Back

Ok, so I'm back from Chincoteague. Yes, it was terrific. I think that I have an emotional need to go there once a year or so. I mean, I grew up going to mainly two places for vacation: Chincoteague and Disney. That was pretty much it. And yet I don't feel nearly this level of emotion for Disney. I mean, I love going there, and I could go there once a year too, but its not the same. There is something in Chincoteague that refreshes my being, something that is so serene. I talked to my mom about this, and its strange, but she feels the same way. Its like a real need to go there. There's just so much wrapped up in that place, so many memories and emotions. I've probably spent a dozen weeks with my family there and another week with Katie, which certainly rounds it off! Now we're talking about another week there next summer, and even renting like a 3 bedroom house and getting my grandparents to join us. I don't think they've gone with us for ten years, at least. And I only vaguely remember that. I don't think that I'll ever be able to stop going there. Maybe I'll get a house there someday, somehow. Although more likely, my parents will. Anyway, I've nothing more to say.

Thoughts

Technology is a double-edged sword. It has the potential to dramatically increase or decrease our quality of life. The iPod is a good example. People love their iPods. I love my iPod. But how would the world be if everyone walks around wearing white headphones, unwilling to make eye contact with any other human being? People want privacy, but instead they have gained nothing but narcissisum. That image of everyone walking around with headphones is getting to be true, and it is scary. I have used my iPod in this way, but I don't anymore. I feel that it isolates me from others, and it does. I like my iPod, but I don't think its a good thing to use in all situations. I use it a lot in the car, and when I'm studying. That's it. Technology is supposed to improve the world, bring people together, enhance. The telephone did this, the radio did this, the television did this (to a degree), and the Internet did this. The iPod does the opposite. The walkman did the opposite. These technologies tear people apart. One of the groups in my Human Computer Interaction class presented a technology that would work very similarly to many of these online social networking sites, except in real life, using mobile devices. What an idea. Technology bringing people together, making the world a smaller place. That's what I'm interested in. I mean, computers and technology have always interested me, and operating systems, of all things, was my favorite class that I have ever taken. So interesting. But that's just knowledge--I'll probably never actually use it, and I don't care, because I would take a million classes like this. Learning for the sake of learning is of the greatest of things, I think. For years people have known that I would go on to do computer science, and casually informed me that I would make so much money. I knew this, and this excited me, that the field that I was already interested in could also be worth money! But you know, I really don't give a damn anymore. I'm in college to learn. That's it. Yes, I'll need that scrap of paper at the end, but if I all I wanted was a scrap of paper, I could probably buy one online. No, I'm in school to learn about what interests me. That's why I took philosophy, art history. Its why I'm taking music theory. I've thought about taking an english class, but I find it easier and more convenient to just read at my own pace for my own pleasure. It is possible that I will still go into software, work for or start a company that produces software that positively affects the world. But I'm not sure anymore. I'm considering other things. The other day I went to talk to Mr. Dill, my old high school computer science teacher and he said that when I got out of school, he'd probably be about ready to retire and he'd highly recommend me to replace him. The funny thing is that I've thought about doing this anyway. I love my job at freedom center. I get to spend every day positively affecting kids' lives. I taught a 6 year old girl how to roller skate. I taught a 12 year old kid BASIC programming, and he loved it. That means something. I think I really might want to do this. The money is bad, but so what? I'm not going to spend my whole life chasing after money, and I think I and everyone else would probably be a lot happier if we can take whatever we've got and be happy with it. Unfortunately, I, and most people, find this very difficult. But here's what I'm thinking: I could get a job at Osbourn, or maybe even Metz or Baldwin, and