I couldn't find a specific news link about the Julie Amero case neutral enough for me to feel comfortable posting, but do look around and see what's going on.

I feel disgusted at such a flagrant display of skewed "moral" priorities taking the place of law and justice. I admit that I only know as much about the case as I have been able to glean from various news sources, but what I've seen leads me to perceive the situation as a blatant example of bad judgment. If we give Amero the benefit of the doubt, then she may well have to spend 40 years (essentially the rest of her life) in prison on account of pop-up windows in Internet Explorer. If we assume that she is guilty and showed these sites to her class on purpose, then she may well have to spend 40 years in prison (a sentence four times as long as the state minimum for a rape conviction) for inappropriately showing 13-year-olds pictures of naked people, a sight which the majority of them have most likely seen anyway.

The case of Julie Amero brings up again for me a major problem with the country in which I live. Americans as a whole see sex and nudity to be far more shameful and wrong than violence. The logic of that perception escapes me completely. The rallying cry "We must protect the children" rings false to me when protection involves censoring naked bodies instead of mutilated bodies. The concern, as I understand it, is to keep children from emulating what they see. Why, then, is a naked body worse to see than crowds of people getting bludgeoned and shot and eviscerated? If I were to raise a child, I would infinitely prefer that my child strip down and get naked than start whaling on or kill someone else.

It's late and I'm out of steam. Maybe I'll follow up on this in the morning.

Is this what it really means to be an adult?

The Christmas season has been wonderful, but quite exhausting. I've been running around for the past week and a half going to various family events and church and out of town and back into town and only just now do I have a chance to sit back and breathe, having just driven Laura back up to St. Olaf. There's actually snow up here, and a bite to the air that provides a calming reminder that winter does, in fact, exist and should occur during this general period of time.

For Christmas, Laura gave me this collection of poetry by Jill Scott, which I'd asked for to help with the tutorial I'm trying to set up for next fall (an analysis of 20th century song lyrics as poetry). I have since fallen in love with Scott's words, and the book along with some holiday stress prompted me to start writing poetry again–– for which I am very, very grateful. Not only am I happy to be writing again, but the material I'm producing feels much more satisfactory than earlier work.

Drove down to Laura's this morning on empty streets listening to excerpts from the Relient K Christmas album. Life is good, it finally feels like Christmas.

Much love and happy holidays to you all.

So I'm home. I'm not really sure what to say... this place and the place I just came from seem like two entirely different realities. I cringe at the reference, but it's kind of like the film Passion of the Mind when Demi Moore can't figure out which dream or reality is, well, real. If that reference makes no sense to you, don't worry; it's a terrible movie that you shouldn't bother seeing. But the point is, I'm still trying to define my own reality and where my life will go.

Cryptic, eh? I don't get it either.

All my assignments for the term are finished. I need to turn them in, attend another day and a half of classes, and finish one exam this weekend, and then that's it. I can do this.

Three performances, one CGI web page, a quiz, a presentation, and a paper to do this weekend. After Sunday things should be bearable again.

The wireless connection in my dorm is spotty at best, so I wanted to plug in my own router to boost the signal. However, the school network needs to configure all the routers on the network so that the DHCP settings all play nice. I brought my router down to the admin, who promptly told me that the built-in firmware wouldn't allow the necessary settings. He then offered to hack it so that we could configure it however we wanted.

h4x0r3d. The happy way.

I am sooooooo euphoric right now.

My a cappella group, The Desperate Measures *pause for groan here*, had their debut concert tonight to a wildly enthusiastic full house. I am extremely proud of everyone and thrilled that it all went so well.

Yay me!!!

Once again, I amaze myself with my ability to get tons of stuff done except for the thing i need to get done.

I have a final paper due this coming Monday for Elements of Style. I have a very rough draft of that paper that needs quite a bit of revision. I have tons to do over the weekend, and not much free time to work.

So, instead of revising my paper during my five-hour work shift, I compiled the set list and starting tones for my a cappella group's debut concert tomorrow night, finalized plans for New Year's Eve with Laura, sent in a status report to my boss, and started toying with programming in CGI.

