actuality.log

My hand is still quite sore, but at least it’s regained functionality; which means I’m typing less like a monkey.

Whether or not I’m going to be happy with the end-product of my grad school stint, I’m rather excited by the prospect of being “done.” It’s a weird sense of accomplishment that buoys me through my days, even if I don’t really get much done.

I was under the mistaken notion that the fact that I’ll soon be higher qualified than anyone else I know—master’s degrees from two different departments and a doctorate from two different programs—was the source of my cheap thrill. (Not much unlike a pissing contest, except it’s one where I’m winning.) But that’s not the case.

This comes as a shock to me, but I’ve been quite seriously contemplating abandoning not just academia, but sciences altogether, upon completion of grad school. “What else can you do?” you say? I don’t really know. I can’t do much else, but I fancy spending more time singing, seriously pursuing writing, and returning full-fledged to photography.

This was most apparent to me when I was talking to someone else and it dawned on me that I consider this entire half-decade of serious study some sort of detour in my life; a detour from what my life ought to have been.

But the wise woman I was speaking to had just one, actually two, bits of advice. “Don’t make any major decisions about your life around defence time” and “Don’t develop an attitude after going to Cambridge.”

I think I’ll heed her words and not plan any big transitions for a while. Besides, I better get to work and start packing and scrubbing, for I move tomorrow.

It’s going to be a long night.

and two fully functioning hands.

Correction, I had a huge TV and two fully functioning hands.

The move imminent, I spent a good chunk of my morning tidying up around the house and throwing away junk I don’t need. I was also taking stock of the bigger objects around the house, because I don’t intend on dealing with them around December, when all the U.K.-related chaos ought to be in full swing. The first, most obvious item to crop up on that list was my TV, so (obviously?) I decided to get rid of it. It was a spur-of-the-moment sort of decision, and minutes later, an ad for it popped up on one of the many uni message-boards. I didn’t believe much would come of it, but minutes—literally minutes—later, e-mails started pouring in asking me for details, pictures, and most importantly, whether it could be picked up later in the day.

Perhaps it was the beautifully artistic pictures I’d taken of it and its remote. Perhaps it was the ridiculously low price-tag I’d placed on it. One will never know.

Anyway, a couple of hours later, a cute woman and her dad were at my doorstep, just itching to take it off my hands; oddly enough, even more so than I was itching to have it taken off my hands. The catch was that I was to help the old man carry it over to his truck.

Now you may or may not know this, but I haven’t been seeing Piquant often enough, and I sure as hell oughtn’t move around 150 lb objects, even with another’s help. But we went ahead and did so anyway, and after 10–15 breather breaks, finally hoisted the fucking poundage onto his truck. Relieved, I received payment and returned home, only to realise I couldn’t lift my keys to my apartment door’s keyhole. My arm was functional, but my hand refused to grip the key.

Or for that matter, even open or close.

It’s been hours since, and my left hand still hasn’t regained functionality. I fucking broke it, and this post has been typed-out using one hand.

Update: There was apparently some muscle tearing involved. It is recovering very slowly.

I’m alive and well. So well, in fact, that I seem to lack the urge to write here. Even so, a quick update:

• I’m moving in a few days, and that’s going to be a bit of a chore.
• I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and slowly concentrating all my attention on my dissertation work. I plan on defending by the first week of October and being done-done by my birthday. I doubt I want to be 27 and still “in school.”
• I finally believe I know what I’m talking about, intellectually, and that’s given me a sense of peace and accomplishment that’s feeding my good mood.

Ed. Note: And now for a slight deviation from our regular programming. If you feel today’s entry sounds different from what you’ve come to love around these parts, don’t fret, you aren’t imagining it. This entry was brought to us by a guest to this journal during the course of an earlier discussion.

I don’t claim to endorse anything that our Fellow Retard has said, but I don’t claim to be hostile toward his views either. Perhaps it will be beneficial to take a moment to understand where some people come from and the kinds of things they won’t have a problem with.

Enjoy it, or not.

