Updates proceeding smoothly...

Wow. I have made a conscious effort to avoid my own blog for a good while, mostly because my most recent writings came from a very dark period, when a certain psychosis gripped and overwhelmed my senses.

My - I certainly have a gift for vigorously flamoyant prose, no? Indeed, I will not delete, for I needed everything that I wrote, as part of my own cathartic healing. But to read the posts from even a few months ago truly surprises me. I wrote them when I thought I couldn't hack it - College, Relationships, Work, or living up to my own expectations of myself.

Now, do they make me uncomfortable? Abosuletly. I am surprised that the mind which produced that writing is my mind. But I also value that extraordinary passion which flows in words sometimes. If I could but harness the flow, maybe I could Write, in place of my vain wish to simply Have Written.

I won't promise to update any more frequently than I have been. But I shall deactivate this blog, for I think it's purpose is important to me. Perhaps to you. Maybe to everyone. I do not know.

But thoughts on contemporary issues in my own life have value, and so does the complex emotional context which surrounds my momentary actions. So I guess I'll see you soon.

Thirty days

It’s been almost a month since I last wrote anything here. A month not because of lack of time, or things to say: a month of attempted escape.

I came back to Duke, and everything began in earnest. An emotional roller-coaster, and a roller-coaster of responsibility. I handled everything so well, for such a short time.

Last night, I finally broke-down, and lost a great many things in doing so. My syndrome is the separation between who I am and who I want to be, and the symptoms are whatever falls between. Last night, the pendulum swung.

I explained to Mary Via the undercurrent that seeps within my thoughts, that robs me of my self. She had nothing to say. I wept inside as I exposed my anguish with a pain so deep it no longer reflects its own source, but rather represents the compounded darkness of my youth.

For that I think is it. Essentially, I was born a fragile personality, gushing with ideas and love and life. But my environment, the struggles, the endless struggles, they shaped me. I was not born a rational personality, I became one.

But what am I really now? I know I am a genius, though I suppress that truth because I cannot focus. I am unique, searching for a cure. I am so sick, and feel so badly always. But these I suppress with the Iron will that brought me here, that takes me from day to day.

I do not like living. Period. I go on toward an inevitable destination that feels only darker than that from which I flee. I continue to go through the motions, but each day they feel more put-on, more fake, more dismal.

I am a mind infected with an inescapable darkness, arrested by a terrible deficiency. I am no one. I am valueless. All those suppositions by which I propped up my fragile ego, my shattered identity, are gone in this world. I am not told of my value, greatness, or even measured by enemies who I respect enough to assume they must think me so. I am invisible.

It’s been almost a month since I have written, and a new intellectual honesty has gripped me. I am mortal. I am ambitiously mortal. And I will never have the medicine for my pain, because the cure means a sickness far greater than this.

A month since I have written no longer.

Returning on a jet plane...

Tomorrow I jump on a Southwest Airlines flight headed straight for Raleigh/Durham and with it, I face the challenge which will shape the outcome of the rest of my life.

Success - and I write my own ticket. Failure - and everything I worked for is lost.

I will finish reading Guns, Germs, and Steel tonight (thank god!) and will try to get to Akhil Amar's treatise on the double. My PDA, the Ipaq hx4700 will now govern my every move for the next 4 months.

Meanwhile, I have a DJOPA article still on the docket, and I need to schedule a ton of meetings for Project SKY.

I had a good and heartfelt talk with Toren. Everything is right there for him, if he would only choose to take it. He has the intellect, the reason, and the passion: but he refuses to embrace his greatest strength. His innate capacity for leadership - that all-encompassing devotion inspires - he never wishes to develop. He thinks his own greatest strength is a tool of trickery, a deceptive manipulation of perception.

It's a strength nearly every other man on this earth would kill for.

Mixed feelings abound as I had back into the lion's den. If I were to achieve all A's for the next 4 years, I could still graduate Summa Cum Laude -- a tall order if I ever pronounced one. Yet, the thought leads me down a path where I must realize a fundamental truth - I am going to college to learn, not to hone the other skills I so wish to sharpen.