The final still needs work. Now I just need something ELSE I can procrastinate on so I can get the final done while I'm avoiding the other thing.

What should a young student do when facing his grammar final?

Have an identity crisis, of course.

I am thankful for a wonderful, stress-free day.

I am thankful for the opportunity to spend that day with people who have become my family.

I am thankful for casual evenings and long, late chats with the aforementioned family.

I am only slightly bitter that there's STILL no snow on the ground.

I have my voice back. I'm quite pleased about that particular turn of events, as I have precisely one week left to get my a cappella group in fit shape for our debut concert next Thursday. Not being able to speak for a couple of days left me to explore other various means of communication, some of which worked better than others, such as writing my words by hand (trying to explain what i needed to the guy at Radio Shack without knowing the proper terms such as 12-gauge wire and banana plugs made that one tricky), miming (always a bad idea, although good practice for charades, I suppose), and even making my computer speak for me (which worked surprisingly well, and there were many good opportunities for playful banter a la Hal).

School is officially on break for Thanksgiving, and both of my roommates have gone home for the holiday. I went out for dinner with some friends that are still around, but the evening has primarily consisted of my being alone in the room. I've worked on my grammar final that's due far too soon, let the music of the Indigo Girls soothe me and the witty banter of the Gilmore Girls make me smile (in context, that title is far less scandalous than it sounds, isn't it?). This kind of relaxed downtime is a badly needed breather for me, and I think I'm going to enjoy it, even if the room does feel kind of empty.

This weekend, full of assignments and Queer Homecoming, the best party of the year, I have lost my voice. It mas made me very self-aware about voice as a means of communication and as a way of life. More to follow.

It's getting to that time of term when all the classes and activities and commitments all build pressure at once, which of course is why I'm posting instead of my grammar homework. The following is a remnant from a project I worked on a while ago that never really took off. I'm not really sure who the narrator is and why (s)he is relating this, but I like this paragraph/verse/whatever and hope to explore the character more. The character definitely has some issues with the world that need to be addressed, and the backstory, scenario, and future possibilities intrigue me.

------------------------------

There's a dusting of snow on the ground.
Everything is covered in glitter,
Like a first-grade art project.
It brings back bitter, cynical memories,
Of a time when innocence didn't mean ignorance
And having fun didn't mean getting drunk.
When being lonely meant being alone
And death was scarier than life.

So... I'm back. Not really sure why, but here I am. It'll be interesting to see how many people notice at first.

To get the update stuff out of the way, school proceeds apace. It's looking more and more like I'm going to be able to pull some strings and pull off the tutorial I want to set up, albeit with different faculty sponsoring me. The tutorial in question addresses the place of song lyrics in the context of poetry, and how (or if) they can be placed in that category. Right now, this tutorial seems to be the springboard for whatever my Plan ends up being, so the fact that it might work is a happy thing.

I'm still changing in a number of ways that are hard to define. I look pretty much the same, and as far as I can tell my mannerisms are still at least similar to what they've been (although I've been infected with the Southern Vermont slang term "sketch," which indicates something out of place, suspicious, creepy, or otherwise, well, sketchy). I don't know how different I appear and seem from the outside; I feel different, though, and it will be interesting to see how that affects other aspects of my life.

So, anyway, it looks like I'm back. Updates will follow; I don't know how frequently, but I will write up here from time to time.

I don't know what to say here anymore. I feel bad about neglecting the site, but also lack motivation to write here most of the time.

This weekend I mourned the death and celebrated the life of my friend Allen, who died of cancer last week. He was only 16 years old.

I'm thrilled to see my old friends, but I also miss my new ones.

I'm living in a guest room in my parent's house. That's how I think of it now: my parent's house. Not my home.

I'm working retail again this summer. If I work retail again next year the increasing possibility of that career path continuing any further will cause my small intestine to leap up through my neck and throttle my brain out of mercy.

Life and I seem to be progressing at different speeds.

