Hiking (An account of the 19th of January, more to follow)

So this isn’t quite going to be the long, leisurely post detailing my activities for the past few days that I envisioned it would be. I don’t have enough time for that tonight. Instead, this is going to be me trying to cram an explanation of why I haven’t written in before my roommate gets back from the shower and wants to go to bed.

It all starts with that hike in New Zealand that we’ve planned. 552 miles of roads, trails, and hard walking. This past weekend we began training. We hiked along a local mountain called Grandfather Mountain on a trail that I still can’t pronounce called Tanawha. It was 13.4 miles long, but the Blue Ridge Parkway (The only road access to the entrance and exit of the trail) was shut down due to weather. We instead parked at roads intersecting with the parkway and hiked to the trailheads, bringing our true total milage for the trip up to about 15 miles. We finished in about 7 hours, which would have been disappointing if we hadn’t been walking through 4-16 inches of snow the whole time.

I have never appreciated how quickly snow can obliterate the familiar like I did when we lost the trail. We had to infer the presence of a footpath thanks to minute variations in the curvature of the mountainside. A few times I worried that we wouldn’t find it again at all.

I also now hate ice with a passion. The number of times I almost fell and had to catch myself on my hands (My forearms still haven’t forgiven me) is a cogent reminder not to underestimate water in its solid form, especially when you have to cross stepping-stones through a stream.

The hike was fun. There are few other words that feel appropriate. When I decided to come to school here at Appalachian State University, many people asked me what outdoorsy activity had drawn me up there. My default response was hiking, because I’d done it in Boy Scouts and generally had enjoyed it. I didn’t even come close to loving it as much as I do now though.

I like the feeling of independence that comes with it. You’re out there surviving on what you have on your back, running under the power of your own body. There’s a certain romance to it that I just love. It really reminds me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, one of my favorite novels ever.

Roommate’s back, so it’s time to sign off. Goodnight Internet.

Classes: First Impressions of the New Semester

This will be a fun semester, provided that I can keep on top of things. After the introduction to each of my classes I’ve realized that this semester may be far more work than I had anticipated, but very rewarding. For instance: my Genetic Algorithms class will essentially be a huge, progressive research project, but we might be able to publish a paper based around it. I’ve always wanted to publish something, and having my name of something academic like that (even if it’s not on the title page) would be thrilling.

My creative writing teacher seems very nice (she asked the library to order a copy of Noah Lukeman’s “A Dash of Style” for me), but I don’t know yet about the workload for her class. Today she managed to dig up some long forgotten (and rather unpleasant) memories about eighth grade and is having me develop them into… I’m not sure what. A short story? She hasn’t put all of her cards on the table yet. Honestly I’m just worried that I won’t be able to write about that period because of how emotionally raw and embarrassing it is. We’ll see.

I’ve spent more consecutive hours doing homework this evening than I did on any three days combined last semester. It’s quite the adjustment. I’m glad that I cut down on my other social obligations this semester to make room.

I tried Tai Chi for the first time this morning, and I really enjoyed it. I felt so sophisticated, and I finally understood all of the “shift your weight through the stances” jargon that is in every book/movie about martial arts ever. I’m looking forward to keeping going with that. Sadly I haven’t committed any of it to memory yet, so I can’t practice on my own.

I’m afraid the next few posts will be primarily autobiographical, as I’m still trying to adjust to being in class again and my thoughts are too chaotic for any serious writing or meta-writing analysis right now.

I wish anyone who happens to read this a good day, and bid the Internet Adieu.

Today’s First Sentence: I knew today would contain a few firsts, but first broken bone wasn’t on the list.

The Dirge of the Dead Lizard (To be extended)

My white tail flashes in the sun

Whilst over boulders I do run

Through coolest shade and scorching heat

To where the many rivers meet

We hide, we climb, we scamper

We dance, we run, we canter

Away from hawks soaring high

And arrows, arrows, from the sky.

I’ve spent most of the last two days hunting down lizards in Shadow of the Colossus. Why, you might ask? I have NOTHING to do. I’m really looking forward to classes starting tomorrow, because this is just agonizing. I know the homework will be rather unpleasant, but I can deal with that. Having a sense of purpose will be nice.

