I just watched Independence Day.  Such a crazy movie.  I caught myself thinking about likely failsafes on that huge energy weapon that they use to destroy landmarks.  Then I watched the ensuing animaion, and I realized that the final battle was really a ripoff of the exhaust vent (spoiler--wait for Star Wars?!) scene from Episode IV.  I felt that I was overgeeking it, so I stopped.

I am now listening to NIN.  I had forgotten the great soundtrack they had for the original quake, which I always just played with a different CD in the drive (original quake was DRM-free and all you had to do to play was buy it and install it).  Of course I should be spending my time studying and working on my presentation, but I decided to take a day off from stress. 

So I've gotten back to Chinese.  I got one chapter; I will do another then go to bed or something.  What I really need to work on, of course, are thirteen and fourteen, but I'm on twelve.  It all needs work though, so Iĺl stick with it.  Plus I need to do my journal entries for the whole year in German, but I am prepared for that, and the final is not until thursday, so I'll do fine. 

Yesterday my sleep deprivation reached a head.  I went to sleep as soon as I got home.  I was also accused of not taking my own problems seriously, which resulted in a blowup.  Yeah, I was really pissed.  I got back self-righteousness in exchange, which isn't really surprising, and I did kind of expect it.  It might even have helped the catharsis, at least in terms of convincing me that I was right.  Which is kind of the problem; I spent years refusing to take responsibility to the point I was lead into having an addiction, and when I finally do take responsibility and seek help for it I am made to put up with a lot of fatuous nonsense about how that's the wrong way to go.  I need to keep refusng responsibility for my action and just pray as if some god was going to come down out of heaven or be birthed from my fatuous head to do everything for me.  And I'm the one not taking it seriously? 

I got a lot of help with my German sentences.  I still have to complete notebook entries for all year, plus finish my powerpoint presentation, but I am confident of an A in that class.  The final will be the highlight of this semester.  Well, I do struggle with Grammar sometimes, but I'll do very well.  With Chinese, I may struggle a little more.  I'll get at least a C though.  C is kind of a joke, but it's passing.

I'm starting to feel sleepy again, but I've only got an hour to nap.  Hell.  This is the most rested I've felt in three days, and it won't last long.  Finals week will be quick, at least.  That's a plus. 

Happy wednesday (in case anyone is reading this). 

I've been working on my Einstein report.  I have to know a little German, too, because the best information about his childhood is on the German Wikipedia article (I can verify the information with other sources which are in English, bt htis is the quickest way to get this done so I can have the professor chekc my language and see if it is appropriate).  I found this picture here and I think I am going to include it.  This is a powerpoint presentation, you see.  And tomorrow is the last chance I will have to get my sentences checked for grammar.  So, of course, I have to focus on that for the next twenty or so hours. 

Still, I seem to be back to one entry a day, which is good.  I've already made my blog fully public (I turned off footprints lock) so maybe I'll  start getting some traffic.  I honestly thought that maybe I would meet some people online when I started this thing back up, like I used to back when xanga was cool.  I think I should join a few new blogrings.  The ones I'm in now seem to be mostly defunct.  Several were hopelessly outdated when I came back--stuff that just no longer applies to me.  But, I'm facing forward with my arms wide open and my mind reeling.  I can only hope that I'm ready to go. 

As I am researching Einstein for my project in German class, I was finally able to read his famous Essay, "Why Socialism?"  Interesting statement he made.  In his concluding paragraph, he states that "a planned economy is not yet socialism."  He notes the need for a democratic counterweight to bureaucracy.  Of course, corporations are also bureaucratic entities just as much as governments are.  If socialism is both evil and bureaucracy as the American right claims, then logically, privatization is as socialist as public ownership/administration. 

Of course, this is nonsense.  Nobody is going to advocate bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy, no matter what the pro-corporate capitalists claim.  But, it is food for thought.  After witnessing he behavior of unrestrained corporate bigwigs--shocking though it may have been that they acted in their own best interests--we can't conclude that a government subject to the will of the people is inferior to a government owned by the highest bidder. 

I tried O'Dooles over the weekend.  It was good, tasted just like beer.  I got chewed out for drinking it though.  You see I'm not the only one who knows I quit drinking anymore.  Here's what I was told: "You had a craving, and you drank something that satisfied it, but what satisfied it was not what you were addicted to."  Well, yeah, that's kind of the point.  I think that this is actually why she thinks it'll lead to drinking real beer, but I found it good temptation management.  It's certainly better than some of the other methods I've been using. 

I just looked around my room, and exclaimed, "I can't deal with this anymore!"  It is messy, and a lot of the mess is trash I have not yet carried to the nearest trashcan (downstairs, to be exact).  Because I am lazy, I don't do this very often; I leave stuff lying around, and take it in bunches whenever it gets to be too much.  Well, keeping it like this is too much.  I have to buy myself a new trash can.  I must do it.  And I must do it tonight.  So those are my plans for the very immediate future.  I will go to a 24-hour store and buy a new trashcan.  Anarchists for big box mart!

I have completed an outline for my German-speaking person.  I need ten slides, with at least one sentence in German.  It looks good so far.  But I need to flesh it out a little.  Well, the truth is I want to flesh it out a little.  The goal is German, not research.  Oh, I also need to translate some of it.  But overall, I think it'll be good.  I also need to shave, but that's no big deal. 

I've been sleeping late again.  I was also up until six last night.  Caffeine always does this to me.  I avoid it to the extent possible, but sometimes...well, a need arises.  And these people think I need to get on Ritalin!  Psychiatry is like some bizarre chemical religion, with it's own missionary wing seeded throughout society.  If you aren't a member yet, it must be because you aren't aware of what membership entails.  No, trust me, I've grown up with this stuff, I know that it's bad for me.  If you choose to believe, that is your problem not mine.  Although of course, any form of social control is everyone's problem, not least because psychiatry does have it's useful applications.  But like any religion, it tries to apply itself to areas of knowledge that it does not have access to.  It remains that there are some areas for which drugs have no application.  People talk about the drugs you need like you couldn't possibly have tried them before (otherwise you'd be on them) as if there was no one for whom they might not work (they worked for me, who couldn't they work for?) as if they were the first person to think of the idea.  Like the lost lamb of Christianity, I wander outside the flock, insufficiently drugged, apparently in great despair due to my independence, but in actuality I'm just wondering why everyone else is still smoking the same doobie.  I tried it, it didn't help me, so I moved on.  I'd like you to move on as well. 

So, I'm now off to get a trashcan.