So I've learned a few things...about myself. I'm still shy of intimacy and I'm still shy about a lot of things. But to tell the truth, I've been feeling a little detached for the past several years. I don't know what it's like to be close, even to my own family.

I just realized this interesting fact. I have not kissed a SINGLE person in over a year. This isn't a tell-all blog, mind you. I am tired of being alone. Not in the sense, you know, alone without a significant other. But I am extremely lonely in general. There's literally no one I can talk to in the afternoon, and I can go several hours without speaking a word. I'm unsociable at best. Always have been.

So...I don't know what to do with myself anymore. My days are spent volunteering at the "Obama place," although I don't particularly like Obama much. Better than mccain, anyway. What, he isn't dead yet?

Honestly, I need somewhere to go. I feel like running, all of a sudden. Where to? I simply have no clue.

I don't think I have many skills that would help me maintain a job, or even recommend me to one. Without a degree, I have to find some fuckin' super connections.

If anyone knows...or has any ideas...message. C'mon peeps. Let's hear it.

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Today was a fairly awful day. My refrigerator stopped working, so all my food was ruined. Now it's midnight-30 and I'm dying of starvation.

I hung posters for a political cause today in seven of the university buildings. Each had from 3 - 5 floors. That means we hit about 22 floors of bulletin boards, putting 2 - 3 campaign fliers on each board. I love political campaigning! There's so much to do.

I just e-mailed a new person I'd like to work for today. Current County auditor Jill Thompson is running for a seat in the Ohio house. I went to the election board to sign up, and she thanked me personally. She made a really good impression on me my senior year of high school when we visited her office at the courthouse. I hope she wins. She is sensible, meticulous, courteous, hardworking and very professional.

Did you know that it's proven if you show your Mac at some kind of affection at least once a day it's productivity rises 17%? Isn't that good to know?

Well, I tried, today. I know I failed a midterm. And I hope I won't flunk out this quarter. I am fairly certain I'll be on academic probation...ugh.

The thing is, I know I'm smart! I could ace every class under ideal conditions. But college life is so stressful for me. I'm getting silver hairs, and I just turned 19! My silver hair, however, looks so sweet and rad. I want all of my hair to turn so I could look like Storm of X-Men. It's awesome and metallic like my hair has never been. I want to have metallic hair.

Anyway, aside from hair, I just wanted to check in. I know I haven't blogged in a long time. This is partly because Facebook and 17 hours have eaten up my free time like no other. And I still have to clean my dorm in the morning in preparation for maintenance to fix my refrigerator, the overhead light, the mirror light, and the curtain that fell down. OU is so rickety!

I bought some sweet art prints at the new Baker center last Wednesday. One is of a cityscape, another of a lamp light, and the last a complicated sociopolitical piece that included elements of scenes of Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, KKK robed figures, televisions and computers, and a prominent portrait of Saddam Hussein.

That's all for now. I don't have much of a social life outside politics and classes. I'm not satisfied with my life right now, for all I've been torn up the last few months and crying myself to sleep at lonely moments. I noticed a comment today from Nov. 3 that I'd somehow missed. It made me so sad.

I found something of interest that is an object of curiosity and might hold symbolic value and may perhaps be an interesting way to, I don't know, make a lasting mark on a certain someone.

I saw Bill Clinton in Marietta! I screamed at him and his supporters. About 30 of us heckled him and his supporters. It was awesome.

Well, bed beckons and my back is KILLING me from being on my feet for four hours pasting crap onto hundreds of bulletin boards. FACK IT

When I think of him, I see a picture--two years old, maybe more--printed from the blood of a cheap ink ribbon, pasted into my diary beside the quotes I sequestered away when no one was looking. In the early-morning beer-hazed hours of New Year's Day.

Then I am lost, haunting the hallways of years past.

I feel soft, synthetic fibers squishing beneath my naked toes, as only soft, synthetic fibers do. I feel my heart shuddering, lurching forward, clutching at Cloroxed ribs, then thudding back in rhythm with every creak of the hidden floorboards, every shift in my home's well-fleshed skeleton. I can picture threads of sound linked to my mother's bedroom above. One false step, one abrupt jerk on the aural cords and the marionette will be activated.

With a gasp, I collapse onto my threadbare seat.

From my distant state of nervous agitation, I hear the Windows 95 start-up sound heralding familiar news. It's two o'fucking clock in the morning and your goddamned pathetic daughter is at the computer--yet again!

I flinch.

But this time, the guards are asleep at their posts.

I wiggle my ears into varying positions, feeling the skin draped over my cheekbones pulse in tempo with my attempt to hear any movement upstairs. It's hopeless. I can never tell the difference between the wheezing rattle, the dying breath of a fan and the freeze-dried ocean captured in that little black box, sent express from Sharper Image, to help my mother sleep.

The screensaver casts and impatient spotlight on my uncertainty. 3-D shapes gyrate around the login sign, occasionally pausing in their travels to point an accusing red triangle at my nose.

So I try to enter my username and password, but it feels as though I've jammed my fingers into the San Andreas fault. The energy of the earth's core, of all creative and destructive forces--not to mention my own melodrama--is being channeled through my hands. I am trembling.

