See if you can access these same videos that I found much inspiration at this guy’s blog. Video’s 2 and 3 were the best, but they’re quick. Ira Glass, a radio show host, on some story-telling philosophy.
One of my favorite take-away quotes: “If you’re not failing, you’re not going to get lucky.”
Here’s a challenge: find a piece of paper. On it, write down the names of the months, up and down. Now next to each month write something that happened to you in that month, 2009. Continue this trend for all the 12 months of the year.
How was your 2009?
Major events in my year, in no order but by month:
Jan: New Years in Amsterdam
Feb: Carnival with roommates
Mar: I meet a girl
April: Music and film festivals in Rotterdam
May: My birthday
June: Mom visits, I get a new camera
July: Trip to China, Dad and nephew visit, Camping on the beach
Aug: Girlfriend returns from traveling, I have a fight with a roommate
Sept: I have work in Brussels, I make friends with some lawyers
Oct: I work less, Girlfriend and I breakup
Nov: New friends and roommates are great, Thanksgiving
i work with a lady i can’t stand. she is an angry old woman who spits smoke and vile. strange noises eminate from her direction, growls and beastial noise. if there was a damsel in distress in the situation i might stick around, but this woman is depriving me of an amiable work environment.
but i have, on the other hand, some friends around me that i must honestly say i really love. they make days great, and i mean that in a very mushy sense. they may not agree with everything i say, but i keep them around. (and vice versa)
i can be something of a solitary person, and i have been known to really dislike people (who all deserved it, by the way), but we all need people to accept us; it’s part of being the social animals that we are. what is a lion without its pack, a buffalo without its herd? i bet if frogs had group names they’d be lost without it too. as well with people: without others that like us, we’re just lonely, disgusting monkeys. (or maybe that’s why we’re lonely!) it helps to be socially acceptable sometimes.
SO I sent this response back to her, and the 30-or-so people that she had included in the mass email:
1) Thanksgiving represents mass genocide
2) Many people celebrate thanksgiving
3) Therefore, many people celebrate mass genocide
The error is in step 1. What DOES Thanksgiving represent?
This man appears to become excited by politics and fear. His assertion in paragraph 6 that people are in reality celebrating the genocide is non-sequitur. He falls victim to dominant culture by accepting generalizations as facts, reinforcing what he attempts to break from. He tells us “that’s how it is,” and “you can’t change it.” His solution is to “find something new,” again, of course, based on fear and politics.
How much historical context is present along with the holiday? In schools the myth is taught, right there along with the 4th of July and Holocaust Remembrance Day myths (I won’t write here about the misconceptions behind those..). But in my family Thanksgiving is simply a private time for enjoying good company and good food, cause for celebration in any place.
If it helps you sleep better at night, call it an Autumn Festival, but why on earth should we refuse it? I refuse to be afraid.
i think i’ve gone and done it. i never thought i would, but here i am on the social web, a second and more interactive version of the original world wide web. it seems so similar to the web i’ve always known, only now there are more people and things have been made simpler to plug into. a bit more corporate-sponsored and -controlled, though too. but imagine what society will look like with the web integrated even 20 years from now – remember, this stuff has only been around so long. well with one environmental disaster after another, will we even get that far?
deep deep questions, perhaps only a new cyber-god could answer. i bet his name will be google, and he will have 10^10 heads.
where was i? oh yes.
i’ve given up my old web page for what you see before you. i linked a copy of the old site on the side bar for reference. i’ve been doing handmade html blog websites for a very long time, maybe some day i’ll put up copies of them all. maybe some day the web will be able to keep all of this stuff straight for itself.
I read a joking-but-all-too-seriously funny article not long ago about how Westerners spend 90% of their day staring at squares. All fake statistics aside, it’s so true. From the computer at work to the windows of our houses, we find comfort in the ease that four equal sides can bring.
what’s wrong with circles? well, they’re not exact by any means. I had an infatuation with triangles for a while, and strangely named shapes always interest me (not so much the form as the history), but you can count me in on the quadrilateral bandwagon; they’re just so easy and fun!
i would like to be a sculptor some day, and i would make all kinds of shapes. for me, i think square-ish shapes are an easy cop-out, but they can still be nice.
It must have been something I ate. I tried to stir-fry last night but I was distracted and ruined the whole thing. The rice ended up too oily and the meat overcooked. Then as I slept I had strange dreams of working at the office and my alarm clock. I don’t know whether to write jokes or tragedy.
My girlfriend broke up with me. Fortunately I’ve found myself not heart-broken, yet still troubled. There are many things that I began to think about: How will I spend my free evenings? How will this affect our friends? Is it too late to ask for my toothbrush back?
I’m writing this from the train. This morning I’m off to see a someone and I have a writing job in my bag! So hopefully it’s a taste of things to come. Holland in misty green and blue zipping past the window, train station sushi for breakfast. Given my stomach condition this morning, though, the spicey wasabi is probably not a bright idea.
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