Small.Island.in.World.Three

Got some SiO2 on my wafer-quarters. Except for an ugly bit of lint that got under an inconsequential area, they look o.k. Tomorrow some metal dep. Then the start of class times. Outside time-scheduled influence on my days again. I guess I knew the "find my pace at my pace" couldn't last. Unkind world.

Mood is barely better. I'm thinking I might just have to ignore it. "Time heals ..." etc. Or am I already doing that? I wonder if it is working.

Helpful reading. Like most ideas, it cuts both ways.

Among other immediate sure-things, perhaps it also explains the "objective" feel of certain thoughts. If one can assume a reliable conflation of "objective" for "inter-subjective". But I don't see why not, as we are likely to look with a human perspective even when we reliably feel we are not looking with our own.

B-day went about an A. Much thanks to all others for their parts of that.

Considered surrounding galaxtic cartography last week. We are a small part of something much bigger. It surrounds us. But it mostly extends out in a plane that lines up nicely with my horizon at dusk (as I type now), with the bulk of it to the south east.

Watched X-men 3 with some others on friday. Just like 2, I had appropriately low expectations for various elements, thus no disappointment. For other elements, I nurtured some expectations, and was not disappointed there either. For those things it passes as a good movie.

Then some holiday days from a busy summer that somehow seems to sail smooth (which could change at a moment). Didn't really think it was needed.

Made some use of the time to move Wallace (my home computer) to the 2.6 kernel. Been putting that off for a bit now. Happily, desktop user interactions have a bit more snap to them. Thank you linux kernel developers, you have an open invitation to hospitality from me. And thank you gentoo documentation writers for all your help on the matter. Still having some issue or other with opera stability, working on it.

Nice party on Sunday evening. And potluck on the unusual Monday. Such arbitrary things, these days. Imagine the fun and brain flexibility saved if we were to switch between various week-lengths in various years and/or seasons.

My mood moves not so well. Thought patterns seem like my neck of late; tight and ready to pull for ill with unexpected slight twists, or unexpected twists of slight.

29 is a prime year. The first of a prime pair. Something to look forward to.

Went to worship Thor, god of thunder, Bragi, (sorry B., rock seems to have as much thunder as poetry about it) and a couple of the muses (Euterpe and Terpsichore) last night in the form of Pinback (mostly because of their connection to Optiganally Yours) and Mary Timony. Mary has fun instrumentation/note chains. Pinback does good lyric rounds.

Dinner tonight with friends.

Throwing stark contrast between importance and non: Condolences to friend S.G.

First up, SketchUp is cool. (Wish they had a linux port.)

Second, having some stress related to the accelerated timeline I have laid out for this summer. Hopefully it will stay as neatly resolved as it seems to have quickly become. Flare-up then abrupt fix, leaving me feeling a bit bewildered by it. Should I have let it bother me so much to begin with? The disquietude was properly rousing to motion. So I think overall, I was right to let it bother "so much".

I channeled a distant Bowman's thoughts when I saw some cheap flip-flops. We'll see how that goes.

About that proto-principle. David D. and I had a nice converse about that some time back. Result: horse blinders. This is a fruitful depiction of the idea because it is nice and iconic. Familiar to most, the easy idea that the horse is missing the big picture. Because we see the horse's situation from the outside, there is amusement and also some sympathy for the poor creature whose mind would not be able to productively focus without its comfortable, imposed limitation. That we are the ones imposing the limitation on the other (in the horse case) makes all the clearer the absurdity of our putting the limit on ourselves. Add to that the twist that it is one's goals that cause us to so limit our own view, and we get something close to a finished product. "Don't let your goals become blinders." Also works in various other referencing forms: "that might be a blinding goal you have there", "you may be a bit goal-blinded." "Goalblind" sounds sorta like "Snowblind", the name of several songs.

Anyway, late now. Time to rejoin my regularly scheduled dreamlife.

The papers and I have succeeded. At least in so far as they are in. That is as far as I can carry them. Now they have to go it alone. They have their voices. Now they must speak.

Or something. I'm a bit un-fused from pulling that final all-nighter for the end of the semester. My brain-time for the day is a memory before 11am.

I'd like to think I can get something done on the master's thesis process today. Jump straight from this pan into that fire; strike the iron while I'm still used to the heat in the kitchen... so to speak. But I'd like even more to admit that isn't going to happen. So I think I'll do that.

Respite, relax, rejuvenation, reboot.

Not a great week for me in the productive department. Stuff related to the master's thesis has been stalled as I confront some papers for this semester's classes.

See that? I automatically phrased it as "confront". Not "write" or "work on". No no, I phrased it in a term containing some hostility, some opposition.

There is me. And there are papers. And we are face to face in a struggle.

Not a good way to see it. It comes from my previous, long experience with other papers. I find it all too easy to hold all that baggage against these current assignments. Or maybe, to use those current to reblame myself to those past.

Whatever. All that is distraction. Discerning the patterns can be done later. Now I need to re-view the current papers. See them in a new light that changes them from guilt producers in the now, to sources of future happiness.

Here is me. Here are the papers. And together we struggle towards a common goal. To find their voices and express them well. Together, perhaps we can succeed.