I'm going to do both more and less in the coming semester - and let the more be great acts, and the less be last-semester's wasted hours. I will succeed - I have to succeed.

I also have to break to Samson that I'd rather pursue Soarsoft.org than The Honor Circle (though if he surprises me, then I will join him in the writing).

That's it for now. Duke beat the Maryland "Not our rival" Tarpins or whatever they are, today. Poor Carson Palmer may have lost his promising career in the NFL.

And I continue down my own path to nowhere.

Logging in

I've effectively surmised that no one visits ANY of the websites I run here at blogger.

That's fine... I suppose that's the way it is for basically everybody. I can't let that discourage me...

USC lost the national championship today, and I would be lying if I said it didn't hurt at least a lot. I don't know why: they're not my team -- but still, I hurt for my dad who loves them so.

I scored a great deal on E-bay yesterday, buying 10 hardrives at 9 GB a piece for $30 total - which means $3 per-drive. When you stop to realize that a hard-drive is one of only about 8 pieces (case, monitor, motherboard, chip, ram, hard-drive, gfx-if-you-need-them, cd-rom) required to make a computer, you can see just why no child should be without one. If every piece were $3 the entire thing would come in at around $25. That's it!

I emailed the National PTA and believe-it-or-not, they replied. I'm going to pursue that if I can.
Which, on the topic of Project SKY, I need to get in touch with Sam Miglarese and the central-campus housing coordinator to get this thing off the ground.

Improv has been a relatively quiet part of my life for the past 2 months, but I expect that to change. I love improv, but I need to take personal responsibility, and balance it with my other committments more effectively.

If I could figure out how to rotate a vector in such a way as to flip the i & j, I could be done with my first math homework. I can't believe I haven't finished!

Oh well. I still need to write my DJOPA article, finish Guns, Germs, and Steel, finish the new innoworks site (http://www.innoworks.org/06), finish SATgenie.com, and read the biography of America's constitution all before I go back to school in 4 days. It's doable, and I plan to do it.

Lo! If my grades were better, I could win the Goldman-Sachs. They will be next semester. I know they will.

Finally for this post, I've written a new resume - one I might use to find research positions over the summer. If you care to look, just click here.

That's it for today. Just remember, a watched bond never boils.

Welcome to los angeles

We traveled to the Southern California after my whirlwind arrival home for the Holidays, ostensibly to see USC play for the national championship. As my mother’s, grandfather’s, uncle’s, and great-grandmother’s alma mater, bright cardinal and gold have forever rested at the periphery of my engagement.

Of course, I thought I’d be attending the game in person. Sadly, no, my mother the great communicator, simply implied such so that I might travel here without much fuss. One of the many minor evils she’s perpetrated against me (and the rest of the family) in this life.

Nevertheless, I’ve taken the opportunity for free time and open space, to write, and get ahead for next semester.

Though I haven’t made a decision on exactly which section of Math 103 I’ll take, I have decided it will be a course on the docket, and I’ve begun the first homework’s for it. I feel so much more comfortable with the coursework now that I finally decided to apply myself, and really truly learn the math for last semester’s final. I’ve never seen math this way before—not consistently anyway—and it’s a real breakthrough. I’m now 1 homework ahead… I’d like to get a week ahead going into the semester (and be prepared before class instead of two weeks after).

I’ve revamped several of the project sites that I run, as I’ve decided to centralize all of them through this powerful blogger technology. Though they all run independently they are linked by the extraordinary freedom to add multiple content contributors and update on-the-fly. This will leave me with a great deal more time and less hassle next semester.

Particularly exciting, the blog that I always wished this to be has finally come online over at http://www.simplesimon.org. Until I register “thestemwinder.com” that will be the home of my academic musings.

On another note, the break allowed me the opportunity to read Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and I’ve vowed to myself that I’ll plow through Akhil Amar’s Constitutional biography before the break is done. Indeed, I’ve discovered such a need and desire to read in only the past 8 months: a desire I haven’t felt since the fifth grade. I love it, and the intellectual exploration it allows.

