OBLIVION III.1||if you would comfort me



TITLE|pattern
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
I didn't sleep at all last night - I spent the entire time procrastinating away my take-home exam for Discrete. I finally got around to it at 7:14 AM.
At first I thought I might sleep the afternoon away, what with it being Tuesday and all, but I realized I actually had a lot of energy. I ended up taking a nice little nap in a womb-chair in Mudd around 3:30, which was awesome.
I spent most of the evening in the company of Emily from Lambdha Union. We watched cartoons in her room, along with her friends Katie, Drue (I have no idea how she spells it, so I'm just gonna use this way for now), and Sam. Sam's this kid I saw once at a Kinsey meeting in the beginning of the year and then not really ever since then until Monday, when I had fourth meal with Emily's crew.
Sam and Drue and that whole crowd seem really cool. Apparently Drue totally hated me because of my association with Vino before (she was on a pre-orientation camp trip with Vino and thus grew to loathe her), but when she discovered that we really aren't friends at all (I think I've spoken with Vino once all semester) and that I also find her rather grating, all became well. Yay!
After cartoons, I accompanied Emily to math tutoring to see if I might want to get a part-time job doing that. I think I do. It seems easy enough, and it's certainly more money than I'm making now.
Then we caught up with Katie and Drue to watch Scary Movie 3 at the Apollo. It was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting, although towards the end it got pretty boring. And the format of all the jokes is still the same as back in the first one. Ah well; it was way fun.
And then I spent a few hours with Jake and Di, which was way rockin', even if they did try to use peer pressure to make me sleep.
Ah, moose...

I really like this sleeping pattern - sleeping a good amount one night, then not at all the next. I felt so energetic all night tonight, and now I'm definitely ready for bed, and it's only 2:13!

kodaikun 02:13 a.m.


TITLE|e.g.
Sunday, November 9, 2003
Saw Emm Gryner last night at the Sco. She was really, really good. And she came pretty much entirely because of Brad... what a cool guy.
I need a fucking job.

kodaikun 03:23 p.m.


TITLE|day
Saturday, November 8, 2003
I'm really upset with the Adv Calc exam - if I had had like one more hour, I could have done much, much better. I already had the problems solved, but I didn't have time to write everything down. Dammit.
In happier news, I went out tonight with one of the XY guys (Gabi) and a bunch of his friends. These folks all go to Case. We saw The Matrix Revolutions (I didn't pay! Hah, I've gotten away with seeing both of the shitty sequels without paying for them!) - it was just as terrible as anticipated, but it was also unexpectedly hilarious. The ten or so of us were laughing through most of the movie (me especially) because it was so ridiculous. The best part was when, in the middle of the final fight sequence, there was an explosion, and the fighting was so intense that the projector broke down! It looked so cool - the explosion of water, then the film degrading. Then the lights came up and we posited that it might have been a really clever ending. But no, it was true malfunction, and after a truly entertaining intermission, we got back to the movie.
I didn't really feel much spark with Gabi, but I'd love to have him as a friend. And his friends, too; they were really freakin cool.
I feel happy - I got out of Oberlin on my own and interacted with a group of people I had never met before and had a really great time. It's a delightful feeling.
Even if I did get a speeding ticket. Stupid Ohio.

kodaikun 04:23 a.m.


TITLE|storm season
Thursday, November 6, 2003
That's right, folks, it's storm season, and when it rains, it pours. I was talking to Jamin online the other day, and he inspired me to update my long-dormant online personal ad on XY. I now have two or three dates coming up. People from other schools are always good.
Of course, a couple days after I did this, a new player appeared on the field of on-campus affairs. More on that if more develops. No names for now.

kodaikun 1:00 a.m.


TITLE|bad poetry
Monday, November 3, 2003
Studies

In the late summer evening:
songs of crickets and young lovers,
green and violet perfumes, restlessness.
A blushing young student
looks to the sky
and away from the temptation.

His thoughts while watching the moon:
it is as though she reached
into her chest and plucked from her
a full-ripe tangerine
and swathed it in dreamsmoke
and hung it low in the sky
where only the gardeners can see it.

