i went through a few different artists' discs last night before dinner... sequestering myself in my room with only one light on, listening to carla cook, rene marie, tierney sutton, sheila jordan...

it just made me sad.

at dinner, i really didnt say much at the table while the rest of the gang jumped from topic to topic, ever so animated, around me. sure, i started turning lisa's chili bowl into a cauldron of muck and condiments, which is always a guaranteed hit at any meal, but that's only ever a one-liner, and so i was soon back to slouching with my neck gently contorted so that i could pay my respects to cnn once my plate was empty.

so maybe i should not take five or six credits this semester? (which is one or two over the required ceiling for students... you can get the ceiling raised for legitimate pedagogical reasons, but its never encouraged) maybe i should give myself some breathing room for my giant development project and my music? i'll still be taking three government classes, jazz orchestra, tutoring ESL, and working for the CT Watershed Council come february. should i finally admit to myself that yes, jazz orchestra is a legitimate class, which is why registrar awards it a full credit for the semester in the first place? should i worry about my transcript this much? are the powers that be even going to see this as slacking? when i finally take the normal credit load for a semester (i'll probably ultimately take more however, because of another evening ensemble i'll be in, and i might do something vocally for credit again, i.e. lessons or a tutorial - these are all worth one credit apiece, just like any economics, english, or chemistry course at this school) will i be doomed for a life of failure because of this choice?

jesus christ, i have a problem. with myself.

i checked out an old diana krall cd from the middletown library yesterday, just to hear how she sounded before the label tried to dress her up in stilettos, pose for the liner notes, and make her just sing and not play piano.

watch your back, krall.

anyway. woke up in the pm today, with shame for doing so. will try to read today. will go outside... to get dinner? might get dressed, might not. also need to think about this credit conundrum.

hmmm... maybe its the way i spend my days that leaves me feeling so despondent.   ¶ 13:48

  hey, if you wanna hear me do my thing (two tracks - one is 3 mb, the other 4, and both are in .wma format), leave a comment or drop me an email.  ¶ 01:58

  i got destroyed by my economics professor today in antitrust.

it was kind of fun. i think taking classes heavily saturated in sarcasm and condescension could do everyone some good. especially when after spending an hour of watching his students cower under his glare, you're delighted by a quick crack in the devilish facade as he parts his lips as if to smile, only to see the good cop overwhelmed by the bad as the last syllable of "thank you" departs from those same grimacing lips. class dismissed - and i'm totally stoked for monday.

in other news, the can opener is mising from the kitchen, and so i spent twenty minutes kicking my can of black bean soup around the floor. canned food drives dont make too much sense to me anymore.

last night, robyn talked about fragility... spurred by the fact that after world war II the germans didnt have any operating form of newsmedia for six months. i think we all had a moment of honesty with ourselves after she said it, letting a little melodrama creep into our lives with the utterance of the word "fragile." of course, the conversation quickly turned away from there with the typical witty banter, and the moment passed. but today i was reminded of it in statistics when Professor Boyd illuminated the differences between reliability and viability.

in relation to defining democracy, and giving countries democracy rankings (Freedom House is an example of a group who does this that some might be familiar with), the ways that different theorists deal with data, even the same set of data, will be significantly impacted by their own operationalization of the concepts (i.e. terrorism=bad, and therefore no one wants to be labeled as terrorist, and democracy=good, and so everyone wants to be labeled as democratic... refer to this post from 12/4/03for an excellent quote from orwell on the matter). even though of the 10 or so different methodologies reviewed in the article we read for today all came up with relatively similar democracy rankings for their countries in question, we cannot allow ourselves to believe that consensus is equivalent to legitimacy. additionally, when most theorists will deal with the same primary data, rather than doing their own original research (i.e. accepting given numbers from the UN, WB, or other data-gatherer), reliability is most certainly guaranteed, but viability is always questionable. data is very fragile; statistics can really make or break societies. if freedom house does you wrong, who's going to give you a loan, for example? just a thought.  ¶ 13:38

  so it's been a long time since i last updated, much has happened, but nothing i necessarily want to share with the rest of the world.

classes started.

nothing in recent memory has been more exhilarating than trudging to class across icy sidewalks and through piles of plowed snow, grabbing a cup of earl grey and then taking the elevator to the top floor of the PAC, to sit around a table with my 11 fellow students and discuss our plans for writing the 70-odd-page-research projects that we've voluntarily applied to complete this semester. yayayayayayay.

i'm a nerd. nobody at home really believes it. but its true.

passion tea smells good.  ¶ 17:06