I think my brain has exploded

It's amazing how the euphoria one feels can quickly evaporate into the anxiety of writers block. I have spent the better part of the last two days sitting in the library contemplating my next move as the minutes tick by and I get closer and closer to my deadline. I need to have this chapter done by Friday. I don't know if I can. I also committed myself to recording a conference here at MIT which will consumer both Friday and Sat. Actually I just emailed the guy attempting to back out of it. We'll see.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. My brain is mush from Friday. It all seemed to really come together. Now...I got nothing.

One step closer to the edge...

Thank god! Thesis presentations are over!! It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I went second, right after Ilya's amazing presentation on advertising and video games. I felt like a downer talking about pyschoanalysis and early video art. I also did not have a powerpoint presentation. At about 1 oclock the night before I realised that staying up all night just to have pictures for people to look at while I talked was stupid. I knew it was the right decision when I was able to fall right asleep. The day was long. I left for a while with the excuse of picking up software from IS&T. What I really needed was fresh air and sunshine. Sitting in a dark room watching presentation after presentation was a bit tiring. Everyone's thesis' sounded great. It's nice to see that we are all such a smart bunch. We never really clicked personally as a group. Or at least I didn't. I'm not much of a group person to begin with. And the fact that I have very little patience for whiney people who like drama prevented me from connecting with several of them. I think that being in a relationship put me on the outside as well. I had dinner to cook and laundry to do. I wasn't going to hangout in the student centre or shit like that.
Anyway, K and I and a couple others went to chinese food for dinner then headed over to one of the professors houses for the reception/party. His place was amazing. Large loft space with a garden. He also just bought a porsche. Just how much does MIT pay people? he also owns a townhouse in Utrecht, Holland. I didn't stay long. Had a glass of wine and bullshitted a little. The dept head came over and told me I did a wonderful job. The compliment meant a lot coming from him. I still go through the distrustful thing though. I think that people are blowing smoke up my ass. I might be a little too self critical. I thought I rushed through it. I read a paper as opposed to standing up and presenting.I didn't get many questions. whatever.
Lots of people asking me what I am doing now. I have no fucking clue. I hate that question. Look for a job, what the fuck do you think I'm going to do?? Idiots...
I left with Michele, who works at MIT. She came to the presentations just to see mine. I was very glad she did. It was nice. She's awesome. I've known here since I was an undergrad and doing a semester at MIT. We met up with C and his friends at the B-Side. Stayed way too late and got hammered. Ended up taking a cab home, not because we were drunk (although we were) but the bartender told us that they had been warned by the cops of roaming gangs of hoodlums who were going around jumping people and mugging them. As we both had our laptops with us we thought it would be a good idea to cab it.
Today I am tired and hungover. but will go to the library shortly to continue writing. William asked me if I thought I would be done by May. I said "hell yeah." There is no way I won't finish this shit on time. I want it over...Several of the members of my class have asked for summer extentions. I think that is a very stupid idea. I understand wanting to give yourself the time to do good work but come on. It is only a master's degree not like it matters.
I'm out. its coffee time. I am going to get the Eagles of Death Metal album today. I can't wait for the show Monday!!!

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Go Swiss!!

So it might seem like I have nothing better to do with my day than post here.
Well, I love to procrastinate as much as I love to inform.
And this has to be one of the better commercials I have seen:

Swiss hunks woo World Cup widows

Before this Switzerland always seemed boring to me.

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Eagles of Death Metal!!

I must post about my new favourite band: the Eagles of Death Metal. They are awesome and they are coming to the Paradise on Monday night!! The singer from Queens of the Stone Age plays drums and the lead singer looks like Freddie Mercury reincarnated (without the overbite).
Check out their website:

www.eaglesofdeathmetal.net/

IFILM also has a couple of their videos. Jack Black and the guys from the Foo Fighters make cameos. Fucking awesome. I hope to take pics at the show.

Rock on bitches!!!

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time wasting once again...

I am slowly recovering from a freakout. I had a bit of a freakout last night. My thesis presentation is tomorrow and I really don't feel prepared. I am afraid I am going to fuck up royally. I spent some time on the phone last night with S, one of my committee members. She won't be there tomorrow as she is in Philly attending a conference. She made me feel a little better and I managed to get to sleep last night. However, I woke at 6 this morning and began doing my presentation in my head. I decided that I would just get up and start chugging coffee and get my day rolling. I still haven't started. As most of you know this is my favourite method of procrastination.

Yesterday morning I walked around campus taking some photos trying to recover some images I lost in the crash. I might have to fly back to Paris and re-take all of those photos as well. hmmmmmmmm




This is Killian Court. In a couple of months (if I survive) I will be sitting here for graduation. Actually I will probably be counting the minutes until I have a cocktail in my hand as my family will be in town visiting.



