mental manifestations

The right direction that the rubber bands are heading in is “away from me.”

I really hope that it’s some Italian word I don’t know (though I can’t find anything remotely close to it) and not actually what I think it might be.

Disclaimer: A lot of the observations I make in this post are general trends I have personally observed or experienced. What I say is not absolute, because I have also seen exceptions.

There is a post over at 8 Asians that has been bothering for me some time, but I haven’t had the chance to formulate a thought-out response at the time. The issue that the post revolves around is interracial dating between Asian and Caucasian people. What bothers me the most is that the response to the issue feels too generic and stereotypical. What someone says in a few words about “typical” Asian males definitely does not encompass the entire spectrum. The reason it bothers me a lot us because it is opposite from what I have seen. People’s lives are so hugely influenced by their environment and social dispositions.

I was born and rasied in Boston. I lived in an Irish neighborhood. I really never saw a huge Asian population until 7th grade. Up until then, I went to schools that were predominantly white or of other minorities (black, Hispanic, etc.), and my only contact with other Asians were family, Chinatown visits, or the small percentage of students in school. 7th grade was a big change for me; I entered an extremely diverse school of over 2400 students where my graduating class was at least 300 students. Yet I never hung out with the Asian kids. They were generally cliquey, and I never shared any interests with them. This just doesn’t apply to Asian people. I’ve seen the phenomenon in so many other groups of people. People always banded with others who were of the same race because the familiarity and similarity makes them feel comfortable and safe. It always bothered me when others tried to latch onto me because I was Chinese (like when someone wants to be a project partner or a random person sits next to me on the bus).

I always hung out with people who shared the same interests as as me which almost all the Asians I knew never did. I always loathed people who would try to make me join some Asian culture society at school. These are the same kind of people who hang out in the same Asian clique. I have no objections for sharing my heritage and celebrating my culture, but it seems silly when all the attendants just happen to be of the same culture. I was never taught racism when I was growing up. I never inherited it from my parents. I had to learn it from all the social situations I was in. My social confusion screwed me up for a long time, before I learned how to just be myself. However, the exposure I had to other people showed me that we really aren’t that different if you strip skin color away. Character — what people said or did to me good or bad — always struck me more than anything.

I only ever really dated one girl who happened to be Korean. Her past boyfriends were all white (if I remember correctly). She came from a white suburb and grew up in a different setting than most other Asians I knew. However, she was not the kind of girl I would date again. It had nothing to do with physical appearance at all. Her character just didn’t cohere with mine which is why I broke up with her. My cousins have married various people of other races (Italian, Korean, Spanish), and there are no issues with race with anyone there.

I have met some really great and nice people throughout my life. It didn’t matter what race they were, because I knew them as individuals instead of abstracting them into a global group and personifying that. Taking interracial dating so seriously is dumb. The people who do that probably have some insecurities they need to take care of. In the end, people should do whatever makes them happy regardless of race.

I was never good at saying goodbyes. I have now completed my undergraduate degree in Computer Science from RIT after five long years of hard work, co-ops, and fun. And yet, I know that life will still go on. I had this same experience when some of my friends graduated before me. I had this same feeling right before I moved to Maryland. I had this feeling before I left Maryland to move back to Rochester. Still, saying goodbye never gets any easier.

I suppose it’s a good thing to reflect on the things since I was a freshman in college and see how I’ve progressed. I know that I will have plenty of pictures to remind me of all the memories and experiences I’ve had. I’ve become a little smarter. I’ve learned new things, good things, bad things, and different things. I’ve become slightly more fit. I’ve become a greater person than I was when I graduated high school, but it never really feels any different.

The epic feeling dissipated quickly after my ceremony in much the same way it did after my high school graduation. Everything passes so quickly and there is never a good chance to let it soak in. I received one of my project grades only fifteen minutes after my ceremony ended from a professor in my department who was at the ceremony. I can’t imagine what faculty feel, but I would bet it has become a very common occurrence for them.