A furtive glance:
the other student,
hair pulled gently back,
sips at her coffee
and does not read her notes.

His thoughts while watching the clouds:
they are too distant like the mountains
and too blue to be believed
and she was not reading her notes
at all.

A furtive glance:
the blushing young student
is awkward and handsome
and entirely too interested
in moons and clouds and colours.

His thoughts while watching the moon:
it is like a second sun
that smiles lazily down
upon a languid happy world.

The late summer night:
songs of crickets and young lovers,
black and violet perfumes, restlessness.
Two young students, in their learning,
become scholars.

I am unsure about the title. Comments on my bad poetry, as always, get bonus points, which sometimes add up to cookies.
Some internal clock has broken; the springs are pushing against my lungs.

kodaikun 12:12 p.m.


TITLE|distinction
Monday, November 3, 2003
The contrast between my moods this weekend has been quite delightful.
I went canvassing again tonight, this time with this girl Claire from school. I only know her from U and Kinsey meetings, but we had the best time. It reminded me of going out with Ham or Stephanie or Sarah - everything we saw made us laugh. We just couldn't stop laughing. It was great.
Then I came home, grabbed fourth meal with David, and went to Di's room to watch cartoons with her and Jake, including the awesome "Huggbees" episode of Freakazoid that will forever remind me of Unky Skess. Then the three of us cuddled. It was really fun and nice. My life does not contain anywhere near enough cuddling.
Goodnight stalkers. And happy birthday, Kira! Wow.. our group has started turning 20... surreal.

kodaikun 01:27 a.m.


TITLE|yeah
Sunday, November 2, 2003
Fractionally less angsty. Mom came in yesterday - got Japanese dinner with her and grandma.
Coda: returned to Japanese place with Di and Meems because Di wanted seafood and we all wanted out of Oberlin. Di and I shared the most blissfully delicious lobster dish I have ever eaten. I thought I was going to die. In either the literal or the Monteverdi sense.
My room now has a sufficient number of lights so that I don't need to use the ugly overhead flourescent. Joy and warmth.
Winter's serving girls have already begun to leach the red from the world.

kodaikun 04:19 p.m.


TITLE|boo
Saturday, November 1, 2003
Happy Halloween.
For some reason I can not pinpoint at all, I am feeling angsty. And tired. And a tree bit my forehead. How annoying.
I may be devastatingly lonely at times, but at least I might get to sleep before 4 AM tonight.
I really miss Piya.

kodaikun 01:47 a.m.


TITLE|
Friday, October 31, 2003
I have come to the realization that warm, rich shades of red are sacred to me. It is a colour that, for a number of reasons that I shan't enumerate here, is deeply tied in my mind with lovemaking. No other kind of sex - I associate most sex with black, white, and wood-tones.
I've had a lot of opportunity to think about this colour lately because of the staggering beauty of the trees in Oberlin at this time of year. The leaves of the bushes outside South are febrile in their redness, and I can almost feel heat coming from them as I walk by. There are various trees starting a few hundred feet northward of these bushes whose leaves are a less panicked red, and these are the trees that give me pause. The multitude of reds in the leaves and the play of shadows upon them turns the trees into great gleaming gemstones. I walked out of Wilder this afternoon, got to Mudd, and just had to stop and stare at the gorgeous, perfect trees. The angle of the sun was also perfect.
Everywhere the campus is filled with the sacred clarity of the ruby. I often find myself feeling reflective and bitterly happy on looking at the trees. I wish the campus could remain this lovely in winter.
Tonight I went back and reread all of Stubble. I'd forgotten how much the style has changed over the years. I love that comic.
Whoa.. I've been reading some of these webcomics regularly for like two years now. Nuts!
All right, we can all see that I'm getting distracted. Time to cut this one off, stalkers.
Oh yeah, one last note... over the past couple months, I've given up on being offended by people using the word "gay" to mean "bad," since the word "bad" originally meant "gay." Funny how far our language hasn't come in the past thousand years.

kodaikun 02:53 a.m.


