An Update Long Overdue
Sorry I waited so long before writing again, my faithful readers (if there are any). I really shouldn’t be writing now, since it’s 9:45 and I’m supposed to be asleep. Yes, it isn’t that late, but my parents have been really sticky this year about getting me to go to bed on time because I was up until 11:30 or midnight sometimes last year. It didn’t affect my grades much then, though, yet I now get two more hours of sleep and find that my grades have certainly slipped overall compared to my middle school averages. A drop between middle and high school is to be expected, I suppose, since classes are harder and there are more of them.
English has quickly become my least favorite class, owing to the fact that all we do is read stupid lit book stories about birds and crazy Russian hunters. Then we take those stories and “discuss them,” which usually means we have to write 1-2 written pages about the setting or something. What I hate most is that I signed up for Honors English so that I might hone my writing skills to perfection, but we have yet to do any kind of creative writing after almost five weeks of school. Disappointed is probably too strong a word, but I’m certainly not happy with the class. Sure, a writer needs to master the basics of English literature before continuing to pen his own tales, but I’m too impatient to care. Just one freeform writing project would satisfy my hunger, or perhaps a pick up on Brettia.
In case you have no idea what Brettia is, it’s a forum I set up for my friends so that we could make our own little fantasy world for role-plays and stuff. I know, it sounds stupid when I describe it like that, but it can actually be quite fun and interesting. Lately though, people have been too busy to check the boards or to post on them, so things have quietly drifted into a limbo state, where time has stopped and doesn’t want to get off its ass and start up again.
So I’m disappointed in Brettia too. I thought it would live much longer than it has (10 months, so far). But I guess this is the price I pay for depending on a core group of about eight people to do most of the contributing. When one leaves or is absent, the entire thing crumbles into oblivion. I considered closing Brettia back in early August, but it was saved by a few enthusiastic sevie hafe beets (inside joke) who have nothing better to do than post. But now even they have stopped, and the main posters, Tyler (my best friend), Dylan (another friend), and Keegan (another, somewhat alienated friend) have quit checking the board altogether. Even if I remind them at school, they just ask what’s going on and act indifferent when I tell them that nothing is going on because they’re not there.
Perhaps all good things must end. Like middle school, that fantasy world of no homework and easy classes. I incredulously remember times when I complained about this miniscule homework load, which seemed maximized by the wealth of other things to do, such as post or sleep. Now, doing anything other than homework would be a relief. I hobble downstairs for a glass of water five times an hour just to be able to leave the office which is my cave. I’m like a prehistoric Neanderthal couch potato who never leaves his lair. Except I have no choice. Sure, I could just blow off my homework and endure the glares from my teachers, like my good friend Dylan, who doesn’t do his math homework because he says the tiny five point assignments don’t matter. But that would be against my nature, and so I am held captive by my own pride. I’m already disappointed (there’s that word again) in myself for losing the glossy, gold-leafed grades I once had. For a smart kid, the word slipping is like the word gaining for overly weight-conscious women.
The real reason I am torn between parts of myself is that my love for programming and study of computers is to blame for the recent loss of GPA hundreths of a point. I can’t really abandon computers, but I can’t abandon school. If I stop programming/tinkering, I’ll forget things and lose all I’ve struggled to gain over the past two years. Not only that, but technology is ever-changing, and I have to stay on top of things. If I stop trying as hard as I used to in school, I’ll be doing the equivalent of shooting my future self in the foot. I don’t want to end up working for a Circle K, remembering that fateful day when I gave up and went on to pursue programming as far as I could. Then my parents disowned me and left me without a computer or food. Then again, I don’t want to end up going to college, getting some normal office job in a monolithic corporation, and spending the rest of my life as a paperpusher/key depresser. I want to have skills so unique that they can prove valuable in developing something entirely new that I can sell to that same monolithic corporation I might have worked for and retire on the profits.
Again, I’m torn. I can’t get rid of one or the other, and I can’t balance the two. But anyway, I’m done babbling about that. I have some other things to get out before I publish and collapse into bed.
First, the site has been down of late. Sorry. It wasn’t my fault this time. Purportedly, the Internet backbone provider for my less-than-perfect webhost, EDataRack, rerouted their network and took some servers offline in the process. Organon was down for nearly four days, much to my dismay, and on a weekend, to my further disappointment (again!). I only get time to post lengthy articles on weekends and it really sucked to have to wait until now, when I should be asleep since I have an impossibly hard English test in the morning and some other classes that I probably shouldn’t fall asleep in.
The second thing I need to belt out to the many people (cough) reading this is that they need to go to area51.phpbb.com/phpBB22/index.php right now to see phpBB 2.2 Milestone 2, which works great and is, quote, “wicked awesome.” Download it from the Snapshots page at Area51’s root and install it on your own computer, if you happen to be geeky enough to run one or more development webservers on your PC.
And speaking of PCs and computers in general (as if I haven’t been talking about them the entire time), it’s now time for the weekly “I Want A New Computer But Am Too Poor/Deprived/Sad/Cursed to Get One” rant. Or not. No, I won’t do that anymore, if I can help it. Yes, I want a new computer badly. Yes, I’d give up all my Christmas and birthday presents for the next three years to have one. Yes, I’m jealous of the many other people in my life who are either shopping for or already have a nice, sleek, new PC or laptop, complete with that straight-out-of-the-box scent that overpowers even new-car smell.
That’s all I will say. In the event that I win the lottery or inherit a sack of money, then I’ll celebrate, just to spite those of you in the same boat as I am. Otherwise, I regret my somewhat spoil’t brat ranting on this subject in the past and hope that you, the reader, will forgive me for being an ultraprick and boring you with my tales of technological despair. (No, I was not paid to write that.)
The final bit of outstandingly interesting news in my life is that I moved my dying website, the aforementioned Brettia, to a new, faster, more awesome webhost, who is the epitome of cool (if you’re an antisocial workaholic who has nothing better to do than to build simple Web applications and then singlehandedly destroy them through misuse and lack of proper backup). The new host, MediaCatch, allows me to create subdomains (like xxx.brettia.com - porn seekers, don’t even try that URL), create unlimited databases and POP3 email accounts, and to install software automatically using cPanel, all for the low price of $3.75/month. I also get 800MB of space, 24 hr email support, 8 hr phone/chat support, 35GB of bandwidth, and some other perks. This deal is so awesome it’s unheardof. It rocks. It makes me happy. Yay.
Tune in Friday for an exciting article on the state of the Internet and perhaps an interview of my cat. Yup, sounds like real, edge-of-your-seat, mind-blowing action. Here’s a nice quote to hold you until then: “I think, therefore I am.” -Rene Descartes. I have a question for our French philosopher friend. What if you don’t think? Do you cease to exist? Yeah, that puts a hole in your entire argument, doesn’t it Descartes. Which proves once and for all that the French are pompous, self-important losers who think that they have power in the world just because they ruled most of Europe for about a hundred years. Then the British, who we Americans know and love (most of the time), came and kicked their butts, leaving them with nothing but a funny accent. (And anger when they take the train to London and are forced to disembark at Waterloo Station. Brings back the memories, don’t it, me Frenchies?)