good job today. /content/

From Whitman