TITLE|return
Monday, October 27, 2003
Back at school. Already going to sleep too late - the price I pay for sleeping through most of the day on terrible airplane seats. I hate flying here.
I should probably archive soon, huh? I mean, I haven't exactly been writing tons this semester, but it's been like a month and a half since I started this chapter... ah well... for later, I suppose.
I was thinking the other night about how strange it is that I've kept up with this thing for so long. I'm not the type to keep so consistently to something that doesn't change and doesn't challenge me. And yet, while so many other people have stopped, I keep right along writing things. It makes me wonder how long I'll keep this up - end of the year? End of college? End of easy (i.e. paid for by other people) Internet access? End of life? I honestly have no idea.
Time to try that sleeping thing yet again.

kodaikun 03:01 a.m.


TITLE|leaving
Sunday, October 26, 2003
My fifth visit home from college draws to an end.
There was a big get-together at Nathan's on Friday night, where it was once again confirmed that drinking with the gang back here, especially Chris, is awesome fun, whereas drinking in Oberlin tends to be loserly and dull. Anyway, it was a fun get-together.
Went out to Torrance to spend time with Jennella and Ken today; we visited Piya and saw Kill Bill, both of which were worthwhile expenditures of our time. I don't see Ken much, but I like him a lot when I do.
My feet are soaking in a bucket of cold water; it's heavenly.
The same old facts about leaving home still hold true - how I wish I could take everyone to Ohio with me and make colelge a thousand times better; how I love LA in a special and unique way; how I look forward to going back to school while also looking forward to coming back here; all of these.
My life needs a change. I feel so ordinary at school: Living in a big dorm makes me feel somehow expendable, I haven't been writing as much as I'd like, I don't get out very often, there is too much routine, there are no interesting romantic prospects (and my suitors are every one of them unacceptable, for various reasons)... I want to get out on my own and just be for awhile, but I have almost three years of school left until that gets at all close.
I think I'm going to try to go more places on my own this semester - just get out and drive wherever the truck takes me and see if there is anything redeeming about Ohio other than Oberlin.
Chris, Ortiz, and Kyle came over tonight to watch Interview with the Vampire, which was a nice way to close things. I got to see almost everyone I wanted to see this week, and even a few I didn't want to see at all.
In conclusion, it's time for me to add more ice and eventually get packing. See y'all in Ohio, stalkers.

kodaikun 02:17 a.m.


TITLE|
Friday, October 24, 2003
Dancing tonight was fun... but it made me miss Amelia.
The air quality this week is the worst I can remember it being ever, and yet I still breathe easily. Unlike in Ohio.
Visited Patricija today. That was awesome. She's so cool. Also got Piya's housewarming gift. Way exciting.
I love the sound of an electric violin with a rock band. Thus, even though Yellowcard is piss-poor generic whiny pop rock, it's still fun to listen to.
Peace.

kodaikun 03:13 a.m.


TITLE|love and bad poetry
Thursday, October 23, 2003
I'm feeling very much in love right now. Not in love with anyone in particular, mind you, just generally in love. It is a very nice feeling.
My sense of early death is still there. It's like I reach out to the future and there is a wall in the way. Strange.
I saw Jason today. He looked good. Apparently he is a bit unloved as an RA, but I guess this doesn't surprise me too much. Jason's the really responsible type, and that rarely goes over well with residents.
We went to Gameworks. I won a plush monkey with velcro hands and feet by playing skeeball, which I hadn't played in quite a while. It was a great afternoon.
Jennella and I went to see Piya's new place. How exciting is it that people in the group are finally getting out on their own? I'm so happy for Piya. Her place is nice and her roommates seem very friendly.
I've been feeling so inspired lately - first Kimberlee's move to Scotland, now Piya's move to Hollywood... I want a big change, but I know that it's best to stay with Oberlin until I've finished there.
It will be sad when my friends start scattering to the Four Winds, but moreover it will be exciting, and it will provide an opportunity to make more friends.

