And so it goes

The journey to the dark side WordPress is complete. I’ve been impressed with WP since I set up the Eyeopener blog here back in the summer. It also has better templates.

Oh, this is a long one

The more I work on my website, the more I wonder whether I really even know exactly what it is I’m supposed to be offering the universe — not just in terms of why I’d have a website that aims to offer the universe something, but in general.

It’s a most bizarre mindset to be in. Granted, I’m not really worried about the future. I worry about everything else. And yet coding is a surprisingly effective escape from having to worry about things, mostly because I’ve been coding for almost as long as I’ve been worrying.

I taught myself HTML when I was 13. I hadn’t thought about that in quite some time, but trying to come up with a brief and non-invasive biography for the site that somehow makes me sound professional yet interesting meant thinking back to the days when I started coding. I remember my first site — archive.org, thankfully, does not. It was hosted on gURLpages, a division of gURL, which now describes itself as “an interactive web thing for teen girls.” gURLpages no longer exists (nor does gURLmail, the e-mail service that came with an account at gURLpages) and gURL is now a full-time teenage girl thing. Today’s “dig or dis” feature is about going dateless to the prom. I went dateless to the prom and I don’t care who knows it.

I digress.

I don’t know what’s behind my recent string of late night/early morning posts, apart from the previously discussed fact that my sleeping patterns are out of step with most of the universe and that I’ve hit yet another hardcore phase of self-reflection. It’s not terribly worrying, however, as my life makes sense and is fabulous. The reflection is really more of a “hey, I wonder where I’ll be in five or 10 years” rather than a state of panic. The many, many things in my life that make sense more than make up for career uncertainty.

Which is nice.

The meaning of life is generic geekery. What form that generic geekery will take remains to be seen. It doesn’t matter right now. It’s 3:30 a.m. Fortunately, I have nowhere to be tomorrow and I’m about to sleep in a double bed for the first time since Christmas. Unfortunately, this is the same double bed I woke up in on Christmas morning only to find a spider on my pillow. I hope tonight is better.

I think my old room is just far more conducive to blogging than my new one is. Don’t get me wrong, the house is great and not having to deal with GO transit on a daily basis is probably the single best non-Jonathan-related thing that’s ever happened to me. But stuff (not interesting or coherent, mind you, but nonetheless) is pouring out of me here and that never happens at home. Bizarre.

The obligatory trip section

In two months I will be in Paris doing who knows what. It occurred to me just yesterday that my plans for Paris are not generally what normal people might plan to do in Paris. I do have a reason to go to (and take numerous photos of) rue du Quatre-Septembre and the related Metro station, after all.

It is far more advisable to listen to Beethoven in anticipation of three days in Vienna than it is to listen to Mozart; this is mostly because the only Mozart in my possession is the Requiem as I have mentioned elsewhere. Gorgeous work, but depressing. Of course, it’s a mass for the dead. It’s supposed to be depressing.

Symphony No. 5 reminds me of first year and the spring thereafter. It was one of the listening selections in my introductory classical music course. I remember listening to the second movement while waiting for the subway at Union. The second movement is horribly underrated. I remember coming to this conclusion and feeling like somewhat of a music snob. I was naive. I had yet to discover Holst — not an overlooked compose by any stretch of the imagination, but not generally hailed with the same frequency and intensity as others — and Gorecki was so grade 12.

I sometimes wish I could be a real classical music snob, but it seems like so much work.

Conclusion

I am a nerd, not a journalist. The two are not mutually exclusive, but I am not both. Realizing this makes me very happy and much less terrified about the future.

Also, Jonathan is wonderful. And it is nearly 4 a.m. and I’m going to bed.

On going home and uploading the forgotten CDs to my laptop

Man, I missed Schubert.

[edit] And Bach… sigh.

It begins

Having realized that I’m less prone to worrying about anything and everything when I’m extremely busy, and also not being a person who can say no to extra funds, I’ve decided to start web designing on a freelance basis.

Josh’s site is in progress. I’m working on my own at the same time. Once I can download my pre-ordered copy of Photoshop Elements for Mac, I’ll also get started on the Institute for Liberal Studies redesign.

And if you want anything, just ask. I don’t charge much. You’d also be keeping me from spazzing about genetics.

Not at all sufficiently scientific, but…

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid Disorder:	High
Schizoid Disorder:	Moderate
Schizotypal Disorder:	Moderate
Antisocial Disorder:	Low
Borderline Disorder:	Moderate
Histrionic Disorder:	Moderate
Narcissistic Disorder:	Moderate
Avoidant Disorder:	Very High
Dependent Disorder:	High
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:	Low
– Personality Disorder Test – Take It! – – Personality Disorders –

Avoidant personality disorder is characterized by extreme social anxiety. People with this disorder often feel inadequate, avoid social situations, and seek out jobs with little contact with others. Avoidants are fearful of being rejected and worry about embarassing themselves in front of others. They exaggerate the potential difficulties of new situations to rationalize avoiding them. Often, they will create fantasy worlds to substitute for the real one. Unlike schizoid personality disorder, avoidants yearn for social relations yet feel they are unable to obtain them. They are frequently depressed and have low self-confidence.

I have avoidant tendencies but I don’t think I have a disorder. My ability to function is not impacted. I’m also not depressed and I like myself, avoidant tendencies and all.