I can’t find the right words to convey what I want. To sum up my entire college experience in a few mere paragraphs just feels too cheap to do it justice. You can’t capture that sense in recount the same way you experience life live in reality. A casual drive around campus makes me a lot more emotional than sitting here in my apartment trying to let go. All the preparation in the world can never prepare you for the reality of life. The books my mom bought me about college after I graduated from high school did not help me much at all. A lot of life I had to take as it came along and learn from it.

It was all the people that helped me grow into who I am now. Going to college was vastly different than going to high school. There were so many people from different backgrounds, and I managed to carve out my niche and find a good group of people that I call my friends. Even the people in passing, ones I never got to know very well, from jobs, classes, or clubs, contributed to the madness of college whether that madness was fun, laughter, anger, or sadness.

At the end, it never feels like I did enough. It never feels like I tried hard enough. I could have done more. I could have done better. But life will always have more time for me to make up for everything I didn’t do. I do not expect to see some people for a long time just like I didn’t expect to see a lot of my high school class for a while. Letting go is hard to do, but it doesn’t mean I have to forget. My life doesn’t have to end here at graduation. It’s just a period of transition. And life is nothing but a neverending, continuous period of transition.

Some people use language to define part of their identity. For me, language defines a small part of who I am and how I grew up. My life began around two languages: English and Chinese. The more my life progressed, the more English weeded out my “native” tongue. Chinese remains more personal in identifying who I am because it provides background to my family and life. With Chinese, I feel a connection between the language and my identity. I view English as only an adaptation to communicate with the people around me. I do not speak Chinese to speak with others at all. To me, Chinese only represents a way to establish part of my identity while English does not.

I was exposed to both English and Chinese ever since I was born. My parents, both Hong Kong emigrants, primarily spoke Chinese for the first few years of my life (and my siblings’ too). Every day our mother would yell the same commands to us such as “brush your teeth,” “wash your face,” “eat dinner,” “go to sleep,” and “wake up.” If we did something bad, my mom would yell at us in both English and Chinese. You could tell that she was really angry when she started using Chinese; her speech and expressions became louder and faster. However, I spoke far more English and almost always used it to communicate with my family. I would usually respond with English to anything that my parents would say in Chinese. I knew what the Chinese meant, but I did not know how to reverse the translation. That is usually the case whenever any Chinese person speaks to me.

A lot of relatives on my father’s side had also immigrated to the United States and settled in the same region. Whenever a first generation relative had a birthday or when a big holiday came around, our families would gather in one house and have giant dinner parties that would ending late into the night. All the immigrants usually spoke Chinese (in loud expressive shouting no less) while the young children spoke English to each other. If there were something one of the adults wanted us to do, they would say it to us in Chinese first and then English if we did not understand. The children would almost always speak English to the adults. As years passed by, I noticed that a lot of the Chinese is dropping among our family and that English is starting to become more dominant.

My cousin once noted that the oldest child in a family always knew the most Chinese while the youngest knew the least Chinese. My assumption is that it is a result from being a minority in a largely English speaking society and the need to adapt. Since no one lived near any Chinese speaking community, English was the only language that anyone else spoke. The oldest child would be exposed first to language outside the home and would bring that language back and spread it in-house. As younger siblings arose, the presence of English takes the effect of a snowball rolling down a hill. I have noticed that there is almost no more Chinese in my house. The only people who speak it are our parents. Our adoption of English has been an adaptation to society’s need for a language spoken by the majority.

Even though English is used between me, my siblings, and my friends, we still resort to Chinese to say some things we cannot in English. If there were some word or concept that my friends could not express in English, they would use Chinese. Offensive phrases or words would also be translated to Chinese rather than being said in English. English was not necessarily a foreign language when we were growing up, but others who did not understand where we were coming from saw our language as foreign. This usually led to taunting and isolation, and Chinese was used as a way to preserve identity among a community that did not understand. This is probably why most communities contain just one large ethnic population.

