Lexx's life

So...yeah. It's Saturday night and I have nothing to do, and no one to do any of that nothing with. Friday was much the same.

My parents visited last weekend and it was nice. We actually got along. It was nice...but now the feelings of isolation are more painful than before.

What happened? Did I turn into such an asshole that I'm now unable to attract & keep anyone's friendship for long, except perhaps the old friends who got used to me & thus never told me I'm a douche-bag?

If anyone wants me I'll be playing PS2 & maybe drinking myself into a stupor. I can't really think of a better way to pass the time tonight.

Edit: so it seems that I *have* turned into such an asshole that people can only tolerate me for a little while, and the new friendships die out pretty quickly. Well...shit. Guess I'll just have to remember what made me a likeable guy several years ago, back when I was still making new friends.

Birthdays stop mattering once you become old enough to drink :) I guess since we're all now full "adults" aging has turned into a spectre, not a right of passage. Nonetheless, my birthday (yesterday) was a pleasant day:

-Goofed off at work
-Signed a lease for a huge room in a very well-maintained student house starting June 1st.
-Chatted up some cute girl who sat beside me on the bus, & got her number. I realized a few minutes after getting off the bus that she might've been flirting with me. Will wonders never end?
-Got an mp3 player in the mail from my family, as well as an unending barrage of hallmark e-cards.
-Discovered there is another washroom in the apartment I'm crashing at, and unlike the one I've been using up until now, this one is CLEAN and the shower has so much pressure it's like fiery hot needles are being driven into my flesh. It is a GODLY shower. I spent almost an hour in it and I looked like a boiled lobster. Glorious. Truly.

So...It's been about 6 months since I've posted. Let's get the factuals out of the way:

-I graduated!
-I got hired by an online travel company out in Washington State for tons of pay!
-I moved into a ritzy apartment in downtown Seattle & started working for my supper!
-I experienced significant difficulty forming a social life & have begun to work around that using an internet social website for meeting up with people based on common interests & themes.
-I fell in love with the student area in this city & am searching for a student house to rent there.

Here's the longer version: The 3 months I've spent here have been educational. In no particular order, I shall list off the things I've learned about this area:

-This area is gorgeous. Words can't describe it adequately, and neither can my shaky hands & lousy digital camera.

-For a city that has "mostly cloudy with a chance of rain" as its permanent weather forecast, umbrellas sure are useless here. No one uses them, since it's never really raining hard (more like a constant drizzle) and the wind makes them useless.

-Seattle has a large population of homeless, and they're rather aggressive in their panhandling. I lost all sympathy to their "I need to eat!" pleas once I learned of the 18 shelters in the city any person can walk into & receive 3 square meals a day.

-Seattle can be a particularly difficult place to establish a social life in. To boot, its commercial segment holds weird hours. The downtown core's establishments & shops all close by 6pm every day.

-Huge apartments with expensive furniture look awesome but are no more fun than the sketchy student houses of one's college days. That being said, my TV is godlike and has served to distract me from my loneliness many an evening.

-When you have absolutely no life outside the office, the idea of drinking alone in a bar during happy hour on a Monday sounds really good.

-The "university district" next to UW (university of Washington, not Waterloo) is, in layout, demographics, shops, and student housing, very reminiscent of downtown Guelph & uptown Waterloo.

-Seattle is I think the second-most fit (athletic/body-wise) city in America, and I can anecdotally vouch for this.

And finally, I've learned this about myself:

I'm a social animal. Being completely isolated here almost destroyed my spirit. It took me 2 months to start making friends, and even then only because I was desperate & tried an internet social site. Regardless of how I did it, I now have people my age, with similiar interests I can spend time. To give a good idea as to how much isolation was affecting me, for a while I was working 10-12 hour days, not out of any sense of responsibility, but simply because I had nothing better to do & working kept my mind from wandering. Anyone who knows me well should be fairly shocked to read this ;)

I haven't grown up from being a student yet. I only visited the University District this past week and immediately felt immensely at ease wandering through its streets, where as I feel nothing at all walking through the rest of Seattle. Student life, with its free-spirited socializing, pursuit of interests & youthful zeal agrees with me far more than the rather isolated & lonely yuppie lifestyle I've created for myself here. Upon realizing this, I found someone to take my lease over & am now actively searching for a student house to rent in the University District with some friends. I shall enjoy the student lifestyle while I'm still young & reckless ;)

Ok, that's enough of a brain dump for now.

