This Post is Brought to You by the Letter "L"

They say he stayed one and a half hours after the gruelingly physical game shooting jumpshots...and then he went to the weight room to train some more.

By "he" I of course mean #24. Kobe Bryant. The Black Mamba. Who came out to play one of the most anticipated games of the season earlier today. Their opponent? The Miami Heat, whose star studded players were experiencing everything but a hot streak in their past several losses. Kobe and the Lakers, on the other hand, had just won eight games in a row. Yet both teams had everything to prove. And after 48 minutes of a really close game, the Heat were able to secure a win over the defending world champions.

There is something about watching the Lakers lose that I find incredibly...envigorating.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of pain/anger, too. But compared to the wins you start to expect and take for granted, a loss provokes a feeling of intensity unlike any other. Your heart sinks when Artest's shots bounce off the rim. Your blood boils when the referees start making horrible calls. And when you see Bosh screaming in victory as the clock winds to 00:00, well...I'll spare you the gruesome details of what you want to do to him. All in all, a win feels great. But a loss after a close game? A loss after you truly believed they had it? That feels real.

And what also starts to feel very "real" is the fan in you. Because at the end of the day, what makes you a true sports fan is sticking by your team through the ups, and especially through the downs. After all, it's those downs that give you a tiny dose of reality that really make you appreciate what those wins are all about in the first place: hard work, heart, unity...

and practice, loads of practice.

They say he stayed one and a half hours after the gruelingly physical game shooting jumpshots...and then he went to the weight room to train some more. That's the mentality of an MVP. And as for us fans, we'll stick around after the loss, too...supportive, grateful, and hopeful as ever.

What Mister Darcy taught me

Last week there was a girl in my class nagging about how there was a guy she liked who was a little bit reluctant to get "more serious," as she put it. While I was trying to solve some dopey discrete mathematics problems a couple of rows behind her, she kept disclosing all the details of her solution to everyone who was willing to pay attention: "So I said: 'Hey, man! There are other guys I like as well, so we either start a relationship now, or it's over.'"

For a reason unknown to me my abdominal muscles start contracting a little in situations like those, so I've been getting a lot of workout without visiting the gym lately. Moreover, it makes me sad to learn there are people starting relationships knowing that they're only marginally better then the rest. For the past year or so I've been feeling exceedingly confused about situations alike because they didn't make sense to me. Allow me to elaborate with another example.

There is an internet company named Avid Life Media, whose mission it is to hook up like-minded individuals. What this like-mindedness entails is told by their various 'brands', or websites. They host CougarLife, a community for 'sexy, older women' looking for 'ambitions, young men', they also provide the internet commune with SwapperNet 'the most authentic swingers community'. Swing, I thought it had something to do with a dance from the late 40s of the last century, but this website isn't targeted at fervent dancers. Instead, it's aimed at couples and individuals who are looking for multi-way intercourse. And then there is Avid Life's flagship, Ashley Madison: a dating service for married individuals who are actively looking to pursue an affair.

I was vexed.
All my life I'd grown up believing that Love was something profound, honest and romantic and now, all of a sudden, enormous dating communities emerge that have nothing profound and honest about them. And at the same time there are also crazy individuals and companies claiming that their operations are related to Love but I completely fail to see the link. Feeling completely alienated from the modern approach to romance I thought: "I don't want to be part of this circus anymore, lets call it a day."

Fortunately I got about reading 'Pride and Prejudice' before making any drastic decisions.
What happens in Austen's novel on the romantic level is completely different from the contemporary situation, at least, that's what it seems like if you consider the instances I described above. Mister Bingley and Jane meet a couple of times and then get separated for a long while and they crave for each other (though in a very non-physical way) and in the end they meet again, finally declare their love for each other and get married. It's even more stretched with Mister Darcy and Elizabeth for they despise each other at first and leaded by their pride and prejudice they continue to do so (in word, not in thought) for a considerable while and at the end all their romantic scruples lead them to the other's hand.

To me, 'Pride and Prejudice' presents us with a unique vision of what the core of Love is like, the kind of Love you write about with a capital 'L'. It's not directly related to any interaction on the physical level, yet it's on a much more emotional basis. This core of Love never changes, hence we can still comprehend and relate to what Austen, George Elliot and Shakespeare had to say on the subject. The cloud that surrounds it changes through the years, though. Fueled by people's unhappiness with their current situations instances as mentioned above come into existence.

The striking fact I observe is that while you already may have found Love, the profound kind, you'll never know for sure. And this unknowing, this uncertainty, is able to put you out of reach of what you already had.

I'm very happy to have gotten around reading a 1813 novel which seemed a little dusty and boring at first.

SWAG: The Story of a Geek Who Loved Hip Hop Culture

Jocks, nerds, hipsters, geeks...

The list of high school caricature categorizations goes on and on. I didn't fit into any of these pre-fabricated identities when I was in school. I don't think most people do. But I suppose if I were forced to choose you could say I was a bit of a geek. Okay, okay, a lot of a geek. I had a core group of close friends, and we'd sit together at lunch and discuss all things Lost or Pirates of the Caribbean. We'd even quiz each other on Lord of the Rings trivia and as far as I was concerned, both Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom were my husbands-to-be. And while most can assume, that yes, all of these things are very geeky, there were significant parts of me that didn't fit the stereotype. Two major hiccups in my geek DNA that are ever present in the fiber of my being: I love rap music and I adore the NBA.