I call myself so [Ed.: Fellow Retard] because most of your entries read like what I’d write in my diary if I was articulate and passionate about writing. I am guessing that we share our delusions and disorientation, in bits, if not almost completely.

I never quite recovered from my platonic relationship with my high school sweetheart. When we broke up on silly pretexts, she was lapped up by willing and far better guys and she ended up getting her cherry plucked to some random asshole she’s not going to marry.

And I with all my vows of respect, trust and undying love was reduced to a shattered and bitter onanist.

Needless to say, I diverted my attention to computers and the internet. I believe, based on conviction and experience, that nothing dumbs you down more than the internet. The more I spent time with the Internet, the less time I spent with my female friends or on going out. I started over analyzing situations and people. More so in case of girls. And that’s the bane of being smart/intellectuals.

You have to be instinctive and driven by your urge and senses to attract the kind of attention that leads to undressing.

I’ve been polemic and eloquent in my circle of friends but it did not help me get laid. Girls prefer to keep it simple. Who’d want to have sex with someone they can’t figure out? Just like we want to have meaningless sex for vindication and validation, girls too want fun without being judged or analyzed. It took me years to understand that. Dating sites and books don’t help because they try to provoke you by talking about confidence and pickup strategies. The truth is, 5 minutes after you’ve spieled, the girl can read your eyes and tell if you are really a horny jerk or a despo trying to run a polymorphic seduction algorithm. I let go of myself esteem and became shameless about my libido without becoming a beggar in front of girls. It helped a lot.

And once you have a girl all over you, others rush in. It’s ironical but that’s the case, girls chase those pursued by other girls. If a girl sees a girl who’s prettier than her chase you, 9 out of 10 times, she’s gonna feel attracted to you.

To cite my own case, since I got this pretty girl to date and do it with me, I’ve been chased by half a dozen girls for straight favors expressed subtly. None of them even noticed me before she came along. I cannot tell the weird and nasty stuff we do and she’s trying to rope in a pretty girl who’s bi to get into a threesome with us. Talk about the ironies of life.

Until you start seeing yourself as an unapologetic and aggressive sexual creature with a naughty sense of humor (funny is not sexy!), girls wouldn’t see you the way you want them to see you. Unlike guys, girls love with eyes and ear, so dress attractively and speak stuff that would tickle their panties, not their intellect. You are aiming too high with brainy wit, stoop down below waist and take aim.

I read that slashdot post yesterday and I know it as much as you do. We aren’t happy that way, so let’s not use eloquence to cloak the depression and dejection. It’s the impulses that makes us human. If I was a prophet, I must have been told beforehand. So, I’ll submit to what pleases me. Enough said.

On the topic of sex for money, well, sex for money is cheaper than sex for free. If you know what I mean. You go on date and there is tension in your balls on whether you’d get to exchange fluids. Paid practices are wonderful in the sense that it kinda desensitizes you to an extent towards sex and allows you to interact with a girl like a normal creature and not like a beggar would look at a Wendy’s burger.

Not to mention that if you visit the same provider again and again and befriend her, she will teach you more about women, their impulses, their sex drive, their body and the initiation to completion routine than anyone would ever disclose.

In fact, to your surprise, she might let you know the art of arousal and foreplay, stuff you wouldn’t expect to learn from such a rendezvous.

So don’t fall for the traps of morality, it’s designed to keep the hungry away from the obese. It’s funny how morality doesn’t apply to William, Dubya and Paris but applies to a struggling dude trying to find some cue on social dynamics by paying for it.

And don’t listen to girl’s version on morality and sex-for-money. What girls say they like and what they actually like is completely different. Girls have perfected the art of self-deception to such extent that even the nicer girls would walk straight into an asshole’s pants and then rant about how really they wish to be with a nice guy.

I guess I should stop rambling here. Hope I was able to convey some of my views and experiences in a way, they’d make sense, if not perfect sense.

You only have 1 life to live. That’s all you can be sure of. So fuck everything else and try to do what you want instead of repressing it. You wouldn’t want to regret like me over not having fooled around when it was the best time of my life. I mean, the only time of your life when you can bang tight and shapely minor teens is when you are a teen yourself. I missed my chance because of the lofty notions of better pursuits and intellectual tastes while my friends wrecked hymens all around.

