Acquired Situational Narcissism

Has any other city been devastated so beautifully on film and so often? I think not.

x-posted from Beaucoup Kevin

Posting one sentence updates on Twitter and Facebook seems to have ruined me for long-form blogging. That's not good at all.

I had a nice Thanksgiving, although it seems I missed almost all my friends in NYC. It's a shame, I blame bad timing and I will endeavour to make up for it in December. Instead I spent some nice QT with my family and watched premium movie channels a lot. I now know that "Apocalypse Now" is fantastic cinema, "Speed Racer" is hella awesome and that you can see full uncensored genitals on HBO if it's a high-brow documentary on porn.

My requisite Thanksgiving movie was "Ninja Assassin" with my dad. It was 90% fights, 5% blood and maybe 5% story. It's not terribly good but it would make for a fantastic drinking movie. Take a drink whenever someone loses a limb and chug whenever Rain actually has a line of dialogue! And what is it with Koreans playing ninjas? Between this and "GI Joe", we're two for two this year.

It feels a little strange to have a free weekend. I spent Saturday rock climbing for a friend's birthday party. Surprisingly fun and I didn't even hurt myself. There's something very gratifying and immediate about scaling a forty foot wall with your hands and feet. Today was for cleaning, organizing and apparently writing.

For those who may not know, I'll be visiting California for a week and half in January. I'm going to try to hit most of the major cities: San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco probably. I'm looking forward to the trip, I've been promising my West Coast friends that I'd visit for a while now.

I'll also be back in New York for a few days around Thanksgiving too. Why the Travel Channel hasn't given me my own reality show, I'll never know.

I had a Facebook moment today. One of my elementary school classmates posted a class picture from the 4th grade. Amazingly, more than half of the class had their profiles tagged on the photo. Of course, this set off a frenzy of friend requests and nostalgic comments so now I have another half a dozen people on my news feed. That's the first part of the trap.

As I chuckled over how my big my glasses were back then, I felt a competitive twinge. We were all in the magnet class together from elementary school to junior high. What were my classmates doing now? What colleges did they go to? I had to check. This is the second part of the trap.

They weren't all fancy ambitious Ivy League grads, but some were. It's good if you work at the Fermilab, right? I think everyone has at least a master's degree if they weren't on a PhD track. Also, judging by college graduation times, some of them were skipping entire years. Oh, the jealousy.

If I were a betting man, I'd say this is some sort of unresolved childhood thing considering it's revolving around elementary school of all things. This isn't even about being competitive, this is more like looking back and wondering about the myth of 'lost potential'. It's ridiculous, but that's the insidious nature of the trap.

One thing I like about grad school, it's a great excuse for the occasional social gaffe. Too busy to hang out? Writing a paper. Forgot your birthday? Midterms! And I have a group project to collaborate on! So many good excuses.

But seriously, it's been a good kind of busy for the past month or so. I actually do have papers to read and write, class presentations, the whole shebang. I also have my grad assistantship which keeps me on my toes. I don't mind, I think I'm happier when I'm being productive anyway.

The campus is a surprising blend of natural beauty and functional ugliness. All the buildings are brick monstrosities that scream "70s civic architecture" but the buildings are surrounded by green grass and a bay. With water and boats! I foresee it being cold in the winter but whatever.

This is a question that's been on my mind for a while. My observation is that men seem to travel for some tangible purpose. A job interview, a girlfriend, to see relatives or distant friends, etc. Women travel for similar reasons but also travel because of the experience itself. True? Not true?

I fully admit I might be biased, I'm lukewarm on travel for travel's sake and need a reason to go places. Still, I don't know too many of my male acquaintances who've actually taken the lead, suggested a trip or planned it out. I've also known many women who have expressed a love of travel itself, relish the thought of it and have actually done it multiple times.

I'm a little worried that I'm just dividing it up by heteronormative gender stereotypes, but I'm curious to get other people's feedback on the matter.

Some fix-it guys have ripped out the old windows in my bedroom and started installing new ones. It's a little inconvenient and leaves a faint patina of dust on everything in the room but it's surprisingly worth it.

The view out my windows is great, prime urban landscape with rooftops, street views and everything. Lit up at night by the streetlights, it's a dream. I'm also digging the rough unfinished edges around the window, it's a little post-apocalyptic. Ok, all that exposed plaster and insulation probably isn't a good long term thing but for now it looks cool.

Of course, the downside is that everyone can see me. I'm not quite comfortable putting on a sexy man show every time I change into my jammies for the oncoming traffic and neighbors, but I assume it's temporary and they'll put in new shades soon. Like, tomorrow hopefully. Please?

I'm done with my first week of grad school and my first week at my new graduate assistantship! Naturally, I was pretty tired by the time Friday sauntered into town. After a month of sloth and indolence, it's nice to honestly look forward to the weekend as days of rest. it's kind of weird.

I like most of my classes, although I only really like the ones that are directly about analysis and counseling. My research and ethics classes, either through bad teaching or disinterest, don't really grab me. Still, I'm excited! Classes! Learning! Directly applicable skills! Exciting!

My new job is OK? I'm a research monkey again, but it's part time and it's a different type of monkeying so I can probably stand it for at least an year. It's not grabbing me but it's easy-going and it pays the bills.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure about the latter. There's several sums of monies that, in theory, will eventually land in my bank account but the concepts of 'when' and 'how much' are so nebulous that I'm flying by the seat of my pants here. I think it's fine. Probably.

I'd like to go to sleep but I can't. I'm nervous about tomorrow, my orientation day for grad school. I feel a delightful sense of anticipation and I'm excited to meet all sorts of new people but it's not letting me go to sleep. I could do without that.

I've been pretty busy the last few weeks. I bought a new desktop PC! It's four times more powerful than my old notebook and a third of the price (new, at least). I'd like to say that I chose a desktop over a notebook because of price and reliability but honestly, I really want to play Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 when they come out.

I have a new job! I got a graduate assistantship at an institute. They research ways on integrating the disabled into the workforce and community so it's a bit different from my field but close enough that I can probably fudge it. The pay is ... alright, I think I'll survive but it'll be tight. I spent way too much money this month alone ...

I'm pretty glad August is over, I did enjoy all the free time I had and I got to do a lot of interesting things, but I'm ready to go back to work. Eager to, if I could just get some sleep.

I think I read somewhere that people spend an average of nine hours in front of some sort of screen everyday. It sounds ridiculous at first until you start tallying up all that TV, Internet and work. Scary.

(he says, writing on his LJ)

I'm in NYC right now, visiting my family for an extended weekend. I feel unexpectedly nostalgic for the artifacts from my childhood. An old lucite clock. Bootleg VHS copies of anime movies from Chinatown. A cast iron lamp at my bedside. Coming home is always an interesting mix of tedium and comfort.

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