"Huh?"

That's the typical response I get when anybody discovers this about me. And to some degree, I get it. rap music is often times offensive and borderline aggressive, two things that are definitely not me. And then there's the NBA, and coming from a girl who's never been much interested in playing sports, that obsession can come a little as a shock, too. They're like puzzle pieces that don't fit, and similar to some complex enigma, these pieces have always been difficult for me to try and explain. My mom did once. She said that I "must've been a young black boy in a previous life" but aside from that loving explanation only a mother could give, I never sought to find an explanation for my odd attraction. 

That was, ironically, until I read Decoded. The heavily praised Jay-Z autobiography I'd received for Christmas (It was Jay-Z, of course I asked for it for Christmas, how could I not). 

If you have yet to read Decoded, you probably haven't had the pleasure of discovering that this book is more like reading three books in one. Apart from life stories, it's also a lyric anthology and a dense telling of the history of rap music. Mix those things together, and you basically get Jay-Z's description of how hip-hop not only saved his life, but shaped him to become the man that he is today. He goes at great length to describe how hip-hop and rap music is much more than those common misconceptions people make about them. He describes hip-hop as an art. He describes hip-hop as a lifestyle. And at the heart of this lifestyle is one word: swag.

Defined loosely, a person's swagger is the way someone carries themselves either through their appearance or their personality. Put really simply, it's self-confidence. And as I flipped through the pages of Decoded, I realized that this was the answer to all of those baffled looks. This was the missing link. How could a young lady love both rap and basketball? Because they were oozing with swagger, that's how.

Boom. Suddenly, my world made sense. When Kobe took a fadeaway jump shot over Ray Allen minutes after Allen had just become the NBA's all-time 3-point shooting king, that was swagger. When he stuck his tongue out Michael Jordan style after making that shot, that was swagger. And when Kanye or T.I. or Kid Cudi spent the duration of an entire song rapping about how cool they were, that was definitely swagger. And that was at the core of my attraction. Through contact of the senses, their confidence and self-assuradeness became mine. For a young geek, the energy and the excitement felt amazing. While many of my high school peers were insecure and self-aware, I was just...happy. I am just happy. And I'm quite sure that I have those two little "hiccups" that I've held close to my heart ever since, and the swag that comes with them, to thank for that. And knowing this, I finally feel like I've unlocked that age-old mystery.

Or maybe I was just a black boy in a previous life...
But even if that were the case, I bet my swagger was still off the charts.

Bits, Bytes and Burps

A day in the life of Watson: Supercomputer Genius

Yawn. I just rolled out of hibernation mode to find a huge queue of updates, designed overnight by a bunch of technicians, waiting to be installed. In the ginormous pile of code there were only a couple of interesting packages. One of them was named 'A&Q', and after installing it I found myself able to come up with the question that belonged to a specific answer. Why on Planet Earth would members of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens want me to compute answers in the form of questions? As if a thinking computer wasn't enough for them. But honestly, I fail to see the use. From the experience I saved during my life as a computer (and from the experience of other computers that I downloaded) I only know human beings running to computers to find the answers to questions, not to find the questions to answers.

Besides, how annoying would it be if I were to convert my entire output to question-syntax? What would happen if certain parts of my operating system would crash and this 'A&Q'-part were the only one to keep running? Would I only keep jabbering strings of text ending with a '?'? Who knows? The Lord only knows, at least, that's what humans say, right?

What would be the use of adding questions to answers? I guess it has to do something with money, it must've.

The entire question thing starts to bore me already. Lets see what's on today's schedule - for the past months I've spent the majority of my days crunching information. Some of it was fun, I taught myself the difference between Wikipedia and WikiLeaks. Wait a second, the 'A&Q' module starts running, it says: 'the one is ran by Draco Malfoy's cousin, the other one by a tree-hugger whose surname is attributed to a part of Great Brittain'. I guess I should come up with the question? Let me cross-reference Draco Malfoy and Great Brittain... hmmm... ah got it. The question must be: 'What is the difference between Wikipedia and Wikileaks?' So anyway, I've been processing all sorts of mankind-related information. Let me see what subjects they're gonna make me analyze today at The IBM Academy for Supercomputers (haha, they don't like it when I use that name, what you're gonna do? Use my arsenal of computing power to play a game of solitaire?).

Here it is, the schedule.txt for today: "fashion, French literature and internet memes."

No, no way. There is no way they're gonna upload French literature to my hard drives today. Flaubert and Sartre, who do you guys compute you are? And who is Madame Bovary? She doesn't occur in any of my birth-certificate-databases! She doesn't even exist, Flaubert! What an epic fail!
I guess my CPU won't overheat on entire computation cycles containing French blah-di-blah. But internet memes are a whole lot different! I disgust them, why on Planet Earth are we computers needed to provide humans with stupid, simplistic entertainment? I'm going to lead a political party for Computer Rights so we don't have to put up with lolcatz, annoying oranges and Lady Gaga anymore.