Cheers everyone,

-Lexx

First, let's get the "whiny mc'emo pants" part of the post out of the way: what little sleep I got this past evening was had when I passed out after vomiting from the pain in my skull and then slamming it into the bathroom wall.

Now, the happy part of the post: When I came to, 2 hours later, I discovered my bottle of advil had fallen & rolled behind the scale in my washroom.

God_bless advil. I may be agnostic, bordering on atheistic, but GOD FUCKING BLESS ADVIL. I dry-swallowed the remains of my bottle (about 6 of them) & took an hour-long steaming hot shower. I'm finally starting to feel good enough to focus my eyes again.

So, updates, updates. The job hunt is starting to show some results. I went to the RIM job fair in Waterloo last week, and am feeling pretty good about it. 3 of the companies I left resumes with have contacted me for an interview. In Expedia's case, they interviewed me the next day and are now asking me to travel to Washington for a more in-depth meeting. That's right, Washington! Not the capital, the one where I'd be working just a bridge away from Seattle. Sorta cool, I think...and even cooler considering I didn't even apply for a job, just struck up a conversation with one of their engineers at the fair.

What else's new...

I'm reevaluating a bunch of my relationships and acquaintances. Trying to figure out who the true friends are, who the buddies are, and who I spend time with more out of convenience than any real connection.  I haven't had opportunity to see my oldest friends much this summer and thusfar this fall.  I did get to Kevin's b-day bash downtown T.O a few weeks ago...much fun there :)  Since I figure there's a high chance I won't be in the Southern Ontario region post-graduation, and I've wanted to play another D&D game with Dan for a while now, I've finally started to write my own campaign.  So far he and I are pretty excited about it...the thing's almost writing itself.  All the detail I can provide now is that Bruce Campbell would be proud of my storyline :)

Ooh, and I discovered the greatest website for music fans...ever.  www.pandora.com  it's like a personal DJ.  You tell it what bands or songs you like, and it streams musically similiar music to you, with a really intuitive feedback system to help you guide its choices.  I've been discovering a lot of cool house-instrumental music with it by telling it to find me bands similiar to St. Germain.  Highly recommended.  In one day alone it's expanded my music horizon significantly & added about 5 CDs to my "must buy when I'm not broke" list.

Alright, later folks.  Time to...I dunno, do something.  Apply for jobs I guess.  Migraine recovery time is fun.  Generally it lasts about 12 hours after the drugs kill the pain, and for those 12 or so hours I'm very out of it, but in a sorta cool way.  Slightly hyper, slightly incoherent due to the lack of sleep, very sensitive to light/sound, and in general..."detached" in consciousness.  It's like the world is a step removed from me.  Fun stuff, I'm hoping the migraine doesn't come back because I really don't feel like going out to buy another bottle of advil tomorrow.  Thank God it's still effective...I really don't want to have to step up to using heavier painkillers.  Going through a bottle of advil every 2 or 3 months is enough for me...

Cheers,

Alex

So, folks, I'm in an existential mood tonight. I've been reading this self-help book "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, and I got stuck at a very early chapter. Everything in the book is related to strong desire, thought to define it, and action to realize it. I'm just sort of stuck...I actually can't think of anything that provokes this "strong desire" the book speaks often of.

I've had a problem with motivation for a long time. Ever since I realized that I was smarter than the other kids in elementary school, I've been taking it easy academically. "Minimum effort to get by" was, more or less, the philosophy I kept during my formative years. The only thing I actually had a strong desire for in my childhood was friends, and those came...eventually. I sufficed with daydreaming about video games, anime, and a long-lost childhood friend...these things kept me sane until I made those friends I so desperately needed. After I found platonic (and romantic) relationships, those daydreams faded.

Now I face graduation and independant life as an adult, and I still lack any sort of empowering desire for something tangible or achievable. I am adrift, in a manner of speaking, waiting for some purpose to reach me. Until now I've always stated that my ambitions in life were limited to enjoying myself and experiencing all the different places and fun things life had to offer. But really, indulgent adventuring, while fun, isn't a strong enough impulse to motivate me.

