Brian's World

Want

So Katie’s really busy right now, I don’t have anything extra important to do so here I am back at the blog. I wrote some Digital Signage yesterday, its coming out pretty decent I think. Actually I have no clue, I can’t actually see what any of my code does to be honest. The frontend of the backend is being written by Mike DiTore, so my backend of the backend just does stuff, it doesn’t show you what its doing.. it just does.

I decided that time is no longer my friend, specifically the sequencing of events. A great example is summer employment. I applied to Tighe and Bond where my dad works to do some computer stuff. In the interview they told me March was usually when they get around to making decisions, etc. Well its the last week in January and they already made a decision. Typically I would be excited that I had something lined up.. but of course I now have to accept/decline their offer in a timely fashion.. again, not a huge problem.. except for the fact I planned on applying for Google’s Summer of Code project again. I know, there isn’t a huge chance I’ll get accepted, but there is a chance.. and I think spending the summer programming would be cool. GSOC, as I’ll refer to it, won’t be open until March.. which does not work well if I have to get back to T & B this week. Yuck.

In other news.. I’m defragmenting my external hard drives.. I just cleaned up a lot of junk and I imagine storing lots of video results in lots of unwanted fragments. Ideally I’d like to turn that into NAS unit at some point, but that will require a computer to serve as the controller for it. Likely a project I’ll put off until summer, where I’ll keep putting it off because my parents will coerce me into not spending my money once again.

As if Christmas couldn’t get any worse… I have recently received word that the only X-Mas gift I might have had hope of turning into something moderately decent has just washed away. I was hoping the whole “you can take responsibility and do something with it” mentality would work out but of course that was optimistic and dumb. I am no longer have a good day.. which I was actually trying to have today.

And as if I was having a good day yesterday, I continued to my mental debate of want, and how it might feel to be wanted. While I planned on dedicated an entire blog to it, I’ll just slip my thoughts in here. I find it very depressing to look back at my life and recall times I’ve been wanted or desired for anything. The most common example that comes to mind is relationships. I was most certainly not the coolest kid in school, nor was I trying to be. I recall several Valentines days where just about everyone would get flowers from a crush or a friend, even my friends that enjoyed reading as much as I enjoy computers got flowers. I got none. I recall a discussion with a teacher, Ms. Devine, who was trying to make those of use (there were 2) who didn’t get flowers feel less bad, by saying something like “In college you’ll make up for it.” That wasn’t her exact phrasing, but it was phrased in such a manner to make me believe that in college girls would care less about being cool and more about other things that I might be good at, like computers. While I’m only partway through college, my initial reports have yielded 0 results that could even be heavily modified to be correct. And no, I don’t mean to pull this entire blog into a romanic relationship thing, because I’m in a relationship with someone at the moment and I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else. Expanding out to a larger social setting, I’ve found I’m wanted for very little.. and I can expand this beyond the social setting as well.

There are very few tasks that only I can perform, and I’ve found I’m typically assigned tasks because of 2 conditions. 1) I’m there and 2) I’m capable. I’m never assigned tasks because I offer some insight someone else wouldn’t…. frequently I find that other people feel it necessary to fill in the insight for me, removing any chance of enjoyment. People complain why I don’t let go of certain ties to High School and the Tiger Times and the reason is pretty simple to me, those two entities are places where I’m asked to do tasks because no one else can, or no one else knows how. A great example is digitial signage, where I’m tasked with with writing Database interaction classes… its pretty boring stuff. I write SQL and manipulate variables that we (any by we I mean just about everyone on the coding team but me) established. No, I wouldn’t be the person who’s ideal for developing the user interface, and I don’t have the javascript skill required to create a well featured frontend.. but I feel stripped of my insight again, where others feel it necessary to do that for me.

This topic came about when I was thinking about desire, and how some people are desired by others, most likely to establish some form of a relationship. I wish they realized how lucky they are to be wanted, to know that if W doesn’t work out then X, Y, and probably Z are lined up and waiting. I have no such backup, hence I don’t let go to much. I try not to be a completely undesirable person. I maintain decent personal hygiene habits, I wash my clothes weekly, I don’t wear black eyeliner, and I try not to act completely scary. Yes, I am shy, and I’m generally not the kind of person that will speak to you unless I have some inherent reason to. I don’t these these downfalls break my social bank do they? I guess so… or.. more likely.. is that I’m missing something that is oh so terrible about me.

I recognize that females tend to be wanted more often than guys; regardless of their current status in any number of categories… and that’s not the type of wanting I have ever been seeking. I think an awesome piece of data to throw in here would be the average total carnation per female ratio, but I lack said data. I give poor advice when told about people having a crush on certain people because I don’t have any real knowledge in that field. I like one person, and I can’t say I’ve been ‘liked’ by any statistically large number of people ever.. where statistically large might be > 3. Maybe everyone had a secret crush on me and they did such a great job keeping it a secret I didn’t realize it ever… hrm… this doesn’t seem very probably now does it.

In conclusion, I would like you.. the reader… to think about who you are.. how many people have liked, wanted, or desired you at some point in your life. Then I want you to write them all a thank you card.. jk thats wierd. Then you should think about how you would be different if those people didn’t exist. Where would you be today, tomorrow.. and, more importantly, this weekend.

Part 2 of the 3 part series is coming soon.

Brian out.