before i will like you or listen to what you have to say, or take you seriously, you have to gain my respect (especially if you are an authority figure, but we won’t worry about that). if i don’t respect you, i won’t desire to get to know you on a deep level. there’s even the chance that i’ll do my best to challenge you at every turn. if i don’t respect you, it would not be fun for us to work together. just because i don’t respect you, of course, doesn’t mean that everything is over. i can still tolerate you. i can put you at arm’s distance and, at every time you make a mistake (these times are often), even make excuses for you (did i expect you to meet my standards?). i can smile and be civil, but if you corner me at a large group meeting and start talking to me, it will be obvious that i want nothing more than to leave. ...

i am happy to be getting back into the rhythm of climbing regularly again. last quarter and even in recent weeks, i’ve been to the gym maybe once every week or two weeks. i’m even more ashamed to say that i don’t think i’ve been outside since fall quarter. but, in line with my stated goals for the quarter, i’ve gone 3 times in the past week. since each day of climbing was separated by a day of rest, and since i got on average 10 hours of sleep per night this week, my strength has come rushing back. today i sent problem after problem almost effortlessly. it was a wonderful feeling! ...

small are the words: the remix

and so, blood pounded in my ears and my feet pounded the path back into the city, but i was deaf to the cries of my body to stop, my face tear-streaked and wild-eyed, mouth agape in vain effort to stop the burning in my lungs: but it was the burning in my heart that blinded and bemuted me. i wanted it to burst so that i could die. i felt like i was going to die every time i thought of what happened. “and i will die”, i thought, “just as soon as i tell the disciples. i will not live in this world anymore, that betrays and deceives and tears to pieces every holy thing. i will not live in this world that takes the best of all men and exults in his slaughter! i will not live in this world that destroys the one thing in it that ever gave me real love. i cannot live without that love!” ...

at first, i could handle the parlor tricks and the mysterious (obviously inane) babble. i could even deal with his useless confrontations with the other teachers. after all, you know there’s no love lost between you pharisees and anyone but yourselves. and i guess you could say i allowed myself some smiles at the expense of those who looked like fools after trying to trap him in his own words (i admit it–and i’m not afraid of you. you need me). you have to give him that much: he had a knack for confusing and disorienting his opponents in public, much to the people’s delight. ah, but the people! you know how they are–they’ll clap and cheer at any oddity. and doesn’t he know that’s what he is to them? just a curiosity! a curiosity, nonetheless, that manages to pull food out of thin air. i still haven’t figured out how he did that one. i don’t wonder if there weren’t people planted in the crowd with food stashed in hidden places–that might do the trick. ...

choose which of the following is more significant: (1) i have never been in school in the month of july (2) i have never had a girlfriend in the month of april (at least, until the 26th)

there is a fine line between insecurity and arrogance. this line is called “humble confidence”. we might also call it “realistic confidence”, since true humility is of course simply adherence to and coherence with truth–what is actually the case. how could any other rendering be anything but “false” humility, by definition (to see the obviousness of this, examine all the stanford students who say “i did alright in high school”)? we might build in, of course, a certain amount of allowable subjectivism or ignorance on my part, and state only that humble confidence is believing about myself what is, according to my best judgment, true. ...

today’s random thoughts (at my own request): quantum mechanics is wack. and i mean that seriously. but at least i’m finally learning matrix arithmetic and eigenvectors. only 4 of 90 people in my buddy list are online right now. an all-time low. i feel as if the world ended but they forgot to tell me. my world ended today when the stanford post office again proved its infallible inefficiency. cds sent out priority mail on monday still haven’t arrived. my weekend of new music i’ve been looking forward to all week is now shot. peterson’s sunset breeze is an amazing tobacco, especially when smoked in a peterson standard system pipe. in the absence of port, scotch, brandy, or some other legitimately refined liquid, mountain dew serves as a wonderful aperitif. is it just because i’m extremely narcissistic that i want my “perfect” girl to be like me in so many ways? (for instance, if i found someone who was a cigar connoisseur, a lover of good indie music, into rock climbing and/or running, a decent guitar player, deep-thinking enough to take well to philosophy [among other things], and appropriately stunning [we might as well add christian to the list, it being rather important], i would probably die of shock while running to ask her hand in marriage). and if that is so (meaning, if it is just because i am narcissistic), should i not actively try to disenforce my natural dissatisfaction with the women i found around me (dissatisfaction due to the fact that they’re not carbon copies of myself, basically)? but then what’s the difference between that and ‘settling’ for something i’m not really really excited about? if we agree that my current standard for deciding whom to like is just plain dumb (and it is), then we run into the problem of coming up with another (since having no standards gets really dangerous). and as far as i can tell, any standard other than my current will fail to motivate me emotionally, and i’d feel i was liking someone out of duty. then again maybe that’s just what kant would approve of. minidiscs are beautiful. small, but with the promise of so much information. little sci-fi packets of aural goodness. why is it 3 am? i am in trouble now that i’ve discovered the joy of collecting dvds. cds is bad enough. i can’t spend the other half of my income on movies. what will i do when i graduate? i have no idea. what will my degrees get me? not sure. not true love, probably.

we’re now over a week into spring quarter, and i’ve surprisingly little to show for it. academically, i’m pretty much nowhere to be seen–i skipped all but the first day of classes. socially, i’m the new kid in the eating club and so i sit alone. welcome to high school. physically, the only thing keeping me in shape is washing dishes for hours a day (oh, that’s what kitchen managers do…), and eating a lot of those whiskey-filled mini chocolate bottles. somehow running 20 miles a week didn’t even come close to making the radar screen. mentally, i’m not sure i’m all there. i spend way too much time sitting in front of the computer trying to think of things to put in my task list and not enough time working on the things already there. spiritually, i’m inspired but weak and too lazy to get anything helpful started for more than a second. so i get into nice little cycles where it takes all my effort to break out of the tunnel vision, leaving no strength to actually change paths once i realize i’m on the wrong one. ...

“the shorter end of a long week” or “the continuation of the last really long post which you should read if you haven’t already, and don’t forget to look at the pictures” i’d like to point out, in response to imagined complaints over the length of part I, that this spring break’s blog had only 2 parts, not 5, like that of last spring break (some parts in march, some in april, in the archives). speaking of those posts, i went back and read them yesterday, and was struck in particular by the fact that it’s now been over a year since emily and i broke up. i felt a pang of remembered sadness as i looked over that day in particular, and a fresh sort of guilt in realizing what a bad, or more accurately, non-existent, friend i’ve been to her since then. being fully and purposely occuppied with life here has that disadvantage for my non-californian friends. anyway, a lot has happened in this year of singleness, and i think i’ve certainly grown in a lot of ways because of it. but back to now… ...