The community I grew up in is largely Irish. The people there spoke with the r-dropping feature that most Bostonians have. I never picked up the r-dropping feature in my speech. I was taught Standard English since kindergarten and learned how to pronounce words and enunciate. I did not hear the r-dropping for a big part of my life nor did I ever pick it up in my speech. I was not aware of the feature until a teacher in school had pointed it out. After listening more carefully, I began to hear it. One of my childhood friends classified the Boston accent more like an attitude. It is a way to assertively establish and maintain a separate identity (especially against all those tourists and college kids) and to show off how deeply rooted we are in our home city. This is no different than how my family uses Chinese to establish ourselves among those who are different.

The absence of Chinese in our family feels like a loss of identity. The dominance of English in our family grows with each day, even if we sometimes speak it with choppy grammar or with the r-dropping feature. My cousins have tried reintroducing Chinese into their new families. They taught their spouses all about our extensive family, about our customs, and some Chinese phrases to help them understand us. The children have already developed the brain patterns to decipher English, even though Chinese is used here and there to preserve identity and cultural background. My cousin’s daughter once used English to correct her mother for naming something red in Chinese. Even though she completely understands the Chinese word for red, she does not acknowledge that Chinese is part of her identity.

My identity is tied to my origin – Hong Kong. I visited Hong Kong twice, once when I was very young and a second time when I was 15. I spoke English both times I visited, but I definitely spoke more Chinese my first time (due to my early upbringing). I did not speak any Chinese my second time because I did not know how to say the things I needed to say. I felt isolated even though I was walking among my roots. Even though there was a language barrier, the workaround was to use English. I was both surprised and disappointed to discover that everyone knew English. The experience felt cheapening but it sure helped a lot. Most people (even the tourists) could tell that I was a tourist, but they still assumed that I was a native to Hong Kong and that I belonged there with them. English was a way to fit in with others who were different, and Chinese was a way to fit in with those who shared the same background.

Chinese is the language I use to identify myself, and English is the language I use to communicate. English is a tool, a way to find a solution in communication. I do not consider it or the r-dropping to be part of my identity. In the past, I have been accused by one person who said I was not Chinese because I didn’t act like it (nor did I speak it). I guess to him “Chinese” meant acting more like the mix of pop culture on television, reciprocating the Western influence in the Eastern hemisphere, and speaking a slight variant of the African American Vernacular English. To me, being Chinese is about the culture, the customs, and the history. That is what the language represents to me. It feels natural because of the connection I have had since childbirth. It is a portal to the past and everything that is Chinese about me. That is something that English could never do. With English, I can only observe the connections in the present with the people around me.

Click.

The television flashes out a light that expands widely on the horizon before collapsing into an infinitesimal singularity.

Tuesday, 9:30 PM.

My bed is upstairs. My head is spinning. My homework is unfinished.

It was just one of those long days when all you want to do when it’s over is lie down and sleep until forever.

Monday was not the day to gather each classroom’s paper collection for recycling. I was supposed to do that today. On Tuesday.

I doubt many people can say they had a run-in with the Secret Service. My experience was nothing bad, but I like to pretend something happened. All they did was just open a door for me. Twice. Their cold, judging stares silently pierced me as I wheeled my barrel of paper to the recycling dumpster and back.

Homeroom bell rings.

Ms. Shevlin runs around homeroom to homeroom hunting down senior class members of National Honor Society.

“Be at the auditorium promptly after school. I promise it won’t take much of your time.”

The 2:15 bell rings. School’s out.

I take the left entrance to the auditorium with some friends. Names like McCree, Emerson, Bernstein, Quincy, and Sumner adorn the frieze above us.

There are 360 light bulbs total on the ceiling. I had counted them all myself.

Ms. Shevlin stands at the front. People stagger in while the rest of us wait in for the news. Soon the headmaster walks in and greets us with her customary introduction.

“Good afternoon, class.”

“Good afternoon, Ms. Kelley.”