Dawn

A disconsolate immigrant woman,
Dawn, wrecked and alone,
has the skies hidden away
in her peasant-skirts.
The World, in a grey languor,
half-lit and half-lidded,
does its damnedest
not to do a damned thing.

And, mother to a newly orphaned son,
Dawn casts off tears unwanted from her eyes,
and, unusually certain,
clutches her stolen prize, and,
endlessly weary,
awaits her distant solace.

And the World resigns itself
to half-light and half-shadows
once again.

I hope I can find the bad poetry that Pitas lost. I really liked those ones.

kodaikun 01:32 a.m.


TITLE|death.
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
In the past year, my sense that I was going to be dead by twenty-five disappeared completely. I started seeing myself at all different ages, and it was really something.
Tonight, for no apparent reason and quite suddenly, I went back to the old way and felt like I would die within a few years. It's a strange feeling, marked mainly by a sense of wistfulness and a tightness of the scalp.
I think it may have been brought on by the thought of leaving home once again at the end of the week. I had, after all, spent the evening with my dearly beloved friends (those crazies, Messrs. Matt, Kyle, and Chris), watching particularly bad television and that whole story. I went off to Chris' afterwards to watch Futurama before coming home. I swear, there is nobody in the world like Chris. I love that kid.
How did I end up so lucky? Why have I met so many incredible people? With these people in my life, I will truly be happy for all my days. I have so many good, dear friends that I can't keep proper count, and as far as I can tell, I'm going to keep on making more. Goodness.
Anyway, I don't think my certainy of an early death will last long, but it's hard to say. In the meantime, it's an interesting and refreshing change.

kodaikun 1:11 a.m.


TITLE|sad.
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Pitas, for the first time since I started blogging here, has failed me... they had some major hardware problems, causing everyone to lose recent entries. I'm kinda bummed 'cause I don't remember whether or not I saved one of the more recent poems anywhere but on Oblivion. But I think there's a rough draft in a notebook somewhere, so no big deal. I hope. Regardless, I'm not going to give up on Pitas just because they had a hardware failure.
That's all for now. I'm home in California and it's amazing. I love everyone so terribly much. I think that these days when I'm at home, I smile ten times as much as I do at school.

kodaikun 10:51 a.m.


TITLE|two years old
Thursday, October 2, 2003
Happy birthday, Oblivion!
For two years now, I have been keeping track of my thoughts and actions, loves and hates, rants and bad poetry, dates and friends and family, all in this blog. It has seen me depressed, euphoric, bitter, silly, immature, in love, insane, infatuated, introspective, at my best, and at my worst. Everything has changed in some way - friendships, friends, me, location, family ties, interests, style, layouts - and here is Oblivion, witness to it all. I believe that, aside from the change from California to Ohio, every change has been a good one in the end.
Let's look back on the past year... first semester last year was meeting people, getting drunk a lot, learning to cope with what Ohio weather does to my hands (it's already started again), lots of PIRG, that kind of thing. Winter term was poetry and dancing and drama and friends and home and discovering that my parents and I can actually get along really well. Spring semester was being a hermit a lot of the time, getting sick a lot, lots of time with Kyle and Tracy, Carter and Brad stuff, returning to math, and all that stuff. And the best part of the year was the summer, maybe my best summer yet: romantic intrigue, late night adventures, parties aplenty, Le Pig, Bjork, an easy relationship with my parents, and, above all these, rediscovering just how much I love each and every one of my friends. My life is full of love, and for this I am forever grateful. I wish everyone were as lucky as I.
Now that I'm back here for a second year, I'm missing everyone more, but that happens. I still love Oberlin, and my friends here are great too, and even if I never find romantic love here and my hands keep drying out and cracking, I'll still love it.

