Steve - Considers The Wider Context

A team of anthropologists once travelled far across the outback to live alongside an aboriginal group that had experienced little contact with the European settlers. The visitors found their hosts not only peaceable but also welcoming; life among them was for the most part joyous and uncomplicated, and mutual aid was taken for granted as the basis of social relations.

A few months into their stay, the anthropologists received a delivery of additional equipment, including a radio with which they were able to tune in news reports from their civilisation. The locals listened with interest, asking for assistance when the newscasters used unfamiliar words. One of the first stories told of a town that had been devastated by a flood.

The entire settlement immediately erupted in activity: bags were packed, tents disassembled, supplies collected. The anthropologists, startled, inquired what was happening. They were answered in the tone one adopts when explaining something obvious to a small child: "We've got to go help those unfortunate people!"

The visitors pleased with their friends: "But that village is thousands of miles away, across mountains and deserts and wastelands! You could never make it there--and by the time you arrived, if you ever did, the survivors would all be gone and the village with them." At long last, they were able to persuade their hosts to stay put.

This series of events repeated itself over the following days as further news bulletins announced disastrous fires, famines, storms, explosions, massacres, and wars around the world. Each time, the troubled aborigines prepared to break camp and hurry to the assistance of the stricken people; each time, with great difficulty, the anthropologists talked them out of it.

Finally, an entire news program passed without any response, and then another, and another. The anthropologists congratulated themselves: at last they had impressed upon their protégés what it meant to live in a global village. Over the weeks that followed, they noted further changes in their hosts. Many who had been lively and outgoing grew increasingly sullen and listless. They sat around, listening to radio reports of calamities from Dover to Peking, rarely lifting a finger to help one another or themselves.

~ An excerpt from a definition of 'Media' in Rolling Thunder, an anarchist journal of dangerous living.

It's a troublesome question. How much attention should I pay to events outside of my sphere of influence? I've heard many a time the excuse of 'there are more important things', referring to war or famine or similar. Should I be devoting my life to such massive causes? There's no doubt that they're massive, but the fact is that I make next to no difference. Even the anti-war movement, composed of a huge number of people, had a dubious effect at stopping actual wars. Goverments will go to war whether I like it or not, as long as there are governments. What's more, there are full-time positions in anti-war for... not very many people. We all have more time than we can give to huge causes. Could you possibly spend more time making a difference to global issues than you do watching the news? How about TV in general? It's possible, but very few of us do, and I'm personally unsure about how good an idea that would be.

Us Westerners are frequently pretty arrogant, whether out of a sense of guilt or not. There are some villages that don't even have electricity! We must give it to them, quick! So they can be as enlightened as we are through the medium of television! Of course, that's not the logic, but it's the effect. Should we really send huge numbers of ourselves overseas to help the unwashed masses? Sure, perhaps in large-scale natural disaster type things where it's useful to have extra manual labour, but perhaps all we should do is grunt work, because the people already there know far more about what they need than we do.

There's a bit in The Communist Manifesto (*ducks*) where Marx/Engels talks about how the Bourgeoisie are merciless in spreading their culture. They, we, are not satisfied until every corner of the globe is 'civilised'. It's basically a deep gentrification of the whole world.

I'm getting off the topic, and that's kind of the point. We're so busy looking outwards we don't look at ourselves. Rehabilitate children soldiers? Great, I'm all for it, donate money, whatever. But who designed, made, and sold the guns? We can't simply patch up the problems, we need to look at the causes too. Where are the charities that are explicitly intended to fuck with arms manufacturers?

And even then, I'm still looking outwards. What about the problems in my own garden? This is where the bourgeoisie guilt starts to kick in. How dare I think of my own surroundings before all those people who are probably dying in somewhere I forget?!

It's probably a rather dangerous thing to assume that you can quantify suffering. Is it worse to be well fed but beaten by your parents or to not have enough to eat in a tight-knit microsociety? Is it worse to be able to eat but choose to starve or to not have the choice? Is it worse to die of AIDS in the UK or in Africa? These are questions without any real answers. To assume we can make charts of suffering statistics is perhaps unhelpful.

Is it better to work and give some money to charity or to not work and give none? How much damage does my personal participation in capitalism do? How much do I have to give to charity to offset that?