This standard exchange had been used countless times over the last five years. There was no meaning in it anymore.

“Let’s try that one again. Good afternoon, class.”

Everyone always responds more brightly the second time. It’s just routine.

Ms. Kelley wasted no time.

“President Bush is traveling around the country to three different school for the endorsement of the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act of 2001. He will be starting in Ohio and coming here to Boston Latin on Tuesday.”

Some gleaned with anticipation and excitement. You could see it in their eyes.

“Yes, the President is coming.”

Others kept a straight face.

“…snipers on the roof, riot police, canine units…”

Awesome. Snipers on the roof. That was going to be sweet.

“The President’s schedule is released only 24 hours before his events. I have been in contact with certain individuals for the past three weeks and I still don’t know enough about anything. It’s going to be held in the upstairs gym due to recent security reasons rather than the auditorium. If it were my choice, I’d prefer it in the auditorium, but unfortunately, they decided on the upstairs gym.”

As senior NHS scholars, we were chosen to sit on the rear part of the stage. That was what she told us. To promote our school’s historic and academic reputation.

“Wear your [school] sweatshirts.”

Background checks are required. If we pass, we get in.

“If you don’t want to do it, tell me now,” added Ms. Shevlin.

Point of no return. Back out now or get stuck.

I asked a friend, “[A]re you going to do it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” he replied. He then turned to Ben and asked, “Are you doing it?”

“I can’t. I’m in band,” he says.

“Hmm. I guess I’ll do it. You probably won’t get this kind of chance ever again in life,” I said to Chao. He agreed and signed up.

Word traveled fast. I told a few people the President was coming. Everyone was either jumpy, nervous, or a combination of both. Notices had gone out. School would be let out at noon on Tuesday.

Beeeeeeeeeeep!

Homeroom bell strikes again. Static buzzes before the audio on the intercom is clear. It’s the headmaster.

“Attention, all members of the faculty and student body. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.”

How coincidental that President was coming on the day we recite the Pledge of Allegiance. It was the one part of school I truly loathed.

The day went on like any other day. History class was early nineteenth century politics. Calculus was indefinite trigonometric integrals. Chemistry was compounds and solutions. Spanish Literature boggled my mind like always.

The clock struck twelve. Everyone rushed out of school. Ben, Chao, Bonnie, Feng, and I went to Chao’s apartment down the street. A few hours of Dance Dance Revolution would tide us over until we had to reappear at school.

I didn’t play much. I said I was tired. Truthfully, it was because I wasn’t good at Dance Dance Revolution and didn’t want to make a fool of myself. Chao’s high heat and poor ventilation was making me nauseous too.

The walk to school only lasted five minutes. Everyone agreed it sucked to go back to school the same when we didn’t really have to.

Ms. Shevlin directed everyone to cafeteria where the agent would “brief” us. Ms. Shevlin was made conversation with students while we watied for the agent to show up.

“I said to him, ‘So who plays your character on The West Wing?’ He was not amused.”

The agent walked in. A man who looked rather young and inviting. Nothing like the scary, hard-ass people on TV. The instructions were simple.

“Always smile. Clap when everybody claps. Stand when everyone else stands. And laugh at the President’s jokes no matter how horrible they may be.”

They were orders. Like a programmed bot. The agent threw in a little humor in to lighten the mood.

“Try to stay awake if you get bored or cranky. If we see you start bobbing your head, we’ll probably use a peashooter or something to keep you up.”

The session ends. We migrate to Room 115. Everyone settles down. My head gets dizzier. David Driscoll, the state’s Commissioner of Education, comes to speak to us. I only half paid attention to his words. He mentioned something along the lines of us being the best, setting an example, and how proud he was. That’s all you ever hear from people outside our world.

The news hour commenced. We filed outside into a single line. Members of student council, class officers, band members, and gospel choir singers were strewn about. Regular people, the outsiders to our world, already had their own line. They would be sit and watch with the rest of the world. We would sit with the king. How special.