I owe two projects under which I’ve created a private deadline: SATgenie.com needs to be built, along with the new Innoworks site. Privately, I’d like to be a part of Innoworks, but mostly I’d like a friendship with Billy Hwang. I need a mentor like him, though I doubt such a relationship might ever come to pass.

I’m generating a business plan for Project SKY, and writing my DJOPA article which, thankfully, is finally taking shape (the article, not the publication). Anyway, we can do nothing but press onward in our endeavors I’ve decided. Life doesn’t end with a 3.5 GPA (It just becomes more difficult).

I’ve also begun shopping for PDA’s… if anyone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them in the next day or two, otherwise it’s going to be the HP Ipaq hx4700… She’s a real beauty (I’ve never been one for many small toys… one big one is always exciting though…).

Tomorrow we have a big New Year’s party here at Grandma’s, through which I’ll probably be unpleasant simply because I have so many things to do. Though, I find it perennially disappointing that no one will likely care or notice. My own private sadness I suppose.

In either regard, I’ve written far too much. Look for a couple more long posts in the next few days though – with all this writing, I’m becoming quite comfortable with them.

Play that funky music...

The end of the semester left me in sort of a funk, and its something in need of apology. Dysfunction: with grades, with people, with intellectual strife of my own making left my poor blog by the wayside.

I've created an official blog, the blog from which my intellectual outpourings might flow. http://www.simplesimon.org - A new playground for stemwinding as they say. Eventually that domain might get the old switcharoo, if I ever get around to buying thestemwinder.com which I'm putting off for whatever reason.

The end of the semester, unlike blogging, is an ending and unfortunately, a continuation. I owe more people more phone calls and emails than I ever have. Without a single class or grade in the balance, I feel like that very substance of who am I and who I wish to be now sits precariously.

When I came to school, I opted for the more dangerous road. I began a non-profit, a student publication, and hopefully a blogging/reading society. Meanwhile, I joined Techtronics, Duke University Improv, and the student Auditing Committee while doing biology research. With these committments, I balanced my classes.

The semester ended in shambles in every regard. I stole a 3.5 GPA after rocking my Math final - sad because I expected such an effort would earn me a 3.75. In Biology research, I never did see the Salicylic acid results repeated, while I never had a really funny show with DUI. Techtronics which had plodded along so well for so many months came crashing down in the final classes as the kids truly realized we had no disciplinary authority, and Project SKY takes flack from every side: left, right, up, down, and below. To top it all off, the Publication I originated -- it was my idea when we peel back all the layers, originally elucidated in a white paper I wrote -- suffers a severe lack of leadership. Everything is burning.

I suppose its safe to argue that it's no wonder I was quoting poetry as the semester died down. It's too much. It's beyond what I was raised -- beyond what I am capable of.

And so, in these hours I am faced with a choice - a choice I'd thought I'd made long ago. To turn back, or keep fighting.

Oh of course I'm a 4.0 student if I do nothing. No question. I walk into rooms and even the professors defer (which angers and annoys me).

People never understood - I was born with a curse unimagineable. I am given no clearance, and what for? Because people expect so much, and to be excellent I must exceed expectations others cannot even aspire to... and it makes me tired. And I cannot let out the emotion - I have no recourse, no strategy for doing so.

Ultimately, I feel like the things I do, the dazzling magics I perform are rare. So rare as to be special. But no one has ever called me thus. No compliments have ever come my way. I'm fighting for that one ringing statement, and with it a reason to live, and the comfort to die.

Tomorrow I leave for home

Tomorrow I get on a plane for home.

It's been a long and difficult semester, and blogging is tough. It's been almost a week since my last post, but I feel like I have little more to say. Then again, I feel like I could just keep writing and never run out of words.

I'm going to change this blog over to thestemwinder.com because I've decided I'd like that.

I beat the curve on the last two tests in math, one of which was the final. But who knows what my grade could be. We'll have to wait.