This is the Stata Centre. designed by Frank Gehry. Cool on the outside but a pain in the ass on the inside. it is supposed to be an indoor town hall type space. There are never enough places to sit and it suffers from spotty wireless. I recently learned that there the shitty wireless was done on purpose. Apparently there are several "top secret" departments (I figure that they mean CSAIL which is the AI lab and not the Philosophy department, both of which are here) in the building and they were concerned that have too much wireless would make them susceptible to net break-ins.

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Are you there God?

I can see light at the end of the tunnel! I have finished chapter one of my thesis. It still needs tweaking but I will leave that for later. We went to the B-side to celebrate with some beers. The power went out about an hour into it. It was kinda fun. We ended up staying longer. It was like camping. Good times.
I bought C the new Tomb Raider game. He stayed up way later than I. I retired to read about 11:30 leaving him to his game. I don't even know what time he came to bed.
I mocked him for it this morning.

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New City simulation game.

New SimCity type game.
I'm not sure of the system that the demo plays on, probably PC and not Mac. Check it out here.

time killer and thought provoker

This is for those conspiracy theorists out there:

Click here

back to writing.

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life can be so unfair

So I am sitting here working on my thesis in the library and watching the world go by.I am sitting before some very large windows that look out upon Memorial Drive and the Charles River. It is a beautiful spring day and people are out jogging or walking along the river. There are sailboats drifting by. And I am knee deep in writing my technological history chapter. Am I bitter? You bet your fuckin ass I am.

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Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge...

oy, what a week I have had. Sometimes it doesn't pay to get out of bed. I am slowly recovering from a massive hard drive crash. I lost everything as my computer fall down, go boom. Nothing could be recovered. The only thing that I managed to save were several papers I had emailed around for feedback. So I am not totally starting from scratch but pretty damn close.
On top of this I discover that MIT had returned one of my student loans and now I owe them three thousand dollars. Nice.
I'm ready to kill some muther fuckers...
Its a good thing I posted some Paris pics here because those are all gone as well.
I don't know if I am going to survive the next few weeks to graduation. C and I are already snapping at each other. I'm being a nasty bitch. I know that. I don't have any other coping mechanisms.

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I'm a bad mammer-jammer right about now.

Once again it is time to procrastinate. I should be writing my thesis but here I am writing non-sensical bullshit that is completely unrelated. Past few days have been a blur. of course some of that is the fact that I have been spending way too much time drinking beers. I spend the days writing the the nights drinking. Throw in a little insomnia and you have one exhausted and perpetually hung-over grad student. Thankfully there is only two months left before I have to enter the realy world. Still no job prospects but I hope to turn my attention that way soon. I had my resume critiqued again and will begin working on the job-thang. Luckily it seems that the job market is booming. For once timing is working for me and not against. I have also started working on my tattoo again. I went and spent two hours stretched out on a table yesterday having my arm done. THis time I am going to get the whole upper arm done. He did the outline yesterday in record time. He wanted to keep going and do the fill in. By the two hour mark my hand was asleep and just him cleaning my arm hurt like a mother fucker. I was not about to continue. Next time. I am going back in a month. I have to say that the part I though was going to be painful (which was the underside of the bicep)wasn't at all. The part that hurt the most was the armpit. Oh my god! I was gripping the table with my other hand every time he did the lines up in there. Not good. I can't wait till he goes to fill it in. Thats going to be one special event, let me tell you.
The problem was that I haven't had work done in a few years. I forgot all about the pain. If you go consistently it's not a surprise. y'know? its like "oh, okay pain, I get it." and then you move on. I am very excited about it now though. It certainly is addictive. I hope to have the half sleeve finished before graduation. Its kinda like my gift to myself. And then I go and sell out and join corporate America. Which I am coming to terms with. I like the idea of making money and travelling. woo-hoo! sell out!! sell out!!
I can't wait to go back to Paris with an actual income. I can go shopping! Drinking, eating, shopping. life doesn't get any better than that. Who needs gods? And I say that completely aware of the Nietzschean connotations. I am fuckin sick of it. I have had all the existential self examining I can take. I need some time for good old self indulgence. A little ego feeding if you will.
I will post some photos of the new art work as soon as I get C to take them. It is still a little scabby and swollen.
okay, back to work...