I spotted my parents waiting in line talking to another parent. They pointed to my dress shoes and noted that most of the other students were wearing sneakers. I had called them that morning during the bus ride to school to ask them to bring my dress shoes to me later. My headmaster had said to “dress nicely” which really meant “don’t wear jeans.” It really didn’t matter what I was wearing as long as I had my sweatshirt on. It only mattered that I was advertising my school across all major networks and publications.

“Hey…”

I turn to see my valedictorian speaking to me. She declined to sit on stage.

“Do you want to wear a peace sticker when you’re up there?”

“Sure,” I tell her. I take the sticker and place it on the front my sweatshirt.

My line moved slowly, but the other line barely moved at all. When I was near the entrance, I was interrupted by a childhood classmate.

“What the hell?”

“What did I do?” I asked.

I guess she was referring to the on the center of my torso. I moved it to my right arm just to be safe. I passed through the metal detector and entered the gym. The school band was warming up on the bleachers. Gospel choir stood next to them in their purple robes. News media had all their lights and camera on risers in the back.

The headmaster emphatically signaled for me as I approached the front. The commotion in the room had nearly deafened my ears. Ms. Kelley puts me on the very end of the first row of seats on the stage. I would be one of the only four males who would be on stage.

I look to my right. My friends are sitting at desks atop large risers.

“Hey… You look bored up there.”

“Yeah, I don’t really want to sit at this desk.”

What was an hour felt like an eternity. People were still pouring in: the general public, school newspaper amateurs, professionals correspondents (one of whom is an alumnus), and countless others.

When the music began, it only added to the noise. Speakers walked up on stage and took their seats. Then he came in. Everyone rose in uproarious applause and cheer as the President walked out from the left. I stood up, smiled, and clapped. Like the good dog I was trained to be.

My headache only grew worse. The bright lights weren’t helping at all. The Secretary of Education Rod Paige finished speaking and handed the stage to one of our state senators, Edward Kennedy.

“Boston Latin School has special meaning for my family as well. My father graduated from this extraordinary public school, and so did my grandfather, John Fitzgerald.”

I checked the official transcript in the future. Funny how they left out the part where he mentioned that he didn’t go to our school.

“As a token of your visit, Mr. President, I’ve brought for you a copy of an early draft of the Declaration of Independence — in the hand-writing of John Adams. The final Declaration included the signatures of five courageous leaders who had been students at Boston Latin School — Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, William Hooper, and Robert Treat Paine. This copy was especially reproduced for you, Mr. President, by the Massachusetts Historical Society, where the original is on display.”

Nothing like namedropping our famous alumni.

“It is a great honor for me now to welcome to Boston Latin School, our City, and our Commonwealth — the President of the United States.”

More applause and cheer. More smiling and standing. I looked at the President who walked up to the podium, gave a small wave to the people and held it in air as he looked all across the gymnasium. He turns around and looks at us.

“How long should I make my speech?”

We unanimously tell him to keep it short.

“Thank you all very much, Thank you, please. You know, I told the folks at the coffee shop in [some location] that [our state senator] was all right.”

Laughter.

“They nearly fell out.”

More laughter.

“But he is. I’ve come to admire him. He’s a smart, capable Senator.”

I laughed even though I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Speaking about September the 11th, I want the young folks here to know that the mission we are on to rid the world of terror is a noble and just mission. I long for peace. But we learned a terrible lesson, and that lesson is we must rout out terror wherever it exists, in order for you and your children to grow up in a free and peaceful society. This Nation will not tire; we will not rest until we bring those who are willing to harm Americans to justice. And that’s exactly what we intend to do.”

The audience goes wild. The applause was even more ear-shattering than before. Cheers were thrown all around the gym. One woman in the front practically leaped ten feet throwing her fist up. Like everyone had just won the lottery.

My night was ruined. What does stopping terrorism have to do with supporting education?

The audience simmered. The President resumed his speech.

