So I should write about something. But I’m not sure what. There’s not a lot going through my mind at this point. I’m tired, a little bit hungry, and just feel like reading my book or playing video games. In fact, yesterday I didn’t even write at all; I burned through backlog just as quickly as I generated it.

So here I sit, at my computer, just typing a bunch of words as they come to me. Maybe I’ll come across some larger theme as time goes on (I often do), but probably not. In other words, this post is mostly skippable.

“Mostly skippable” makes me think of Mostly Harmless, the fifth book in the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy. Yes, the fifth book of three. Don’t think about it too hard. The title refers to the entirety of Earth’s entry in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe. Poor Arthur Dent is a little upset by this, but he should be happy: the entry is twice as long as it needs to be!

Has anyone realized that the Hitchhiker’s Guide basically exists at this point in time? All one needs to do is combine access to Wikipedia with a tablet or smartphone. Bam: instant knowledge on anything under the sun! Sure, it’s mostly limited to Earth and our sector of the galaxy of the moment, but I’m sure that’ll change once the Wikimedia Foundation is acquired by Megadodo Publicaitons.

“DON’T PANIC:” the best two words of advice I’ve ever heard. They’re even engraved on my phone!

There’s a kerbalnaut staring at me from my second monitor. He looks happy, but I’m afraid he might eat my soul. Better launch a few of his comrades (Komrades? Kerbrades?) into the sun just in case.

I think we might be drifting wildly off topic. That is, we would be if we ever had one.

This is most sports to me.

Q: “How many kids with ADD does it take to screw in a light bulb?”
A: “LET’S GO RIDE BIKES!”

…and with that, I’m going to leave before I hurt or embarrass myself*.

*further

As I mentioned yesterday, in addition to speaking English, I also speak French. Why, you ask? Well, when I was a kid my mom was a big advocate of learning a foreign language, to the point of starting a foreign language program at my elementary school. I was lucky enough to keep up with my studies all through middle and high school, and French even ended up being my “major by default” for undergrad (but that’s a story for another time). I even managed to study abroad twice: for a semester in high school, and a full year in college.

Why French? To be honest, the choice was fairly arbitrary. My parents had decided they wanted me to learn a foreign language, but they left the choice up to me. At the time, I was given the options of Spanish and French. Now, while Spanish may have seemed like the more useful option, I wasn’t exactly thinking like that at age six or seven. No, to me, I just liked the sound of French better. I tried a few weeks of Spanish, but it didn’t take. The rest, as they say, c’est l’histoire.

I think it’s safe to say that at my peak level of practice, probably just after coming home from a year in Paris, I was fluent in French. I haven’t kept up with it, unfortunately, but I’d like to think that my skills, while rusty, wouldn’t take that much polishing to get me back up to snuff.

What does “fluent” mean to me? Well, I don’t consider it the same as “bilingual.” For me, someone who is bilingual has been raised in two (or more) language since birth (or a very early age), and is easily comfortable in either. They effectively have two (or more) primary languages. Fluency, on the other hand, implies a favoring of one language above another; a primary and a secondary (or secondaries), if you will. If I lived in France, for instance, I’d likely make it to “bilingual” without too much trouble. But since I don’t, I remain merely (heh) fluent.

But being fluent in another language is an interesting experience, especially from inside one’s own head. If you speak multiple languages at an advanced level, you likely know what I’m talking about. There comes a point, I find, where you start thinking in the foreign language. You no longer have to translate things in your head: you can go directly from concept to object. Maybe I can illustrate the difference.

Translation-based knowledge: “’Chat‘ is ‘cat,’ which is the animal that goes ‘meow’ and the Internet seems unhealthily fascinated with.”

Fluent knowledge: “Chat est l’animal qui dit ‘miaou’ et par qui l’Internet est obsédé.”

Does that make sense? It’s like having two different discrete modes of thinking. To put it into nerd terms, it’s the difference between running a virtual machine (like Parallels) and dual booting (a la Boot Camp).

This has some interesting consequences. For instance, it can be hard for me to translate things from French to English, a skill that most people think would be fairly simple. But in order for me to translate something, I have to use a completely different process than I used to understand the phrase in the first place. A process I’ve spent years training myself out of.

So what does this mean, in the long run? Probably not much. If you don’t speak a foreign language (you should), this may not make much sense. If you do, then hopefully you understand my pain. I’d like to explore knowing a foreign language in the future, but that’s all I’ve got right now. I’d be interested to hear other people’s thoughts on the matter.

There’s not much going on at this end, and even less for me to say about it. And even though I’ve had the day off, I somehow manage to keep on finding something to do besides write. What have I done? Well, I’d like to think the day hasn’t been a total loss.

• I managed to sleep in.
• I cleaned the bathroom a bit.
• I tossed my resume towards a temp agency a friend suggested.
• I kicked the last of my sickness, aside from the occasional cough.
• I read one of the books I got from my Holiday Amazon Bonanza.
• I played a video game my brother got me for Christmas.
• I even managed to update the website I run for the local SCA group.
• Oh yeah, even though this was yesterday, I also beat Rogue Legacy!