Don’t miss the bus, it’s still not too late. What you do now won’t matter 1-2-5 years from now. So, go ahead and live out.

Even Neo had a smoking hot Trinity for Chrissake. There is more to life than Slashdot and computers. Feel the skirt over her skin in a club or caress her long hairs in bed. Or better still, hold the back of her soft neck and touch those lips and you would understand what is horribly wrong with nerds and the Lara Croft culture. They have given up on the real sensation. They’ve resigned. You must not.

— Fellow Retard

p.s. I still believe it’s tougher for girls. I can’t imagine taking dicks up my ass or sucking them and swallowing all that slime. They do it.

We’re polar opposites, him and I. While I choose my academic path based on who I get to work with, and what I get to learn in turn, he bases his decisions on where it’s the nicest outside to get the next set of tennis in.

I spent the morning with my little brother trying to find him a laptop that we were both keen on. After much scouring around, we finally arrived at the uni’s computer store nearby where I snagged him a swanky new ThinkPad.

Oh, I’d forgotten to mention it here, didn’t I?

My little brother’s finally made it here to the States to continue his studies, and I’ve been spending the past few days with him getting whipped at Mario Kart (nearly laughing ourselves to death more than once), and being bankrupted.

Perhaps, the fact that he’s left home to pursue grad school ought to be a sign that I should stop referring to him as my “little brother,” but screw that. It’s still a few days before he heads down to Florida and he’s not in grad school yet.

(The only real benefit of hotels is that with the wonders of housekeeping, you get to spend even more time on your dark thoughts, instead of being distracted by chores.)

The true hallmark of someone who’s depressed is not that he’s often found sitting alone in a corner crying, but that he doesn’t give a fuck about anything that’s going on around him—no matter how much he used to enjoy the happenings or how important they ought to be to him.

Here I am, in an arguably beautiful city, a place I haven’t visited in over a decade, and I still don’t have the slightest urge to pick up my camera and shoot a picture. Or leave the hotel and go out and see, or perhaps even do, something interesting. Or leave the bed of my hotel room and actually manage to step out and try to mingle.

Fuck.

I can’t believe that even while travelling, a bulk of my thoughts are devoted to feeling sorry for myself; frequently going over something that could only be described as “bullet points in a résumé mocking my pathetic existence.”

You know, the kinds that read “Relationships: Two, failed. Miserably. Plus one affair with a woman who was out of bounds.”

Cheery read that. Fuck.

I don’t even see the point of writing this anymore. I’m turning-off the lights now.

I didn’t bring this up earlier, but I’m spending the week in San Fransisco. Internet access has been flaky, so I’m not going to elaborate, but normal programming ought to resume soon.

Peace.

Because I didn’t sign up for my current home for the next (academic) year—since I don’t intend on staying in grad school for much longer (fingers crossed)—I’ve been forced to look for a place to stay for the last few months of this year. I’ve gotten to see a number of different apartments, some very nice, others not so, but the process on a whole has been weirding me out; none of them feel like home.

I just don’t want to move. I feel like I’ve lived at my current place forever, and it’s home.

Through this awkward process, I’ve finally managed to find a place that’s not too exorbitant that’ll do for the next few months, but I’ve realised something a little deeper.

I’ve lived in Ann Arbor for all my adult life and it’s home. As overrated as it is and as annoying as the noise from the Art Fair can be, it’s my home.

It’s where I’ve learnt and grown and experienced what little I have of life. I just don’t want to leave.

I don’t believe that the transition to yet another country will be even remotely pleasant.

If I’d penned this the instant the feelings washed over me, this would have ended-up being a much darker entry.

Lucky you.

It’s funny, I always assumed you have to be leading a pretty fucked-up life—you know, a living in the streets and being raped every evening sort of affair—to contemplate ending it; and considering that an improvement. But it’s not so, there are a lot of situations “normal” life puts you through where you begin to ponder the fundamental question, “What’s the fucking point?”

