Gonna Bring It On Home To You

Only have time for this much:

I passed all my classes. 2.4 GPA. All C’s but one A. Still have above a 3 GPA. That is behind me now. Time to gear up.

AIESEC coming back into major focus. Went to Canada NLDC and there not only was it an amazing conference that is so much more professional than any one I’ve been to in the US, but they LOVED the engineering PBoX idea, which now has a name: “Engineer the Next Generation” a.k.a. Project01. It was definitely an important conference for me. Plus, the day and night in Oxford, OH was, shall we say, rad.

I plan on enjoying my classes. I plan on enjoying brewing beer in the breakfast nook, courtesy of Thomas’ brother’s donation while he goes to live the AIESEC dream in Costa Rica for a year. Looking forward to hanging out, in general, and reading, and catching up on some Wii (when it’s rainy outside) and riding my bike. But mostly I plan on rocking the AIESEC world and AIESEC GT especially with Project01 and being a better LCP.

The Shoes

I transcribe this to honor one of our own who has made her decision to move on to greener pastures. I respect her immensely and my heart hurts that she felt the need to exit the platform stage left, but I appreciate all the conversations we have had. She is a True AIESECer, one who embodies the power of the network.

These words are etched on a black piece of foamboard with a gold pen, a sepia picture of old shoes at the top, a starfield about, laminated and hanging in our office.

Huddled together beneath graffiti painted walls
They watch without seeing
Some missing shoelaces, others missing soles
They’re caked with the dirt of their journeys
One can only imagine what could be found
If they traced the mud of the heels
Back through time
Past the concrete and brick
And the forests and trees
Past the glass and the bones
Back to the cellophane wrapped smiles
Of the customers who bought them
But here they lie
Squeezed inch by inch by destiny’s curse
Bound to one another
As tight as the threads are sown
Their final resting place could be
This cluttered sidewalk overlooking the space of Atlanta
Or the garbage pail of the restaurant next door
They know no difference
Yet their lifetime would have mattered somehow
If only because they were worn.

– Missy Shields
26 April 2002

Words of the Companion to the Struggler

Inara leans in towards Petaline’s face.

INARA
You’re stronger than this thing,
honey. I can feel it in your grip…
(Petaline SCREAMS
again)
Petaline, look at me–

Petaline looks up at Inara, who catches her eyes in an intense, almost hypnotic stare.

INARA (cont’d)
This is just a moment in time… Step
out of it and let it happen…

The Downward Spin of Fortuna’s Wheel

As Ice Cube’s “Today Was A Good Day” plays, I reflect on the irony.

I woke up later than I intended, with possibly _just_ enough time to get to a class to turn in homework. But I walk outside… and my car is not there. They towed it, despite insufficient signage indicating where sewer work was being done. Went back inside to fume for ten minutes, it now being impossible to get there on time with my bike after the conversation with the contract worker. Noticed a giant brown spider on my shirt – a maleficent sigil on the House of P. Rhea. Get on the bike and ride to school, but my lock mount came loose and I had to walk the last part of the way. I pay to put money on my BuzzCard and get out cash, since the only cash on my person is rubles. Attend the last ECE3040 lecture of the semester, which only indicates the hell ahead. Set about trying to get someone to drive me around to get the necessaries on the vehicle. Willy B. obliges and gets me my goods from the car and drops me at the police property control, then has to bail to maintain in L5P. I wait and finally discover that since the car isn’t in my name it is impossible to do this without a notarized note from the holder. Holder delivers the note by fax after 4 PM, when the office is already closed. The low came when I learned of, shall we say, “a death in the family.” Long time cooking, putting up clothes, and at the end of the evening, there is naught but this to taunt me as I embark on the journey of Orpheus:

But there is power in the overcoming. There are rewards not far away. I press my way.

Call

I’m ready for something with high gravity, something more sinister than primetime television. I want to pick up my sword (after finding it) and march on My Way.

I want to be able to cast the back of my hand against all the things plaguing my Dream and the world and feel the weight of my arm bring them crashing down like a cosmic wrecking ball.

I want to be worthy of a fugue.

A Legend in Bits

We don’t have anything written by Jesus, Socrates, or Confucius but they are beyond legend, their words weaving their way into ways of thinking and wars and resolutions, with people from many different backgrounds and many different eras with divergent aspirations striving to find a strain of such Men in their own psyche, or their own DNA even. In their case, the fact that they have echoed down through the many generations to the present one is proof of their great magnitude, even if some of it was amplified by the many interpreters down the line. But they have undoubtedly created avatar after avatar after successor after impostor after admirer, all tying back through threads to the Source.

I’ve been thinking recently about “this whole blogging thing,” much like a rapper would say “this rap shit or whatever.” It’s more than journals, or a log, or an advertisement with less pictures. The greatest implications are usually those most originally understated, and such a functionality with the old ‘net was that of hyperlinking. Any old book can give a bibliographical reference to the Consolation of Philosophy, but how much time and effort have I saved you – and therefore spread much more information in general – when I have linked you to the Wikipedia article on the same? Isn’t this greatly affecting the Presidential elections right now? Isn’t this how petitions swell to great magnitude within hours?

Now, “this whole tagging thing” is set to be a possibly more powerful supplement to hyperlinking and how we do things, not just on the Internet, but in our lives – period. Facebook isn’t just a profile for many people, it’s a literal digital extension of their reality – an avatar of their logos. The same is becoming true of other parts of the Internet. Tagging is the way to not only order it, but unify it, until the Internet becomes an extension of ourselves in the most literal sense.

