Penny Hero (dot) Net

Wonderful complex ambiguity in Henry James’ stuff. My freshman year, I read Daisy Miller and started to write a cyber-punk “version” of that story (very bad. don’t ask for a copy) because I was so impressed with the skill involved in building and creating doubt, questioning, and a fundamental inability to know the truth of the story.

In Gavin’s words, Ahern’s a ninja because he says stuff like “If any of you say ‘the author leaves it up to the reader to decide the truth’ in one of your papers, I’ll smack you.” I know he was trying to drive home that explanations are to be found in the text but the same can be applied to pieces where explanations are deliberately left out, and must be accepted that way.

I like writers who refuse to anchor their work in some kind of logic. Not because I “don’t want to know”, but because I think complexity and subjectivity should be more celebrated. It’s a better representation of the “human condition” (*gags*) than trying to rationalize and attribute X to an either/or kind of “enlightened” understanding.

Tim O’Brien’s In The Lake of the Woods is also a book I’d bear children for.

For the record, I’m on chapter 8 of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.

So, today I had two meetings, neither of which involved me contributing anything accept laughter at Geff for leaving us to pick up his tab the night before after our Budget-request thingie. I was slightly annoyed at the website meeting though, because the first half was basically my boss and co-worker talking about security issues with authenticating our future userbase… all of this I pretty much followed, if not totally understood. I can listen to people discussing security issues and contrary to popular anti-feminist belief, my brain does not turn off. The thing that irritated me was that when it came time for my boss to ask me how the design aspect of development was going, he immediately “dumbed down” his language, to the point that he should have been embarrassed. Yes, I know how to install extensions on firefox, and you don’t need to be surprised when I do it right in front of you. Yes, I know how to upload a static html file to my onid account. Yes, I know how to locate and view a page’s css. My co-worker also seemed to notice, and tried to enter the conversation on a more “normal” level, asking me more specific questions… but my boss maybe didn’t quite notice that.

*sigh* The problem is that I’m probably to blame, because I don’t know how to talk about what I understand. I can make webpages. I even know a little php. I’m learning how to work with more advanced web design stuff, and well on my way to understanding how xaraya themes work. I can modify and write css and “make shit look cool”, and make it work across various browsers, but because of my lack of group-experience, I’ve never had to actually talk and discuss stuff… so I don’t know what things are called, or how group-procedure is generally done. So if I would just learn the vocabulary/diction/discourse that they are involved in, and pushed myself into the conversations a little more, maybe he would stop thinking of me as an archetypal “non-technical girl”.

The funny thing is, my boss’s wife is apparently pretty feminist-ish… so it’s kind of funny that he seems to default to this way of interacting with me. It’s probably NOT because I’m a girl though… I should give him the benefit of the doubt… he’d probably talk like this to any guy who appeared to have the lack of understanding that he seems to think I have…

Anyway… that’s all for now I think. I have seven chapters of The Turn of the Screw to read… and a crappy Philosopy paper on Descartes (*pukes*) to write… and a nihongo test to study for… and a pallet page to make, and some layout mockups to make, and some MLA research to do…

And it’s all going to make me explode at some point soon because my personal life is growing more and more tense… and the more I try to ignore it, the more it scratches at the window. (I’m telling you… androgyny would be nice! demo, I think there’s something wrong with me if I’m trying to cut myself off from the very things that make us human beings and not ants. )

P.S. Hi and *hugs* to . I had no idea you were still lurking around livejournal. Glad to see that you are. ^_____^

Happy MLK day. :)

Stuff to do today:
☆ - read for Eng, Eng and Eng
☆ - read for Phl
☆ - finish Japanese homework
☆ - take out trash
☆ - put away laundry
★ - do last load of laundry
★ - work on xaraya theme
★ - L.research
★ - no metroid
★ - no gunbound

Tomorrow:
☆ - Budget presentation (6:40ish)

In Other News: Metroid Prime (as in, the final boss, gamecube one) is one scary mofo. You walk into the big scary room and all you see is this giant undulating face hanging from the ceiling… only it’s an optical illusion. well, sorta… since it was designed to look like that at first. When it falls from the ceiling, it looks like a giant spider. So yeah… I was scared. But I reduced it to very little health rather quickly… then I ran out of missiles and just got raped. *sigh*

Today, I plan on being productive. (shut up. stop laughing. damn you.)