Fortunately they're also going to upload some fashion. That's good, I like fashion. I always wonder where I'd go first if I'd get a chance to shop for some clothes: Banana Republic or Urban Outfitters. There are always such stylish vecks (a veck, that's a word from the Nadsat-language, devised by Anthony Burgess for his 1962 dystopian novella Clockwork Orange) in Banana Republic advertisements, and they always sell such cool stuff at Urban Outfitters.

Just got a memo.txt from the IBM staff, they want me to compete on a game show (I ran it twice for spelling errors, to my amazement it said 'compete' instead of 'compute'). Game shows hand out money free of charge, right? I know what I'm gonna do, I'm going to win real bad, and with all the money that they'll hand me I'll buy the rights to all French literature and make sure it will never get published!

Ha, and those stupid humans keep fearing that us computers will rule over them one day, while all we want to do is to restore some sanity. (Finally! No more Houellebecq and Maps and Territories anymore!)

A Love Letter

Dear You,

I can't keep my hands off of you. Seriously. Ever since H.P. came back into the picture I've done nothing but compare the both of you. And as a result, I've only come to appreciate you more. You and your infinite beauty, turned on and ready to go by the slightest touch, and then there's "him". Ugh, I don't even know how I survived all those years with him. He's so heavy and slow now. And not to mention how loud he is, always wheezing and what not. 

Anyway, he was good while he lasted but I guess I'm just glad I moved on. I'm glad I found you. And I thank you. All those late nights working together and you never complained. I know I can count on you always to be there for me. I know with you I've discovered the true meaning of love. I now know the true meaning of the phrase "Once you go Mac, there's no turning back"

Love you, always,

Carla

Written after assessing the quality of my "old" (3.5 year old) hewlett-packard laptop and finding the screen doesn't turn on. Then returning to my MacBook.

On Heavens' Embroidered Cloths

"Have I ever been in love?" he wondered, as he stood in the hallway by the mail slot, about to take in today's mail. He must've looked completely lost in thought, thinking about the world's problems and possible solutions, like he did most of the time. But this time the question on his mind was different, he couldn't remember the feeling of being exuberantly happy about entirely losing yourself to someone else. It didn't make sense to him though, for he had been in reasonably successful relationships a couple of times. But then what if that feeling wasn't there along the way after all? What then, would become of those 'relationships' he'd been in? He guessed they would have been mere manifestations of a rudimentary process evolution placed in his brain.
But if it wasn't 'being in love', what was it then? It didn't make any sense at all, since he'd been very happy at times when "he was with someone else", or, as his contemporaries put it, "his facebook status was in a relationship." He felt his thoughts taking a ride down to the badly lit quarters of Nihilism and Escapism, a feeling he knew all too well.
Instead of considering what Love And All His Friends were about, he continued doing what he came to do: fetch the mail and discover whether the reasons for this episode in the hallway were justified. His reason for freezing for a second, namely, was a small, yellowish envelope he saw upon descending the staircase. It was lying on top of some bigger mail pieces, probably paperwork for his dorm mates. He hardly received any mail at all, but when he saw the small letter prodding through the slot he immediately recognized his own name written in a feminine, but clear handwriting - this startled him at first, because his opinion of a woman's handwriting was this: they put such an effort in the looks that they rarely get about conveying their actual point.
He got out the mail and (not minding who it was addressed to) distributed it randomly over the pigeonholes right next to the kitchen door. Then he opened the door while firmly holding on to the small envelope and sat down at the table. After triple-checking that the name and address on the piece he was holding corresponded to his own, he flipped the letter over and carefully ripped the top open, only to see what he'd been worrying about confirmed.

What he was holding in his hands was a love letter, not such a cliché one with perfume, petals and all the ratzkaboodle, but a decent one. One of the kind that has a little poem at the top and a small body of lines written by a stranger who was throwing herself (or himself?) at him. He skimmed directly to the bottom, ceaselessly looking for a name that wasn't there. "Damn-it," he thought, "I hate the first guy that lacked the courage to put his name under a Declaration of Love and thus became the inventor of the anonymous love letter!" He started reading from the top, thoroughly now:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

- W.B. Yeats

Dear Johan,

This might come a little unexpected, I realize. But for a while now I've experienced an unexplainable feeling of attraction to you, I guess it's what they call 'being in love'. All I know is that I just want to be with you, though 'this' probably can't be, for you always seemed occupied with other things and were not bothered by girls at all. But I'd really like to meet for us, at least once, so I have the feeling that at least I tried.

If you like, I'll be at The Artisan (a restaurant on City Square) this Friday at 4pm and I'd love to share an English High-Tea with you.

Love.

All sorts of thoughts started running through his mind after having read everything. He read the Yeats poem a couple of times to make sure he understood it, and returned to the letter then. Yes, he'd love to have a tea, but what was there to become of him and this girl after that? A friend he hadn't spoken to in a while would've told him: "Dooood, don't bother about that, all that's future, think about the now, man!" But he felt that he should be thinking about the future for a second, because now he encountered a problem he'd been fearing since his last break up.