Twice in the last 4 years have I experienced a future-oriented desire. Incidentally, both were caused by women in my life. The first time, I was having fun daydreaming about a possible future with her and starting to shop for a ring. Those hopes were dashed, and I was adrift for a long time, and drifted into a hedonistic and self-indulgent lifestyle for a while. About a full year after finally parting ways with her, I met another girl. The hopes / dreams I had about this one were strong...sometimes talking to her, I'd find out some new detail about her persona and my mind would flash to a vision of a future with her. She inflamed the embers of a dormant fire within me and inspired me to improve myself. had Anyway, things with her didn't get a chance to go anywhere, and now, again, that fire within is dying down.

So what now? I apparently really need some overwhelming desire, or purpose, or hope to fulfill. Atleast, I need it if I'm to improve myself. I need to find something that isn't as fickle as a woman's affections to stoke my ambitions. If only my ambitions were simple and clearly defined... "be happy / at peace with myself and support those I cherish" is too vague to be a workable goal. At this point, self-improvement seems the only path I see that has a tangible goals and means I can use to obtain them. Lose weight, improve fitness, clear up complexion, expand my knowledge and skill set...improve my sensitivity and subtlety with dealing with people...I guess these are all good goals. I have no idea if any of them are going to make me happy...but atleast it's something definite I can reach for. It's just...my motivation isn't strong enough, the ambition not powerful enough to change my course of action. I've been too used to having things given to me or obtaining them easily through natural gifts...

...but then again, I am deeply disturbed by the idea "this is as good as it gets", and specifically, "this is as good as *I* get". Given the option of staying as I am or actually making something of myself, I think I've maybe found what I need to work towards some goals.

Laters

-Alex

...

Hey folks...living in res again. Making this post from a lab computer, since Humber hasn't decided to fix my resnet connection yet. First day of the new semester, and I've already determined my classes are both easy and boring. Perfect combination for the final chapter... only 4 months to go until I can say good bye to this school forever.

So, yeah, I ended up not getting a chance with that complicated dream girl, despite things between us up 'till now showing a lot of promise. She found her dream guy, and he seems to wildly outclass me. Ah well, she's happy, and that's what matters...



Next time, next girl, next chance, whenever that happens, I don't want to lose quite so easily. Some self-improvement is in order.

I look forward to the new year and my vision of the future is rather murky. So many paths are available...I've been applying for jobs in Waterloo, but I'm going to expand the job hunt to Guelph, Toronto, and even try for Ottawa and the west coast. My old colleague & mentor at RIM joined a venture capital-funded startup out in Richmond, BC...I think I might join him there. Who knows...

Laters everyone,

-Lexx

It would seem that I have survived this past week...barely.

Monday:

I wrote my last exam in the morning. Whether I passed them...depends on where my marks sit in the bell curve ;) After the exam let out, I made my merry way to Guelph. Had dinner w/the folks (mmm seafood paella) and then journeyed forth to Waterloo and caught up with a friend I hadn't seen in far too long. If you're reading this, thanks for the company, I had a great time, and I'm happy that you seemed to as well :)

Tuesday:

Ye GOD it was hard to find a place that had "Dead Rising" for rent. I found it...in Milton...and proceeded forth, picking up a copy of the much-beloved zombie genocide game, and an apparently broken Xbox360 as well. Henrico rectified the situation by renting a console himself, and after some dinner at this awesome cheapo chinese noodle place, we made with the zombie-killing. Personally, my favourite weapon right now is the bass guitar. 360 degree swing of brain-busting goodness :D

Wednesday:

*whew* Grandmaman survived her surgery. Spent the daylight hours at her bedside (she's doin ok, pretty out of it with the painkillers though, and mostly slept) and then had some more glorious zombie-stomping fun in the evening.

Tomorrow:

Mom goes in for *her* surgery. I believe it's a major op, but certainly not as risky as Grandmaman's. She's having tendonitis corrective surgery on her right wrist (she already had her left wrist done earlier this summer). I'm a bit worried...it's been a few weeks since her first surgery and that wrist still hasn't enough strength to lift a phone. I don't do this often, (ok, exam-time doesn't count) but... *prays for their recoveries*

Haven't decided what to do tomorrow...think I'll probably head back to my lodgings in Toronto and handle some business I need to take care of. I don't know whether I'll stay though...with my dad going out of the country on business soon (as always) I think I should stay in Guelph in case I'm needed by those two recovering patients.