I lit a candle for you today at the Mary shrine at my church. Don't know if that has any significance for you, but I hope at least that the gesture means something. I realize, too late now, that I missed my chance to get to know you half as well as I could have. I do know that your presence was a distinct one in our new home, and that there will always be an empty chair in the dining hall reminding me of the fact that you ought to be sitting there. But then again, you really are still around, aren't you? I've seen you around since that night, in people's faces as they've smiled or in the morning sun rising up over campus. I do miss the crazy skirts and those rainbow-striped stockings, though.

So here's to you, Ryan, wherever you may be. I look forward to meeting you again, however and whenever that happens, and until then, know that I'm thinking about you, and I'm grateful to have known you in this life and in this world, even as little as I have.

Be at peace.

P.S. I learned to play "The Rainbow Connection" on the guitar the other day. Thought you'd approve.

Sleep is good. I ought to try it again sometime. Sure do miss it. Been a while.

So last night I managed to get five other people together in one cramped, soundproofed room to sing collegiate-style a cappela with me.

It was good.

Good in that heavy-voice-emphasis, massively-understated, dear-Lord-that-was-phenomenal sort of way, I mean.

So we're going to meet four, maybe five more times this semester and get a feel for the style, and then next year I'm going to turn up the pressure, get in some crazy music and hold two rehearsals a week (more than any other choral group on campus at the moment). I have high hopes, but more than anything I'm thrilled that it's going so well already. Hooray for music!

A submission for my poetry workshop class, no doubt influenced by my life at an East Coast hippie school:

An aluminum tube sits before me.
What is inside?
Kidnapping
Abuse
Murder
Terrorism
Poison

I take it and drink.

Life tastes good.

Yeah, I've been bad about keeping this up. Thanks for bearing with me (those who have). Today's topic is transition. Change. The process of impermanence pushing its way to the fore. Speaking personally, I don't handle transitions very well. With some few selective exceptions, I get very introverted, moody, sullen, confused, and generally not pleasant to be around. I operate best with a solid platform base, and when either I leave the base or the base becomes unstable, I shut down partially. Since I'm an extrovert and almost always draw energy from other people around me, in whatever number, shutting down only exacerbates the situation ("What does 'exacerbate' mean?"). Over the course of many years and many, many transitions (five moves, leaving home, coming to grips with my beliefs, finding out just who I am exactly, etc.) the problem of dealing with them is one that I have yet to find an answer for. Sure, eventually the awkwardness goes away and I return to my normal everyday self but there is precious time that I can feel slipping through my fingers and into a pile of mopey oobleck. Of course, there is the possibility that I shouldn't even try, that this is the sort of thing that I should allow to run its course and not try and control. Like the time I figured that since I always felt bad when I cried, I should just stop crying. That lasted for about two-plus months until I watched the tour of RENT. Popped the cork out of that bottle of emotion, and I'd had plenty stored up. But back on the subject at hand, I'm still left wondering what I should do, if anything. Something to ponder while I pack and travel, I suppose.

So today is my 19th birthday. It's been good so far. The last couple of days have been incredibly stressful and lacking in things like sleep, and today just happens to be my day off. So, I slept in, and woke up to find a fresh layer of snow on the ground. I took a nice long hot shower, and am now killing time listening to an album I just got from Simon (Danse Macabre by The Faint). At loud volume.

Life is good.

It's been a long year, and a LOT has changed. But for the most part, I'm pleased with the changes, and I'm happy where I am. College has been a major, major shift. But I'm really settled in, and I'm comfortable here. There are lots of people I miss from back in Evanston, but I am far from bereft of friends here, too, and I look forward to seeing and catching up with many of my hometown friends in just a couple of weeks when I get back on spring break. But for now, I must continue with my day of luxury.

So, school. The play continues apace, and goes up in a week and a half. Rehearsals continue most nights in four-hours blocks, and are incredibly draining but exciting at the same time. We've moved from Antigone to Philoctetes in Greek Tragedy, and have spent quite a bit of time discussing the concept that, theoreticaly, Philoctetes could have killed Odysseues at any time with his magic bow, because if it always hits its target, then he could have loosed in any wild direction and the winds would have picked up the arrow and managed to carry it to Odysseus' body. There's been a lot of talk in Cultural Diversity on the U.S. Stage about Uncle Tom and his effects on African-American theater, and I have a paper due on the topic tomorrow.