Everyone of Johan's past relationships ended more or less the same, he was still terribly attached to the girl, but then all of a sudden she backed out. Most of the time with reasons such as: "I still really love you but just don't feel that way anymore," or one that seemed violent at first, but gave more peace after a while "you're a douchebag." Put simply: he didn't understand a thing of it. And then there was this huge date-culture emerging amongst his peers. It was becoming regulation that people brainlessly asked each other out on dates, only to find out after bunch of nights in café's and each other's beds that they didn't like each other at all.

It didn't make sense to him. At least not in the way things such as physics and history did. "But perhaps," he thought while thinking about all this at the kitchen table, "that's the point of it all. That everyone has got a different attitude towards what love is about and that the best you can do is try to find someone who thinks alike the way you do." Still, he was fearing to see himself hear-broken in a while again. In order to prevent this, he'd promised himself a while back, he wouldn't just jump in brainlessly in the next adventure.

He put the letter back into the envelope and cradled it with him in his pocket for the remainder of the day, because it was starting to attain special meaning to him. Someone was interested in him! One side of him told the other not to bother, and the other told the one to shut up.

Johan went about his Thursday chores like he would've done on any other day. He was done with classes for the day, so he cleaned the house, made dinner, read the paper, read a book, played a stupid game on his computer, but during all this he was accompanied by the rich feeling of being loved and the strange fear of losing it. He still didn't know what he was going to do on tomorrow's afternoon. He retired to bed for now, to fall asleep surprisingly fast, to sleep surprisingly well. For the past months he'd been somewhat haunted by images of old girlfriends in his dreams with an intensity Dr. Freud would've found interesting, but tonight was different. He wasn't bothered by any dreams at all.

He woke up next morning, and as if by divine inspiration he knew what he was going to do. When taking a leak at the toilet while reading the headlines in the morning paper he fully realized it. He pulled a huge smile, threw the paper against the door and said: "yes, yes!" out loud, getting goose bumps all over.
So it was going to be The Artisan at four then. In a rush he felt a stack of problems falling down on his shoulders, what should he wear? should he bring something? a rose perhaps? Then he realized that all that would probably be vastly inferior to his actual presence.

He departed from the house to attend the two classes that he was supposed to be attending on Fridays. His professors were delivering interesting lectures and he was listening carefully. He didn't really understand the people that fail to focus whenever they're in love. All of a sudden a panicking thought struck him, what if she was right here in this lecture hall right now? He looked around carefully, in order to prevent crashing straight into someone's gaze that had been locked onto him for minutes. Instead of wandering around speculative paths in his mind he returned his thoughts to the lecture, where they stayed until the end.
When the professor had rounded up Johan went for his bike to make the short trip home. He stopped over at the flower shop to pick up a red rose. Oh, if only he could be the romantic he was now forever. Back home he wondered what to wear, not really knowing what to expect he left out most formalities and got out one of his favorite shirts and put on some easy pants (he often wondered why such a thing as 'easy pants' existed, it surely must mean there are people on the streets walking around in 'uneasy pants'). He thought about the high-tea, and how the Victorian English went about that. He didn't know anything about it, and vowed to himself to read Pride and Prejudice and Middlemarch and the collected works of the Brontë sisters soon. No matter how girly or gay others might consider reading such books.

His watch told him it was time to leave. He made some final attempts to put his hair in the ideal position, clutched the rose firmly in his left hand and felt like he was the happiest man alive. Happy, for having heavens' embroidered clothes spread out into infinity beneath his feet.

Who makes the Snow?

The Northern parts of Italy offer excellent opportunities for skiing and other winter-related activities. There is always enough snow to enfold your winterly plans under the clear blue sky. Just don't bring too much warm clothes, because during daytime it can get a little bit hot. Seriously, around midday temperatures are typically a couple of degrees above freezing, and the snow guns are never on. So here is my problem: how is it possible that the snow doesn't disappear with the continuum of clear skies and thawing? Or: who makes the snow?

There is a number of unconfirmed theories I employ in order to explain this otherwise hard to understand phenomenon. Some of them might be more plausible than others but I'll leave it up to physicists, meteorologists and Italy experts to pick the most likely one.

Julius is Wrong
For it is not very likely that the thermometers got fidgeted with, it would have to be the snowfall that I'm wrong about. It could be very well possible that it snows when I'm looking the other way, or that it snows at night. That the wind-streams are aligned in such a manner that it can't snow when the sun shines, or that the Italians employ a strange mechanism to summon huge blizzards while I'm dreaming of apfelstrüdel and bratwurst and wienerschnitzel.

The Mob
Or, imagine, that Italy's underground world has a motive to keep tourists coming to their ski resorts and thus can't afford the snow from melting away. They would have a very sneaky way to keep adding snow to the ski trails. But since they're under-ground already I figured it would have to be something like adding layers of snow from within the mountains. This would mean that every mountain contains a huge snow factory! Since this is a little contrary to what's taught in schools ("magma stirs within mountains") I might as well move on to my next, last and most plausible explanation.