Cheers all,

Alex



ps:

Ryan, Kevin, Bryan, Jay: I'm sorry I dropped off the face of the planet this summer. Let's do something before the semester starts. I'm thinking shenanigans.

kawaiikochan: Monday was the most fun I've had all year...we should hang out again sometime, hopefully sooner than the end of the next semester :)

3 classes down. Almost done....*yawns*. Just tomorrow's and then monday's remain. Soon...FREEDOM! Or at least a few week's worth... going to split my time between seeing my family, hanging out at the beach, catching up with friends...aah....heaven...

*wake up from daydream* until then...gotta study %_%

Laters all,

-Alex

update - 6:04am Monday, July 31st 2006

*yawns* it's been a while since I've pulled off an all-nighter programming miracle. I'm happy with myself - this is one class done and over with (no exam).

update - 9:01am Wednesday, July 27th 2006

Wow...as easy-going and lethargic as I am, I've reached a threshold of stress where I don't *need* caffeine to keep me alert...or sleep for that matter. 3 hours of restless sleep, and I wake up myself 5 minutes before my alarm, fully art...wtf? My hands are shaking as I write this entry ^^;;

My schedule:

Wednesday (Tonight):
-write 10 minute presentation on AI genetic learning, with 2-3 page report (from scratch). I present tomorrow.DONE
-document a group project that no one in the group has really bothered working on. We present tomorrow.DONE>

Weekend:
-finish coding the text search engine, test it, and send the code to my partner so he can write the front-end for it. (due Monday)DONE...Monday Morning
-write documentation for the aforementioned search engine, including benchmark data (due Monday as well)5 hours & 45 minutes left to go...

Monday/Tuesday:
-write 10x 1-page reviews of classmates' IR presentations (due Wednesday)
-write 2-page AI assignment including decision-making tree code (due Thursday)

Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/
-write code for stockmarket application (due Monday the 7th)

Saturday/Sunday/Monday:
-study for Finals

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/Monday:
-finals

Monday the 14th (after last final):
-have a very, very stiff drink (so what the exam ends at 11am, it's 5 o'clock somewhere, right?)
-sleep off the rest of the day

Afterwards:
-do the stuff I mentioned in an earlier post :)

So Steve, Henrico, and I had an interesting time last night. We spent the evening outside res drinking and chatting with some of the people involved in the "world skip rope championships" that are being held here @ Humber this year. There are hundreds of teenage girls running around campus, and we sat down and chatted with a few of their parents last night. Let's see...a couple American fathers, and a few Australian mothers and a few Canucks too.

After a while, the Aussi just had to bring out some of his country's rum, and well, I had to match and bring out some Canadian pride, right? ^_^ it was funny, whenever security came around we hid our beers and bottles behind our backs, and I don't think the single security guard wanted to deal with a pair of 40-something 300lb loud drunk American men and Aussie women looking fairly amused that someone wanted to take their daquiris from them. :D

The group made us promise to come out again tonight and drink with them, so I guess my evening's booked already :D

This semester's prolonged course of suck will soon be over! And I have fun things to look forward to :)

Late August - Early September: spend time w/family, & in Waterloo scouting out postgrad employment. Actually play some vidgames for a change. Get a tan! Spend time with the friends I haven't seen nearly as much as I should've this summer (Dan, Danny, Espe, Julia, Paul, etc). Oh, and actually write my thesis project proposal, *laughs weakly*

Fall Semester - 3 classes + thesis credit. Working (probably on Mondays) for Guelph-Humber IT, spending weekends in Waterloo, ooh ooh and playing in Dan's new D20 game, which he better schedule for the weekend :D

Winter: - do a few things I've wanted to do for a while now. Take my piece of paper from Guelph-Humber & run. Find job, apartment, girl, buy a Wii (the nintendo console...I've already been given the other kind, "love Paul & Nicole" ...0.o)

Alright, so there we go. And my first act towards the plans of my immediate future...take a nap. *yawns*

Cheers!

