The Domain of Steven

Guess I shouldn’t bother at all.

It’s like whoring yourself out, but to promote democracy.

This was originally added onto the previous post, but the post had already been commented on, and this has enough to stand on its own.

I’ve sometimes tied my shortcomings to my overwhelming tendency to plan things out. This applies not only to situations that have not occured yet, but to situations that are occuring in the present. While a planned gift and speech can and has worked well in the past, many situations come and go faster than my brain can think through them. This is most often noticed when things of that particular nature are involved, because are not always so obvious in the signals they send out. The remedy for this would be, of course, to become more spontaneous and act rather than think.

But what would that make me? If a punk rocker was told that he would get more chicks if he renounced his punk-rocky ways, there would be a drastic change should he follow that advice. He would reshape his entire personality, changing the basis on which friendships had been formed in the past. People may have liked him for who he was, barring that sole personality trait. However, removing that trait created a domino effect that made a whole new person.

It’s all speculation, but for the time being, speculation is what I do. Even in a matter where speculation is the thing I want to get rid of, I’d like to make sure it’d be worth it. However, the debate stems from the fact that I don’t really know whether the change would be worth it in the end. I’m content with who I am right now. If I were to live the rest of my life the way things are going, I could manage and have a decent life. However, people are always looking for a way to improve themselves, and I have to admit that I’m no exception. The choice between this life and a better one isn’t really a choice.

Yet would that life really be a better one? It’s hard enough imagining myself being more impulsive (this was a start, I’ll admit). So lend me your thoughts on this. If I was to change, what kind of person do you think I would end up being?

They should really take the Random Blog feature off of Xanga. The results are disgraceful.

The result of the presidential election is almost as disgraceful. Thank goodness I’ve got a good buffer between myself and the draft.

This election has clearly shown me how isolated I, or Stuyvesant for that matter, or New York for that matter, am with regards to political views. Keep in mind that I have few political views as it is, but I haven’t taken a liking to the ways of the hermit just yet. I hear chatter around the school and online, and I had gotten the general sense that Kerry was going to win hands-down.

I’m not sure whether to call it naivete, but I certainly got the wrong impression. Kerry won New York by a good margin, but it was much closer in other states. Granted, our ideologies differ considering we’re not in the same economic or social positions, but isn’t today supposed to be the modern age of communication? With the gluttony of information online, has anybody outside of New York bothered to watch something other than Fox News?

So now we see what a president who was shaky enough during a term facing reelection finally come into his true colors for a second term. We’ll see how America fares when another four years isn’t on the line. It’s just him and his aspirations. I don’t even think we’re part of the equation anymore.

On Friday, the two American Studies classes went on an almost-all day field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then Central Park. I found the MET to be as boring as ever, because we completely skipped the Arms and Armor exhibit in favor of the American art and furniture exhibits. Bummer. I still got to see naked ladies, but what about the rapiers, flintlock pistols, or shining suits of armor? No, Washington’s sword does not count.

And then we went to Central Park to understand what the fuck these stoned philosophical writers were thinking when they wrote the books we’re now reading in class. We got to eat lunch by a very beautiful pond, and we even enjoyed the strong winds and chilly air.

After eating, our teacher told us to meet at Bay Bridge in 20 minutes, but did not tell us how to get there. We had a map and an emergency cell phone number, but that was it. Due to my slightly faulty sense of direction, we ended up going southeast when we were supposed to go southwest (it’s not like we had a compass), and were promptly lost. We went in a circle, passing by a landmark we passed by 10 minutes ago, but Spiderman gave us directions. Yes, Spiderman. We had come across two horse-drawn carriages, the driver of one being dressed in a Spiderman outfit. He was very helpful, and though we were tempted to pay him to drive us, our limited funds made us content with being pointed in the right direction. We eventually got to where we were supposed to be, not being first or last, but being the only group who could say that Spiderman showed them the way.

I neglected to get a picture of Spidey, but these will have to do.

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I’m the last person to want to change their cell phone, but when one gets forced upon me, I can’t refuse it. Such was the case today. My mother went out and bought a cell phone from Verizon, and one came free along with it. The Samsung SCH-a650 has more features than my previous phone but not ones I would really use. There’s a planner (as if I have any plans to make), voice recognition (I’m not quite sure whether it picks up gravelly voices), a color screen (waste of battery), internet (it’s crap, and it costs money), fancy ring tones (they cost money, and I prefer the default), and games (they’re clunky, cost money, and waste battery). I guess my ideal cell phone would be one that I only had to charge once a year, with a one-line black-and-white display. *sigh* I haven’t tested out the battery life yet, so that may not be so huge of an issue.