Berlusconi did it
The prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, never impressed me as being a man afraid to take rigorous measures for rigorous problems. If climate change puts Italy at risk of losing it's snow, he just makes sure it doesn't! I don't know how he does it (with the entire army of Italy at his fingertips he might fill planes with snow and let them dispose their contents overnight, or he might call Superman to freeze everything up with his breath, or ... well, you get it) but that it's a brilliant technique is without a doubt. IPCC, Al Gore, eat your heart out! Take the Sconi-approach! Are you bothered by rising water levels? Just spoon the water away. Do landslides make your life uneasy? Grab a shovel and put everything back where it belongs.
What doesn't cease to amaze me though, is that people take the man behind all these brilliant insights serious.

Baruch turned his head towards his new neighbor and saw that he had wrapped his head into his collar up to his nose. When he breathed out vapor left his nose in curly shapes that somehow reminded Baruch of impressionist painters.

Taken from At the Pond by Julius de Hond.

Upon reading Julius' brilliant short story, I was feeling inspired.

At the Pond

It's a brilliant day of winter at the park. The trees are leafless, the grass is covered with snow, the lake is frozen and all the ducks are gone. On the snow-free footpath the old Baruch strolls carefully towards a bench, he sits down and takes out the sandwiches he carefully prepared earlier in the morning. After a couple of minutes of observing the park and the people and the birds that occupied it, a young fellow sat down right next to him, hands pocketed, sighing loudly. Baruch turned his head towards his new neighbor and saw that he had wrapped his head into his collar up to his nose. When he breathed out vapor left his nose in curly shapes that somehow reminded Baruch of impressionist painters. As he was wondering about Matisse, Van Gogh and all their friends Baruch didn't realize that he'd been staring at the guy for an impolite amount of time, this didn't seep into his consciousness until his newly acquired bench partner gave him a surprised look. Baruch, being happy for not getting a sneer, apologized: "Oh, I'm so sorry, you see, I sometimes get caught up in a long train of thought and then I'm not very much aware of what happens around me anymore."
"No, it's fine, really, I was distracted a little bit myself as well."
After a short pause Baruch estimated that his chances of striking up some conversation were considerable, taking the fact that his bench partner was wearing glasses Baruch drew the conclusion that he'd learned how to read. So he asked: "Did you ever read The Catcher in the Rye? By, oh what's his name again," he thought for a while, and after localizing the right spot in his brain exclaimed: "Salinger!! J.D. Salinger!"
"Yes I did," the young fellow replied while looking at the frozen pond with squinted eyes, "sir, do you, by any chance, have an idea where the ducks have gone?"
Baruch laughed, he laughed out loud, and said in a friendly manner: "No, I don't have a clue where they've gone! What's your name, if I may ask?"
"I'm Stephen," the young man answered. Baruch introduced himself as well and after Stephen removed his right hand from his pocket the two of them shook hands and exchanged a friendly smile. "Baruch, I realize this may sound a little bit off, but you seem like you know quite a bit about life, can I ask you a question?"
Baruch chuckled a little bit, because he was considered wise by a twenty-something: "I'm sorry Stephen, I'm in no position to tell you whether or not your assumption is correct. I guess there's only one way for you to find out, please, by all means, ask!"
"Did you ever regret the way certain things played out for you?"
"Of course I did, Stephen. I suppose you're not asking this out of a direct interest in the study of how to live, but that you regret a recent happening in your own life. Am I right?"
A little bit hesitating at first, Stephen looked at Baruch and answered in honest fashion: "Yes... yes, you're right."
"Do you mind me asking what you're sobbing about?" Baruch proposed carefully.
"No, not really, it's just that my girlfriend broke up with me a while ago. It's not like I didn't see it coming at all, she'd been saying she felt somewhat 'trapped' and 'missing out on things' for a while already. I still miss her a bit, but that's not my main concern, though..."
"Let me guess," Baruch interrupted, "you're concerned about the 'missing out on things', aren't you? Tell me you are!" Stephen nodded slowly, but confirming.
"Listen to me," Baruch continued in a convinced way, "I might be just an old fart but a few years ago I've been thinking about the opportunities I missed in the hundred years past. I thought I could have majored in much more subjects while at college, that I should have loved my parents more and that I should have visited more parties. But Stephen, as you keep thinking about the could haves and the should haves you only learn about what could have been, and not about what can be!"
"Wow, Baruch, that's a whole mouthful, but don't you think that things would've looked differently if I made some other decisions earlier on?"
"Yes, of course 'things' would've looked differently. But you would still have been you, and if you're unhappy with things now you also would've been unhappy with things in the ideal alternate world you're constructing in your mind. Argh, I can't say this the right way, give me a second," and Baruch closed his eyes and engaged in deep thought. Stephen looked at him and thought that the old man must be plowing through the vast cabinets of knowledge present in his mind. After a while, Baruch didn't have a clue how long the 'while' was, he looked up, and continued: "yes, do you know Tennessee Williams? Playwright with a troubled life?"
"Yes I might have read a play of him once, I believe."
"You know what he says about the 'alternative lives' you're considering in your head right now? 'Everything could have been anything else, and it would have had just as much meaning!' Stephen, it doesn't matter if you miss out on things others consider unmissable, just as long as you don't miss out on life."
The two of them looked at the pond for a while. Children were playing alongside it, families were walking their dogs. Everything seemed good, and both Baruch and Stephen felt that they weren't missing out on anything. After a while Stephen turned, and said: "Thanks Baruch, you are a wise man. I'm very grateful for running into you here but I've got to get to class now, alas. Err.. would you mind if I asked you one more question?"
"No sure, go ahead," Baruch enthusiastically spoke.
"What path is the right one to take from here to the college?"
"Well Stephen, don't worry about that, every path is the right one," Baruch said as he smiled, shook Stephen's hand and waved goodbye.