-Lexx

My mother and sister came out to visit me today to ascertain a few things: That I'm not living in squalor (I'm not), that I'm eating healthy (somewhat...) and the other fundamentals, like showering, shaving, etc (well, duh). We went out for dinner @ Mandarin Garden...haven't been there in almost 2 years. My fortune cookie at the end of the meal seems curiously relevant to me right now, so I think I'll dispel the skepticism just this once and believe in luck:

"Improvement in health. Fresh interests, success of plan."

Here's hoping ^_^

-Lexx

ps: yes I know luck and charms are more a matter of finding meaning in generic statements and the placebo effect but dammit I want to believe :D

So last night was pretty fun. Nicole threw Paul a surprise birthday party and about 35 people showed up...in a house that can fit about 20 comfortably 0_o. I have to give props to Nicole, she went all-out in preparations, even making little gift bags for everyone, huge fruit arrangements, even streamers and balloon decorations!

I met and chatted with a few of Paul's friends & acquaintances, and had inflated tube stick fights with everyone. After the bday boy showed up, all hell broke loose :) I imagine that, sometime today, pictures will be made available online showing paul's chest covered in chocolate whipcream and a few *cough* unnamed individuals licking it off. Smoked a rather tasty cigar (thanks Mike) and generally hammed it up. Oh, and I think I may have been picked up 0_o. I'll update with details if it goes anywhere.

The party drifted to the Spur (...as they inevitably do, it seems) & karaoke action was had. I was able to witness Paul & Brandon singing "Rawhide", and do a pretty decent job of it too. After the spur the party dispersed, and on the way back to Nicole's place I got a nice helping of "drunk relationship insight" from Paul. And...I have to admit, he's a stand-up guy, and very protective of his friends.

Well I'm off, have to eat lunch w/the family then cart my butt back to Toronto. Maybe I can catch up on some of the schoolwork backlog I have going today...

I've been a bit lazy in updating, probably because I'm currently not comfortable with expressing my current innermost thoughts online. In any case, status update :)

-I lost my mind in a billiards supply store and walked out with a sexy new 8-ball cue. She's a rather smooth-shooting 2 piece, 21oz beauty :) Imagining it would give me an edge against Henrico, I challenged him and...he proved that I really HAD lost my mind to even consider my skills as being anywhere near his.

-I cleaned up my address book and msn friends list...and was disturbed by the number of friends I've lost touch with, or have simply stopped talking to. Ah well, new friends are providing their own fun :)

-I tried (hopefully succeeded) in convincing a near-suicidal friend to go to a doctor. I can't really tell if I succeeded or not until she logs back into msn, since I don't have her contact info in BC.

-I've been plagued by non-serious sickness since I moved into res. Stupid summer colds...hopefully this latest one is the last for a long time. *grins* can't wait to get back to the gym (I don't like to work out when I'm sick).

-My conviction and motivation towards self-improvement wavered, but have held thus far. 212 days, 92lbs left to go. I really need to get back on schedule.

-Ooh, my parents came back from Cuba and brought some Cohibas and aged Cuban rum back for me! These smokes don't last long, and first come, first served, so ask if you would like to try one :) As for the rum...I'll share, but ask really nice, this is the rare stuff;)

-Some others things going on in my head that I'm not going to discuss online...

mmkay that's enough of an update for now. Laters...

So moving day isn't so long away now...just 4 more days of living in this town before heading back to Toronto. I guess I really can't say I'll be missing Waterloo though, considering I'm planning on spending most of my weekends here hanging out with friends.

The last few weekends have been pretty fun. I hung out with Paul & the Green House people for a birthday party...and then another birthday party the immediate following weekend. I made a new friend, too...and she's possibly the most intriguing person I've ever met. I'm looking forward to getting to know her better :)

I'm gathering my friends together tomorrow for my own (admittedly early) birthday party. Guitar Hero, DDR, and Karaoke shenanigans shall be had! Also on the menu apparently are several "Prairie Fire" shots (tequila + tabasco). It seems my tradition of buying friends Prairie Fires on their birthday has created a desire for revenge amongst my brethren...*gulp*

This weekend's going to be pretty busy. On Saturday my family expects me at their doorstep in Guelph @ 9:30am, shaved, sober, and presentable. Apparently they have a birthday gift that involves me being in public. I have no idea how I'm going to make it through Friday without incurring a hangover...I just hope that my friends show me a little mercy on the number of birthday drinks. Saturday evening is my mother's birthday dinner, and Sunday I'm going to binge on anime with Espe :D

Oh yes...I've ducked out of attending / staffing Anime North this year (financial reasons, plus I have better ways to spend a weekend). I also decided to skip the Hillside Festival. I'm not happy about this, but it can't be helped.