There's no real answer. I'm just trying to complicate the question enough that no one can say its one and deny the other. To an extent we have to have global solidarity to counteract global capitalism/states, but to forsake our locality for that is a mistake.

I probably should have left this entry at the quote. Anyway...

Steve - Writes of Favourite 2008 Albums

This year has been the first year I've really had a large enough musical interest and collection to be able to keep up with new releases. Most of the music I obtain is still lifted from previous years, but there's a new front opening up when it comes to keeping up with my favourite artists. The start of next year is looking to be damned awesome with some new releases from Pure Reason Revolution, Headlights, and Odd Nosdam, but enough of the future, let's get back to the past! Here are some of my favourite albums of 2008.

Angles by Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

This album deserves mentioning if only for the frightening effect it had on me at the time. It's the first album I remember that completely obliterated my interest in all other music for a period of around two weeks. I've never been a snob when it comes to rap... actually that's a lie, in the past two years I've not been a snob when it comes to rap, but if I was then this would have totally smashed it. It's difficult to choose favourites from this album because, barring two, they're all brilliant tracks.

Scroobius Pip manages to communicate his messages without seeming preach-y. Then again, that might be because... I wouldn't say I always agree with him, but I do always see his... angle. Hah. The final track stands out for its lyrical and narrative brilliance though, and has to be one of my favourites. I recently finally understood the title of the song 'Thou Shalt Always Kill'. I knew the meaning of kill in that context, but it only clicked with me the other week. Very clever.

Sleep Well by Electric President

I was very excited when this was finally released, after what seemed like an eternity of we're-still-working-on-it. This is an explanation (preface?) of the album. It's basically about nightmares the songwriter has had, as noted down in his 'nightmare journal'. It's a great album musically as well, and he's got a way of making albums I'm really into. Ben Cooper is wonderful :). He's doing this project where you send in something in exchange for a CD of random tracks he's made. I'm going to get on my ideas for that...

Feed The Animals by Girl Talk

AKA 'pop-music car-wreck', AKA Greg Gillis, AKA best pop musician of all time purely by merit of being awesome. If you didn't know, he makes music composed entirely of samples from all manner of popular music. This is one of the albums I liked so much I didn't just buy it in CD form, I ordered it direct from the label. It came along with the fabled bit of paper that lists all the samples used in the record. Brilliance.

Arm's Way by Islands

When this album initially came out it got a mediocre reception from me. That's the difficult thing about really liking an artist. You expect their next album to be more'o'thesame, and aren't quite pleased when it's not. I came back to it about three months later and absolutely adored it. The final track on the album, Vertigo (If It's A Crime), is a masterpiece, and is an absolute joy to listen to, over and over and over again.

Alopecia by WHY?

This was another album I was very excited about. It took some listening, but I finally broke it. It's currently racked a combined 214 track listens, which is no small feat. Yoni hasn't gotten any less odd, the samples aren't any less awesome, and the music isn't any less inventive (what's that in the first track? Chains? Cheery-a cheery-e cheery-i cheery-o cheery-youuueouuu! Wonderful :D)

In Ear Park by Department of Eagles

This new release excited me no end. This was one of the first bands I ever got into! Everyone's onto them now 'cause'f the popularity of Grizzly Bear, but I liked them way back before it was cool, you bastards! Anyway, it took me a while to get into it, and I had to stop examining it for a bit, but it's got a sure thumbs up in my book now. Different sound to their first album, but very very nice.

And that's all for this year! There are a few others, take Portishead's latest release, and some I've yet to examine fully (check Cats In Paris, they're going some good direktonz), but those listed are the main ones I got all hyped about.

Here's to next year!

I'll probably end up posting a review of the year for me in general, but that'll be in those final five days of the year after Christmas/BoxingDay that are reserved for reminiscing and whatnot.

Steve - Oversleeps

So, I'm resuming my efforts on the polyphasic sleep front. I've worked out a schedule that will work here, and I started following it midday today. Already managed to oversleep once, but that's to be expected really (especially considering I pulled an all-nighter beforehand). Got woken up to the hideous racket of the fire-alarm... stupid toaster... sigh...

