Fnord

http://i.imgur.com/rIxIx.jpg
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/ll166/jlevel12/Fark/pearwaargarblha1.jpg
http://www.theycallmemarcoporno.com/all%204-11-09_files/wharrgarbl_snow.jpg
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/91/wharrgarbl5xsh0.jpg
http://kapd.be/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/flying_wharrgarbl.jpg
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/8760/nowharrgarbl.gif

Also:
http://ui25.gamespot.com/2360/notlolwutpearuw5_2.jpg

I just now realized that the reason I have troubles spelling separate is the word desperate.

I was listening to Boards of Canada - Julie and Candy. The airy, memorabilic spaces that their tracks create sometimes border on creepy.
This particular track reminded me of the last time I was on a particular playground near our apartment in San Francisco, when I was about 5. I really enjoyed it there and hoped to go back. I think I asked my mom to bring me back there sometime. It never happened and we moved within a year, away from San Francisco.
I can recall the day and the concrete city walls sandwiching the park. One of which was sky blue. It was sunny, which wasn't that common in that part of SF. I played on one of those metal spinning platforms with the big rails, I guess a self-powered little carousel. I really enjoyed playing on it.

Yesterday I was helping someone put a fridge together. One of the drawers was labeled "Temperature Controlled Meat." I decided that this was the name of my new minimalist electronica group. We would play really stoically so as not to raise our temperatures.

My new favorite song:

So, before I posted it here, I decided to ask the following question in a nicely varied question asking community:

What do you think of the decision to ban a Muslim woman from swimming in a pool in France in her "birkini"?
More info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8197917.stm

Now I'd like to hear what more people think, beyond feeling offended which is the near sum of what I got in the other community.

( What I observed of the responses in the community )

Okay so, after various false-starts, I am back in school to finish my degree. I tried to sideline it a dozen and one ways. I kept feeling weak in the face of my own personal issues with school. But here's what's happened so far:
Floundered for years on and off through various classes and majors.
Taken some GE(General Education) courses along the way, almost entirely at the beginning.
Taken German and Russian language classes for personal interest and gotten straight A's.
Towards the end of last quarter (May/June) and the end of the year of Russian classes, I decided to really look at my scholastic record and talk to a counselor.
Per the math, I completed 50% of what is needed to: Finish lower division coursework (what transfer students generally do at community college to come into a university at a junior level), transfer, and earn a degree without much special effort (1 class that will help me save $ on a course at university should that be a concern) at the end in Liberal Arts, concentrating on Arts and Letters (basically my language courses plus the GE classes).
So, to summarize this math, I need 11 GE, full-time courses and 2 PE classes. I am 75% through one class right now. I will need to do my best to complete these courses with reasonably good grades (I'm not sure yet if I can subdue my ego enough to do A work in all of these.), taking 4 classes (3 are full time) per quarter so that I will no longer need any classes at the community college level (I do plan to continue taking language classes there as time permits).

Now for my reasons for wanting to continue my education despite much struggle:
Don't like being a second rate citizen in a degree-oriented culture.
Don't like being excluded from job opportunities that I am otherwise capable of.
Don't like the feeling of a lack of cushion in finding jobs down the road of life.
Wish to have the options of other fields of work, if not pursue them and abandon my current field.
Desire for the option of homeschooling potential future children so that I can combine a solid, worldly education with full-time attention. (Here is the list of things I feel I gained from my public education other than friends: EOF)
And the personal goal of overcoming my own ego. I feel above education, that it is seperate from being learned. I wish to study only what interests me, when it strikes me as that is what I know I will retain in mind and memory. I do not respect the educational institution, only what it can offer which does not coincide directly with the pursual of a formal degree rather personal choices of classes.

