God DAMN it.  I hate getting up at 5.30 in the morning.  I *really* want this to come to an end. When I am done with school, I intend to work for myself, and my hours will NOT start before 10am.  Even that's a little early.  

Plus, I hate that I have so much physical pain all the time.  Like, all the time.  Today, I have upset stomach, kidney pain, back pain and leg pain.  Fucking EVERYTHING HURTS!  I could live without that just fine. 

Someone suggested to me yesterday that it might have something to do with the negative psychic energy I have bound up inside.  Yeah, probably very true.  But these sorts of insights always lead to the same conundrum.  How do you let go of a maladaptive way of being without having replaced that behavior with something else that meets the need that the maladaptive behavior has previously met?  We hold onto these sorts of things because they do something important for us.  Not because we're lazy or because we think there's no better way to be.  But some of us are just "that" fucked up.

Anyway.  I feel spent.  Just so tired - and I just got out of bed.  Blah. 

Twisting, turning, through the nether...

Steve Sickenberger is an asshole.  Like, way, way more than me.  He's a genuinely nasty, ugly, mean individual who actively seeks to injure me professionally, personally, and emotionally.  

He sucks.  

Also on this list, I think, are mmm, Michele Nguyen, Scott Stokes, Kevin Bierworth, and probably one or two others, but I'm not sure, so why say so?  Anyway... what really is most hurtful about the behavior these assholes deliver in my direction is that I've never done anything to any of them.  In fact, I avoid all of them as much as I possibly can.  Oh, yes, I've said something with a sharp tongue to them each at least once.  But that's sort of like yesterday's news in the kitchen, right?  Having a sharp tongue is just something that others (or at least I) should grow a thicker skin around.  Each of these individuals has said MANY things to me that are so far beyond anything I've ever said to any of them I just don't understand.  

They're haters, and I try really hard not to be.  What's so great about beating up on me?

And while I *really* hate this whining shit, I don't DARE access the part of me that makes me feel like I have POWER over these people.  Because that IS the ugly part of me, and that IS NOT the part of me I choose to be, whenever I still have control over that choice.  

I just don't get what people want from me.  Do they want me to blow up at them?  Be ugly toward them?  Do they want me to fail?  Do they want to just be terrible people?  Do they think this is good, or right?  Is it moral behavior?  Ethical?  Is it appropriate or professional?  Is there any justification for it whatsoever?  If not, then what the fuck?  


Just plain old what the fuck?


Why are SO MANY people just worthless pieces of shit?

Don't ask me what I think.

Yesterday was a classical example of how fucked up people are, and why I have such a problem with authority. 

I started my day ready to have a good day washing dishes and mostly taking it easy in the kitchen.  Apparently, though, a bunch of people have been very frustrated lately (myself NOT included in a rather a-typical fashion) and evidently this frustration led the chef instructor to have the dean of our program come visit with us during our lecture hour yesterday morning.  Christ almighty.

Dream, bitches.

When did I stop thinking Apple was a fucking amazing/awesome company like I did when I was programming LOGO in 2nd grade, and start thinking Apple was just ... too greedy for me to be totally comfortable buying an iPod touch?  

I mean, in the end, it's a pretty clever thing to own.  And really really, I need some tunes in my ears in the mornings/afternoons.  I just need Gaga IN MY HEAD so yeah.  That's something I wanna try to accomplish somehow.  We DO have a g1 not in use around the house atm.  Maybe C would let me use it.  Would just have to buy a nice set of wifi headphones for it.  


Anyway, this question had me thinking about like... well, you know like the idea here is that if you make something cool that millions of people want (not TOO difficult in theory given the human population of Terra Madre) you can really make incredible amounts of money selling it.  I read today that sixty thousand android devices are shipping every day.  Every day.  I mean, if you had a cool THING to sell, even if it was 19.95, if you get a million people to be dumb enough to buy your dumpster-destined plastic, you can make enough to retire, if you wish.  Or more likely, you can use that money to make more plastic shit nobody really needs or even wants more than a week after they've owned it, and which will find IT'S way to the dumpster, transferring untold millions of hard-earned dollars into your wallet in the process.  


And then I wonder.  


Is this the best we can do with our collective resources?  Is this the best we can do as human beings?  Is this the best evolution of human consciousness we can acheive in 2010?  HELLO!  We've seen the first DECADE of the 21st century just basically BLOW by with nary a shift in public policy regarding, well, everything that is, thanks to the economies of scale, at this point carcinogenic ways of behaving.  


Look, all I'm saying is we all KNOW we're doing this, but we don't have the leadership we think we need to get ourselves out of this mess, but if we can populate the world like this, and mechanize the building of huge cities and roads and equipment and vehicles and consumer products...... 


then...


well, people, we are all suffering from a sad, pathetic, and horribly tragic lack of imagination.  One day enough of us will wake up that we'll realize we can basically transform our world through the redistribution of material wealth, economic revolution, and a whole new system of resource management.  We'll some day realize that we need to dream more, together, and dream big - way, way bigger than 64 inches of flat panel glory.  


Bigger even than IMAX, or Disney World, or Dubai.  Bigger, people, than Europe, Asia, Americas, Australia, and dwindling arctics.  We need to learn to dream, together. 


Elseways, I think we are lost.  We've already basically transformed ourselves into a society of individuals who believe the only way we can have anything is to kill each other.  Whether literally or figuratively, that is how we deal with our fears about meeting our needs and ensuring our safety and survival.  The real threats to this however, cannot be met in the way we are behaving.  


I do hope we learn something different.  Because I hate being here sometimes, thanks to the way ALL OF US behave.    What can I say?  Human beings are so far, some pretty pathetic creatures in my view.  We can do better, but only if we choose to do so, together.

Human unity

Lux Aurumque 

In the words of Chuck Mangione, "It feels so good" to experience this video.

I find watching this to be healing in a way.  In our fractured, isolated, hyper-individualized world, this rearrangement of the splinters in a coalescence of harmonic beauty is a much needed image of unity.  The diversity of nationalities, skin colors, eye shapes, and self-expression (all factors by which we are socially programmed to fractionate our fellow human beings into "us" and "them") being brought together as one via those very same technologies that so often serve to divide us is truly a welcome twist.  I love how so many of the singers do not stand out as the "type" of person you might imagine would be caught on film singing in an acapella choir.  That makes me feel safer in the world.

Thanks to Carlos for pointing this one out to me.

Well, I spent my 2k.  This is not untypical behavior.  I spent it, however, on settling about 3k worth of debt.  This is very untypical behavior.  Now I have 150 bucks in the bank and so far, very little to show for it.  It's also going to take a few weeks to get my weekly unemployment checks coming again, since the most recent payment cashed out my EUC.  They say they sent me the application for EB already, but it is not here.  So who knows.  They say they've sent a second one now.  Until then, I am back where I was before (which is really a good thing, if you ask me) where I have basically no money and have to get by on that.  I just keep reminding myself it's only temporary and eventually it will lead to a happier life.  That's what I want out of this house, anyway.

*SALUTE*

Just achieved my first level 80 character in wow.  I am only slightly disappointed that this is the most important thing happening to me today.  In other news, I should be able to order my kitchenaid mixer today, and am going to chat with someone in a couple hours about my finances.  Later today I'll get my ducks in rows for school this week.  Whee!