Feeling a bit emo at the moment. I'm coming to hate the way I act around this place. It's, in many ways, totally at odds with how I'd like to act and what I'd like to portray. I feel totally unlike myself, totally restricted. The most I can really manage is intellectual conversation, laughter, and various bad of nature jokes. Expression of joy or happiness, including that about a person, is entirely lost, and yet they're more important to me than mimicry and cynicism...

No wonder people get annoyed. I wouldn't want to be around myself with the way I'm acting... it's so incredibly boring and joyless it almost leaches energy from around me...

Sigh, I'll get out of it.

Steve - Catches Up

So... haven't written in here in a while! I'm home for the week, and so it's a lot quieter, and so in turn this allows me to catch up with some reflective writing regarding the themes and thoughts of the past five weeks of university. I'll be writing a small series of essays or posts on these, of which this is the first.

Guerilla Advertising, or On Falling Out With A Product.

Determined, it seems, to bring me fully to terms and reinforce my StraightEdger status, I've had a falling out with Red Bull. One part of this is my giving up of caffeine, which will be covered in a later post, but the part of relevance here is my clash with them on advertising.

One morning I wake up, have a shower, walk to the kitchen... and find a rather large poster put up on the board... it's an advertisement for Red Bull. The bulk of the poster is taken up by a large can of Red Bull, and the text below says "Can You Make Music?" or something similar. I feel flecks of annoyance furl up in my head, but it's early and I'm fairly used to it, so I let it be for that moment, and make my breakfast. After eating this I trek to the cafeteria to collect my post. I walk back, and spot on the door another poster. This one looks fairly hand-made, done in markers on squared paper, saying... "Can You Make Music?".

Intrigued at the similarity, I examine the poster further, there's a web address you can probably find if you want to look (but I won't be linking here, friends), and a few enigmatic statements on not very much (presumably designed to whet your curiosity). I discover the name of the campaign, Red Bull Can Make Music. Discovering that the paper is glossy and lithographed, not hand-made and edgy as it tries to pretend, the flecks of anger ignite.

Not to be melodramatic, but it wasn't without a sense of purpose that I took the poster down. A simple act, perhaps, but in an environment so chock full of branding and advertisement, not an unmomentous one.

And I can't pretend it didn't fill me with a certain delight and empowerment tearing down the other one on the corkboard, or the three downstairs, or the five or so others around campus.

It didn't start out so much as a calculated anti-advertising act, it was more a sense of outrage (a not ignoble emotion). My own house! My own accommodation! Without permission (more on this later), without any sense of ethics or even politeness. Add to this the pretentious nature of the 'hand-made' posters, the fact that a student was getting paid to put them up, and the juxtaposition of art school and advertising, and I was fairly livid.

It didn't stop at the posters either. My mind hearkened back to a story I'd been told where a can of the energy drink had been duck taped to every chair in a classroom. Wasn't quite sure how I felt about this, I suppose product give-aways are okay? Anyway, that was the better side.

The other side I discovered one morning on the way to class, about a week since the posters had appeared. I walked out to find an odd sprinkling of graffiti around. Yes, that's right, the so called Red Bull Fairy had used graffiti to spread his advertising message. The stencil, which I saw probably 8 times on the way to class that morning (not a long walk, less than 5 minutes), consisted of the Red Bull logo and two lines of text saying "Can You Make Music?" in suitably urban lettering.

Now, you could write a book on cultural appropriation by big business. It's one of the most insidious techniques used by marketeers while simultaneously being the most irritating. Graffiti was meant to be a way for people to reclaim their environment, for people to write their own message, where it can be heard as loud or louder than corporate advertising. It was meant to be revolutionary.

So when Red Bull comes into my art college, pays a student to appropriate a previously meaningful art form in total contrast to the movements ideals, and plasters their logo all over my fucking neighbourhood... I become rather upset.

And sadly enough, that's pretty much where it stopped. I'm left in the awkward position of not being able to do much about the graffiti, not knowing what he used (other than that it doesn't come off with water) I can't go over it without the risk of mine being more permanent than whatever he used.

I did have a bit of a debate with the guy, who revealed himself when I was talking about taking down the posters in his presence, but I wasn't very articulate at the time, and so didn't get very far. Plus, having two of them there and no back-up of my own didn't particularly help. Ended in a stalemate, that one. He wanted to convince me to stop taking them down, and I wanted to explain/justify my decision. Neither of us got particularly far.