I am, however, an INFP type:

• creative (sure?)
• smart (thank you!)
• idealist (yes)
• loner (not as much as I used to be, but that’s the way it is)
• attracted to sad things (huh)
• disorganized (and how)
• avoidant (there it is)
• can be overwhelmed by unpleasant feelings (who can’t?)
• prone to quitting (yes)
• prone to feelings of loneliness (less so nowadays)
• ambivalent of the rules (uh…)
• solitary (yes)
• daydreams about people to maintain a sense of closeness (not consciously)
• focus on fantasies (“never his mind on where he was…“)
• acts without planning (don’t I know it)
• low self confidence (again, not recently)
• emotionally moody (yes)
• can feel defective (Lord yes)
• prone to lateness (I’m working on it)
• likes esoteric things (sure?)
• wounded at the core (really?)
• feels shame (not with the boys, that’s for sure)
• frequently losing things (sometimes)
• prone to sadness (we are all prone to sadness)
• prone to dreaming about a rescuer (I guess)
• disorderly (… me?)
• observer (yes)
• easily distracted (sure)
• does not like crowds (absolutely)
• can act without thinking (occasionally)
• private (yes)
• can feel uncomfortable around others (often — it’s nothing personal)
• familiar with the dark side (join me and we can rule the galaxy as father and son)
• hermit (hermit?)
• more likely to support marijuana legalization (in principle)
• can sabotage self (… what?)
• likes the rain (I am anti-drought, yes)
• sometimes can’t control fearful thoughts (yes)
• prone to crying (yes)
• prone to regret (yes)
• attracted to the counter culture (less so now)
• can be submissive (yes)
• prone to feeling discouraged (yes)
• frequently second guesses self (yes)
• not punctual, not always prepared (we had to bring that one up again, didn’t we?)
• can feel victimized (rarely)
• prone to confusion (incidentally, this makes me confused)
• prone to irresponsibility (I’m going to say no, generally)
• can be pessimistic (we can all be pessimistic)

Because the spark is not within me

The more I think about it, the more it seems as though my sleeping patterns really are normal… more or less. I work unorthodox hours, which means I go to bed several hours later than the average person. I also wake up several hours later than the average person, which is justifiable because I start work several hours later than the average person.

In other words, I don’t have insomnia. My brain thinks it’s 10 p.m. right now. Can you blame it?

Alex has been posting themed playlists on a weekly basis. I am not quite disciplined enough to come up with a different list every week, but were I crafting a list of music to which one should not listen at 2 a.m., I would probably be able to come up with a rather lengthy list entirely from experience.

One should not, for instance, curl up in bed with one’s laptop while listening to Mozart’s Requiem, no matter how excited that person is for his or her upcoming three days in Vienna or how sublime the middle (lux perpetua) section of the Lux Aeterna is. (Lux Aeterna, by the by, is also not an appropriate selection for subway rides, particularly at night when even the above ground portions of the commute are filled with darkness.)

(This may or may not be what I’m doing right now. I meant what I said about experience.)

While on the subject of Mozart, it is also not at all advisable to watch Amadeus after all one’s housemates have dispersed for the holidays save one, who is working nights. Amadeus is a spectacular piece of cinema but it is depressing. It is even less advisable to follow the viewing with repeated listenings of Neon Bible (the album) by the Arcade Fire, glorious an album as though it is — especially when one has Black Mirror on repeat. I could not have had 12 more bizarre hours had I been on drugs. I eventually figured out what it was about Black Mirror that drove me crazy, however; its structure is almost identical to Rebellion in just about every respect (even to the point of being in the same key), but the main interval is only slightly different and is therefore extremely unnerving. Once I figured that out, it became far less creepy. Someone should mash the two up. I’d listen.

(I don’t suggest listening to Crown of Love dozens of times on repeat either.)

Love Holst though I do, I would also not recommend late night/early morning listening to Neptune: The Mystic. I find it utterly bizarre that a piece can simultaneously make one not fear death and yet anxious about falling asleep.

Amazingly, my iTunes ‘25 most played’ playlist consists almost entirely of what you might call more upbeat songs. This is mostly because iTunes only counts songs as having been played if they’ve been played straight through, and the shorter ones are usually less depressing. Of those 25, five are the entire contents of the only playlist I’ve actually created for myself (outside of my workout playlist), titled “Songs CSI killed for me.” It should be self-explanatory. No one could watch the season seven episode Sweet Jane and be able to hear the titular Lou Reed song the same way ever again.

There is a reason why I’m not a music journalist. Or a journalist at all, but that is a post-midnight blog post for another time.

*** Yes, I italicize the names of classical works and films but little else. Personal preference. I’m weird.

Who knew?

I think Web 2.0 may be the meaning of life.

Details to come.

[edit] All right, so I don’t think I can actually explain that and have it make sense to people. Suffice it to say that it’s nice to feel as though I actually have a purpose.

The downside to RSS feeds (or: I am nothing if not honest)

I used to have the CBC Technology & Science RSS feed in the right-hand menu but replaced it with the travel blog feed today. News Online uses Technorati for blog tracking purposes, and my (and other) blog was showing up in the “see what bloggers are saying about this story” tab when I hadn’t actually been blogging about those stories — the links had just been showing up in the feed. Technorati, however, doesn’t (and likely can’t) distinguish between a link in a post and a link in a sidebar, and I noticed I’d been getting a fair number of hits from people thinking I’d been blogging about particular stories when I really hadn’t.

And scene.

66 days

I leave for Europe in just over two months + I’m a giant nerd = travel blog!

Since this is my first major solo trip to somewhere further than the Maritimes (not to mention outside the country) I figured it was fair to document the buildup as well as the trip.