at the drive in?

Had some interesting conversations back in the hometown over Christmas Eve/Christmas. I've wondered about productivity, and if I might be able to change my ways such that I make more time for myself to actively "practice" the skills that I hope to rely on to secure the majority of my income in the near future.

I finished processing the audio clips recorded just before moving out of Deerfield this afternoon--clips to splice together to somehow create a peculiar voice for a nebulous character in The Burning Five. Also managed to splice together the first six (of eighteen) clips necessary for this character's full dialogue.


Have also experienced some rather phenomenal dreams since getting back to Wisconsin. Images of islands & hotel-rooms, with plots focusing on delving into new ways of attempting some . . . odd sectors of pseudo-artistic industries. This morning I was participating in a play being directed by the female lead. She chastised me for ad libbing a few lines, but enjoyed two in-particular that I no longer can recall word-for-word (both were sarcastic commentaries about unusual urban experiences, the second I think having something to do with offering another character ham instead of a key).

Feels like my break is winding down . . . even though I have a full two weeks left.

shallow

It doesn't feel like holidays up here. I'm too perfectly isolated here--from the old thoughts, from the common faces--to really connect, for more than a moment or two, with the usual patterns.

I do wonder, in brief moments, about the potential of my imminent return--if the pattern I predicted--which, truth, slipped slightly from expectations last semester--will reach a bigger climax than my first four-year interim. I wonder . . . but not like I expect I would if I was in Illinois.

I wonder how many of my older friends (which means, pretty much, all of my college friends) will be back? I wonder if that weak, unexpected greeting was the last time I'll ever hear that particular voice? I wonder if I'll actually finish a /new/ something before June?--But only in passing . . . only so briefly, for five, ten minutes . . .

No, no . . . I would trap myself in contingency planning if I was closer to the stage.

I suppose that's a good thing . . . at least for now--that I'll actually be fully charged, for once.

A little inspired

I'm beginning to feel a bit inspired--

finished Mass Effect over the weekend, and have proceeded through most of the new bits of Valve's Orange Box since yesterday (specifically Half-life 2: Episode 2 and Portal). The quality between all three titles has had me projecting myself, imagining possible futures, in the down-time I've taken between gaming sessions.

Particularly, I've been imagining possible career destinations that I must've forgotten about in recent years. The video-game world has exploded predictions since the last time I really considered ending up finding a satisfying job therein, so much more heavily focused on pushing product to maximize profit . . . except for the golden-boy studios, Valve right at the top of them (along with Blizzard, Bioware, and to slightly lesser extents Bethesda, Bungie, and Epic).

Landing at any of the above-mentioned studios . . . would be success of a very old dream.

Hoping this inspiration leads somewhere productive in the next few days . . . or at least before I'm back in Illinois for my second-to-last semester of undergrad studies. Have maybe three full days of work, probably with another full day needed for reviewing things properly, and The Burning Five could finally be ready for public viewing.

It's a good sign . . . I think this time last year, I was rather depressed.

prodding theology

I want to have a serious discussion about religion--I'd like to try drawing more insight from persons who don't yet and/or are incapable of seeing the beauty in chaos that I base my own godlessness on. But, I want to make sure to do this in person . . . face to face . . .

I doubt I'll get a good chance until I return to school. I mean, I could probably try attending some kind of church function up here, but my guess is that the method I'd use would make any stranger I could approach feel attacked/oppressed, and then I wouldn't be able to get a whole lot from them . . . but thinking about how people so often appear to base strong faith in divine powers in ideas like "the universe is too complex to be random" makes me want to see how someone would react if I did something like this:

"please consider modern astronomy for a moment: we know that our star system has eight or nine planets, one of which supports life. We know that there are billions of star systems in our galaxy, and can hypothesize that each contains, at an ungenerous guess, .5-1.5 planets--each with up to hundreds of moons. Considering the numbers in our galaxy, I'll grant it a decent probability that ours is the only planet that can support carbon-based lifeforms. However, consider that conservative estimates of deep-space analysis, factoring space-telescope images to hundreds of magnifications, estimates that there are millions of /galaxies/ besides our own in the universe--perhaps even billions, maybe even trillions. Considering the numbers--it would be a far, far greater miracle that our species is the only sentient lifeform capable of rational thought in the universe than there being life more intelligent than us elsewhere in the universe. Maybe not in our galaxy, but the infinite being in question, to remain infinite, must preside over the universe, and not just one galaxy."

And that's a hastily written, poorly formed version of the beginnings of my understanding of human insignificance that is at the heart of my disbelief in anything less than a naturistic pantheism.

I finished playing Mass Effect today . . . found the ending to be pretty satisfying. Worked a little bit on some audio for The Burning Five. Things are pretty slow, slow, slow . . .

who knew: six hour drives take six hours

Safely arrived in Hayward around 8pm last night, having left DeKalb at 1:45 . . . six hours of mostly-boring scenery between, made bearable courtesy of Worlds End Girlfriend, Via Audio, By the End of Tonight, and a few others on my mp3 player.

One goal between now and the start of spring classes: finish editing The Burning Five.

For the moment: rest.

Uneventful

Have continued existing since my last post . . . largely uneventfully. Went to a concert here, saw a theatre show there . . . some little things, and now working on a final paper for a Nietzsche class due by tomorrow or Wednesday morning (officially tomorrow, professor "hinted" that he would make sure to come to campus late Wednesday).

Not entirely sure I'm ready to disappear from the area for a month, but I could certainly use a break from the continual second-guessing that goes on in my mind during any academic term. I hold myself to pretty lofty standards that seem to keep on growing, often (especially near the end of any semester) to the detriment of my health . . . but this is how I develop as a person.

Am disappointed in myself that my continued passiveness towards establishing intimate relations with a woman has, once again, come to nothing--but still not to the point that I really feel up to asserting a more active method. It bothers me, but then again it would bother me much more to find myself lowering my outside standards just for the sake of conforming to the human experience. I worry that my odds will dwindle as I inch ever closer to completing my undergrad studies, but . . . I'll find a way. I always do (although, relationally, it's almost never the way I would most prefer).

Found myself actually writing down a "scenario" just before heading to dinner earlier this evening--what could become a realism-focused drama for my fiction class next semester. So that's good. hum, hum. . . .

Back to paper drafting--this one is coming along a bit easier than the last few, actually . . . although I still worry as long as I haven't made it to the revision process. There's a nagging feeling that this one will require massive effort to effectively revise into a decent paper--but that feeling is always there, right up until the next morning when I read a freshly-printed draft and find out my thoughts, for the most part, connect with all of my citations.

Back to work.

Where is the moon?

Last night's adventure meant much-needed relief from still-consistent woe.

Today, I fail to find my GPS charger and doubt I'll want to brave the weather to attend the Storytellers' Theatre show. Neither thing is entirely terrible: the charger might turn up, and even if it doesn't I shouldn't need it until I'm back in Wisconsin, plus the theatre show is also running tomorrow afternoon.

And last night was very good.

I feel like I've lost my blogging abilities . . . used to be able to write more interesting accounts of my thoughts in these text boxes. Perhaps I am subconsciously saving all creative energies for my rare moments of productivity--I am writing two or three poems a month, and continue developing larger ideas a bit more frequently.