I suppose it’s all in managing your expectations. Sure, I would have liked to work on the next Great American Novel, or even Mediocre American Job Application. But I think I had fun today, and that should count for something.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Try tuning in again tomorrow; maybe there will be something that requires a bit more thought. But not today.

So whatever I had this past week (my girlfriend suspects the flu) really kicked my butt. It started about 5pm Monday, with a sore throat and just a general “under the weather” feeling. By 11am on Tuesday I was so achy and feverish I could barely stand long enough to be of any use at work. At its worst, I spiked a 102° fever and apparently slept like the dead. But about as abruptly as it came on, it went away by about noon yesterday, and I started feeling human again. The cough is still with me, but that’s not unusual. I can go outside without getting (too) racked by full-body chills. I can sleep through the night without being plagued by restless fever dreams. I can even hold a conversation and be properly responsive on something other than autopilot!

But of course, I have to remember that “feeling better” is not the same as “back to 100%.” While it’s true I feeling much more coherent and capable, I’m still a bit off in some places. My mind is still a bit foggy and easily distracted. Even if abrupt temperature shifts don’t cascade into a fever anymore, I still occasionally get chilled for no apparent reason. Going too fast up and down the stairs can take a lot out of me.

So I’ve been trying to be good, taking things slowly and not committing myself to too much today. I had the day off work, which probably helped. And like I said, for the most part I feel pretty darn good. Especially by comparison! But then some little thing will pop up to remind me, as if to say “Hey youse, youse was just sick heres!”

I’m not sure why the thing has a stereotypical New York accent, but it makes as much sense as anything has to me the past few days.

Overall, I’m lucky that I don’t get really sick that often. But the flipside of that is I don’t always remember that it is necessary to take time off, to finish healing even after you start to feel “better.”
*insert witty closing statement here*

I’m going to try to write about something I don’t talk about very much. I mentioned it briefly yesterday, but I’d like to go into how it feels to go through the world from inside my head. I’m not sure if this will make sense, since I haven’t really articulated my thoughts on the matter before. Do me a favor and don’t panic.

How can I put this? I generally go through life feeling like I’m at least one step removed from things. It often feels like things happen around me, and I’m just watching from a chair somewhere in my psyche rather than inhabiting my body. It’s like the difference between walking or skating (where your body is directly involved in your locomotion) and driving a car with cruise control on a straight highway. In the latter case, you are still involved, but you will continue to move without any direct input.

For me, this even holds true when it comes to emotions. I often feel like I’m “feeling” something because I’m supposed to feel it, almost like it’s a role being played. I go through the motions, but there’s still a slight sense of detachment.

This detachment can often be a source of angst: it’s hard to get worked up to do something, even if it’s something you’ve had fun with in the past, if all you can dredge up from inside is a resounding “meh.” And I’ve had moments (like I mentioned yesterday) where that detachment collapses and I feel extremely engaged in my life. But that feeling never lasts; inevitably, I slip away behind the walls of logic and overthinking.

I don’t know if this state, however common it might be for me, is in any way “normal.” In fact, I’ve somehow become convinced that it is not “normal,” and that other people tend to be more engaged and involved with their own lives. This may be an irrational belief, since there’s not really a way to feel what others feel (outside of talking about it, but that’s scary), but it’s one I hold, for better or worse.

And I don’t know what causes this state of mind, either. Is it a result of depressive tendencies? Can I blame it on my ADD? Is it even a problem at all?

This isn’t a cry for help. This is just a statement of the facts, a small glimpse of what it’s like to be me. I like to think that I “fake it” pretty well, but after a while it rings hollow. And somehow along the way I picked up the idea that that’s a bad thing.

So I don’t know. These few words still feel like they fall short of communicating what I’m trying to say. If you’ve felt this way too, then you can probably fill in the blanks yourself. If not, then I’m not sure. Like a fish describing what it’s like to be wet, it’s hard to put things into words when you don’t have much of a contrasting frame of reference. It doesn’t help that, by definition, writing about one’s internal worldviews changes depending on how one feels. But I’ve tried.

It’s gonna be another short post today; I’m still cogitating on things. I’ve had the day off, and even managed to have a productive morning. Even better, I stayed largely on task until lunchtime! Of course, for every lurch forward there’s a shuffle back. My afternoon has largely been lost to internet surfing and games (not even the one I want to be playing, but that’s a different issue). But hey, progress is progress. I did recently read an article on Cracked that seemed relevant: “5 Things That Have to Happen Before You Fix Your Crappy Life.” For those of you who don’t read Cracked, I think it’s a great website. It seems to set itself apart from the myriad other “listicle” sites by actually taking the time to occasionally say something profound and useful. All with a dash of humor and self-deprecation, of course. But this article was quite timely for me, since I am feeling the need and motivation to “fix [my] crappy life” right now. It reminded me that, if nothing else, it’s necessary to remember that there is no set end point to self-improvement. Change comes slowly and incrementally, such that you often can’t see how far you’ve come (or if you’ve moved at all) until quite a ways down the line when you can look back properly. In addition to being slow, none of these steps are easy. I’m trying to accept that, while at the same time not getting discouraged. I’ll probably fail and backslide more than once, but hopefully my overall progress will be forward. In other words, you should read the article.