“This is what Boston Latin is about. It’s about expecting high standards, understanding every child can learn, demanding the best, insisting upon hard work, rewarding success, solving failure. It is a great school, and I am grateful that I could come and herald the signing of an important piece of legislation here at this school.”

What better place to highlight education reform than our school? After all, we are the oldest school in America. We are known for its academic reputation. We’ve had great people come out of our institution. I felt proud and stuck-up. I wanted to brag about it. Too bad everyone I knew went to the same school as me.

“I know there’s a lot of folks who look at Washington and say, ‘Can’t they ever get along? All they do is argue. All they do is call each other names.’ But on this piece of legislation, on this important piece of legislation, we figured out how to put our parties aside and focus on what’s right for the American children.”

I hoped it would hold true in the future.

“I wish you could have seen the piece of legislation. It’s really tall.”

That’s what the official transcript says. I recall the phrase was, “It’s this tall,” while holding his hand above the ground.

“And I admit, I haven’t read it yet.”

Might as well replace the laughter with a laugh track at this point.

“You’ll be happy to hear I don’t intend to.”

People find that funny? Sorry, Mr. President, but you just failed humor. Thanks for putting the ‘F’ in funny. I remember my headmaster telling us that when Bush writes a speech, he’s very unyielding on changing it much. Sounded like it was true. Perhaps someone ought to give him an education in comedy.

“Thank you for letting me come. May God bless.”

Flash.

Cheer.

Applause.

I spot my dad’s camera pointing up from the crowd. He’s been doing that all night.

Exit stage right. The President disappears behind his magical red curtain and flies away in his private helicopter. People begin to dissipate. The students on stage disperse and talk. Our class president takes the water bottle and paper napkin coaster left behind by the President.

My headache still hadn’t gone away.

My parents waited outside for me. I climbed in the back of the car and rested my head against the interior frame. I was too tired to care how hard my head hit the side when my dad went over a bump.

I wished I had been home the entire evening. I could have better spent my time on homework or protesting outside my school as some of my friends did. I probably would’ve watched TV anyway if I did go home.

Instead, my face was plastered in all newspapers. I falsified my own persona broadcast over the news. I was no more than six feet away from the President’s chair, no more than ten feet from the podium. I was right there when everything happened. I had to endure a massive headache. I had to pretend to be a supporter for ####. Dice is too chanceful for politicians to play. Chess is their game. All I had to do was sit there like a pawn. A prop for the night. Look pretty for the nation. Exemplify the school. Cater to the President.

After all, we were the best of the best, and this was our last year here. We proved we were able to live through six years of rigorous academics, extracurricular activities, and a slow, painful renovation of our school. Six years of growing into unique individuals. And I made the choice to have it taken away from me in one night.

Click.

I turn the television and check if I could see myself on TV. Nothing. Tomorrow’s newspaper had a picture on the front page of President Bush and the students behind him, me included. My dad has a whole envelope of pictures from the event. Is this the price I have to pay for selling myself out?

Two and a half years later, I am across the street from my school in the auditorium of Harvard Medical’s newest building. Richard Clarke is signing his book for me that I purchased earlier in the day. He signs with a purple marker, a color reminiscent of our younger days at the Latin School. I felt less sorry for myself about that night sitting on stage with Bush after hearing Richard Clarke speak about the Bush administration and the war in Irqa.

“I guess the point of the story is to ask the right questions,” he said.

He’s made his mistakes, and I’ve made mine.

Plato once said, “Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished be being governed by those who are dumber.” I didn’t care about politics back then and thought I never would. I made a choice back then and that was to make other people look better at my expense. I gave myself up for my school, the President, publicity, bills, and politicians. I sacrificed my identity to have my face in newspapers, television broadcasts, and the Internet. That night I vowed I would never be used as political prop in the future. For all the time I spent and the experience I had, it was not worth it.

