Dan Tran

Today I found out that one of my fellow IB kids passed away.
Dan Tran was one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people
I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Life is precious, and things like
this make you realize it. I wish I could've talked to him before he left.
The picture with him and I is going in a frame today.
I miss ya Dan. Rest in Peace.

My Friend in Art 101

Granted he likes to throw his political opinion into his lectures more than is necessary, but my Art History professor, Dr. Davisson is an intelligent likable professor. This morning one of the girls in the back of the class decided to question his methods of examination, and asked in a rude way if we were allowed to leave when the ten-minutes test was over. It's not her question asking that grates on my nerves and patience; it's her tone of voice. It has several different tones overall ranging from annoyingly rude and out of place to authority-challenging and all of them are obnoxious. Not to mention she has to correct the professor on the pronunciation of her name every class, which she does in an aggravated annoying manner. The fact that she's won over the assistance of those students sitting around doesn't help either. I may have a hard time tolerating this much longer.

On a different and slightly less annoyed note, my lack of friends and female company is continuing to relax me. I find that I care less about my phone, which I love; I care more about what book I'm going to read when I get home, which is good; and my overall level of stress (which was never super-high) continues to decrease. I don't really need to be around friends 24/7 to be content, I just used them as more of a crutch in order to avoid boredom. Cheers to being a loner, well, not really.

Friends, and all the ones I don't have.

Something strange has been happening to me recently.
I'm beginning to find I don't have any friends left.
After throwing that party at my house and getting caught for it, ties with my friends from the 2-5 crew have never really been the same, but that's entirely my fault. I haven't made an effort to hang out with them or even get a hold of them, with the exception of Coleman, who in my opinion doesn't even qualify as one of them.
Recently, my previously "best" friend accused me wrongly of attempting to pick up on his girlfriend. When I argued my case and his accusal fell apart, I did it "subconsciously." His point basically turned into what appeared to be a reason to dislike me, I have no idea why. We decided to drop it and be cool with everything, but you know how that goes. Neither one of us has made an attempt to contact the other one, so the friendship is dying with a slight whimper. So it goes.
But as my friends dwindle rapidly, I find that I become bored less easily and am reading more, listening to more records, and basically just being myself, rather than being influenced by the activities of others. I guess the main point of this not so informative digression would be to say I'm cutting ties with most of my friends, and it's really not that bad at all.

Atheist Fencing

I've noticed something about myself. When I'm in a good mood, my fencing is on-point. My distancing is perfect, my response is lightening fast, and my technique shines through. On the contrary, when I'm in a poor mood or when things in my life are going less than perfect, my fencing suffers. This tie between my emotional health and fencing ability has to be something significant, but I'm just not quite sure how yet.
I'll have to wait and see. One thing I am becoming more and more sure of every day is that God is fake. I've been force-fed bullshit about God and Jesus all my life and I just accepted it as true, when it most definitely is not.

Maybe they're right...

Today my grandad had a conversation with me about why it's imperative that I NOT vote for Obama, and why I shouldn't smoke cigarettes or "loco weed." Granted it was difficult to take such words to heart when the word "loco weed" is in the conversation, but I tried. The main point he was trying to get across was that I was young and stupid and when I was older and had more life experience, I would realize how stupid I had behaved in my younger years and learn what life is really about. In all honesty, I do have huge amounts of respect for my grandad, but keep in mind this is the same man who thinks the NRA gives voters 100% accurate information and thinks black people are just of a "different sort." I guess I'll just have to wait and see if he's right.

"Put money in thy purse..."

When people think of Shakespeare, they think of elevated language and coffee shops with pretentious snobs perusing shelves of literature and "good" poetry. I think this is a sad and false association. Historians have concluded that Shakespeare was a writer who worked for the entertainment of the common people. He is definitely one of, if not the definitively best, writers of the English language, but first and foremost he was an entertainer.
You may be wondering where I'm heading with this haphazard defense of a dead man's honor, but it's because I've become increasingly interested with one of his most "evil" characters, and he deserves the defense anyways.
The character is Iago, the one who pours poison in the ears of all the characters in Othello. He comes across at the beginning of the play as a villain, but nothing more than your typical evil-doer moving along the plot of your familiar Shakespearean tragedy; he is much more than that. After his first soliloquy, you find yourself asking, "What the hell is this guy up to? And why?" And you do never get a clear answer, which is partly frustrating and partly just the beauty of Shakespeare. As you can tell, I have a habit of becoming overly-acquainted with the characters I read about. I don't even know why.
Below is a scene from Othello with Iago's first monologue performed by Kenneth Branagh. He's excellent. Enjoy.

I believe in Karma:

I've had an interesting last few days.
I've had my best friend wrongly accuse me of "subconsciously" trying to pick up on his ex-girlfriend; I've had interesting developments in the romantic department with a good friend who I would have never expected; I almost shattered my ankle running into a 4-ft tall electric fan, and I've gotten caught smoking weed, again.
It's been interesting. I've felt like shit to be perfectly honest, not to mention the lovely acne that comes from all the stress, not to mention I accidentally slept through BOTH of my classes today when I woke up at 1:00 PM for no particular reason.
This week and half of the last one deserves a Giant "What the Fuck!?"
I realize this post is almost nothing but ranting, raving, and venting, but sometimes, that's what blogs are for.
On a lighter note, my long seasoned writer's block is beginning to fade and I'm starting to move out of the realm of depressing love poetry I feared I might be eternally stuck in, thanks to Mr. Allen Ginsberg's astounding work.
Hopefully my life takes some drastic turns for the better sometime soon.

Faith.

I'm walking down my hall, catching a quick glance at the tv as I pass by. Over a generic-sounding country song is a familiar-looking man in a cowboy hat with his arms raised to glorious heaven, it's Tim McGraw. The camera pans around McGraw to show the tattoo on his left shoulder, which is the word, "Faith," written in cursive letters.
I stop because I'm curious to see where this is going. All of a sudden the song comes to an apparent climax and there is an image of a small bottle on the screen and the announcer says, "The new fragrance from Tim McGraw."
American culture rocks.