Then the cacophony of modems chattering, gossiping, blathering makes me long to curl up in the fetal position beneath my desk. It sounds like I'm in the sixth grade lunchroom again, my name being chanted. That inherent urge to hide was never quite buried in the passing years. But as always, there's no room for me down there, under my desk.

He isn't here. But we're both insomniacs. He'll come. I'll wait.

We'll talk about free will versus determinism. We'll discuss religion. We'll debate the merits of Sartre and Nietzsche. We'll talk about books. We'll wonder about the true nature of time.

I'll whisper, "I love you," and only the computer will hear, and I alone will care.

And then I'll sleep, maybe an hour or two before school, trying all the while to turn a pixelized graphic into flesh, typed words into warm breath against my throat.

As always, I'll fail.

Today has been one of those days where you more or less lose. Mostly lose.

I got up early to take a shower and set the alarm accordingly. When the alarm went off, I went to check it but smack my head against the concrete wall hard enough to cry, which I did.

I thought yesterday was Tuesday, so class at 8:30. I woke up at 8:21 and I thought, I am NOT going to class. I had a huge headache and a hole in my vision.

When I wake up at exactly 3:55, I realize that class had begun at 9:10. And there was a test in that class.

I think I have to sign papers on Monday morning. I can't wait any longer. If I do it on Monday morning I'll have 24 hours to clear out.

I think I'll move in with my mother and stay at her place. She and my brother will be gone all the time and I'll be alone with my computer and no internet, so I might resort to walking around neighbors' houses and sit in the woods or trees or whatever and try to get a wireless connection. Or I could sit at the public library all day, which wouldn't be so bad except after 2:30 when the middle school kids treat it as an impromptu babysitting session. I daresay their parents do as well; it's safe in the library. Crime makes it in there, however. Let me elaborate.

--

I was filling out my FAFSA online a few months before my freshman year. (Long time ago, I know) I was at a computer terminal which for some reason was sunken into the table at a 35 degree angle with glass over the screen and a hood over it. Very strange.

There is a sort of area with two coffee tables and a few comfortable chairs around it. This is where the troublesome people gather. They are generally loud, obnoxious, vulgar and offensive. It gets to the point where the librarians have to issue warnings. The female librarians are sort of matronly looking and unfortunately these low lifes don't respect their authority. I honestly think someone is going to be killed in there. This is why.

As I was filling out my FAFSA and entering my PIN, I overhear a conversation. The participants were a younger man, maybe 23 who had obviously had a rough time. He had a very harsh and angular physique and tattoos on both arms. From the forearms to the shoulder. He was very menacing and argued with the librarians. I pretended not to listen.

As a concession was reached and the librarian retreated back to the safety behind the counter, I hear the man talking. He cackles loudly in an unrestrained manner that he had served in the Nelsonville correctional facility--a VERY harsh prison--for gang related violence and posession of a deadly weapon. Bragging. In a public environment. In a government funded building.

I tried frantically to catch my mother's attention. "Mom, we have to get out of here?" I explained in the lowest and most inconspicuous voice I could manage. "These people are killers!'

She obviously thought I was exaggerating. "I didn't hear them."

I finished the forms as quickly as I could and beat it out of the library with my head down. She was still in there, taking her time, doing what she felt like. I felt like every second was invited a more dangerous situation. I wasn't exactly scared for her, seeing as she didn't listen to me.

It came out all right, but I learned to be careful around "those types of people."

You'll find them in some places in Seohio. Young people with nothing to with their lives and nothing to show for it. Young mothers with three or four children in the grocery market. Men with decidedly unsexy five 'o clock shadows who are obviously users. High schoolers who look "tough" and dress in camo and hunter orange attire in everyday situations.

These people are to be avoided and pitied. They grew up on television seeing dirty professions seem glamorous; gang and mafia activity. They immerse themselves in cartoons or gaming in order to save some face and escape with little damage to themselves when all is done, although those are fewer and usually from more well-to-do families, or more honest ones.

This place is desperate, anyone can see that. Drive 15 miles into Chauncey and witness third-world poverty. Go into the trailer parks and more isolated areas of Vinton county. I've seen them all. In some places, the children of firefighters and policemen get "free lunch" from the public school systems because their parent's salaries are so low.

I think that I need to lie down now. Erase this day from my memory.

And I'm very, very hungry.

Signing off,

chix0r

Bwahahahaha! This 2 1/2 page section of my paper was written in less than an hour. I rock at writing essays. This may well be the last one I write for a long while. At least for school or a grade.




(My instructor):

Elena,

Wow! Good synthesis so far, and you're dealing very well with some of the
complexities inherent in the song and artistry.

My suggestions would fall along this line. You do a good job of presenting
nerdcore to your audience (and you NEED to do that, since not many people are
familiar with it) and then with dealing with the masculinity issues raised in
the specific song you reference. What I would do (after the introduction, of
course, that sort of illustrates your thesis) is introduce nerdcore as a
concept, then discuss its "viral marketing" to sort of illustrate how
pervasively popcultural it is, and THEN go into your in-depth song analysis.