If you...want to call me bay-by

ah, back safe and sound in good old Cambridge. it was nice visiting the wilder parts of Mass but only visit. My jaunt to Amherst was very successful. I was on the first panel and gave my paper first as the guy next to me was having issues with his laptop and the projector. I'd like to think my paper went off pretty well. I got a couple of questions and had way too much to talk about so I had to truncate my paper a bit. I wish I had brought my camera as there were some interesting characteristics to the town. I stayed with friends in the Grad family housing. It looked a bit like an internment camp. Un-attractive. But they only paid $700 a month with everything included. you get what you pay for. UMass was interesting. It has been a while since I have seen braided bracelets. It was like a time warp back to the early nineties. I expected to hear a Spin Doctors song at any moment. The town was chock full of bars, hemp shops and Jamaica themed establishments selling black light posters. And it was friggin huge! I don't know how many students go there but then when you add in the kids from the other five colleges in the area, that adds up to a shitload. I headed home on the bus yesterday and it took me four hours to get from Amherst back to Boston. I wouldn't have thought it possible to take that long going across the state but Peter Pan buslines managed to do it. We spent a fun-filled fifteen minutes at the bus station in Worcester. That was exciting let me tell you. I sat listening to my iPod and watched the chubby guy in the seat in front of me pick at the zits on his neck for the duration. I don't know about Worcester. What a shit-hole of a town. Totally depressing.
I very happily met C and his friend J at a French bistro for drinks upon departing the bus. Thankfully it is just across the street in the newly fashionable "leather district." A neighborhood that is not nearly as exciting at its name would imply.

long story short: happy to be home. we went and bought a wok today. I am very excited.

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Have you never been mellow?

Well, I am off to Amherst tomorrow. I am giving my first conference paper. I am a little stressed about it. I honestly didn' t think my paper topic was relevant to the conference topic. what the fuck were they thinking?
I would have been better off not doing this fuckin thing but what am I going to do? I am actually still sick after a week! Waking up with overwhelmed sinuses is getting really old. I thought it was the flu but it seems that it might be allergies.
In light of the wonderful weather today I walked around campus and took some pics.

This is the library at Sloan where I write most of my papers. This is simply because it is the closest to the house and there is a Dunkin Donuts a block away. It is also an example of the architectural style known as Brutalism.

This is Walker Memorial. The grad bar is in the front on the right. Six dollar pitchers of Bud. hmmmmm...beer.
The MIT radio station is in the basement.

And here is the dreaded Hayden Library. This is the worst library I have ever had to spend time in. It has a great view across the Charles but otherwise nothin...Bad uncomfortable chairs and no electric outlets, who designed this fuckin place? I have never experienced a more ill-planned library. god sarn it!

I'm out. I'll report back this weekend on my disastrous paper reading.

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Newport

ah. so I escaped to Newport this week. I came down Tuesday evening. My goal was to have 20 to 30 pages done. I don't have shit. well. thats not true. I spent the first full day reading. Not helpful. I was kinda freaking out at this point. I hung out with my friend L whom I haven't seen in over four years. He's a little odd. I love him to death but he is an older, single gay man who is big and burly. He obliquely talks about how attracted he is to me. Not gonna happen. But he is good for getting the green. So I got to spend the last two days reeling in the years, so to speak.
anyway. I decided that I would spend today just organising the data I gathered. It took me all morning and then I spent the day thinking about how to bring it all together.
Long story short, I have an outline with all of my sources coordinated with the appropriate chapter. HUGE!
I can actually write now. I would never have thought that an outline could be helpful. I have never ever down one. But with the amount of data I had there was no fuckin way I could have gotten through it coherently.
I then went and got buzzed and walked around town before dinner taking pics. Most suck but I kinda like the bluriness.
let me know if I should stop taking pics when I am trashed. There were many of them from Paris that will never see the light of day!
anyway. it is back to the real world tomorrow god damn it.
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My brain is exploding

ugh! today sucked so much ass. I can't write a fuckin thing. I spent the day reading and then went out for coffee. then lunch. then to a tattoo parlour. I didn't get anything. I had a consultation with the artist. He traced what I have now and will email me a drawing of what the entire arm will look like. I am investing part of my tax return in my tattoo. I can't wait to tell C. He is going to freak out! He'll huff and puff and then deal with it. It's pretty funny to watch. The first time I went to meet his parents he wouldn't let me wear a short sleeve shirt. He didn't want them seeing it. And it really isn't that big.
After that my friend L picked me up and got me a bit smoked up. I am pleasantly buzzed now. Perhaps I will actually sleep tonight. Don't bet on it.

I'm crashing. Lets hope I can put pen to paper tomorrow. at least in the abstract digital sense.

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here I go again on my own.

I am in Newport this week. I have come here to write and have spent most of the time reading which isn't helping very much. Well, its helping but in a writing kinda way. I am here blogging in an attempt to come to terms with writing. It has become very anxiety provoking for me. I am stressed just thinking about it. I need a ghost writer. Someone else to put words on paper. I can think them I just can't write it out.

god damn it...