Bad things happen, and people always need to ask why. No one ever has a good answer. Instead, the best people can come up with is just about any external factor they can think of. Everybody wants to put the blame someplace else because they themselves cannot begin to understand what was going on in someone’s mind at the time. People can never truly understand someone on a mental level, which is why they try to rationalize someone’s rationale by pointing the finger at some environmental agent. Sometimes it doesn’t matter why it happened. This freaks people out because when bad things do happen, they don’t know how to respond to it. This leads to correlation implying causation which is not always true.

When I heard about the Virigina Tech massacre, the only thing I could feel was a bad feeling. It’s the kind of feeling you get in your gut when you know something is just not right. I knew people would try to find blame. There always has to be a reason for everything. I would probably guess these people think things happen for a reason. They don’t know how to explain it themselves because they would never be capable of doing something like that.

Strangely, all I could think of was when Anakin Skywalker swayed to the Dark side. No one really questions why he became a Sith Lord and why he terrorized the galaxy. They just accept the fact there is The Force. The tricky part about this is that in the Star Wars universe, it makes sense (i.e. it’s logical) because of that context though it’s really a matter of faith.

People may need a logical response for the Virginia Tech massacre, but logic can also dictate that pointing the blame isn’t going to fix anything. The faithful way of looking at it is to just accept it for what it is. Having no reason sounds like a cop-out, but that is where I stand on matters like these. There are too many factors to consider. There is no way to perfectly predict the future and prevent events like this from happening again (even if you had computating power beyond the capcity of the entire human race or had precognizant oracles). I am also entirely sick of using scapegoats (especially if it’s something stupid). What happened can’t be undone, but there has to be a better way to cope than sticking a finger at someone and waiting for it to be broken.

I don’t remember why it happened in the first place. I can only remember how.

I just know that there was this kid in my home, and we (my family) had to take care of him. He was a stray that we picked up from somewhere. It was obvious he was a troubled child. People treated him badly because he was a problem child. He liked to cause a ruckus because he never got his way. Life has been harsh for him. Life has been wonderful to me, but he would make it harsh all too soon.

Annoyance came very quickly. The child would simply not stay put, sit down, or chill out. He always had to be neverendingly lively. I didn’t know what to do, but on a whim, I asked him if he wanted to use the telescope. It was a telescope our family had received one Christmas and never used. Surprisingly, he agreed. I never thought he was capable of focusing at all.

We went downstairs to the basement that held our telescope. During the walk upstairs, I could hear a car pull up outside. The kid disappeared out of my view with the telescope as I ran out to see who had appeared. Men in suits had pulled up to the drive and approached my back door. Confrontation was not a wise thing to do. They wanted the kid, and I said they could have him. He was inside, and I hit the lawn.

Life is much different than the righteousness in comics and television. When you have a bunch of guys with guns and you are ill-suited and ill-equipped to handle the situation, fear easily weakens you into submission. You cover your head and close your eyes trying to force the reality around you into an illusion.

The lead man verbally notes how willing I was to let them take the kid. I can only hear crashes and yelling from inside the house. My eyes only see blades of green grass and black dirt. The cold metal of the gun is pressing on the back of my head paralyzing my body with fear. One shot is fired. Someone is probably dead. Another shot and then some quiet. I try to come to terms with what just happened, and the results do not sink in until I feel the sharp, burning pain of a bullet lodged in my skull.

I was sure I was dead. The men kicked me over on my side, and I could still see them standing there. Their discussion faded in volume as I became lost in my own consciousness. I expected death to be quick. I didn’t try to move. I only kept thinking about the horror of dying alone in my situation waiting to be taken away. Waiting for death was scary, but accepting it was much terrifying. My entire mind, memories and thoughts, would slip away piece by piece in a slow, agonizing torture.

My body involuntarily begins to whimper and tears escape my eyes. The mafia notice that I’m still alive and kick me around some more. They have the gun pointed at the side of my mouth pressed hard against my teeth. I shut my mouth clenching my jaw as tight as possible. The trigger is pulled, and before I know it, my mouth is filled with little chunks of enamel, and I’m grinding down the rest from clenching my mouth down. I let out a few breaths of air clearing the sharp bits out. And still, my onlookers decide to inflict more pain on me.

