I'm sick...and midterms are coming up. There's nothing to really worry about, since I've adopted the philosophy of refusing to panic until I panic. I'm more concerned that I somehow got sick by watching 15 straight hours of Battlestar Galactica and then some last week. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I ended up with a massive migraine, runny nose, and a deformed spinal cord. It's a tragic sign that I'm not as young as I used to be. I was whipping blithely through 24 marathons, pizza, and massive loads of sugar just a year ago. Then again, that's probably why I can't do it anymore, not to mention the coffee that's totally fraking up my sleep patterns and the alcohol that's fraking up my brain. Frak me.
I didn't know anything about Battlestar Galactica a week ago, then familiarized myself with everything about the show, and now I'm fraking sick of the show. Coining the word 'frak' is definitely the master stroke of this series...I'm ambivalent about the rest. For a sci-fi show, it's surprisingly gritty and pseudorealistic (dark and gloomy is always a plus on my scale). BG's a departure from the usual shows that I indulge in since I like the plot and hate the people. It's always the other way around.
The people on this show are so...human. It totally blows that all of the characters have an assortment of flaws. We're not even talking about stupidity or selfishness or something equally insipid. Instead, we have genocide-supporting, pill-popping, religious maniacs on board. Even I don't have such a grim view on humanity. I find it amazing that these people were the ones left after 99.9995% of the purported human race were destroyed by the machines. I can't sympathize with shows that don't have a moral center...BG does have a moral center, but no one's following it.
To me, the part of the show worth watching is how it addresses the question: What constitutes being human? BG embraces Descartes' "I think, therefore I am." Although the machines were responsible for the human massacre at the beginning, we are shown repeatedly that the people behave no better than their machine counterparts. In fact, the most interesting concept is machines trying to emulate people. We see that machines want to experience love and community, and what happens in their quest to become more like us.
Of course, I also appreciate that the not so subtle hints toward Iraq, religious fanaticism, and other heavy political issues are addressed directly. Battlestar Galactica does not shy away from anything. If only I could get over my absolute hatred of the schoolteacher-turned -president, I would enjoy the show so much more. Honestly, sometimes I think she should be shoved out of a fraking airlock. There's nothing worse than a combination of self-righteousness, weakness, religious fanaticism, and totalitarianism.
In all, Battlestar Galactica's a good show, though not fraking good. The ship sailed to another galaxy a few hours ago.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
settling down
It's the first weekend in a long time that I haven't gone out...and I admit that it's not a bad feeling. I'm not spending loads of money and I'm not getting trashed. Instead, I've been doing some hefty programming in matlab and using my head for once. Now I'm amused because I'm not actually bad at programming. Considering how much pain CS has dealt me in the past, it's ironic and surprising. Today, I got a real kick out of programming 4-D matrices, though it was impossible to get any intuition from them and I had to downgrade to 3-D.
I guess I actually could enjoy learning if I somehow get past my mile-high roadblocks. But it's so difficult to learn something new very quickly...like matlab. I place too much emphasis on natural talent and not enough on hard work. It's not that natural talent doesn't go a long way, but I only have so much of that and moaning about the lack of it is not going to get me any further. I also haven't been working hard for a long long time now, which could explain why I feel like I don't know anything.
Making intuitive leaps is difficult, made more difficult by the fact that I always feel like I need to come up with such a leap and usually not being so lucky. It could just be the lack of knowledge or whatever. Or maybe thinking about making leaps stunts the part of the brain that's supposed to be making leaps. It's just a massive heap of delusional overexpectations, too much introspection, ...in general, too much thinking.
Sometimes I wonder if I actually would have liked academia in another life. I admit that I do feel comfortable in the environment. I get along swimmingly with my co-students. It's gratifying to find people whose sense of humor complement mine (or maybe it's just because graduate students tend to be nicer than people in the real world). However, there's some part of me that's not quite satisfied. I have a strong suspicion that it's not the actual thing but all of the baggage that comes along with it.