As for the above attempt at poetry, I have grown to hate these lizards with a burning passion. They’re a pain to find, a pain to kill, and the benefit for each one is negligible. It’s maddening.

I need to go to bed early tonight, so I’ll just end this here. Farewell Internet.

Today’s First Sentence: It was that fateful day on which I would develop my lifelong phobia of reptiles.

To Mordor

After viewing the video series A Simple Walk into Mordor three of my best friends and I decided to follow in the footsteps of the two intrepid nerds who journey to Mordor. If you don’t want to spend the time to watch the series, let me sum it up for you:

The film set of the Shire and the film set of Mordor in New Zealand are approximately 120 miles apart (193 km). Hiking from the Shire to Mordor takes approximately 7 days. The gentlemen in this series completed this hike, and additionally hid a replica of the one ring there.

My friends and I propose something slightly more complex, just for fun: a 552 mile (888 km) hike from the Shire, to Rivendell (A New Zealand national park), to Moria, to Mordor. This trip would take somewhere between 27 and 30 days. As we were planning to study abroad in New Zealand anyway, the only real change to our plans is that either before or after the semester that we spend in school we’ll be doing this hike.

As we’re not physically capable of a hike like this right now, we’re going to begin training for it next week. Like the Rooster Teeth group, we’re going to film the whole trip, although we will also be filming our training. We might eventually come to our senses and realize that we are attempting the insane, but right now we’re just going to go for it.

I intended to post this yesterday, but today discovered that it was just sitting in my “Drafts” folder on WordPress. I feel rather foolish about that.

On other matters, classes start tomorrow. I’ve got Russian II and three Computer Sciences Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The only one of those that I’m really worried about is Russian. I’m quite rusty since last semester, even though I fully intended to use Rosetta Stone over the break. It kinda…. didn’t happen.

On a brighter note, most people have returned to my dormitory and it feels wonderful to have everybody here again. I feel like the month-long break was too long, although that isn’t a very popular opinion.

As far as writing is concerned, I tragically didn’t write that short story over the break, and it’s my own fault for doing so, but I prioritized and spent the last few days saying my farewells to friends rather than writing. I do like the idea that I came up with though, and I may have cause to employ it in my Creative Writing class this semester. That class appears to be the writing and revision of two short stories, and I think I could probably use my previous concept for one of them.

Now, it’s my last day before class. What catastrophes await me today? I’m gonna go find out now. See you later Internet!

Today’s First Sentence: At first I thought that my pillow falling from my bed had awakened me, but upon opening my eyes I discovered the cause was far more sinister.

Aspiring to Counthood

I’ve returned to the land of college. You never really realize how much you miss a place until you return to it, and the same is true of the people. One month, one twelfth of a year, is a long time to be apart. I’ve been reunited today with so many people. It’s like parts of me are slowly reintegrating into the whole. It is sad though, because most of us aren’t here yet, only the college vanguard has arrived. They’re outside right now, cavorting, gaming, and having a fantastic time. I’d like to join them, but I need to write. I’ve committed to this writing daily thing, and I can’t let things slip this early into the semester.

I’m actually taking a creative writing class this semester. Actually working with an expert in writing is something that I’ve looked forward to for a long time, and after reading over some of the course material, I’m very optimistic.

My friend Jesse and I always ride to and from our hometown and our college town together, and we’ve been listening to my favorite classic work of all time as we go: The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. During the trip that we made this morning we picked my friend Laurel and needed to explain the story to her. During that explanation process I suddenly realized the sheer complexity of the plot of this story.

I think that’s one of the reasons that I really like it. The characters are connected together in myriad ways that are difficult to explain, yet Dumas does an excellent job of communicating their relationships, so that you don’t get lost easily once you’re immersed in the story. I’d really like to know how he does it. That’s something that I intend to look into in the near future: an analysis of Dumas’ style of characterization. From a research paper that I wrote during my senior year of High School I know that Dumas based his characters on some model that he developed from studying the works of William Shakespeare, but none of the sources that I employed for that work were very specific as to what this model was. Could it be possible to reconstruct it?