There's a saying here at Marlboro: "No power, no water, 32,000 a year." Three nights ago the power went out for at least six hours, and the day after high-speed winds came through and started tearing the roofs apart. Julie and Simon and I were sitting about our room observing this occurrence, and Simon noted, "At least we still have power and water." "For now," I countered, and immediately after I had spoken, the power switched off. God's got a lovely sense of irony.

I saw this on Boingboing and came up with a resounding WTF?

I play WoW when I can. My school connection is awful, so I don't get many chances during the semester, but the game is a setting that I am familiar with. I fully agree with John Blatzheim that Blizzard is establishing a double standard. I hear people over public chats frequently tossing the terms "fag" and "gay" around in distinctly offensive contexts. Not only that, but the company's interpretation of their own code of conduct is boggling to me. The precise text bans "both clear and masked language and/or links to websites containing such language or images which:
Insultingly refer to any aspect of sexual orientation pertaining to themselves or other players."

Since when does "GLBT-friendly" insult anyone's sexual orientation? The only possibly way I can imagine that the phrase in question could be construed in such a way is by operating under the assumption that the word "gay" must always be used in the context of a homophobic slur. That assumption is equivalent to suggesting that noone can ever use terms such as "African" or "male" without insulting somebody who might possibly take the word far, far out of context and feel insulted that someone used a term that describes them or someone else in a derogatory way. On top of this, Blizzard is quoted as saying "Many people are insulted just at the word 'homosexual' or any other word referring to sexual orientation." Apparently, Blizzard holds the concerns of people who are offended by any reference at all to sexual orientation of any kind (which is NOT listed in the terms of use) over the concerns of people who want to express either their own personal identity or role-play something different. "We have determined that advertising sexual orientation is not appropriate for the high fantasy setting of the World of Warcraft and is therefore not permitted." I'm not sure where Blizzard got this idea. How does creating a character who has any sexual orientation whatsoever not fit into fantasy? Especially when the vast majority of the female characters in the game (at least, the ones designed to look even vaguely humanoid) are designed graphically to be stereotypically idealized and often provocatively clad? And why have the numerous players who I've seen design female characters only to run around the game in their underwear not been penalized? Because they can be as sexuallly provocative as they want as long as they don't say whether or not they're interested in males or females or both?

I have written this post in a mild fit of temper, and it's quite possible that my arguments are not as deeply researched as might be optimal or as strong as I have made them out to be. I freely admit that I might be overlooking some point of view or another, and I welcome anyone to chime in on this issue. In the meantime, I will keep investigating this issue. I have enjoyed all of the games they have released for my platform (with the exceptions of the original Warcraft and Diablo), and I have up to this point held a positive opinion of the company. I hope to regain that opinion.

Finally, I have a moment to breathe and pause to let my eagerly awaiting fanbase (all 8-12 of you) know how school's going. First, it was great to get back to campus and reunite with my school family and friends. I'd just gotten decently settled into the room when it came time to pick classes, and my life turned upside down. Not only had one of the classes I'd counted on taking been canceled, but a whole slew of new options opened up overnight. This threw what plans I had into disarray, and I've only just come up with an almost entirely solid course schedule.

For those readers whom I haven't explained this to before, I willl pause to elaborate on Marlboro's procedure for class registration. Students register for their classes after attending said classes for about a week. The two days before classes begin are filled with intro classes, half-hour spiels from the professors describing their respective courses and, when necessary, capping headcount. The times of the intro classes have no appparent connection to the times of the actual classes, meaning that the classes that a given student wants to take that make a perfectly decent normal schedule invariably all have intro classes scheduled at the exact same time. Add to this lovely chaos the fact that on both nights of intro class days I've had four-hour rehearsals for the play, and it'll make sense why I've actually gone to sleep before 1 the past several nights.