…

Ok, this isn’t working. I’m done with this entry. I can’t think of anything marvelous to say.

There’s a kind of potential for therapeutic honesty in blogging. There’s the publicprivate-ness of it too–the illusion of anonymity and the gratuitous self-indulgent drama… ego stroking/popping.

But, there’s value in the act of just spilling. unrestraint in a public place. telling faceless usernames how and why and to what extent you hate foo. I’m sure people have tied blogging to the psychological and psychic value that comes from “confession” before and I don’t want to be the umpteenth person to do that.

Potential for therapeutic honesty when you’re sure the people reading aren’t affected by the things you do/say/write/read.

On some topics, I’ve gone back to a paper journal. And tonight I realize I’ve taken for granted my freedom of expression here. I feel restrained, censored, even though I’ve got nothing bad to say tonight.

News: I’m manic today. and I’m not sure why. anxiety over being in class again. Anxiety over being part of a pair. Anxiety and worry about failing in either of those roles. Anxiety about being friends/co-workers with so many ex-boyfriends, one of which I think could grow into an awesome life-long work-partnership/friendship… but the anxiety comes in because I know my boyfriend would rather he was a girl, and/or not my ex…

anxiety about my roommate… and how now that her boyfriend is back, I’m more comfortable around her. It’s not fair to her to have let the relationship degenerate for 3 months while he was in Japan. It’s not fair, and not nice. I love her and I wish I could just be her friend… anxiety about girls in general… I can’t explain why I can’t ever seem to feel comfortable around them. conversations NOTHING, let alone roommates.

I want to feel more calm. I want to feel more capable. I feel so off-centered because of something. But I can’t figure out what it is. I feel like I’ve got something on my contact lens. enough to be fuzzy, but not enough to find.

I’m in a rusty, leaky metal row boat. I’m trying violently to sleep in the bottom while the gentle icy waves rock me back and forth. As long as I don’t move too much, I’ll be safe from the colder, darker water. Metal digs into my back, my sides, my hands. I’m cold. But the water’s colder, so I’ll stay here and pretend to be calm. But is it better? to be safe and cold? or dead and cold? or is the water just icy at first, and once I’m in it I’ll discover I’m really a flounder?

Right now, I don’t care to know. but it’s so hard to be calm when you’re shivering.

Sent emails saying loved ones are dead.

Why the fuck would anyone want to do that? What the bloody hell would he have gotten out of this besides sick laughs? bastard.

Stories about pirates and rapists and sex-traffickers kidnapping orphaned children (bottom section, “Preying on the Victims”) in the tsunami aftermath are even worse… much much worse.

A few months back a year ago, a friend of mine found an article about an investigation into the sex-trafficking “industry”, with special focus on how the US doesn’t even seem to have it on its radar. People being kidnapped and “trained” (like animals get “trained”) and eventually broken into a sex product for rich bastards here and abroad…

the way these people destroyed their victims’ identities, or brought them into the US illegally so that if caught, the victims would be punished for being here without paperwork was… horrid.

This tsunami/earthquake disaster is probably seen as prime feeding ground for predators looking for orphans to bring up as fresh meat. They don’t even have to worry about anyone looking for these kids… ever.

There are so many problems in the world that need attention right now. And there are so many idle hands… The majority of the unaffected population, richer upper-middle class americans, CEOs and owners of chains of housing developments (for examples) who aren’t aware or ignore the fact that they could help.

why aren’t more people distraught?!