On a related note, I cherish an ambition to someday become a Count, mainly because of that book.

I feel the need to be with my Boone family now, so I bid you goodnight internet, sweet dreams.

Today’s First Sentence: I’ve never had a first day of class that wasn’t catastrophic, and today was no exception.

My Superpower

Looking at my Stats page on WordPress I feel bad for not posting for a couple of days. People have bene checking! That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Thanks to those of you who have checked up on me over the past couple of days.

The reason that I haven’t posted is that I have been feverishly attempting to say goodbye to all of my friends at home in preparation for returning to school tomorrow. I’ve been sleeping away from home and beating Shadow of the Colossus rather than writing on here like I should have. I did feel guilty about not writing though. This has become a part of my daily routine, and I feel weird when I go to bed without writing anything.

I observed something interesting today. Whenever I’m nearby, street lights have a tendency to change states. If they’re off, they’ll turn on; if they’re on, they’ll turn off. It happens all the time. Even when I’m walking across campus, lights will go off as I pass them. Could this be more than coincidence? Should I have the physics department check whether I emit weird electromagnetism? It would be kinda awesome if I did.

While I don’t seriously believe that my presence magically affects lightbulbs, it would be very interesting if it did. This also sounds to me like a short story idea. What if you one day discovered that you possess some power as trivial (and kinda useless) as changing the state of a lightbulb? How would that make you feel?

I know that this isn’t quite as long as my usual posts, but I really need to pack up my car now, so I’ll leave off here.

Today’s First Sentence: It’s amazing how your possessions slowly spread to the corners of the earth when you stay in a place too long, to the point that you can’t find a weapon when you need one.

The Seed of a Story

As this break draws to a close I’m starting to realize that I haven’t accomplished my writing-related goal for it. No short story has materialized over the past 3 weeks, despite all of my best intentions. I’m still hoping to write it before returning to school, but I don’t have a lot of time. For now, we’ll try out a few character sketches.

I’ve settled on the name Edmund Reaves. Not entirely sure why, or really even who he is. As I discussed in this post  I’d like to write a story about self-discovery. Edmund would need to come to terms with something about himself, something that he doesn’t want to acknowledge. Problem is, I’m stumped as to what.

I could see a scenario in which Edmund is a stuck-up jerk who doesn’t want to admit some flaw to himself, but I honestly don’t know how to write that.

But what if he’s been raised to think he should be better than other people, and has to discover that he isn’t? His parents gave him some delusion of grandeur, perhaps even told him that he has special powers or that he cannot die?

Better yet, he could be a perfectly normal teenager, which means that he feels invincible. Discovering that you aren’t is quite the experience. A horrible car accident was my tutor in that department. I wonder how other people come to terms with their mortality. It seems like the kind of experience that everyone has sometime during their young adulthood.

Perhaps this isn’t stretching myself very much, but it’s easier to conceptualize him if he’s similar to me. Relatively normal childhood, supportive family, sense of purpose, destiny even. Feels the calling of a fate so powerful that not even death seems like a plausible obstacle.

As an added challenge to myself, I might write this from someone else’s perspective. Someone watching Edmund go through all of this. I’ve heard the writer’s maxim “Show, don’t tell” before, we’ll see how good I am at it.

This has actually been a very productive writing session for me. The seeds of this story have been planted, and I meant that almost literally, because I think the plot of this short story will revolve around trees.

Anywho, I’m off to read some. I’ve heard that writers are supposed to do that from time to time. Goodnight Internet.

Today’s First Sentence: That day I learned not to give girls bouquets of roses that still have thorns.

Perception

If you’ve read my blog before, you may know that I’m an avid knitter. Not the most common hobby for a teenage male in America, but not the most absurd I’ve ever heard of either. I’d like to write tonight about self-perception, and I hope I’ll be able to explain how that ties into knitting momentarily.

People have certain beliefs about themselves that define who they are. These beliefs aren’t quite so complex as you’d imagine either. I think that I define myself primarily in two ways: statements of being, and statements of exclusion. For example: I do not like mushrooms. I like Star Wars.