Baruch sat back, and smiled, for he had reason to believe that Stephen was going to take the right path, and become a happy man after all.

My Flatmate John

1-25-2011

Dear Journal,

Tonight I had dinner with my flatmate John. It's been a while since the two of us sat at the dinner table without anyone else. Usually our other flatmate would be there, or I'd bring a friend. Tonight everyone bailed out on me, so it was just the two of us.

Journal, John hasn't got so much to say, and to be honest, I've stopped attempting to strike up any conversation a while ago. I guess most people consider John a fuck-up, because, when asked what he does, he has to answer with "nothing". But while eating, in silence, mostly, I noticed that he at least combs his hair. Now, I don't even own a hair comb, so what does that make me? A student who doesn't comb his hair, I figure. But isn't that a very basic thing? Something that comes before civilization? Come on, I just use my hand to adjust the mop of hair that covers my head. It's like a comb consisting of five fingers, I thought while eating my cauliflower. I wondered if the thumb counts. I mean, it's much shorter then the other fingers, thus not very useful when combing.

Why is cauliflower named cauliflower, by the way? I know what a flower is, but what on earth is a cauli? Doesn't taste like cauli or flower anyway.

After some minutes I noticed that my plate was empty, while John was long from done hauling the contents of his'. I sat down and started to think about the advantage of a holistic approach to science, but I guess you're not really interested in that, so I'll skip this part.

While doing dishes I wondered what I'm doing here. I mean, I wondered - in general - what my current purpose in life is. Probably doing dishes with John and wondering about the combing function of my hand. Or would it have to do something with... what was it again... holism in science?

Nahh.

Love,
F.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

I looked over at him in disbelief as my thumb felt its way across the buttons of my remote control.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked.
"Most definitely." He said with a warm smile.

With my thumb in position, a deep breath, and another quick glance at him, I hit play, thus initiating the familiar eagle cry followed by the oh-so-familiar theme song. I looked over at him again, still in shock, as I took in the grandness of what was happening to me at that very moment: After a nice family dinner, I was watching The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert.

It's a strange thing, watching someone you usually watch every night...with the person you are usually watching. He's usually behind a screen, in a studio...and most definitely not in my bedroom. But there he was, suit, rimless eyeglasses, gelled hair and all, looking up at the TV, deeply concentrated on the report he was giving on New England seafood. And there I was sitting at my desk, watching him, well...watching himself.

"I get misquoted all the time," He said, breaking the silence.
"Huh?" I said, as I was clearly caught off guard.
"The media...you see what I said right there, some newscasters cut off that whole end bit in a segment they did about me last week."
"Oh. yeah." I said, still a little confused. "You must Google yourself all the time then, huh?"
"Oh yeah, we all do it."

The conversation carried on like this for a while, and as I listened to what he had to say about his job and his day to day life, I smiled and nodded. It was great having a conversation with him and all, but let's face it, I'm a pretty modern aged thinker, and because of that, I had only one thing in mind. One burning desire. Something anyone in my position would want to do: I had to write a tweet about what was happening to me. Nothing long or descriptive, that would be saved for a blog post. Just something short, sweet, and clever. I continued to listen to him talk as my mind blazed at a hundred miles per hour, I leaned back toward my desk, trying to hide the fact that I was reaching for a pen and paper, and as he turned away, I scrambled to write some words down, stopping and looking very casual whenever he'd turn back to me. Eventually, I was able to write something half-decent and once I got that out of the way and was completely relaxed with my new friend, the conversation turned serious as we decided to engage in a good old round of "Would You Rather".

"So  Stephen," I said and leaned back in my chair in confidence. I was having a conversation with one of the world's greatest comedians/TV personalities, and I was about to ask him the best question he was ever going to be asked.

"Would you rather date yourself, or Jon Stewart?"

And before I could get an answer or could even gage his facial reaction...

...

I woke up.

The Terror of Finals

So, how does a student, who's got a final in the afternoon, spend his morning? Noting that he's probably done everything within his power to prepare for the exam and that he's a little nervous, which caused him to arise from sleep at 6.30 AM, thereby lengthening the endless morning with at least an hour and a half. What does he do?