teach computers. I love computers and I love interacting with children. Seems perfect right? All of these schools are essentially inside old town. I could live in old town, and walk to work, to church, to the grocery store. That would be amazing. I would have like no gas bill, and from all the walking could stay in shape too. This isn't just a pipe dream either--I think this is possible. I really might do this. I'd still have a car. I could still drive. And if I got a job downtown somewhere, I could take VRE in, also within walking distance. The one thing that I will not do is something that I do not enjoy or feel is meaningful. I refuse to spend my life chasing a dollar just because. Its not worth it. Anyway, I'm going to chincoteague tomorrow. That'll be great. Hopefully we won't get stuck in traffic, but I'm sure we will. It will be nice once we're there, the weather forecast looks good. And then I come home, and I'll get to work a few days more at freedom center doing kid care. Thats working out pretty well. They're very small children. Its really difficult for me actually because I love working with say, 6-8 year olds, but children are more like 3-6, and its sooo different. But it goes by pretty quick, and its really pretty refreshing to see these kids' outlook--they're just so excited about everything, about life. I mean, they're children. Of course they are, but its so refreshing. What a shame we can't all stay that happy and innocent forever. I was listening to a religious speaker once, and he compared grace, which to Catholics is the term for being in harmony and unity with God, to being like a child--perfectly innocent. It seemed strange at the time, but its really kind of an interesting idea, because people often think of Catholicism as this rigorous, strict, cruel religion filled with propaganda and ceremony and cult-like behavior, but at the root of all this is something so simple--attaining what we once had, but lost to the world. I see grace as being somewhat comparable to the Zen "nirvana" or enlightenment. To attain and ultimately maintain grace is something that everyone, everyone, everyone stumbles on, and most never quite get, but to do it is like, amazing. The greatest feeling ever. I think some people think that an orgasm is the greatest feeling ever. I suppose without any kind of spiritual structure in one's life, and with a view of sex as nothing more than a physical act, this is partially true, but not entirely. Even these people believe in love, and I find it difficult to believe that these people would not think an orgasm is not enhanced by love. Seems like common sense to me. Intimacy between human beings is one of the most sought after and most poorly misunderstood of all things, I think. The best relationships are not the physical ones, not the ones that are based on sex, or worse still, on emotionless sex. The best relationships are the ones where you can be truly intimate with a person without taking off a single article of clothing, that you can caress each others' soul. That is real intimacy. Sex elevates this, but even this without sex is still miles above that tragedy that is sex without love. Intimacy between human beings, is a strange thing, I think. Its like it takes place on a higher plane of existence. It doesn't exist the same way that normal things exist, or even normal emotions. Its higher than that. It is higher than physical appearances, lust, or sexual appetite. It is love for the person him/herself. I won't type it all up here, but there is a Zen story that is recounted in the Salinger story "Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters" in the very beginning of the story. As this goes, a man whose profession is to find very high quality horses is very old, and his friend sends someone else in his stead to do his work. This other person is chosen by the old man. When the chosen man finds a horse, he sends back a physical description of it, that it is golden brown (I think, doesn't much matter). When the horse arrives it is black, and the man alerts the old horsemaster that the man he has chosen cannot even tell one horse's appearance from another! He responds that this man must be ten times what he is, because he no longer sees the physical animal, he sees the spirit and the poetry that flows through the animal, its being. It is an interesting story. So many of us are unable to look past appearances, are unable to totally shed superficiality and look within. Its human nature, probably. But enlightenment is to go above human nature. It is not interfering with nature, it is rising above it. Anyway, I'm tired, and I think I'll go read my book and go to bed. G'nite.