Anyway, I think I've done a decent job coming out with fun classes. I'm taking Greek Tragedy and the Tragic Hero, Madrigal Chorus, Cultural Diversity on the U.S. Stage, Partnering for Contemporary Dance (Yes, a dance class. You can go get your heart attack over with now), the school production of Angels in America, and I'm still waiting to hear back about Poetry Workshop. As an added perk, only one of these classes is held in the morning, and then only at a reasonable hour (10:00) twice a week, while Friday remains conspicuously absent of any form of classwork. I've already attended the first classes of all of these except Madrigal Chorus and Poetry Workshop, which have not yet met.

The food is still kinda lame.

Exhausted as I am, I'm having lots of fun, and I hope to write more.

But not right now, cause my bed is calling.

*Update: Made it into Poetry Workshop. Woo!*

The day I moved out of Princeton, New Jersey, I was driving to Maine with my mother and my sister. My mom had put a kid's song's tape into the stereo to keep my sister occupied, and the Banana Boat Song started to play. I burst into tears. My mother, alarmed, asked me what was wrong. Between sobs, I managed to explain that, like the singer, I too wanted to go home. And I didn't have a home to go to.

I've moved around a lot in my life so far, and the times of transition are always hard. Things are different this time around, though, for a number of reasons I suppose. It's just me, not the whole family. I'm older now (I suppose I've always been older each time, but this gap is more dramatic). The big difference that I've run into, though, is the fact that I'm split between two places I can call home. There's home as in the family homestead, where there's a hyperactive puppy waiting by the door of a cluttered duplex, and home as in school, where I share with two other guys a single room that's even more cluttered. There's a place where I am a part of a years-old, lifelong on my part power structure, and a place where I am one among a community of equals. There's a place where I live and a place where I visit. This last difference, for me, is a major one. Going back to see my family over breaks and being a visitor in my own "home" sends shockwaves through the stability that I try to base my life on.

There are many definitions of the word "home." The place where I live is in Vermont. The place where my family lives is in Illinois. I'm not sure what to call the other if I call one "home." Marlboro is much much more than just school to me. And I've established too many roots in Evanston to just toss it away in this regard. I started writing this to find an answer, some kind of completion. It hasn't worked, but I've been able to say what's on my mind, and that's what this site is here for, really. Time was when I came here to reassure people back home that I was fine and to throw out some exotic tidbit of a story while I was overseas. Now my head might as well be overseas for all of its sense of direction, but I really am fine. I just need to find my way home. There are beacons to help me find my way, and I need to reach them and follow their guiding light.

It's a winding road
I've been walking for a long time
Still don't know
Where it goes
And it's a long way home
I've been searching for a long time
Still have hope
I'm gonna find my way home
-"Winding Road," Bonnie Somerville.

...Teeth, that is. This morning I was injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected, and selected, as the song goes. Or rather, I was injected, and the next thing I remember clearly was looking up at the beaming face of my oral surgeon and not being able to feel anything at all between my nose and my chin. The novocaine, as inconvenient as it was (drooling blood in a supermarket parking lot is NOT one of the best ways to spend your morning), wore off far too soon, and I have spent the rest of the day taking Vicodin and whatever other prescription antibiotic I received while switching out ice packs and finding out the limits of my chewing capabilities, with a nap thrown in for good measure.

Wheeeeee!

So, I know I've been a bad boy this year in regards to blogging. My Christmas has been a joyous one, however, and there's still loads to go. On Christmas Eve I brought in Bob, our tree, and decorated him with Pippa and Laura. Afterwards, I went to two church services: one at North Shore Baptist Church, Laura's church, and the other at St. Luke's. My brother Nate doesn't arrive home until tomorrow, so that's when we're going to do the whole opening-presents-sitting-around-a-fire deal. It still feels like Christmas, though, even though the weather outside reminds me of Spring. And to reinforce that spirit, soon Nate will be home, and Jennifer too, and a week or so after that, my roommate Simon is *fingers crossed* coming up to visit before we make our way back to school. And on top of everything else happy, I got my grades back from my first term and I am more than satisfied with the results.

A very merry Christmas to you all, and I'll try to do better next year.

It is a good day... A good day indeed.

I am officially done with my first semester of college. Go me!!!

I got a critical success of aa geekery roll, switching my wireless router from broadcasting a private LAN to the school network. w00t!

My room is actually clean.

No, really. I mean it.

Really.