I will keep you posted on events to come... I hope there's something I can get my teeth into...

Steve - Welcomes Winter

I've decided that it's winter now.

It may seem a bit premature to decide it's winter in August... but, it's winter for all the reasons I like winter. I wore my coat out today, on a walk, at night, which was at 8PM. I love nightwalks, I look forward to being able to take them whenever when I'm at uni. It was so dark today, I loved it.

Here are some photos.










If you've not seen my photography before you're probably either thinking "...what's the point in that?" or something else. I hope it's something else!

Steve - Lambasts The Education System

I've just finished all my state education, couple of months back. I've been heavily critical of it since about year 10, but I feel like doing it again now, so I will.

My main issue, and what I believe is the crux of the issue, is qualifications.

My school's motto is relevant here. It actually has two mottos. A modern one, "Working Together for Excellence", and an older latin one which translates roughly as "Learn or Fuck Off" (actually as "Learn Or March", but that's less fun to say). The key words here are 'excellence' and 'learn'. Nowhere does it say "Get the Grades" or "Prepare for the Workplace". Sadly, this is what it's about. Teachers teach for exams. Exams are there to assess your ability in a subject and give you a bit of paper certifying that. Those certificates are used by businesses to choose the right employee.

Learning and understanding are merely coincidental. You only get that if it fits in with the course specification. Skeptical? Go up to a teacher after a lesson and ask them whether teaching to exams often comes at the expense of the ideal way a student would learn. The good teachers factor in a few non-curricular lessons to their schedules, and will explain things outside the course structure if you ask them to, but not all will, not all can!

Order is one of the best examples of this. When I was confronted with my first sums "2+5=8", I was under the impression that the you worked out the left hand side and put the answer on the right hand side. True, and enough to get me through that set of exams, but was it a helpful way of learning? A couple of years later they confronted me with sums that were 'backwards',"8=5+?", this made absolutely no sense to me. It was like making a sentence backwards. I told my teacher about this and she just said we had to do them backwards. If I had been taught what the equals sign actually meant, then this would have been easy to tackle. As it was, I was very confused.

And there's another example. Anyone who has been in school a while will be familiar with the chime "why do we have to know this?". We're brushed off with some answer about how it will be useful later on or that a qualification in German makes us more employable or whatever. Fact is, that doesn't help at all. To understand something properly, and I imagine this is true for others too, I need context. Context is essential to have a working knowledge of almost anything. All the teachers know is that we need to know it to pass the exam, but saying this would lead people to the conclusion that the whole system is pointless, and that is not good for well settled classes.

There's a concept called the 'hidden curriculum'. This is a word for a whole group of things that school teaches you but doesn't say it's teaching you. Getting up early in the morning is one, the intrinsic value of work, the idea of obedience to an authority figure, the subdivision of time into little blocks with little or no bearing on understanding or even reality (obedience to the bell) and the idea that there are specific times for specific things, conformance in general (ask anyone why you have a uniform and you'll see what I mean). What do all these things have in common? That's another concept called the 'correspondance principle', that school corresponds to the workplace, and a major function of the education system is simply to drum into you that these things are important.

In a sense, I'm stating the obvious. We all know:

1. We work hard
2. We get good grades
3. We get a good job
4. We get lots of money
5. ???
6. Happiness!

You know, one of the most offensive and/or shaking questions you can ask someone is "Are you happy [with your life]?". Try asking a couple of people, preferably those past their younger years and see what answers you get. Some people might get upset. Who would want to admit that all their life's work, completing step 1, 2, 3, and 4 at much expense, hasn't paid off. Admitting that they're not happy, fully admitting it, is effectively saying they've wasted a huge portion of their life. No one wants that.

Anyway, I digress. Most of us know that the education system is for getting us jobs. You might wonder how different things would be if we learned for learning's sake, I wonder that fairly often. But anyway, at least it's fair, right?

Those entering sixth form now will be completing something like an ALICE test. This can come in the form of a full test or just a questionnaire asking you your race, gender, parent's occupations, etc. Most don't give it a second thought. Most aren't told what they're used for.