Plans for the summer

Ok, being that I will not really be doing much work until mid-June (because the chillen don't get out of school 'till then) I want to set some goals for myself. Some of these are very short term, and I hope to finish in the next few days, and some are much broader:

• Finish(/start) unpacking.
• Read several books.
• Read Ulysses
• Read everything that Salinger wrote that I haven't read
• Read the bits of my operating systems book that we didn't get to in class.
• Read more about operating systems
• create something
• wake up at a decent hour every day
• wake up on saturday mornings to go to Jessica's soccer games.
• do something fun with Tommy
• go eat lunch with Mom & Dad
• Hang out with Katie as much as I can with her two jobs and such.
• yeah, this list already looks long, I guess I should stop.
• Hang out with John (get that guitar yet?)
• Hang out with Alex (Panera!)
• See everyone from school.
• Become a better person
• attempt a better understanding at the meaning of life and existence.
• appreciate and thank God for what understanding I have
• stay up on Prom night to wait for Jessica to come home, so Mom & Dad don't have to.
• Go to Foster's with Liz, at least once!
• Try to get some actual work done for my job - produce a good list of new activities for the kids - I think my contributions kinda sucked in that department last year.

Back home

Back in Northern Virginia. Not much to say really. Lots to unpack, get settled in, relax, start working. I'm going to Chincoteague in 2 weeks! Should be fun.

sunrise (draft)

A man older than time sat in the darkness with his feet buried in sand having scoured the beach for hours looking for seashells. But the only ones that he found were broken. He was furious. Why were all the shells broken? For years he had collected stones, all of them rough and dirty, because he could find no shells. He wanted shells, unbroken. Secretly, although he would not admit it to even himself, he wanted to take these unbroken shells and gaze at their beauty, then smash them into a thousand pieces and throw them to the waves and then look out over the horizon unflinching. Nothing could touch him. Nothing. Now he was fed up with rough, dirty stones. He could find no shells, so he would get the next best thing: rocks that were smooth. He looked at the rock in his hand deviously. Rough, covered in mud, nowhere near smooth. He took it to the water, and washed it off. He sat on the beach with the stone, rubbing it with his skin, sanding it down, smoothing it out. There was no pain he told himself. His skin was as rough as sandpaper and could therefore smooth out a rock to be as smooth as if it had stood there for a thousand years. It took hours for him to do this, and when he was done, the damage to his skin was severe. But he looked out over the dark horizon unflinching. Pain was nothing to him. He did this to all the rocks, until a sizable stack of smooth stones was created. He had done it. He had created a stack of smooth stones out of rough stones. And his skin was so rough now that pain was muted by the lack of nerves. He could feel nothing in his hands. He masturbated there and it was almost like something that he had not felt for many years. But now he stopped. Something was different. The rocks, the beautiful rocks. What once was rough was now smooth, homogenous and as empty as the shells never found. And when he realized his mistake, his spirit was as broken as the shell fragments littered about the beach. Confused and angry, he threw the rocks at the sea, looked out over the horizon and flinched. Something was different. The man lay down in the sand, so angry at the world, and he buried his feet in the sand. And then he sat there and watched the sunrise. And he wept.

Among all the noise in the giant house I find myself wandering alone into the dimly lit room in the center, in the center of which is an object beyond description. It seems to exist like nothing else exists. I have often been here and often left, loving and hating this thing, sometimes trying to forget. There are other things like it throughout the house. But they are somewhat different, a little more describable, a little more concrete. People dance around them naked. Sometimes I join these people and I am ashamed. And then I wander back into the room in the center. Dimly lit with that single indescribable thing in the center. What is it I wonder. I know what it is but I don't. I have always been afraid. But today I am not. I walk up to it resolute and reach out to it, taking it all in and the darkness disappears in a flash of light. Revelation. Resolution. A feeling that makes the dancing look like nothing, insanity. My eyes are closed and open. I have no eyes. I can see everything. Everything is clear now. The warmth fills me up like nothing else. The thing penetrates my soul I am alive. But I fear that if I leave, it will go away and the darkness will replace it, the dancing will come back and worst of all I will enjoy it. I fear this but then I see it. It will not go away. Calamity. It will not go away. I withdraw my hand and the light remains. The warmth fills me to a greater degree now and I walk out of this room no longer dimly lit. I look out and the walls vanish and everything can be seen. The path is perfect. A smile lingers upon my face, even inwardly. This warmth will never fade. The transition will be perfect. The transition has already occurred.

Desk Art

Desk Art
Originally uploaded by hickerson.

There are a lot of desks here at Virginia Tech that have been vandalized in interesting ways, and some guy took pictures of a bunch of them:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55101905@N00/tags/deskart/

Pretty interesting stuff.

finals...

Ok, so finals are here. today was the last day of classes. I'm a bit stressed. And yet I'm still posting... Anyways, I don't really have much meaningful to say. Here is my finals schedule:

Friday 7:45 AM - Resource Geology
Friday 7:00 PM - Human Computer Interaction
Wednesday 10:05 AM - Operating Systems

And that's it. I think I have a B in all three, and I already have my grade for geology lab (A/A-) so hopefully if I can do well enough, my GPA for the semester will be > 3.0. HCI will probably be my lowest scoring final, being that I have little idea about what it will cover, but hopefully I can pull off an A on the OS final. That would be fantastic and could even give me a B+/A-/A in the class. Anyways, back to studying geo.

Flickr

Set317_06
Originally uploaded by jdog1016.

Ok, so I'll be posting photos on Flickr now rather than Shutterfly. Its amazing. Here are my photos.

Btw.
Yes, I did blog this from Flickr, including the photo.
No, I have no idea where this photo came from, someone
took it on my camera.