No really, just what is the point of going on and trying hard and all that rubbish when really, there is nothing to look forward to? Or even if there is, it’s not worth it?

What if things aren’t great and nothing you can do can really change anything substantially? What then? Is it then all right to contemplate quitting and ending it all? Even if, to the untrained eye, your existence still appears fairly normal?

When you have nothing, little to look forward to, nothing or no one requiring your presence, lack the ability and the will to change anything, don’t really know what you want to give, don’t have a clue what you want out of life, barely live it anyway, and go by floating along one mediocre day after another, have difficulty separating dreams and reality, oftentimes not even aware if you’re awake or asleep, … is it really so wrong to consider not living an improvement? Why?

What’s the fucking point?

I don’t have the answers to any of these questions and I believe, neither do you. Though I wish you did.

A sweet dash of lavender and a hint of fresh lemon—it’s a fragrance I can never forget.

When I was a wee lad, a distant relative of my mom, at least I think she was, stayed at our home when she was visiting our country; I think for the first time. Being the dutiful son that I was—besides being bribed and otherwise coerced—I gave up my room so she could use it. I don’t remember her name, nor her face or her form, but I can’t ever forget the wonderful aroma that was always about her. I remember my room smelling and feeling feminine for days after she’d left. I remember wishing for more as it started to fade; that magically she would show up from time to time so that my room would never lose that feeling.

That was over fifteen years ago.

Earlier today, as I was catching up on some reading in a park, the whiff of a woman tanning beside brought back those wonderful memories.

And the day has nearly arrived.

While not entirely unexpected, I’m sure it must still be hard on my parents that my brother too is leaving home to continue his study here in the United States. The thought of letting go of one’s kids to the big bad world surely doesn’t seem pleasant, and I feel rather bad for them. I know they’re old enough to realise that this is how things are and must “deal with it,” but I still feel as if there is something I ought to be doing to ease the blow but amn’t.

Sometimes, I wish I was more relevant in these sorts of socio-inter-personal situations.

A couple of fleeting glances followed by a “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” is the sort of white lie of a question I can imagine using to chat up an attractive stranger. What I have a harder time at, however, is conjuring up in my mind the image of someone else pulling the same routine on me.

I happened to notice her when she turned toward me for the first time. Curious looking, and her curiosity apparent, I noticed her steal another couple of glances before she popped the question.

I didn’t stop the conversation upon telling her I didn’t know her. I couldn’t. I wanted to know; wanted her to know. Moments thereafter are mostly a blur,¹ but I recall pang of bereavement that washed over me when it dawned on me that she’d parted, and I wasn’t aware of her name.

The pang soon gave way to panic. The panic intensified to horror. The horror soon collapsed to resignation.

Too busy dejectedly-dismissing the encounter as a cruel reminder of the condition of my life, it’s times like this when I don’t have much faith in second chances. The gods seem to have disagreed with me though, for later that day, I ran into her again. Inexplicably, at an entirely different part of town.

In retrospect, it’s no wonder why. The gods enjoy a good chuckle just as much as the rest of you, and know me better than I’d like them to.

I still don’t know her name.

¹However, I do vaguely recall getting to hear such gems as:

“I like the way you wear your hair. Do you like your hair that way? Of course you do, otherwise you wouldn’t wear it like that.”

(Imagine that being said in a rapid, pause-less string of words.)

I’ve been chuckling to the thought of this ever since I observed it during lunch.

Making out the entire time, this guy and girl had finally inched their way to the cash register of the crowded fast-food place. The woman behind the counter politely interrupts them, requesting them to pay-up for their food and proceeds to wait patiently. After some effort, the two finally get their tongues out of the other’s throat, and then is when it happens.

They step back, meticulously itemise who ordered what, and settle their respective tabs separately.

Upon completing the transaction, their faces get stuck together again.

Note: If you’re interested, I’m sorry to inform you that you’re too late; I’ve already been snatched up. The reason I put the pretty pink ad up here is because I worked too hard at the ad campaign for it not to be used.