Pan’s Labyrinth

What an incredible movie.

Two of the most powerful moments in cinema in the final thirty minutes.

First, the doctor chooses a right death rather than a simple act of service to evil.  Sticks it to the captain and with nothing more to say picks it up and walks away, knowing it would be his final walk.  If you are not thinking of the meaning of life and death by this point in the film, something has passed by…  how can our lives be worth living if it has never been worth dying?  This is the same feeling I got watching “The War”.  Perhaps the best we can do is appreciate those lives given up as we live out the frivolity afforded us.  Perhaps not…

But of course, this is not the message of the film; it is the fairy tale, the real fairy tale that comes to a point as ofelia lies dying.  It is the truest fantasy ever put to film because we know in the end that it exists only in her imagination.  An existence in the mind of a child should be well more than is required for true existence, the way I see it, and that is the brilliance of the film.

V for Vendetta comes on next… a reminder of why some movies get 5 stars on netflix and others only get 4… but still, natalie portman is otherwordly

Decisions Matter?

I’ve gotten used to making transient decisions; one way or the other my life would go back to normal, or whatever, within a reasonable amount of time, and the road into the abyss of capital “L” Life still seemed to have enough switchbacks and traffic circles to take corrective action if necessary.  In other words, I’m not ready to deal with Major Life Events.

Such an event has taken place.  No, I must face the music and use the active voice:  I have decided what I am doing with my life.  Next year I’m off to pursue a PhD in mathematics and that’s that.  Five or six years in school, then post doc, then assistant professorship, the full professorship, all if I’m lucky.

Lucky??  I made this decision partly because the thought of my life playing out as the past two years, an annually skipping record, groundhog’s year of teaching ninth-grade geometry, was too oppressive to bear.  I continue to expound on the joy of the job to all who inquire, and in these days of graduate school visits, its been frequent enough to stick in my mind.  Will life as an academic be quantifiably better?  If not, then why take the pay cut for eight years or ten years or whatever it will take to make up the lost dough?  Ten minutes ago I was asking myself these questions honestly, but I think I do have answers.

First, the money is not the issue.  The pleasures I take in life; friends, music, food, knowledge, sports, sex, the outdoors; have little if anything to do with money.  I’m tired of being urged me to take the finance money, or whatever money, and run; tired of even bothering to give it an honest consideration as often as I do because I come up with the same answer every time; I just don’t care.
Second, more importantly,  its not a hamster wheel.  This school is different from other school, merely by signing up I’m asserting that I have something to offer; research is the name of the game now and it promises to renew itself as I uncover it; and ideally in the process renew me.  Yeah, there will be seemingly impassable chasms as I move forward; no one said math was easy; but I’ve always liked mountain climbing better than track anyways.

Bring it on.

Girls, Girls, Girls

Tonight I fielded text message from three different attractive girls who are clearly interested in hooking up with me.

This post will be about how I have been successful with girls.  It will be somewhat deceptive; there have been frequent and recent periods of my life where I would approach this from the opposite side.  Right now, I’m feeling confident, and this post arises from that. 

 Back story:  at the time of my graduation from high school, I had never made out with a girl, much less dated one.  I had some social skills, a large group of friends, but I had never transferred my social strengths into my relationship with girls.  By my senior year of college, I had only had relations of any kind with four girls, and my approach to each was not something I would recommend to anyone.  Then came Feb Club.

We agreed to field a competition.  A competition to hook up with as many girls as possible.  Yes, its the worst sort of thing.  To this day certain conversation with female friends become tense over the events of that february.  However, something important happened:  I made the decision that I would approach girls in unfamiliar situations and see what happened.

 That’s all it takes.  I promise.  You do not have to develop an alter ego that plays along with the standard notion of what it takes to impress a girl.  If you can carry on a conversation for over an hour in a scenario with drinks, then you can succeed.  And the easiest way to carry on a conversation is to be completely natural.

 I should try to post when I’m sober… I’ve completely lost my train of thought.

Its not how it seems

i have enough in me at the moment for a book worth of posts.  I still feel this is important, and I can’t say why I’ve been delinquint.  Obviously, drunk.

 I’m going to try to separate the threads into topics, and hopefully the important ones I’ll save for when I am sober.