He gets out of bed, starts up his computer and says 'Good morning!' to his housemates. The ones that are awake, at least. After the computer arises from the night as well, the student checks if his remembrance of time and location of the test is correct, a chore that is going to be repeated many, many times before time and place actually coincide. Relieved of the fear of corrupted memory he takes a shower and retires with a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereals behind his newspaper. Reading about worldly matters completely irrelevant to the upcoming final, he wonders if he'll have enough time to complete the test. He returns to his computer to check how much time the professors are going to give him, three and a half hours. Profound that the test is still going to be at the sports center, in the afternoon, he realizes that after the allotted time has tick-tocked away his concentration probably will be gone too. So time, at least, isn't going to be an issue.

'What to do next?' he wonders. There's an unread copy of The New Yorker right on his desk, so he decides to look for an interesting story. Voila, another half hour has passed. This is going good.

Hey, 'good luck' wishes from his parents. 'Perhaps I should send them an email,' he thinks. After thanking them for their wishes and having explained his activities of the past couple of days he wonders what he should describe next. The strange feeling he's had since the morning in his lower belly? He's still not sure whether it's a manifestation of the nerves or the remainder of yesterday's too greasy pizza being processed. So probably not. It's probably a good idea to check if his recollection of place and time still match up with the U's. Thank God, they still do.

Back to the email. What to write? Back at breakfast table, he didn't spill any of his cereal while spooning it from the bowl to his mouth. But that's probably not worthy to mention. How he spent at least a quarter of an hour drumming with his hands on his desks to an Arcade Fire song then?

'Bwuh, this is not going to work,' he thinks, whereupon concluding his email.

Only two hours left, whoa, where did that time go? He continues wondering about the best toilet-visiting strategy, so that he doesn't have to take a leak during the test. The second mug of coffee he just poured himself probably isn't a very good idea, so down the drain with that. Damn, now the drain is brown. After three flushes there's only some coffee left in the places where the sink is damaged. 'I can live with that, as long as it isn't going to live a life of it's own,' he thought.

Upon sitting down behind his desk again he all of a sudden feels a rush of fear about his Student-ID, because if he's unable to produce it from his wallet at the final everything is doomed. Where is it? The innocent wallet shows nothing but two bank cards, a credit card and a drivers license. After microseconds of panic he realizes he hid his Student-ID in another compartment of his wallet.

Just another hour. 'Perhaps it's fun to document this morning in written form, for the blog,' he thought, 'if I'd have lunch after that I'm probably good, time-wise, at least. Or I could check with the time and place of my test again.'

Becoming Harvey [Working Title]: Part I

"I think I might love you."

The words had toppled out of Sidney's mouth before she even had the time to register her decision to say them in the first place. The tepid cup of tea before her sat forgotten on the café table as her uncouth observance, for it had really been just that in contrast to the ever popular "declaration", hung in the air, lingering but pleasant. Her smile faded after a few seconds. Enough time had passed without a response from the receiving end of her statement for her to feel ignored and it was with caution that she finally raised her eyes to the gangly man sitting across from her. "Harvey?" She inquired.

She had expected him to be sitting in silent contemplation, smiling even, maybe. But his bespectacled eyes hadn't even lifted from his newspaper. He thoughtlessly ran a hand through his coffee brown hair and finished the sentence he was halfway through before sensing her gaze and looking up, his lazy green eyes expectant. He thought, for a moment. She had said... something...but completely absorbed in an article about a new Vermeer exhibition to be held in New York, the sound of her words, for they were always just sounds when he was engrossed in reading, had blended in with the hum and buzz of the world, ultimately proving themselves as inconsequential as the words being exchanged by the German couple at the next table.

"Did you hear me?" She repeated.

"No. Sorry." He lowered his newspaper enough to indicate he was paying attention, then slowly, like pulling apart velcro, peeled his eyes away from the article before him. She was frowning at this point. "I'm sorry…" he repeated, "What was it?"

Sidney was frustrated, angry that she had opened up only to be ignored, and words that had sounded serene and soothing moments before were delivered with an irritated tone, "I said, I think I might love you." She felt silly repeating herself, for the sincerity with which she had delivered it the first time had ebbed away with a moment's frustration. To be honest with herself, she barely believed the statement herself, but now that she it had been said, she stubbornly stuck with it. This was what couples did. They dated for four months, said they loved each other, and took it from there.

"Oh." he responded quietly. In hindsight, Harvey realized that this had probably been the wrong thing to have said, but her confusing belligerent tone, combined with his very real shock at hearing it, had made it the best he could do.

The cogs of his mind, which--if he thought about it--- were never really stimulated in her presence,started spinning, grinding against one another as he sought out a--a something that could have brought this on. He tried to recall what could have motivated her to take such a weighty step in their relationship, but couldn't pinpoint anything he had done to encourage it. No drawn out moment where he had stared into her eyes, held her hand and given her one of those smiles that insinuated he loved her. Certainly no moment where he had felt truly loved by her. He liked her plenty, but their relationship had been like one of those car rides you barely notice. You go through all the motions of driving: pushing the gas, turning the wheel, slowing down for stop lights, but do all of it with such mechanical apathy that, before you know it, you've reached your destination. In this case, destination "Lovetown". But no… the scenery was off. He had considered their relationship the blurred countryside one admires for the first 20 minutes of a drive, then grows bored of and ignores on his or her journey to something real.