I was talking with Sara again last night, and she said she couldn't really picture me with anyone other than Dustin,and that when everyone was at my house for the final episode of Buffy, she could see how much we cared for each other just in the way we looked at each other. I've been filled with this warm quasinostalgic feeling since she said that.
And in a way, she has a point. I've thought the same thing in the past - that I wouldn't fit very well with anyone other than Dustin. It wasn't until I met Mike this summer that I felt anything like Dustin made me feel, and I suspect that part of that might just be that Mike reminds me of Dustin in some ways. But it would be dumb to waste my time pining over Dustin. Rare as they may be, there are other guys out there worth getting to know. Besides, things have changed, and there's no reason to think anything would work between us at this point anyway.
Wow, how did this blogday celebration turn into a Dustin entry?
Ah, love, you mad beast...

kodaikun 03:14 p.m.


TITLE|if only you could understand
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
For the first time in my life, I have found a truly worthy challenge: Advanced Calculus.
Up until now, I've gone through school without having to work too hard at anything; everything has always come to me easily enojgh that I had plenty of time to figure out whatever details I don't get right away. Philosophy reasons itself out in my head with almost no conscious effort, as do science and history once I've learned the most important facts. I absorb languages and literature, frequently without even realizing how much I understand about them until I notice how much my classmates miss. Math has always been like getting a good night's sleep to me: natural as breathing, easy once I get started, and very comforting.
300-level math is a different world. For the first time ever, I have come to know what it feels like to think so hard that my head starts throbbing with pain. What it feels like to be so mentally exhausted that I waste twenty minutes of a fifty-minute in-class exam doing absolutely nothing and not even realizing that I've been doing nothing until I look at my watch.
Over the weekend, I had a take-home exam. It was one two-part problem and one one-part problem.
It was also by far the most difficult exam I have ever taken. I put upwards of fourteen hours of work into that test, and I wasn't even able to answer all the questions.

I said to Natalie, "This is the most ridiculously difficult test I have ever taken. Young = evil."
She laughed and said, "And you used to love him!"
"Oh, I still do. Even more than I did before."

And this is why I want to be a math major.

There have in fact been other things in my life than math lately, but few of them have been as interesting. Hanging out with Jake and Di and the gang. Spending time with the Dasques, watching movies. Making ginger cake and vanilla frosting and wassail at the cake party last night. Getting SoulCalibur 2. Checking out Greg's house. Long conversations with people online, including the one where my mother told me, quite out of the blue, that my father had an emergency appendectomy on Saturday night. Morgan the Younger asking me out on a date. That kind of thing.
Time to go visit with the Dasques for a little bit. This is Andrew, still missing everyone and LA, signing off.

kodaikun 05:34 p.m.


TITLE|tralala
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
'Twas a good day yesterday. I handed out sexual assault information cards with Brad and Kathy in the afternoon. There were entirely too many bees, but it was good times regardless.
That night, I saw Underworld with Carter, Morgan, and David. Jake couldn't go, so I had to pull together a different crew. It wasn't too hard, happily. And I think that may have been the first time I hung out with more than two gay guys at the same time without getting annoyed by any of them.
The movie was awesome. I loved the colour filtering they did - dark and blue for almost the entire movie, except for the one memory scene. And the setup for the sequel was actually very interesting. I think I need to see this one again sometime.
Came back and went to Kinsey with Morgan, where there was some good talking. After that, I met up with Jake for some math stuff, but we didn't really get anywhere, so after hanging out with him and Natalie for awhile, I headed over to Dascomb, where I told the Midget Story. Everyone was very amused. There was much silliness had.
Next it was time to get the cake party going, since it was after all a Tuesday night. We got a whole bunch of people together, including some of the Dasques. I really want to do this every week, and start baking from scratch in a couple weeks or so. Cake mixes are too easy.
Today in Japanese, we were doing an exercise where a student would ask another student what he got from his birthday, and from whom. When asked, I said I got a shirt from my boyfriend, since I couldn't remember a lot of the things I got, and Piya's present was too complicated to describe in Japanese. I didn't really think anything of it at the time, but Ken came up to me outside class and told me it made him really happy when I said it was my boyfriend - apparently he feels really pressured to conform to traditional gender roles in that class.
Either there's something weird with my brain chemistry, or else I really lucked out with my upbringing (probably both), because I always hear people talking about how they feel pressured to conform to certain roles, and I have never felt this pressure.
After I accepted that I was gay, I pretty much stopped worrying about the topic altogether. It isn't that I don't recognize other people's struggles with homophobia or anything like that. It's just that I've never seen being gay as something to make a big deal about. It feels normal to me. It certainly isn't a big defining part of who I am.
This reminds me - in Kinsey last night, a lot of people were talking about how they feel this need to define themselves to their friends and families, to justify and defend their sexual orientation or whatever. It seems very egotistical to me. People tend to do whatever's easiest. This means that if a bisexual girl has a girlfriend, people are pretty much going to assume that they're lesbians; if a bi girl has a boyfriend, people are going to think they're straight.
I guess I just don't see why people care so much about what others think of them, but that's a tune I've been singing for a long time.
I'm out of steam. Perhaps some lunch.

