Hasta la Byebye

Om nom nom

Saturday, October 29, 2005

I finished my paper nice and on-timely. Which was nice. But then my professor was all, "If you turn it in by first thing Wednesday, you will still receive full credit." That made Cantay sad. I literally had to run to the nearest computer lab to get my paper printed out as I finished it at 5:00 PM.

And then I forgot to call my dad until I walked into class. It was his birthday, you see, and I'd kept it in my mind the whole time that I wouldn't forget to call him--until I forgot to call him. Thankfully the beginning of class went quite slowly, which allowed me time to step out and give ol' Be a ring. And all was well.

But right now, while I'm making sure that my laundry dries (our drier has a tendency to open its door at random, requiring the machine to stop and thereby preventing happy drying if not closed and restarted), I figured I'd regale you about nothing in particular. Actually, I had an idea for it, but I am just feeling too lazy right now to go through with it. In fact, I'm thinking I'll go to bed right now. But don't worry, this puppy will pick up right from where this draft left off! Good night!

And I'm back, twenty-four hours after the original draft was saved. Good day!

This is actually the first draft that I'm finishing at Hasta la Byebye, I think. Strange, eh? I have a couple of unpublished, unfinished ones laying about from many months ago. Maybe as a publicity stunt, I'll let the world see them and make the world want to read way back in the archives (which I actually did after I saved this post--and my archives are still exceptionally entertaining).

Anyway, I saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe today. And no, it hasn't come out yet. It was a play you see. One of my friends, an Albanian fellow named Endrit, offered me one of two free tickets he got from his theatre professor, who is directing the show. I happily accepted, and at about 6:25, we set off to Arlington via metro.

The play was held in a community center that lay on the grounds of a middle school. The auditorium was quite cool for something at a junior high though, with a capacity of several hundred people. I tell you, it must have been a rush for the players. Especially since most of them were in junior high.

That's right. They were in junior high! It was pretty crazy stuff. But seriously, it was really awesome how well they were able to do everything. I've never seen kids so young perform so well--sure, they wouldn't win any Oscars, but it was really quite cool.

We headed home after that and I went by to see Danielle, who was hosting her friend Erin and sister Kendra, who had come down from the Shire (New HampSHIRE, for those of you behind the curve) for a visit. I ate her pizza and all was well. And then they made me leave. Abruptly. Seriously, I was just sitting in there, and then suddenly they were like all, "Leave, we need to sleep." And it was 12! That's right! Midnight! Come on! Sleep! But apparently in New Hampshireland, people sleep earlier. Whatevah.

I came back to my dorm, finished up some laundry, played some poker and continued a very short losing streak I started this week. I think I need to just go back to the old policy of completely abstaining from poker until I have sufficient time and energy to devote to it to accept losing streaks and not let them warp my ability and logic--seriously, it's the emotion of losing that causes gambling problems, and even though I'm playing with pure profit, addictions don't pay attention to how much money you have left in your account. You can get yourself hurt if you don't deal with losing streaks properly.

And so I'll have to abstain. Which is unfortunate, because it means I don't really have the luxury to do anything except small online things that I end up spending way too much time on. One of these days I'll have to find a happy medium for doing the things that I enjoy that require time-commitments. Summer vacation won't exist forever.

Hell, it may not exist next year even. As you folk may or may not recall, I said I was looking to go to Africa for the summer. But I scrapped that idea in a slow process that started last week. In fact, over the past week, the little parliament in my head (the Grand Cerebral Assembly) has debated, redebated, and developed policy on all sorts of crazy issues. The public (in my brain, yes) is speculative of how long these changes could possibly last, and even government officials are saying the measures are temporary and still in the developmental phase, with very few concepts accurately set. The government has issued various statements assuring the public (still in my brain) that these issues could be settled once certain key events took place and sufficient time passed to allow parliament to chew on all of this. Of course, even these statements have not placated the public, who through constant agitation have successfully forced the government to call early elections twice (once by no-confidence vote, once by the dissolution of the GCA by presidential decree after quorums could not be met), further complicating the entire process as debates were shelved when the main support and opposition was not brought back into office. In fact, the separately-elected president had to threaten the imposition of a state of emergency to prevent further early elections, leading to vocal criticism by many in the media, who say that he had a large part in both early elections so far and that this was but an attempt to seize more power for the presidency.