It has a clamshell design, and though it isn’t any smaller than my previous cell phone, its screen is protected when not in use. My bookbag pocket has been made very dangerous because of the keys jingling inside it, so that’s a plus. Perhaps the only plus that I really acknowledge.

There are a few non-design changes that I appreciate. I now have 400 minutes to share with my mother, 6 steps up from my previous plan. She doesn’t use it very often. I get unlimited calling with her (though our calls are never longer than a minute), and unlimited night and weekend. I also get In calling, which means that I get unlimited minutes with other Verizon In users. I’m still gauging whether there are any people to make that a plus.

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If you want to know the new number, give me yours first . Or at least some way to tell you.

Gone Thursday to Saturday. Details once a drafting project and physics test fly over my head.

Me too.

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I still don’t have time for a real post, but the pictures from the College Trip should give you an idea of what transpired during my absence. It was fun, to say the least. Yes, even this was fun. Not to mention we had six CTYers including myself, two of which sat right by me on the long bus rides. Much random reminiscing and listening to the Canon. Though we’d always shut it off once the bus started showing one of the many Disney movies available.

There may or may not be a post coming on Friday, depending on whether he gets some action or not.

I will try to inform everyone that I know visits the site, but because some of you may be lurkers, I’m taking extra pains to inform you as well. http://www.alliterationabound.com/ will be moving to http://www.alliterationabound.com/ . Yes, it’s longer, but I’m willing to risk a greater chance of getting carpal tunnel syndrome for greater ease of typing as well as increased coolness. And the coolness factor is what this is all about, after all. I’m retaining the host, but switching from a subdomain to a domain account, and will subsequently have to alter a plethora of things to make WordPress (and Coppermine, for that matter) compatible with its new home.

So give me a few days to get everything running. This is the first time I’ve done a switch where I wanted to keep everything intact, and I may still goof despite directions. But now you know. *is absolved of all responsibility*

I will be performing the export of this site’s MySQL databases tonight, so anything added tomorrow and beyond at dreamer will not be at the new site. That means if you have something you want to say to me and to the world, but have it erased forever soon after, tomorrow is the perfect time.

Adios.

“…which is why I’m here.”

The move was performed by my host in less than 24 hours after I requested it late at night. The MySQL alterations were performed by me in less than ten minutes. I’ve got this domain for a year, so I’m here to stay.

Read the whole joke.

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The original assignment was to create a to-scale floor plan of three rooms in your house. My floor only has four rooms, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch. That drawing is in the upper left, and it sparse since he told us not to include furniture.

We then had to create a floor plan of a home, the only rules being that I had to stay within the limits of the walls in the previous drawing. In the upper-right drawing, I freehanded what would go where. Since I could put anything I wanted, anywhere I wanted, I had a fun (yet difficult) time deciding what the house would look like.

However, theory is not always what happens in practice, as I learned from the final drawing at the bottom. Giving lengths to everything came after I made the concept design, so some things ended up not fitting. Indeed, the house ended up being fully furnished but very cramped.

But I like how it looks, and apparently my teacher did too. I handed it in two weeks late, which could have amounted to a maximum of seventy points taken off, yet that penalty was totally disregarded and I got a grade of 105. Score.

Written in the style of Walt Whitman’s Oh Captain! My Captain! in the sense that it’s an elegy and it follows the AABBCDED rhyming format.

Oh Spider! My Spider
By Steven Li

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout;
Down came the rain and washed the spider out;
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain;
But it was far too late, for the spider had been slain.
He tried to climb high;
He tried to hide low;
But no matter where the spider went;
The rain was sure to go.

All was swept away in that apocalyptic flood;
It didn’t help that there was a torrent of mud.
No bird nor bee could manage to flee;
All were washed away in the now-present sea.
The spider fought valiantly;
A medal he could have won;
But his heart promptly ceased to beat;
For drowning was no fun.

First, the art.

Edit: And a little extra.

Then the literature.

This is my early New Year’s Resolution. I’m not going to think about her with lamentation anymore.

It’s an interesting title though. One almost doesn’t know which of the two I’m referring to.

And I always include a song with these kinds of posts, so here you go.