kodaikun 11:44 a.m.


TITLE|dance for me
Monday, September 22, 2003
Oy oy, I accidentally backspaced and thus lost the entry I just wrote. Here's the abridged version of this weekend:
FRIDAY: Pirates of the Caribbean; too many shouting people in bad pirate outfits; Steve makes for a good movie-watching partner.
SATURDAY: Tagalog, Buffy with Frankie, dinner party for Jamin, I feel kind of on the outside, put off, and claustrophobic, Risk, I act obnoxious and upset Steve, I apologize, Ferngully, Hook, conversations with Leighton.
SUNDAY: Staying in bed through much of the afternoon talking online with Mom and others, various cleaning rituals, chattin' with Morgan, having a bitch of a time rearranging the furniture, dinner at Toŏo Chinoise with Jake, Di, Ale, and Meg, trying and failing to see Underworld with Jake and Carter, Smash with Jake, Hall Council with ice cream, study group, Clone High with Jake and Di, pillow fight and tickle war, late night music and fun times with the Dasques, President Tristan of the Dascomb Hall Council appoints me an honorary member of Dascomb.
K, time for sleep in my labouriously re-adjusted bed.

kodaikun 03:59 a.m.


TITLE|first real entry and bad poetry
Saturday, September 20, 2003
**EDIT - 09/21 3:46 a.m. - Fixed some typos in the poetry, and also did a little rewording.**
Hey kids. I'm up late and probably won't be going to bed soon, so now seems like the appropriate time to do the catch-up thing. As is traditional with these exercises, I will leave out a whole ton of things that I meant to say. So before I do that, I will offer up my thanks and adulation to Piya for designing this kickass layout. Thanks Piya!
I guess the best place to start off with is the first day I got here, which would have been Saturday, August 30th. The day before, I visited Ham and Bemma at Bradley, and originally I was planning on staying the night in a motel somewhere between Peoria and Ohio, but since it was Labour Day Weekend, the motels I looked at were all full, so I gave up and drove straight to Oberlin, getting in sometime around 4:30 a.m. I was so thrilled when I first got there that I got out of the car and pranced around the campus for awhile. Then I went back to Truckdor to get my notebook so I could write for awhile, but although I managed to get my notebook just fine, I locked my keys in the car. So, I headed up in a northerly direction, hoping that I could find Brad's car and leave him a note saying I had gotten in and to call my cell when he woke up.
Well, much to my surprise, as I was nearing Zeke, this red car passed me, which I first thought was Brad's. I dismissed this thought as ridiculous.
The car stopped in the middle of the road. It was Brad. He made fun of me for locking myself out of my car and then let me sleep in his ridiculously large room. Brad is the greatest!
For the rest of Saturday, I pretty much bummed around, since I wasn't technically allowed into the dorms yet. AAA helped me with my key situation, and since my roommate Dan was allowed back early, meaning our room was open, I was able to move a fair amount of my stuff into the room. Rather than run the risk of paying a 0 fine for staying Saturday night in the room, I slept in the truck, which was uncomfortable but still okay.
Sunday I was allowed into the buildings and all, so I got my stuff out of storage and moved in and rearranged the furniture. I also drove to Target and, inspired by Ham, got some camping-style foldy furniture for Dan and me, since the dorm chairs are uncomfortable and real furniture is contraband. Plus, I went to Circuit City and ordered a 19" TV that took about a week to come in.
I spent the next week or so getting used to my new classes (Japanese, Japanese History, Discrete Math, and Advanced Calc), not sleeping enough, setting stuff up for the U with the other officers, expressing irritation with the new oddities of the dining system, hanging out with Frankie, Morgan, and David (the three gay freshmen I talked with online before the year started), and moving my furniture around (I'm still not done; yesterday I came up with an idea that would require about three hours of moving around but that would make the room feel more open).