Just like those previous legendary people before us were amplified, redefined, and generally celebrated by those who connected with their products and their own logos many miles away and many years later, the Internet is the evolution of that same principle of what was once oral history, and what was then written history. Who among the people I have linked to my blog in the past will be defined by what they have written in their own blogs, when they become extremely famous (and I am certain that some of them will)? How will that resonate back to me, and how will I resonate to them? In one hundred years, how are these very digital words that I am writing now going to be considered at the Perpetual (not Eternal) Space of Judgment which we all think of now as “t3h 1NtArWuBz” against my own logos? Have I linked to the Neo-Analects? The next Jesus of Nazareth? The Socratic Method 2.0? If so, will I be labeled a disciple, or a practicioner?

On Teacakes and Government Social Engineering

Teacake set to cost taxman £3.5m

A chocolate teacake

Chocolate teacakes were wrongly classed as a biscuit for two decades

The UK Treasury is facing a £3.5m bill, because of VAT wrongly imposed on a Marks and Spencer teacake, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.

Customers paid VAT for 20 years before the authorities accepted the product was a cake, which does not command VAT.

The UK argued that paying back the total sum would “unjustly enrich” M&S as customers had paid the money.

Found at the BBC

This article is both humorous and disturbing to me on a subject I feel strongly about: sales tax and Value-Added Tax.

My belief isn’t about which is better or worse, but rather about how sales tax is regressive and it is an unjust intrusion by the government in that it pretty directly affects how individuals behave by influencing what they buy.

I thought it was an interesting example of such a practice. Notable is the chart included with the BBC article:

VAT ON CAKES AND BISCUITS

How various products are classifed by HM Revenue and Customs

Zero rated [no VAT] Standard rated [17.5% VAT]
“Biscuits”
Chocolate chip biscuits where the chips are either included in the dough or pressed into the surface before baking All wholly or partly coated biscuits including biscuits decorated in a pattern with chocolate or some similar product
Jaffa Cakes Gingerbread men decorated with chocolate unless this amounts to no more than a couple of dots for eyes
Bourbon and other biscuits where the chocolate or similar product forms a sandwich layer between two biscuit halves and is not continued on to the outer surface Chocolate shortbread
“Cakes”
Marshmallow teacakes (with a crumb, biscuit or cake base topped with a dome of marshmallow coated in either chocolate, sugar strands or coconut) “Snowballs” without such a base are classed as confectionary
Caramel or “millionaire’s” shortcake consisting of a base of shortbread topped with a layer or caramel and (usually) chocolate or carob Shortbread partly or wholly chocolate-covered
Flapjacks Cereal, muesli and similar bars with honey or other added sweetening matter

Silliness at a high level, but dangerous too.

Warsaw Village Band Re-Discovered

I finally managed to get a hold of an album from an amazing band that played at the opening ceremony of International Congress 2006 in Warsaw, Poland: the Warsaw Village Band.


The only way I can think to describe them is “alternative post-folk, Polish.” Experiencing them at the opening ceremony was so surreal. Most of the night had been the regular boring children’s dance cultural exhibition stuff, and most of us were yawning for about an hour and a half. Then they came on, and it looked and felt like Mad Max collided with Blade Runner collided with 1932 rural Poland. Midway through their first song, everyone came out onto the giant coliseum floor and started dancing, and we had a wild time.


Such a wild time, when at WSC 2006 (my first conference) during Global Village I learned a traditional dance of some place that was either Turkey or somewhere in the Middle East from Juli – those are the moments which put me somewhere I’ve always wanted to be. It’s a far cry from this semester.

The general terror of last week ended on a good note on Friday, when I was able to sign up for the classes I wanted to for the summer and make it both very productive and far easier than this horrid four months. Also, a girl from Samford University called the AIESEC office while I was in there and she had heard about AIESEC through our blogs! She wants to ride the Rocketship to Turkey sometime in the near future, and expressed interest about starting up AIESEC in Birmingham, which is something I’ve been interested in doing for a long time.

The home stretch begins; let’s see if I can make it out alive.

EB Review Feedback

A couple of weeks ago, we did EB Review, just between those of us on the EB. It was important that we all be there together, and although two people wound up not making it – and I was disappointed by that – it was a crucial hour, held at 11 PM so that the most of us could be there.

In the interest of keeping myself personally accountable, I have decided to post the feedback I received for myself in that meeting here on my blog. It includes the comments that were made in the meeting as well as the feedback from one of our members who is not on the EB who sent it in via email.

– Use more constructive responses to frustration
– leave things at the door
– Worried school is taking too much time for me
– Check how I respond to failed expectations -> constructive criticism
– Don’t get upset with people, ever!
– Point out issues I see but focus on the positive
– Be extremely clear and give and have all necessary details
– Make sure people are accountable, be a better manager
– Make sure whole EB knows our standard of work
– Better TRAINING for EB for how to plan (bring an alumnus)

The outside feedback:

“Make sure you are keeping up with each of your EB, make sure you know what is going on in every team and that you are keeping your EB accountable to your expectations, even if it makes you out to be a ‘mean guy.’ That has to be your role at times, don’t be afraid to adventure on the inevitable negative side of leadership. I’m in support of your team building efforts, but at times I worry that they are taking away from focusing on the year’s goals. In the end at a BOA meeting, the board is not going to care how close of a team you have built, but whether or not they have kept up with their goals. Don’t let your EB be surprised when attacks them about not meeting goals (hypothetically of course). Hold them and yourself accountable NOW so that you can wow the board at the next BOA meeting.”

These Are The Times

Today has been one hell of a day to be an LCP. But it’s the kind of trials that, if handled right, can produce great triumphs. However, they are great challenges, some of which have the potential to ruin Dreams.

Damn, what a semester.