Be sure to take care of those sentence fragments!

Brandy


Quoting ec573207@ohio.edu:

>
> Elena Caple
> Eng153
>
>
> Machismo in America is a difficult and encompassing topic. Among
> younger adults and teenagers
> it is becoming something quite impossible to measure. Various
> subcultures can express some of the
> feelings that young adults, such as emo. Other subcultures include
> Goth, Lolita, Punk and
> Counterculture, Straightedge and Nerdcore. Nerdcore's target audience
> is young men who can relate to
> its lyrics. Often, Nerdcore artist will make heavy references to
> video games, popular culture, and
> meeting women.
> Nerdcore's popularity is growing rapidly. Its most prominent
> figureheads, MC Chris and MC
> Frontalot make extensive use of the Internet to reach out to their
> fans. The fans actively participate with
> MC Chris, for example, through his MySpace page. The artists tour
> extensively and have a large fan
> base among young men, and increasingly young women as well.
> One particular song by MC Chris, entitled "Boys Don't Cry," makes
> gives a telling young man's
> perspective on a women he wishes to meet. MC and the woman, who is
> from London, flirt online and e-
> mail each other. The woman is attractive (she was datin' the gym when
> it came to tight abs) and
> reciprocative to MC's attentions (And she would write back/give me
> some more of that).
> This song challenges the idea of masculinity as relates to emotional
> investment in the Internet.
> Although the ideal man (boys don't cry/they prefer brawling/shot
> calling...) is realistic about the
> fact that the woman lives "half a world away."
> Internet dating and social networking sites are becoming more
> commonplace among young males
> as opposed to younger females. MC's song about meeting the subject (I
> met her on Friendster/Her
> name was all weird) and about the small gap between his and her age
> (She was a female peer/Just a few
> years/Younger than I) is like a desperate plea for attention.
> Although the traditional American male
> would not (Spend the days half/Trying to make you laugh) and put so
> much effort into impressing a girl
> he will likely never meet, MC recognizes the fact that more males
> online who are undergoing a similar
> prediciment. Part of the reason that MC is so popular among his
> Internet-based fan audience is
> because his listeners gain insight and feel that they are not alone
> in this sense.
> The presentation of MC's emotions in this song are for the most
> part, sensitivity and longing.
> Unlike other genres of music such as Country which celebrate a man's
> uber-masculinity, MC sings about the
> feelings of turmoil that can be experienced (Why you gotta be so far
> away/Why do plane tickets cost an
> arm and a leg/maybe I should save a couple dollars a day/so without
> delay/I can look at your face) in
> such a situation. He then goes on to reveal the subject's plight and
> why the woman in London is so
> appealing to him.
> (No girlfriend, no hookups, just lovelorn and f***** up/No friend to
> just vent on/One who'll say all
> bets off). This attitude can easily mirror his fan's delimmas. For
> the most part, it is safe to say that MC's
> base is addicted to the Internet and uses social networking sites to
> make acquaintences. The selling
> point of this song is that men feel this sometimes as acutely as
> women, and irrationally fantisize about
> meeting an attractive "friend" on a social networking or Internet
> dating site.
>
> Throughout the song, the artist makes frequent promises to his
> object of affection. (Get you a job
> at MTV/Whatever you need.) Also, a few pop culture refences make it
> into the song. The chorus, for
> example: (I'm jonesin' harder than Gollum/please god say that
> London's callin) makes gives a nod to
> J.R.R. Tolkein's book Lord of the Rings, the character Gollum who is
> fatally attracted to a powerful ring.
> The next verse cites a popular song, (I'm a slave 4 u/Like Britney
> was to JT).
> The singer then questions his own motives. (I don't know if I'm
> stupid or just foolish/I can't help
> but pursue this.) This is the point which the song tries to get
> across. Internet dating is powerful. There
> is a great deal of emotional investment involved and unfortunately
> for its users, meeting each other can
> be well-neigh impossible. It is safe to say that many people feel the
> same.
> Part of the reason this song works so well is viral marketing.
> Nerdcore is often distributed for free,
> and word-of-mouth is a powerful agent.
>
>
> However in some parts, the song reflects the singer's tiny triumphs.
> (Well you would write back/
> Gimme some more of that). He visualizes the meeting (I could come to
> you/Or you could come to the
> States) and takes it one step further (Rest my hand on your
> neck/Never mind neckin', you know what
> comes next).
> MC Chris is an internet phenomenon. His fans can relate to him and
> he uses the money he
> recieves from concerts and downloads to pay the rent.

^I know MC hates it when people say shit like, "Internet phenomenon," but my readers don't know jack shit about nerdcore. It gives the song more logos; more credibility. And I daresay adds a little more meaning to the paper. We'll see.

Me: There is this one squirrel who keeps trying to shove a nut into the left corner of our window. I was trying to sleep and kept slapping the window and it wouldn't go away.
[knocks the nut off the sill]
We don't want it in here.
My roommate: Awww I want it in here!
Me: They bite, and how would we get it out?
My roommate: Yeah, they're bitches.