Vancouver Drift

We just got a hamster. It runs in the wheel at night, annoying me to no end. I believe it's incentive is to get strong and fast enough to escape when the time comes (it really fears me). Or maybe its motivation is to annoy me and to steal my sleep. But ignoring the conspiracy of malice on the part of the wacky hamster, why does it run in the damn wheel every night without fail?? does it do so for health reasons? is it on some sort of rodent training program? It is bugging me so, any insight would be much appreciated. ;)

The question of the week is: Why do hamsters run in wheels?

wanna see a good movie? a history of violence. Excellent.
Cronenberg is truly an amazing director. Viggo Mortensen has improved immensely, look at his eyes and his face! Amazing actor. and Maria Bello, SO HOT.

would you believe me if i said my heart was good and not to believe anything else? would you judge me by letters spelling out words sent by proxy with no apparant malice, but rather an implicit and subconscious plea for acceptance?

i think we need a little trust on both ends.

ok, my email address is "ratherretarded@something.com", so i e-mail my supervisor, using that email address by accident. apparantly now i am offensive to mentally handicapped people, or people of the handicap persuasion to be more p.c.

the thing is, that i never even thought about it that way. i've never used the phrase "retarded" or "retard" with any pejorative implications of any sort. in my vocabulary, it does not exist as a negative word. it can only exist as such if i deemed it as such. so if i put it into my "bad words category". but it exists as a synonym for stupid to me. in the dictionary, it reads something like (as a verb), "to slow down the progress of development". and i was refering to my slow process of development (plus i thought my attempt at alliteration was rather intelligent). but how am i supposed to explain all of this to my supervisor? maybe it is she that has the bias against handicapped people, for in my very discourse, it does not exist as a word to offend, but rather as a slang or colloquialism that only gains meaning by the acknowlegement and active acceptance of its pejorative meaning. hah!
hah again i say!

maybe it is not i that offends through my non-offensive use of the word, but rather you! yes you! who choose to view it as an offensive usage.

we need more trust, more understanding, before we be so quick to judge and deem ourselves correct and others wrong.

of course, i am correct in all my previous statements. i have 1 / 25 pgs for my paper due tomorrow, see how good i am to my readers?

i have the implicit fear that by specializing in something, i am learning a lot about nothing. how does one commit when he knows that that which is not holistic is flawed. reductionism needs more than qualification, it needs to understand and utilize plurality.

it's easy to talk in theory, to construct theory, but the problem comes in the realization that theory is not reality, and all theories fall because they're tests are successful. theories look for variables to attribute cause to, that's where we get game theory, but the reductive nature which yearns for scientific acceptance is flawed in is very nature. events cannot be reduced, causes cannot be found in a diagram or a graph or an economic model.

i long for the comfort of economics, but am ashamed by my igonorance.

finally!

it's this time of the semester (week 10) that i start school. my my, there is a lot of shit to be done. i am in study mode.

lots of immigrants will probably agree with my sentiments. how ever far you run through time and the space that encompasses it, the past is always around the corner behind a curtain ready to pop it's amorphous countenance to set you down or up some kind of whirlwind spiral.

no matter how much ignorance i develop, no matter how much cultural adaptation i proclaim, my roots keep coming back in waves crashing in shallow waters.

well, we'll see what happens. maybe my dream to relearn chinese and backpack asia will be realized in the next couple of years.

Lord quell my pride, and let them inside.
humble me,
I want to live my life with nothing to hide.


Pride has surfaced on the graveyard of my conscience. It has always been, it will always be. But now, that which I know, haunts me so. I keep running, but only to have it materialize at night. The mornings are best, because it lies next to me, unaware. This pride burns into my actions and my words, where once my mouth released innocent longings, now it empties specious banter loaded with not-so-subtle clues of the graveyard and the monster within.

Forgive me for the way I've been, for I have been the one tortured most. When I've seeked for love, I've found the path where pride goes. Humble me Lord.

That's what it comes down to, in terms of attaining happiness in the most Aristotelian sense of the word. Virtue. To be happy requires you to live a good life well. There may be material misfortunes like that of Job or Priam, but the manner in which the character that has developed deals with fortune and misfortune dictates position in life and therefore happiness.

Then, there are two typologies of virtues. One being the virtue of character, where character is developed through habituation. There is nothing natural about it, for example, you are not brave because you are born brave, this braveness is developed. From small beginnings, where you made the decision to try oatmeal instead of the more comforting cereal, to the time you stood up for your friend and got your ass kicked for it. These small beginnings accumulate and develop the spark or fiery flame of the virtue called bravery in you. This is learnt through habituation and implicitly, a submission to an ideal. This submission is what is so hidden and so elusive to one such as myself.

I pride myself (pride is another problem for another day) in the virtue of the intellect. I guess that's what happens when you get bombarded by the torrential hail of higher education, critical thinking. You can't subscribe to a single text or idea.

Truth is everywhere, but nowhere to be found.

My skill (and weakness) lies in my ability to look at virtue from all angles. To look at the many facets of truth and criticize more shit out of it than a goat at a chinese buffet. I can understand virtue, what it means to be virtuous. I can question the many conceptions of what is virtuous, what I should do or be or say.

But I cannot subscribe, submit and therefore I subsist, barely, on broken truths and criticism. The advantages of the (i call them) ignorant, are in sight, but unavailable to one outside the looking glass. Too proud, too timid, too unprepared to hazard a jump into the looking glass.