So, with those summaries (Holy TL;DR, Batman), I arrive to the present: My first class taken for coursework rather than personal interest in several years. I am coming up against my patterns and ego hardcore. Now by ego I mean not only the vernacular definition but also an esoteric compartmentalization of the self-serving aspect of man, which is my main idiolectical ("personal dictionary") definition of ego. It started with our first test. I had grown accustomed to classes that I was very interested in and had some functional exposure to. As it turns out, I had to actually review my own class notes. I did not and got a mediocre albeit passable grade. Okay, that lesson learned. Second, we had this assigment of a summer-class nature where we basically had a week to read a novel and write a 1-2 page response. I do not read novels very quickly and haven't for years, especially not ones of little interest to me. I freaked. I spent this week freaking out rather than attempting the task (old habits come to haunt) until I looked at my course outline and realized that according to it, the grade was excludable due to it being graded as the "lowest grade quiz." I skipped it comfortably to save my sanity although it remains to be seen if we will stick to the course outline's grade system in this summer session (fuck). Then came the next test which was take home. I did fine on that, got an A. Then came the take home midterm (double the length of the tests, 3-4 pages of writing for the answers). Simultaneously we are assigned a 1-2, page essay of a brainstorming nature on a very specific topic and an assignment to perform a related action in the community and write another paper about that. Altogether this brought back more old habits of freaking out at this pile of insurmountable busy-work that I hate and which I feel is partially out of reach for me and where I am in life right now, blah blah blah (excuses by the pound). Again I decided to ignore them all as long as possible while (another old habit) simultaneously feeling guilty and punishing myself emotionally and personal-freedom wise. I finally managed to cobble the midterm together last minute, barely completing it on time. I feel somewhat better now although the essay is still due as well as the task and second essay (and some stuff after that that she'll tell us about tomorrow).
I'm really happy that my registration date for fall isn't until next Wednesday, the next to last day of class as I am not feeling particularly confident about this educational plan and my ability to work through it and myself emotionally. So much for part-time work during the year especially as I will need my free time to deal with my own issues with the situation.
Add this to my goals for completing education:
The fortitude and state of achievement of having overcome something this big for me to carry into my own life, future romantic relationships, and example for possible children.

So what's next? Complete this course. Work through my issues as far as I can right now. Delve into the causes of these issues (I don't understand them all and I don't know why I can't overcome myself in these ways). At the end of next week, plan my next quarter. See if I can earn money for the month and a half of free time.

Okay so since I haven't gotten a substantial answer elsewhere...
Can any of you folks tell me why there is so much opposition to Ayn Rand's philosophy/philosophies?

ETA: I just read through all of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)

I strongly agreed and disagreed on several points. Rather than trying to respond to these points in my LJ right now I'm going to rest and digest a bit, hopefully mustering up the courage to write it up here later.

For now I will say that her core ideas are sometimes great but a lot of her conclusions don't make sense to me. Her more recent followers have continued to make what I consider some odd conclusions that ignore other factors, such as the fact that reality does have a status quo that has to be worked away from. They sound rather like the Soviets trying to pull Communism in a world unready. Still there are some good principles which one can integrate into their worldview if they so choose.

Equal Opportunity gone too far.

In keeping with modern times, the role is open to men, women and trans-gender witches to comply with sexual discrimination laws.

The character is a pre-existing witch character. How can you have a male witch?

According to OKCupid I'm pretty damn libertarian. Which works out since the Libertarian party in the US isn't and I've yet to agree to the idea of aligning myself to a political party (other than when I was a less-informed youngin who bought Democratic ideology).

Your result for The Politics Test...

Libertarian

Take The Politics Test at HelloQuizzy

So I was about to buy tickets for Gogol Bordello as per this entry here when I looked at the venue calendar and saw that it is for 2 days!
Would anyone have an easier time coming out to Saturday, May 23 than Friday, May 22?
Let me know which day is better for interested folks.

Would a Trojan horse work in the modern world?

1. Random Wikipedia page. The first entry is your band name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

2. Random quotation. Last bit of the last entry is your album name.
http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

3. Random Flickr image. The third is your album cover.
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days

Then mash it up in an image editor. Here's mine:


The quote was:
"How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue."
Jane Austen

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