I got nothing

I have decided that writing here is a good way to get started on writing a paper. I can ramble without any pressure to "write well" or something like that. I have set a date for my thesis defense. it will take place on May 2nd. I am to give my presentation on April 21st. I should proabably get started on writing the fuckin thing. but I wish to get Turkle's paper and the conference paper finished and out of the way. Clear up the brain space.
I accomplished a bit yesterday and met up with C and friends in town. I was going to see Andrea Fraser do a reading from her new book at the ICA but I came to the realisation that listening to others talk about art is probable the least productive thing I can do right now.
I went and bought the new Belle and Sebastian CD yesterday. So far, so good.
hmmmm I got nothing else. oh wait! have I mentioned lately how much I hate the fuckin libraries at MIT? I need a quiet place to sit and write and there is nothing. I invariable end up at the Sloan library which always empty as the Sloanies have better things to do than go to the library and read.

I'm out...

Calgon take me away!

I'm trying not to think about the next month and a half. I have so much work to do and I can't get started. Everytime I sit down to write I get anxious and stressed. I have several small things that are due and I can't even get to them. I don't know how the fuck I am going to write this beast. It is looming over me like a "two ton heavy thing." Its crazy. I feel stupid. Thick in the head. major writers block. I guess it is a good thing that I didn't get into a graduate program. I'd probably be completely insane right now. Well, more so anyway.
I spent the weekend in NYC looking at art with the Art Scholars. It was fun. Saw my first broadway show "Sweeny Todd." It was very good times.
Now, of course, I have insomnia. I'm not sleeping yet really, really tired all of the time.
I am currently writing here when I should be writing a paper.

blech!

Midnight, bored again.

Since I don't have anything interesting to write about I'm passing along a meme from this guy.

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.
L. Nathan Oaklander's The Ontology of Time "In the final section, I will mention some outstanding issues that still need to be resolved by each camp if they are to gain the allegiance of supporters." I'm a nerd. Leave me alone.

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What can you touch?
Absolutely nothing. Air, which is actually something but feels like nothing.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
The Simpsons just ended.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is:
Midnight

5. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?
11:58

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
The television.C snoring in the other room.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
I walked into the house at a quarter after 10. I was returning from class. See #13

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
Topher's entry.

9. What are you wearing?
Plaid pajama bottoms, plaid flannal shirt, black t-shirt with the logo of a noww defunct RI hardcore band called "Holy Cow" on the front. black socks with holes.

10. Did you dream last night?
I have to admit that Matthew Fox was in my dreams last night. nuff said.

11. When did you last laugh?
A little while ago during one of my favourite Simpsons episodes.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
A framed photo horizontal tryptych by Isaac Julian that actually belongs to the List Gallery at MIT. It is on loan to me until the end of the semester. A verical digital tryptych by my friend Natasha that she gave me for helping install her thesis show. A large South Asian themed painting that C used in his thesis production of "A Perfect Ganesh." A large multi-coloured painting which was a gift to C.

13. Seen anything weird lately?
I'm not sure if this is "weird" but I just had a night class/dinner at a professor's house on Marlborough St. It was a five floor brownstone that cost more money than I will ever earn in my entire life.

14. What do you think of this quiz?
It's distracting me.

15. What is the last film you saw?
I just watched the end of Philadelphia Story. C was watching it when I got home.

16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?
I would pay off my student loans.

17. Tell me something about you that I don't know.
I hosted a music video show on local television in Australia.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Legalise it.

19. Do you like to dance?
With the proper amount of alcohol anything is possible.

20. George Bush:
Trying to get the world to fear God as much as he does.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Zelda. (not inspired by the game)

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
James. What else is there?

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
It used to be Berlin but I have to admit that Paris wins by a landslide.

24. What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
Shouldn't I have gone the other way?

25. 4 people who must also do this meme in THEIR journal:
I'm not actually one for imposing rules.

When is summer getting here!!

It has been a while since I have posted here. I was overwhelmed last week with the College Art Association conference. It was an interesting experience. I sat in on quite a few panels and wandered the book fair. Didn't spend nearly enough money on books. I suffered sensory overload walking into the book sellers area. I have something of a book fetish and buy way more than I could ever possibly read. I only bought four books! I kept meaning to go back and do more shopping. In the end it is probably good that I didn't.
Anyway, I am getting a little sick of this fuckin winter so I am posting a photo from last summer. It is taken from Killian court looking across the river. I walk across this space every day and right now it fuckin sucks ass. There is a nice breeze flowing across the river, good times! My forehead cracks, my eyes water. I'm sick of winter god damn it!


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