Or, on a deeper level: I am alone. I am not good with people.

During this whole “college experience” I’ve begun noticing and testing certain of these statements about myself, and I’ve discovered that a surprising number of them are false. For instance, I do actually like mushrooms. I’d managed to talk myself into hating them for several years, but they’re pretty darn good.

I’ve gone through many hobbies in my teens, of which making chain mail armor and being a blacksmith stand out most prominently in my memory. As far as hobbies go, they’re pretty cool, and they weigh in pretty nicely on the manliness scale.

Problem is, I like knitting more.

Even though I’ve yearned to be a blacksmith since I was a kid reading fantasy books for the first time, it turns out that I might not be cut out for it. I’ve learned a lot from it, but I don’t love it and I’m not very good at it. If I worked hard at it I probably could become so, but why should I? I have something cheaper, more portable, and more useful that I enjoy more.

Even though knitting has all of that going for it, I’ve really wanted to abandon it in favor of being a blacksmith. Why? Recently, I figured it out: I wanted to be perceived as manly, and I didn’t want to accept that I am a knitter. I didn’t want to add that to my perception of myself because it didn’t strike me as being as “cool” as my other hobbies, even though knitting makes me happier.

I think I’ve safely navigated the waters of that identity crisis by now, but it’s still something that bears thinking about. Are there other aspects of myself about which I’m in denial?

I think that this might be a useful way of thinking about characterization for the purposes of writing too. Real people struggle with simple truths about themselves, so shouldn’t characters too? Perhaps I sense that short story in the works…?

Today’s First Sentence: I didn’t want to accept it, but the testament of the blood on my hands and the memories seared into my brain forced me to concede: I was a murderer.

A Colossal Task

So I’m thinking that I will finally start the revision of my 200-odd page manuscript that has been slowly mouldering in the depths of my hard drive. I haven’ t touched it for about two years, and it feels like it’s time. Over the past few weeks blogging consistently has made me write much more often than I have in the past, and has instilled in me some level of confidence in my own abilities as a writer. I’m finding it far easier to write, as though whatever muscle within my brain that controls writing has finally loosened up from years of knotted, tense agony.

When I was very young I wrote voluntarily, but somewhere along the way I stopped doing that and only wrote when people gave me reason to. My motivation moved from being external to internal, and I couldn’t really enjoy it anymore, even though people told me to keep doing it. It even grew to be an agonizing process at times, with me cursing myself for ever attempting something so draining and time-consuming. That’s how it was when I wrote the middle of the aforementioned manuscript. I had to force myself to write, punish myself harshly for failing to do so and reward myself lavishly for success in order to keep going. That’s no way to write. I’m glad that I did it in hindsight, but I really hated it at the time. That’s why this new feeling of ease is so pleasant. I’ve never been able to write so easily in my life.

Enough about that, meta-writing is probably a dull subject to read about at the best of times, and 250 words is where I’ll cut that portion of today’s post off.

Today I spent four hours with my two best friends playing an old PlayStation 2 game called “Shadow of the Colossus”.  If you haven’t tried it, I have to recommend it. While I don’t normally play video games very often and I try not to talk/write about them unless I have an audience that is interested, this game warrants an exception.

The reason that “Shadow of the Colossus” made such an impression on me is simply that the world created for it is beautiful. You may have noticed that I’ve recently been investigating the components that create a good story, and this game provides an excellent example of a beautiful world. The characters aren’t developed — in fact nothing about them or their backstories is explained, not even their names — but the forbidden realm in which you find them is glorious. The story is about trying to reclaim the soul of a girl who was unjustly sacrificed. Nothing more is explained. You don’t know why Wander (the main character, we looked up his name online) wants to return her to life, nor where they came from. All you are told is that the place Wander has taken her has the power to return her soul to her body if, and only if, Wander can defeat 16 Colossi: giant beings of enormous power that somehow prevent the resurrection of the girl. I still don’t know the girl’s name… hrm.