Sometime that week, like Tuesday, I went to a party with Andy and Brad and Claire and Kathy and a bunch of other people. I got rum-tipsy, which was the most unenjoyable drunk I have ever experienced. Also, I had to wait for ages while Downtown Pizza ignored my order and then, finally, got on top of things.
That weekend, I went to a house party, and I think that was about all the house party I'll be needing from Oberlin this semester. There were too many boringly drunk people, and I was barely drunk, and first-years were molesting me, and it just wasn't very fun. I think I'm just going to have to accept the fact that drinking here will probably never be as fun as drinking with Chris and the gang back home.
I have also slowly been dropping my involvement with PIRG. It doesn't seem as organized this year as it was last year, and I don't like the way they try to guilt people into doing things even after the people have already said they can't. It's an annoying methodology, and it doesn't inspire loyalty to the group.
The downside to this is that I haven't gotten to see Paul as much as I would like, but so it goes.
Jake and Natalie are both in Calc with me, which is great. We get together and study (moan about the problems) on a fairly regular basis. Also, Jake and Natalie have gotten me interested in taking a semester in Budapest for math purposes. Hmm.
Speaking of Jake, I've been having a good time hanging out with him and his girlfriend Diana lately. They're fun and nerdy in a good way. We play Smash and watch Clone High and it's all good.
Oh yeah, I watched the final three summer episodes of The OC with some friends, which was good. Gotta keep up traditions.
During the second week, I started getting out of the room a little more, what with the U and ExCo Fair and other activities. I didn't eat very much either of the first weeks because I hate the new dining system and because I didn't really have anyone to eat with, so I was kind of a hermit a lot.
The hermit act works pretty well for me here, actually. I've got my stereo and games and fridge and computer and books all in here, and that suits me just fine.
Week 2 is also when I started hanging out with David and Steve and the other kids on second-floor-Dascomb. Steve has the potential to be a Chris- or Marc- or Kyle-style friend, which is awesome. I've been saying all along that I need more crazy straight guy friends here. Right now I'm in the awkward transitional stage where my brain is blurring together the different kinds of relationships, meaning that when I hang out with Steve, sometimes it feels like we're friends and sometimes it feels like we're boyfriends and sometimes it feels like we're brothers. Judging by the past, within two weeks I'll be mostly settled down on a healthy mix of the first and the third.
Steve and David and I got together and watched The Dark Crystal sometime shortly after I met Steve. Mmm.... Jim Henson. It's fun to hang out with those guys.
These days, I usually eat with the Dasques or with Jake and the gang. I'm still only at about a meal and a half a day, but it's better than nothing.
Ehhh, what else... David has a lot of movies and TV episodes on his computer, so the Dasques crowd into his room to watch stuff from time to time, which is good.
I'm finding myself bored more often than I was last year. I wish I had a good friend here who grew up in Cleveland and knew tons of cool places we could go. I want to find a cool coffee shop where I can get to know the regulars and stuff.
Basically, I want Oberlin to be a suburb of LA. Ah well. I've been visiting Le Pig's website out of nostalgia from time to time.
Some quotes from Brad and Kathy, because I just remembered that I had written them down and I'm getting AD/HD:

"Eat the table ones! Suck it!" - Brad
"Stop flickin' my sucked wafers!" - Brad
"I hope they stab your esophagus - like tiny men with axes!" - Kathy

Good stuff. Okay, I've run out of steam here, so I'm just gonna put up the bad poetry as tradition demands. Cheers!