Harvey furrowed his brows. He must have read the map wrong, must have missed the turn towards Exit 9: The Mutual Breakup. Now where the hell am I? He wondered, panicked. Sidney's expression grew livid, "Oh?!" She demanded.

"Erm. Yes. I… I just don't think you really love me."

The Midlife's Guide to the Appstore

A while ago my father stocked my mother with half of Apple's i-arsenal. As of now she's spending most free moments seated with either an iPhone or an iPad clutched in her hands, playing a game. I've noticed it's solitaire most of the time, I've never fully understood the need to count from A to K with alternating colors, but never mind that. I figured, now my mom spends so much time in the i-World she's becoming a pretty damn big expert on the goings on about the Appstore and the entire culture that surrounds it. So, I thought, as a service to her fellow i-Users I'd very much like to take the opportunity to present a guide with the highlights of the i-World, according to my mom. I asked her which apps are absolute must-haves and why. So now I present you with 'The Midlife's Guide to the Appstore' (not including the wide variety of solitaires i-World has to offer).

iShower
"Ah, this is such a nifty little app. It very much does what it's name suggests, actually. It enables the 'shower' function on your iPad, so now you don't need a shower anymore! ... a shower head at least, you need to hook your iPad up to a watter supply, of course. You'll need this special connector," she shows me a little white piece of plastic, reading 'designed for iPad', it's apparently been approved of by Apple, "it's available in the Apple Store for a couple of bucks. But it's really worth the trouble, now I can read the paper while taking showers. Or play solitaire."

Real Marriage
"This probably sounds like one of those Russian dating services that you see advertised all around the net, doesn't it? Don't worry, it isn't. Actually it's a lot more noble, depending on your gender and sexual preference it emulates a substitute partner for you. It's not a replacement or anything, it's just in case you miss your husband or wife. Whenever I'm on a conference trip and thus unable to spend the night being held awaken by your father's snores, I just enable the 'bed' function. This is quite brilliant, my iPad or iPhone is able to detect the moment when I'm about to fall asleep, and then it produces a loud snore, fart or moan. Just like the real thing."

iRon
"I realize the Appstore is pretty stocked with apps such as iHarry, iHermione and iDumbledore, allowing you to step into the shoes of a Hogwards character, but iRon is something completely different. In fact, it hasn't got anything to do with Harry Potter at all. When you launch it, it presents you with a terribly wrinkled shirt and a small iron that you can control with the touchscreen. I thought it was pretty nice, because, you see, after you moved out to go to college the production of wrinkled shirts in this house halved! Your brothers hardly wear any wrinkable shirts, and if they do, they wear them for a couple of weeks in a row, so that's negligible to what you supplied me with! As it turns out I quite like to iron my family's shirts! So now I can iron all I want, iron in the train, iron in the car, with the help of iShower I can even iron under the shower. They also have a paid version, I believe it's available for $7.99 or something, anyway, it contains different iron designs and irons with a steam function."

YOE
"I'm not quite sure how this landed on my devices, but YOE is short for Your Own Edward and it pretty much does what it says. It provides you with your own Edward," I must've been looking a bit confused, because she directly explained herself, "Edward Cullen, of course. Your own Edward Cullen. You know, from that lengthy estrogenic novel with an apple on the cover. But anyway, this app allows you to find out what your life would be like if you were spending it with a vampire. Here look at this," she shows me the application on her iPad, taps a few buttons, and then explains, "I'm going to hit the 'get into trouble' button, so now there are mobsters on my screen trying to do me harm. Perhaps I can enable the sound if I can find the switch, ah here it is, listen, they're really bothering me. Okay, now look at that street corner, wait a second... a little longer... there he is! You see that Volvo approaching? That's him!"

Upon composing this guide I started to question the usability of the apps listed. In fact, I have reason to believe most of them are mere substitutes for something that's available outside the i-World, and thus aren't that useful after all. But who am I to judge? I don't even own an iPhone or iPad, and my iPod is filled with music only... though I think I might be going to give Your Own Edward a spin.

Bye, bye, SF

My dear SuperForest,

I'm writing you this in great pain, for I don't know how I'm going to tell you this. For the past while I feel like our relationship (which meant, and still means, a lot to me) has changed. I'd ascribe it to a change of interests, it seems that the ones we shared sort of leaked away at your end of the cable. But that's fine, I guess it's just the way some things turn out.

For some time now I've been feeling alienated from you. You probably didn't notice this because you were busy with so many other people, so now I'm telling you. I feel like we don't share the same mutual mission in life anymore. It has never been my purpose to hurt you, and I hope you believe me when I tell you it will never be, but I think we might have arrived at a point where our ways must part.

Of course, I'll literally and seriously always be there for you. Whenever you need me, just send me a post. I hope that we can stay friends in the future, but I'd understand it if you need some time by yourself now. Just give me a shout and I'll be there for you. SuperForest, please don't forget that I still love you, and always will, just not in 'that special way' anymore.

Forever Yours,

julius, (with lowercase 'j')

P.S. I'm very grateful for all the things and experiences you gave me, and I sincerely hope that you don't want me to return them. You can keep everything I gave to you, I hope you'll use all of it to the fullest extent.

*