With this relatively simple premise the game throws you out into a beautiful, highly detailed landscape (keeping in mind that this is beautiful for it’s time, it won’t amaze gamers employing consoles more recent than the PS2). The world is full of ruins, shrines, and incredible landmarks. You can sense a history to it, some kind of hidden story that made things the way that they are. Who built all of these ruins? Where did the Colossi come from? So far, it hasn’t been explained, and it probably never will be, but that’s part of what makes the world feel so rich. There is a history to it, even if you don’t know what it is. The story is engaging, and defeating the Colossi is challenging on multiple levels, but the plot is far from the best I’ve ever encountered.

I’ve come to think that the three most important elements of a story are it’s characters, world, and plot. This way of thinking about stories tends to factor out HOW these things are told to the audience, and just examines the bare elements themselves. Most good stories excel at two of these three categories, and the greatest literary works often exemplify all of them. “Shadow of the Colossus” has poorly developed characters, an unremarkable plot, but redeems itself with the quality of the world in which it takes place and the elegance of HOW these three are actually implemented.

And I’ve rambled on about this game for 500 words now. Sorry if I’ve bored you. In short: try it out if you can, it’s great.

Compared to most of my other posts this is already colossal in scale, so I’ll leave off here. Farewell Internet, I shall return.

Today’s First Sentence: I never would have guessed that my glasses case is bullet-proof.

Note: I feel like this first sentence is grammatically incorrect, but I like it better as is. If you can actually tell me how it is incorrect I’d appreciate it. Grammar is not my strong suit.

Advanced Torture Techniques

I chose the title of this post because of my experiences this morning. Interestingly, the torture that I refer to is nonmalicious torture. How such a thing can exist is a mystery to me, so I assume that it relatively recently branched off of torture’s evolutionary tree and can therefore safely be called “Advanced.”

This 20 hour sleep study has been rather unpleasant. The Sleep Techs (I do like the name of their position) have done their best to make me comfortable, but they can’t make the electrodes attached to every part of my body any more comfortable.

After spending 45 minutes being wired up last night I was permitted to go to sleep. Except that I couldn’t. In a way, that’s a good thing, because they definitely got a good look at my insomnia. However, even after I think I normally would have been able to sleep the sheer alien nature of my environment combined with having tubes sticking up my nose made sleep virtually impossible. I couldn’t even toss and turn, because that would have dislodged something. Being wired up like this makes me feel like the following:

• Darth Vader (All of the wires connect to a panel that hangs on my chest when I walk.)
• Mewtwo (For those of you not familiar with the Pokémon world, Mewtwo was a science experiment whose first several months of life were spent floating inside of a plexiglass tube wired up to all kinds of instruments.)
• Neo (Waking up this morning with all of the wires was really disorienting, and at that moment you probably could have convinced me that I’d been in the Matrix.)

Also I feel disgusting because I can’t shower until they’re done with testing (Not until 4pm) and have taken all of the electrodes off. As showing is a crucial part of my wake-up routine, I’ve spent most of this morning in a mental fog.

Throughout the day today I have to attempt to nap 5 times. Fortunately, I have now completed 4 of those trials. During these periods I lay on the bed with my snake of wires stretching away from behind my head and try to make myself comfortable. Given how little sleep that I got last night, I’m surprised how little I have slept during these naps.

Have you ever tried to sleep and been unsure after the fact whether you succeeded. You remember lying there for a long time, and therefore assume that you probably didn’t sleep. That’s how most of these “naps” have gone. The annoying thing is that my Sleep Tech knows whether I’ve slept and asks me whether I did anyway. Clearly it’s a test to see whether I’m aware of when/how much I sleep. I see the point, but it’s frustrating to be in doubt over something so trivial.

***At this point in my writing I was interrupted in order to take the final nap. After that I couldn’t resist taking a shower and trying to wash all of the conductive gunk from the electrodes out of my hair. I’m not sure that I was entirely successful in that venture.

I think that’s probably enough of a rant for the moment. Thank you all for reading!

Today’s First Sentence: That was the night that I discovered sleeping can kill you.

Yes, this first sentence has a theme.