One Last Procrastination

Time and time over, I come back to the verdict that I really like writing... except for when it's for a class. But through these very classes that I don't like, I'm learning a lot about different forms of writing and the hidden art behind it. 

Although I've always liked writing since I was a kid, I have been growing toward a style of writing that was rigid and logic-based as those textbooks are. I hate to admit that the last girl I was seeing changed this about me. She said we wouldn't be compatible because I'm not artistic enough. 

In my head, I've been forming a futuristic world where a plot can naturally form itself; sorta organically. Instead of coming up with a story and adapting the background to fit the plot, I want the story to have a sense of naturalness, as if, given the background, the story was inevitably about to happen. I guess a lot of stories are like that, so I'm going to make the background be based on currently reality of everything I know: politic, social issues, human nature as I understand it, religion, science, technology, perpetuation of knowledge, and, last but not least, philosophy. They say running has the same effect of releasing endorphin as smoking a joint of weed. Plethora of endorphin leads to creativity and wild, untethered imagination. But given my empiricist tendency, my imaginations were still based on reality. But that was good. That's exactly what I wanted. So I jot down everything I thought of when I came back from running. 

There are so many things I want to do, but two things are preventing me from doing them: money and school. People have been asking me what I wanted to do after school, and although I could find a decent career to start off, I really don't want to. I just want barely enough money to get by and use the rest of the time to do what I want to fucking do. So many things I want to do... For one thing, I want to really develop the scenario that I carry around in my head. I also want to learn how to cook well -- at least a couple of dishes. I want to sit down for maybe a couple of days just writing a program that can solve KenKen.

Actually.. I have the perfect opportunity right now, but I just gotta clear up some school work first and stay ahead, because before I can do that, i won't allow myself to do anything else. Gah. It could be the tall cup of coffee I just ingested talking, but I feel invigorated. I'm gonna do what I gotta do. 

Tendency

I'm growing tendency to seek darkness.

Google

Today is April Fools day, and it just happened to fall on Sunday, the day I get to watch TV all day in a windowless room that I call "work." 

A friend of mine, who knows that I'm interested in learning everything and anything about Google, posted some pranks that Google made. There were a couple, and they were pretty ingenious. They looked real enough. 

For one of the pranks, they actually made a video of it to advertise as if it's their new product. It's a low-budget video, but they still had to hire some actors and had to be edited. 

This was interesting because even as competition gets stiffer, with all of Facebook, MS, and Apple encroaching on Google's search engine market share, Google hasn't lost their sense of humor and quirkiness, and they must have enough money to be able to finance a prank. 

I wanna work at Google.. 

Connection from life to death

Once again, a random person added me on facebook. At one point, I felt bad for rejecting all these people, so I just accept their request and then sort them into "random people" category where they can only see my limited profile and such. I think there's somebody from up north who may look like me and have the same name or something. 

As I was accepting the request, I noticed the suggested friend's list, where a little kid showed up. She was my friend's little baby. My friend must've made her a profile on fb. I found this interesting. That baby and I had about 14 mutual friends, because the baby's mother and I went to high school together, and we all still kinda hang out in the same social circle. 

The if some of those on the kid's friends list move away, the kid is not going to know who the hell they are once she grows up. I doubt that she'll actually inherit the profile that her mother made for her, but if she keeps it for memory sake or something, and actually uses them, then she's building and keeping connections since birth. This may be small, but we're moving toward the future where everyone is constantly connected. In this baby's case, since birth. 

I am slowly but surely building the background for a futuristic novel that I want to write. The phenomenon I've noticed will definitely play a part.

What's in a name

There's that famous quote by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

Ever since I first came across that quote, I've been thinking about naming practices, and also about terming objects. 

We're all born with a name. There must be some thought put into why we are named the way we are. The names that we get are reflective of the hopes that our parents had for us. We may not always grow up to live up to the expectation, and we may see ourselves differently from what our parents hoped us to be when naming us. 

In that sense, screen names are interesting, because it gives an individual to call himself whatever the hell he wants, and what he wants to be called is reflective of his mind. He wants his name to sound in a certain way, and carry certain meanings, and therefore be viewed in certain way. In a way, it's a way of carefully carving out the landscape of knowledge and stereotypes to define one's own territory that belongs uniquely to him. 

I thought about this as I was scrolling through Google Plus. Despite Google's effort to restrict usage to those with real name, people continued to use pseudonyms. When Google tried to enforce it, protest broke out, and now Google's like whatever. The people that i'm following are all within similar social circles, and regularly refer to each other's pseudonyms. The pseudonyms are their identity online. It's the way of living life the way a person wants and not bound by the birth name and its hopes. 

Names are interesting. 

One time, I thought if I had a child, I'd call the child by a nick name, with no real name until he's shown more of his character and what he seems to be going for. Then he can contribute to choosing his name. Of course, as a parent, my job would be to make sure he doesn't choose silly names such as Superman or King Kong (with last name Ko, his initials would be KKK). However, if he's adamant about it, I just may allow him to be stuck with his name. Maybe the valuable lesson of careful decision will also be stuck with him along with his name.