It's all very complicated. But let me tell you, it's all quite interesting. But, as I said, the idea of going to Africa has been scrapped. Both as a result of waning support in the GCA and a deadline that is harder and harder to meet, the initiative to try to go to Africa has been tabled. However, there is a growing movement within the government to make me want to apply for an internship for the upcoming semester (or possibly the summer). In preparation for any such potential internship, several deputies (elected members of the GCA) have drafted a potential schedule of classes based upon what information I can ferret out of the GW website. If all goes well, I'll have an internship and no classes that end after 12 PM (except on Monday, where I'll have a 3:30 to 6:00 Anthropology class). The measure is still pending, however, and largely dependent upon finding a good internship.

In any case, the Sleep Party and its new coalition government is calling for me to go to bed. It's astounding, but the Sleep Party has hold of a staggering 59 out of 300 seats (it's staggering when you consider that fifteen other parties are represented in the GCA--criticize the system if you want, but when you've got a brain and so many bloody issues to cater to all the crazy neurons, you can't really have less than fifty active parties, with about fifteen surpassing the 2.5% cerebral threshold to receive seats in the GCA). So I need to go to bed. Emergency resolutions and stuff. Damn early elections. I almost miss the Spontaneous Action Party government. Almost.

I'd be surprised if you read all that. ^.^ (But no cookies, sorry.)

Hasta la byebye, chicos.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a crazy man!

7-9 page paper due at 5 PM. Currently starting page 4. Freaky-deeky? Youbetcharass! (That's pronounced "yu-BEH-CHAIR-ass" for those of you playing along at home.)

All right. So, an objective analysis of time would tell me I have 12 hours to finish this puppy. But a realistic analysis, which takes into account the fact that I have not yet slept (and don't intend to any time soon--teehee) would tell me that I have about four full-brain working hours (this calculation requires one to first find how much time he's actually working and then determine what percentage of the brain is actually available for the times that work is allotted, with 1 full-brain working hour [or brain-hour, for short] equalling the amount of work accomplished by the brain when it is at full efficiency over one hour--sort of like a kilowatt-hour, and how it's a measure of power as opposed to time or something).

I'll tell you what's nice though: for the past two hours or so, I've been all alone in this computer lab. Which is nice. It means I can pick my nose and fart, and all I have to worry about is the camera in the corner staring at me disapprovingly.

Unfortunately, my back has been bugging me all day. And I don't know why. But it sucks. I'm sort of stiff and I'm not sure exactly how long I'll survive considering that I've almost finished the apple I'm using to help keep my metabolism and my mind moving.

Thankfully, this is the first paper of the year in any of my classes (weird, yeah--I mean, last year I had like four papers by now), which means I have not yet exhausted my supply of emergency fuel. Unfortunately, I never fully replenished my emergency hoard during the summer like I usually do, nor am I sure exactly how full it is. At any moment in time, I can collapse and be broken in a fashion similar to what happened at the end of last year. Except this time it would be really bad because it's the first semester.

There is a glimmer of hope, however. It's possible that over the course of one year my body has adapted to survive on much less sleep. I say this because I effortlessly and accidently stop sleeping for no particular reason. And it sucks. And when I say stop sleeping, I should clarify and say that I stop sleeping enough. Without getting very severely hit by it. Can you believe that I haven't fallen asleep once in class yet? Not once! Seriously, dawg. That's creepy shit.

Anyway. I'd best go back to work. I have accomplished the needed distraction, and now I must take the writing momentum I've developed over this-a-way and apply it to my paper (though it's sort of impossible because I actually have to cite shit there).

A good day, folks. I promise that I'll talk about Iraq sometime. But to quote myself, Hasta la Byebye isn't back yet. Just give 'er some time.

On that note.

Hasta la byebye.
 
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