They're used to set the first target grades, the grades that the school has to get most people achieving or it's failing, teachers don't touch them. If you're black or your parents have 'working class' jobs, or you don't answer the survey like I did, you'll find your target grades are perhaps even comically low. That's right, black and working class students are predicted lower grades. These grades are used to assess how the schools are doing. If the school is failing working class pupils for some reason, that's okay, because they were predicted lower anyway and the school's statistics won't suffer.

So why are they predicted low in the first place? Because on average, in order of widest gap:

• Middle class students achieve better than working class students.
• East-Asians and Whites achieve better than Pakistanis/Bangladeshis and Afro-Caribbeans.
  
• Girls achieve better than boys.

The argument goes that schools should not have to pay for the fact that certain groups achieve on average worse grades than others. It's not the school's responsibility. From the perspective of the statistics, this makes sense. Schools in working class areas, without the predicted grades lowering, would achieve less than schools in middle class areas. It essentially evens out the table. This makes sense if you're looking at protecting the schools and making the statistics valid.

What does this say about priorities in education? Do we care more about the individual student or the school/stats? Do we accept the inequality as it is (and, as it is, social class is six times more influential on attainment than IQ), or do we do our best to encourage schools to improve everyone? You already know the answer.

I studied Sociology. Can you tell? It's a bit ironic really. I probably learnt more in real terms on that two year course than I did on any other, mainly due to the quality of the teaching. Even then, because we had to cover so much in such a short time, we didn't actually read any theorist's work in depth. As for the other subjects... yes, I suppose maths I learned a lot, but there was no context so it's probably going to be totally useless to me. Computing was an utter joke. If I didn't know about computers before I started that course, I would have failed. Part of this was due to one of the teachers being absolutely terrible, but a large part of it was also due to the nature of the course. It was plainly wrong in some cases. But rather than actually learn about computers as I have been doing since I was 10, we... memorised facts about them. It was possibly the most useless, in terms of learning, course I have taken ever. I stopped going for the last three months because it was just insulting. I got a B. I could have done better, but it wouldn't have been worth it, every moment of that course was agony.

And yet I've coded and run three websites, innumerable scripts, and I've worked for three years as a computer technician. I got into a Writing course at an Arts university when I only took English to GCSE level and didn't even take an arts based subject that far. Go figure.

One day I'm going to start up a free school, and there won't be any fucking qualifications, just learning.

Well... this blog post was a good effort... went off the rails a bit at the end...

Steve - Feels Better Than He Did Earlier

So there's this girl.

Why is it always a girl? I don't know, that's a common question I ask myself. I suppose I did have a boy problem once, and he was my first real problem, and he did last pretty long, but still, I'm a sucky fag. More of an assertive gay dyke-mike. Assertive in the sense that, if someone's not already gay, their chances of becoming so increase the more time they spend around me. Yep, that's right, I turn girls gay! If I were more masculine I'd be a bit worried :P

Anyway, this morning I felt pretty ashamed, 'cause'f the email I'd sent her last night. It might have been because I finally hit on the truth. Then again, it might have been because I only got four hours sleep. It wasn't really an email to be ashamed of... *shrug*. I feel better now though.

I tidied a lot today, and stormed out a playlist for girl. I like it quite a bit. Dunno if she will, but perhaps, at least some of it. I also made a vague attempt at some poetry. I failed, but given that there's a finite number of failures before each success, I'm one step closer. Here's what happened:

It's a bitter irony,
where others fear too few
I fear too large a degree,
of that which makes you live,
as active.

Two envelopes lie

A clot in your brain

That's actually three pieces I tried to do. Failed at all three. I think I'm calling it... Stutter.

Steve - Ponders if They Really Do Get Everyone in the End

I'll get the hang of this blogging thing eventually...

Now is the time that everyone is going off to university, except some people who will be going in a couple of years.

I worry, you know, I worry a lot about this. Up to now schooling has been more or less compulsory. We've been effectively forced to go. This means we can hate it and console ourselves by saying "one day, I'll get out of this, and things will be better" and really believe it.

When we move on to post eighteen, we are making--very definitely--our own choices. This can be good, but it can also be bad. If someone takes business computing and doesn't like it, they don't rationalise it by saying "one day, I'll not have to do business computing any-more" they say "this is what life is like", or "the money's worth it", or "I don't know what else to do", or "Eh... it'll get better".