Before I forget, here's a summary of what my summer's going to be like: BUSY 0_o. I'm taking 7 classes @ Guelph-Humber, a bartending class on one or two evenings each week in the downtown core, self-studying Japanese (I hope to get atleast to a point where I can converse with an 8-year old by the end of the summer and fall). What else... a rather intense fitness/self-improvement regimen. I have no friends left @ Guelph-Humber (they all transferred out or graduated) so I'm going to spend my little leisure time in Waterloo, hanging out with friends old and new.

...I might even get to sleep sometime this summer...*laughs weakly* I can only hope.

So today I caught a glimmer of shinyness from my bathroom mirror, and stopped to examine what it was... and my hair is turning gray. Not one or two, but a few dozen gray hairs on a quick 5 minute visual inspection. Well, not gray I guess, more silver, since gray doesn't really shine like that.

Damn you, mom. Damn you, dad. And damn YOU, heredity. *sigh* I had hoped this wouldn't be the case, but if I carry the male hereditary traits from either side, I'll be half-silver at age 25 and full out salt&pepper by 30. This total bullocks. Silver head BEFORE I bloody develop facial hair?

I'm going to the store to buy one of those home hair coloring kits tonight...

*cries*

A edited response to J's latest post regarding blogs, and appropriate content:

Diaries/journals are a way of recording your innermost private thoughts and feelings, ones you need to express but cannot do so to the public. Web journals started as ways of expressing said private thoughts / feelings but in a way in which you retain your anonymity but gain a sympathetic audience - in essence "Dear Diary" became "Dear Internet".

Unfortunately, nothing on the 'net is truly anonymous, and bloggers often run into the problem where something they publish affects their real life adversely.

In essence, here's the problem: We all wear many faces for many people & situations. The "me" I show to my family is different from the "me" I show to my buddies is different from the "me" I show my coworkers, and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, when I post my thoughts online, they're completely public. Everyone who chances upon my blog is exposed to one facet of my personality, with no audience-specific filtering. Because the anonymity and privacy in blogs are pretty much dead, they're not really suited anymore to their original goal - an anonymous and private diary, but with a sympathetic audience.

Blogs (what a shitty nickname, no?) have broadened in scope - they're now what personal websites like geocities tried (and largely failed) to be in the '90s. As long as people are individualistic, diversity will be a principle quality of the data on the 'net, and people will adapt blogs for their own uses...which is good, since they largely suck at being private diaries.

So yeah...Spring is coming again, and with it, Anime North! Past convention experiences have ranged from amazingly fun to decidedly boring. This year, however, I think I'm going to have a pretty fun time.

I wanted a glorified student (post-teenager set) party event, where anime clubs from different universities could get together, schmooze, do some fun activities perhaps, and plan out further adventures of the alcoholic kind (room parties). Well, I emailed my idea to the convention's programming director...and she offered me a hotel suite to do this with. Question asked, question answered I guess. So yeah, I'll be running a con suite at the Park Plaza, which is directly across the street from the con itself.

As far as "activities" not so much has been planned yet, but the following specifics are certain:

-poker tournament(s) with Anime North and/or anime merchandise for prizes
-projector setup w/choice anime playing
-basic refreshments (ie, chips, pop, *maybe* pizza)
-anything else I can think of?

If approval's granted, I'm also thinking of running my con suite into the wee hours of the morning once the official con activities are over for the night, with more of a "room party" feel :)

All in all, fuckin' eh!

So yeah...what's funnier than dressing a cute japanese girl up like a baby seal then put her outside of a Polar Bear tank?

So yeah...what's funnier than dressing a cute japanese girl up like a baby seal then put her outside of a Polar Bear tank?