Sonata

He sits on the couch
while I sit against it,
between his legs, between his arms,
his arms! that drape over my shoulders
and descend my sides:
masons but dream of such sturdiness.
His hands at my hips
-my head at his chest-
his hands at my chest and my neck and my face
but always his arms
that drape
over
my
shoulders.

On the street outside,
the slow, tired drunks
get ready to give up;
the night people
go about their night business.

Listen! The cars and the streetlights
are whispering at each other!

Thundersong

At first he doesn't recognize the
nostalgia of it -
the burned, blackened cloudscape,
eternally dead then instantly alive
with the furious warcries of
long-forgotten deities;
the jagged breaking mountains;
the desert wind,
voice of long-forgotten histories,
flame-bringer, drought-singer;
and above these all, the heat
as entity unto itself:
the everpresent embrace,
the death-whisperer.
The ecstatic silent heartbeat.

And then he dashes back
to the lonely motel room -
grabs a pen and paper and writes:
one name
and writes:
one name
and writes:
one name
in ink and tearwater
until both wells are run dry.

And, occasionally,
he writes the four-lettered sacrament.

That which plagues me

That which plagues me:
How do I name this
nameless torment?
How do I remove from my heart
this lack of ache?
It rests there, mouth, wound,
ulcer upon deepest tissue,
a foreign vagrant
that will not yield its name,
not one syllable.

Protect me from that which is unknowable,
and grant me the gift of naming,
lest I forget myself.

Amorphous

The child-death: I:
the nightmare dreamlessness
that burrows deeper in each lull
toward imagined self-delusion,
and the violet blooms of obscurity.
I, too: the straining wing
and wilting feather: I, prophecy:
I, symphony: I, sacrament:
the drowning tides with
which the deep gods
settle ancient debts: the
easy persuasion of four in the morning.

The formless dream,
moment and momentous,
shatters in her mind to sow the seeds of wisdom.

Hoo-wee! If you have anything to say about any of those, write me an e-mail or an IM or somethin'! In fact, even if you have nothing to say about any of those, write me an e-mail or an IM or somethin'! I miss my stalkers!
All right, sleep.

kodaikun 05:12 a.m.


TITLE|cake party
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
I'll totally get caught up on the past few weeks sometime soon. I just haven't had time lately.
Tonight, Christine and our new friend Sam were visiting the room, and I felt like making a cake. Happily, I was well-equipped for this, and Sam was totally on board. We made tasty white cake with the Fudge Supreme frosting, then went around South looking for people to join us in eating it. We found a good six people, only one of whom I had met before (that one was Mike the ex), which made for an excellent cake party. Hanging out with Mike was completely comfortable, which is good. We're able to laugh about the oddities of our relationship, and we both remember a lot of the same things from back then, so that's good.
I love doing this kind of thing. For me, college is entirely about spontaneous social activities with new people. It's what made Fairkid the best dorm last year - there was always somebody up and about, so there were tons of opportunities to have fun, so everyone got to know everyone and we were all like a family.
I found myself missing Fairkid a lot for the first two weeks. South isn't nearly as social a dorm, and with so many of my friends from last year gone, that is just unacceptable.
I'm doing better now, though - David, one of the first-years I was talking with online before the school year started, introduced me to his hall, which is awesome and social and fun. David and his friend Steve are quickly becoming two of my favourite people here, and I like a lot of the other hallmates, too. It's a damned good thing I met these people, too - I was barely eating before I did, since I didn't really have anyone to eat with.
On a closing note, I think I really am allergic to Ohio. Within, what, two weeks of getting here, my hands are already starting to get all dry and my whole upper body is itchy. And the stuff the dermatologist gave me is doing nothing.
Japanese chapter test at 10 a.m. I should probably sleep.

kodaikun 04:52 a.m.


TITLE|book 3
Monday, September 15, 2003
After several hours of archive work, I am finally ready to start writing in this. Except, of course, that after several hours of archive work, I don't feel like writing in this at all. However, despair not; I shall probably start writing soon enough.
I still haven't made layouts for the RoadLog or the PhyLog, but both are still on the way.

kodaikun 04:59 a.m.