This means that people, especially more passive people, are effectively choosing the path for the rest of their lives. People who choose business computing now will probably be spending a considerable amount of their lives filling in spreadsheets or writing macros for Microsoft Office. And the scary thing is, the universities are in on it too. You pick up a few prospecti and you'll see people touting links with business and placement schemes. The World Of Work starts wrapping its tendrils around you from probably the second year.

To me, right now, nearly all the people I know are all beautiful. These are people who have not 'specialised', who still get big chunks of holidays in which they have their own time, who still have hours after school in which to pursue their own interests, people--above all--who are not owned.

The thought of these people becoming drones terrifies, angers, and physically sickens me.

Sure, they'll get married, go out a couple nights a week for drinks, go play golf with workmates, but is this really the life for an individual? Or is it a cage?

And I see it happening already. I'm losing people. Spontaneity is draining out of people, and they're getting 'rewarded' for it, for 'growing up'. I have a friend, a good few years into work, who recently spent probably around a month in solid overtime mode, working on weekends, etc. He won bread, sure enough, but he neglected his boyfriend in more ways than one, in my opinion, and... most of all... put his work before people. He's one of the biggest reasons I want to succeed in my plans, just to prove him wrong in what it is clear he believes: that I'm being naive. I can't wait for it. There's a bit of spite there, I'll admit.

So, the race is on to try to nudge people in ways I think will put them on less closed paths. Ones that, as mine, have the career prospects of a limp tangerine. Liberal arts courses are the obvious ones, though anything is better than something with 'business' or a synonym in the title.

At the same time... I don't want to unduely influence someone. I try to be transparant and explain my thinking to people rather than telling them to do things (though telling people never gets anywhere anyway), recommend them books and things, deconstruct things like the joys of working life, etc, but I still feel guilty about it sometimes... what if I'm wrong? What if I lead people into poverty or such? I'm trying to live by example, but this is all new to me too.

But when it comes down to it, I know it's more than I'm worth to stand by and watch people lose themselves and become Standardised. I know before long, five or ten years, most of my generation will be locked up in offices. There will be people who will never realise what they could be.

And that, more than anything else, is what kills me.

Steve - Is Nervous

20 days until I leave!

Things Steve has to do before he leaves (bigger font, bigger (in effort required) job):

Clean up out my room. Pack. Decide what to take. Pack! Finish his end-of-phase writing project. Read at least one of the many books he has bought off of his reading list. Compose grace's secret present (shh) ASAP. Complete forms and submit them ASAP. See Roby. Give Jade her present. Finish school intranet. Put this up in his sociology room. Return sociology books. Perfect school build system. Donate a couple of Steve Bruce pins to Sociology. Give English teacher a copy of his works, with a covering letter of thanks for encouraging him. Find true love!

So many things D: SO LITTLE TIME.

Steve - Finds Himself Disturbed

There's a different vibe flowing through me at the moment, a different breeze, a different wave. Seems like my friends are disappearing or fading, and replacing them are these... people. They share the following characteristics:

1. They're generally into some form of art (writing, photography, film)
2. They're female, but that's nothing new really.
   
3. I am the one to seek them out, or initiate the communication with them, whereas in the past it's been people wanting to talk to me for some reason.
   
4. They confuse me.

Points three and four are the important ones, really, and they're linked.

I'm 'experienced' in forming new relationships. It sounds arrogant, but... it's true. At least, a certain kind of relationship. I have an intuition for it, about what happens. When I want to be friends with someone, it's generally happened. My 'sub'conscious nudges me at the right times to say the right things, and this lets my relationships with people progress at a fair rate. Maybe this is all delusion, but it seems to work and happen... not necessarily as I expect, but... like in a nuclear reactor. It's a complicated and chaotic series of events that can get out of control quickly, but even though you might not expect everything, you can keep things going in the direction you expect them to. It's kind of like that.

It's generally true that the important things when trying to 'figure someone out' are the bits that aren't there. The things they subtly avoid talking about, the things they skip over in emails, the things that don't happen. They're tricky to notice, because they don't happen and so you have to actively watch for them. Sometimes they're misleading, but even if they're misleading, there's still something there.