I guess I actually could enjoy learning if I somehow get past my mile-high roadblocks. But it's so difficult to learn something new very quickly...like matlab. I place too much emphasis on natural talent and not enough on hard work. It's not that natural talent doesn't go a long way, but I only have so much of that and moaning about the lack of it is not going to get me any further. I also haven't been working hard for a long long time now, which could explain why I feel like I don't know anything.
Making intuitive leaps is difficult, made more difficult by the fact that I always feel like I need to come up with such a leap and usually not being so lucky. It could just be the lack of knowledge or whatever. Or maybe thinking about making leaps stunts the part of the brain that's supposed to be making leaps. It's just a massive heap of delusional overexpectations, too much introspection, ...in general, too much thinking.
Sometimes I wonder if I actually would have liked academia in another life. I admit that I do feel comfortable in the environment. I get along swimmingly with my co-students. It's gratifying to find people whose sense of humor complement mine (or maybe it's just because graduate students tend to be nicer than people in the real world). However, there's some part of me that's not quite satisfied. I have a strong suspicion that it's not the actual thing but all of the baggage that comes along with it.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
monochrome delirious
I wanna kick the machine
That made you piss away your dreams
And tear at your defenses
Until there's nothing left but me.
That made you piss away your dreams
And tear at your defenses
Until there's nothing left but me.
- Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy -
I'm riding on a minor second wind. While I wouldn't describe myself as motivated by any stretch of the imagination, I'm not kicking and screaming every step of the way anymore. That was a fucking waste. Just one word: acceptance. At some point, I switched to jaded without actually experiencing anything worth noting. I almost feel like I've given up. I don't even remember what my dreams were and what I wanted out of my life. A long time ago, I always wondered why people weren't happy and why they couldn't do what they wanted. Well, we all have to work to live, eat, sleep, etc. It's ridiculously simple.
Honestly, life was so much better when I was seventeen and stupid. I had self-confidence, dreams, happiness...then some evil fairy called life came and waved her crooked wand, and *presto*, here I am. That's the other thing, wallowing in self-pity because taking responsibility is too hard. It's so easy to assign blame to anything and everything and just say: I'm irrevecablly fucked up and I can't ever climb out of this hole.
Surprisingly, I'm on some sort of a local peak because I've had a pseudo-social life for the last few weeks and everything else is hiccuping along relatively smoothly. But I know I'll blink and I'll hit the next plateau or trough (probably ~midterms). What happens happens. I know that something snapped, and I can't pinpoint when it happened and I can't fix it.
It's ironic when I consider that my life is so much better than almost everyone else's. The fourth best college in the country. The third best doctoral program in the country. And I can't fucking live my life. Forgive me, I'm just tired and old and bitter at the moment.
Honestly, life was so much better when I was seventeen and stupid. I had self-confidence, dreams, happiness...then some evil fairy called life came and waved her crooked wand, and *presto*, here I am. That's the other thing, wallowing in self-pity because taking responsibility is too hard. It's so easy to assign blame to anything and everything and just say: I'm irrevecablly fucked up and I can't ever climb out of this hole.
Surprisingly, I'm on some sort of a local peak because I've had a pseudo-social life for the last few weeks and everything else is hiccuping along relatively smoothly. But I know I'll blink and I'll hit the next plateau or trough (probably ~midterms). What happens happens. I know that something snapped, and I can't pinpoint when it happened and I can't fix it.
It's ironic when I consider that my life is so much better than almost everyone else's. The fourth best college in the country. The third best doctoral program in the country. And I can't fucking live my life. Forgive me, I'm just tired and old and bitter at the moment.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
total eclipse of the heart
Hallelujah Jeff Buckley
Chasing Cars Snow Patrol
Running up that hill Placebo
Trouble Coldplay
Superman Five for Fighting
Hot Blooded Foreigner
Chasing Cars Snow Patrol
Running up that hill Placebo
Trouble Coldplay
Superman Five for Fighting
Hot Blooded Foreigner
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