I don’t know how much time passed, but it didn’t really matter. They were gone, and somehow I was still alive. I slowly got up, letting each of my legs bear the weight of the pain I received. I trodded towards the back door, up the gray wooden steps, and into the kitchen. The house was generally a mess. Broken objects, dead bodies. I took no detail of it. My slow, zombie limping delivered my body to the telephone where I picked up the receiver and dialed three numbers.

Hearing the voice on the other end felt surreal especially what just happened. It was two worlds that had no connection or relation. Being alive couldn’t be any more shocking than dying. My broken teeth interfered with my tongue like when you get your wisdom teeth out and can’t talk for days. I requested an ambulance at my address, but it came out mostly as gibberish. The woman on the other end understood though. As soon as I heard confirmation, I dropped the phone.

It took me even longer to get back outside. Knowing that relief was on the way, I took my time. Saving myself was no longer imperative to me. There were others who would do that now. I ploughed outside to the sight of police, ambulances, and the fire department. They called out to me in a fuzzy, inaudible haze. I tried to relay everything that occurred, and managed nothing more than a moan. People rushed forward. I rushed down. There was no slow-motion. There was no sound. There was no sight. Just a quick fade to black, and everything was gone.

The web has hit another dot-com bubble. This time, everyone is giving it the fancy name of “Web 2.0” and placing the focus of it on the user. Power to the people, in a manner of speaking. It was alright when I first heard about it a year ago. Then, an enormous amount of sites started to pop up. Most of the sites had the same feature. A lot of them tried to replicate what other people were doing or what had already been done.

A year later, I am completely tired and sick of it all. The more and more I hear about Web 2.0, the more and more I am getting apathetic about where the Web is going right now. My disdain for it just grows larger. It’s fine to have all sorts of sites, but too many is way too much to handle. Information overload has not been good for me in the past. The sheer quantity has pushed my tolerance to critical mass, and now I have given up on it.

It is much easier to not care at all than it is to try and manage everything. Managing that microcosm of sites is becoming more and more increasingly difficult. My attention span has dwindled to the point where I won’t even bother clicking things anymore. I barely read through all my feeds these days. I’ve become extremely picky about what I do decide to click and read. It has to be meaningful in some way or have some lasting impact.

With Web 2.0, anyone can create anything. Unfortunately, this adds up to a lot of crap I don’t want to filter. I thought Digg was an amazing site at first. But then as more and more users joined, the percentage of things worth looking at became much, much smaller. I had decided to drop their feed and switch back to Slashdot (because they have a filtering process and don’t incessantly post insignificant topics). Web 2.0 sites have given everyone more ways to connect with each other, but it hasn’t worked for me at all.

I don’t interact with enough people online. It wouldn’t be worth it registering billions of accounts and then later finding them all to be useless. I’m not discounting the power of collectiveness. For some people, it works. Those kinds of people usually tend to be celebrity geeks of some kind. For me, I’ve found what I’ve needed, and I’ll just stick with that. I’m also not discounting the sites out there. There are sites that I love (e.g. Flickr) that work well for me. I just think there is an oversaturation of the market right now. It is a market I would like to join, but I want to be sure that I join the right one. Everyone can jump on the bandwagon, but it’s not a wise decision without having the foresight to see where you’re going.

Winter is never as fun as it used to be. When you’re a kid, you don’t have to worry about things because your parents took care of that for you. Now that I’ve reached adulthood, I’ve got things to worry about like groceries, supplies, school, and work. Most of all, I need a car where I currently live, and that is no fun in the winter.

However, the one thing I do like about winter is goofing off in the snow (weather permitting it safe enough) and making giant pictures. I would make snowmen, but the snow in Rochester is too dry and fluffy for it.