And that's part of what's confusing. The gaps are different in these people. In one, the gap is practically all-enveloping. There's such precious little information that it seems like islands in a big nothingness. From knowing her so long, I've managed to connect the dots to some degree, but she's largely shrouded in mystery.

In another, the gaps are there and seem to form some kind of a pattern, but they're irregularly formed, or there's not quite enough gaps to make sense of what's beneath. They're all on one side and so I can't get much of an idea of what it is.

In another there seems to be no gaps at all. She's almost brazen about how plain and obvious her truth is. The only gaps are the ones I don't want to investigate, not until there's a bit more connective tissue to compensate for the obvious conflicts that will ensue (if only in my head), and I doubt they'll be any less plain. But how can I adhere if there are no gaps to link to? Without secrets, how can trust be communicated? This is the most startling for me, though perhaps this is because it is the most fresh in my mind.

The other thing is confidence. I've not got huge reserves of confidence to propel me through self-esteem blackspots. Since I've sought out these people, I'm the one expending confidence in the course of trying to get to know them. If they demonstrate interest in me, I can assure myself that they actually do want to be talking to me, rather than just anyone or specifically not me. I don't know what they think of me, so I'm very sensitised to rejection (as well as approval), and I'll almost look for it. This gets me very up-tight and easily upset. I get that it's a problem with me, but I'm not really sure how to circumvent it or what to do without making false assumptions.

So, I write about it. I overcommunicate even, over-express. One of my big fears is weirding people when I just express in such volumes (which is very easy for me to do). But if I don't, I get more and more worked up. I've already had one experience of that, and I don't intend to repeat it. If it weren't someone who understood to an extent what was going on in my head, it could've been far worse.

So I guess this entry was my outlet for today. I hope I get this all figured out soon, or at least enough of it to allow me to concentrate on one thing.

Queries welcome, though don't blame me if you get an answer longer than this entry XD

Personality

Even the best of us sometimes succumb to personality tests. Today I did, to the standard four-letter psychological test, Myers-Briggs or whatever. I remembered why I dislike them so much. They are, as a wise man said, the equivalent of saying:

"Here, I have a series of boxes. Which one do you fit into?"

Before I saw them this way, when I was a positivist, I used to have a lot of trouble with them. I'd take one, and then I'd be agonising about whether I was INTP or ENTP. I spent an afternoon considering it once, I think. Today the test gave me INFP.

To be fair, INFP fits me pretty well. So does INTP, INFJ, INTJ, ENFP, ENTP, ENFJ and ENTJ. You see the problem with the test here: I hold characteristics of anything with an N in it (interestingly, in the test, the N is very strongly expressed). This makes sense, since intuition is such an important part of the way I think. If I lost intuition, I would be very literally crippled.

Take that, Jung. Personality is more compex than 16 boxes!

Anyway, today I had the following thoughts:

• Instead of having plain old sizes in coffee shops, we should go more for the JapaneseVideoGame conception of size: things improve and have things added as they get larger. The small drink is plain and small, the medium drink is mediumsized and has say... whipped cream, and the large one is largesized and has whippedCream+chocolateSauce.
• Life would be far more interesting if capitalism didn't adhere so much to economics. If it just did things for the hell of it. See the above point.
• I put a £1.75 tip in the tip jar for the coffee shop, because the girl looked like she was having a bad time. She was also rather pretty, which made me a little more nervous than I usually am interacting with shop employees. I meant to tip even more, but I didn't by accident, and it would've been weird to go back and tip more, I think.
  

Ah, here it is!

So... it would appear I have no box for the title of this post. Oh well, titles are overrated I guess.

I've had this blog for a while. Every time I sign up for a new account I think about how much of my information is distributed across the internet. Huge swathes of the internet are marked my by presence, more than I could possibly even attempt to remember. This blog was one of the lost accounts I'd forgotten about.

Until today.

There is no climax to this entry. Just rambling. Online journalling has a special place in my heart, since I owe the first of the really interactive online diary sites (OpenDiary) a lot of my 'netChildhood, my writing skills (my writing really was atrocious before I started journalling), and a large part of my coding skills too (through coding neo-journal and my more malicious play around TOD's security issues).

Anyway, expect entries... at some point...