Hello. What is popping?

My new blog: http://jaysblog.net/

     Well I can't sleep, and yet ironically I'm too tired to actually do anything, so, I guess I'll just get this public post I've been planning over with.
     I'm having a hard time getting back into public posts. I just don't know why I should bother. I've been private posting exclusively for over a month now, and once I really got into the swing of it, I churned out great posts, far better than any public post I've made in a while. It took some time, but I identified the primary problem with public posts compared to private posts: In public posts, I feel like I shouldn't say too much of the stuff that people don't want to read. So I steer clear of certain topics that, it turns out, are actually core to my being. I try not to write things that are too depressing and might come off as "emo" or whatever. I try not to write things that are simply boring and wouldn't be of interest to anyone but myself. And I generally don't write a lot of the things that are potentially embarrassing; it would require a lot of set-up and defense before I could get to the point, so a lot of times I just don't bother.
     But during the past month I have really begun to enjoy blogging a lot more. I've been able to say everything I want to, without all of the restrictions I was barely conscious of before. I have been blogging about: how I've been perpetually suicidal for so many years, why I still haven't killed myself yet, how I think about Mandy all the time (and the various natures of these thoughts), musical endeavors, and currently, a lot about someone at work who I have realized is trying to be friends with me, and trying to figure out what to do. Now, other than that last thing, can anyone who reads this honestly say that they would want to read about any of that stuff? About how depressed I am, or more shit about this Mandy girl who hasn't even been physically present in 14 months? I don't think so. And if I were to post about it, you would become more likely not to read my posts at all, if I did it enough. As for the last topic, I haven't posted about it because it is potentially embarrassing, and I think that some people will stupidly think "oh wow that's gay" if I don't edit out how much I like him and how frustrated I am by my inability to form a friendship with him.
     I actually did try to edit my private posts into a "publicable" form, but I was unsuccessful, because all the topics are so wrapped up in each other that it was very difficult to edit out stuff while keeping the posts cohesive, and eventually I was just like "why am i doing this?" and I stopped.
     So yeah. I'm not sure what I should do. I'm thinking, maybe I should just post it all, maybe even completely unedited, and if I drive away people who previously enjoyed my blog, then that's OK. I kind of have this hope that one day somebody will come along and read my blog and be able to relate to it on a very personal level, and then maybe we'll become friends. I don't know if that'll ever happen, but it certainly won't ever happen if I don't post real stuff. But on the other hand, it is completely unreasonable to expect somebody to be able to relate to everything I post, so maybe it makes more sense to edit out the cruft and only leave the most interesting stuff. Blegh, I don't know.

     The private-only experiment was a great success. Once I got into it, I really posted some good stuff, the kind of stuff my blog has been needing. I will probably edit some of the posts into a publicly-postable format in the near future.

     Anyway. I bought a new MIDI keyboard last month for $99. It's awesome; editing music on the computer is so much easier than having to perform it perfectly any time I want to change one note.
     Just for practice, I decided to do a cover of a song I like. (I knew my first attempt would be really amateurish, so I didn't want to make anything I'd care about too much.) It actually turned out to be a much bigger project than I had expected. The music, vocals, and mixing all turned out to be huge individual steps. I had a lot of fun recording the music, though. Besides getting familiar with the software, I was also intrigued by the actual chords and melodies that the particular song used. Stuff I probably never would've thought up myself prior to the experience.
     Recording the vocals was a bit of a nightmare, though. Certain parts of the song are too low for me to sing easily, plus I was too self-conscious to sing loudly with other people home. When I'm inhibiting my vocal volume, it distracts me and I don't sing as well. So I had a lot of shitty takes, and the whole thing was just really frustrating. I almost gave up, because I found myself getting sick of what is one of my favorite songs, and I didn't know if it would be worth it. But one day when no one was home, I came back to it, and I recorded a good take and kept it. It isn't perfect, but I just really didn't feel like redoing it.
     Then came the mixing. Another nightmare. I just couldn't get everything to sit right in the song. I spent a lot of time working on it, but when I finally got the vocals to sound OK on headphones, I tested it on my computer speakers, and the vocals were totally buried. I listened to it in my car too, and discovered that the vocals were absolutely blaring, and the music was barely audible. Three totally different results, same mix. What the hell do I do with that??
     So I gave up for a week or so. But then I was in Barnes 'n Nobles, and I bought a book about mixing. I sat down and read through a few chapters, and wow. I'd been approaching the whole thing from the wrong angle. I went back to my project and restarted mixing the arrangement from scratch, using the techniques I had learned from the book. And it got so much better.

     I've spent the last couple days working with it. But my software kept crashing, more and more frequently, until eventually the program was crashing as soon as I opened it and tried to do even ONE (specific) thing. There was no way around it. So I decided I would just fix the most glaring problems, export the mp3, and be done with it. But when I opened it again, I was horrified to discover that it had lost all of my mixing data. There must have been a glitch the last time I saved, and I had no backup of the project file. I was/am absolutely pissed off.
     To make a long story short(er), I eventually learned that my hard disk seems to be broken. I'm not really sure what to do with my computer now. Luckily I also have a laptop so I can still do some stuff, but nothing too processor intensive.

     All is not lost, however. Since the software was so unstable, I made a few exports while working so I could listen to the music without it stuttering during playback. So I do have the nearly-completed mix, which I copied to my MP3 player before my computer died. So I'll embed it here, although I want to stress that there are a lot of little things about it I would have fixed if my computer hadn't crashed. But I won't say all of them; that way, you might not notice. The only glaring issue you'll almost definitely notice is that on the second verse, the synth pad starts out way too loud.

     So here it is. My cover of "Where The White Boys Dance" by The Killers, with many known problems as I said above.


http://igreiga.org/Where The White Boys Dance (Unfinished Work).mp3

i think i'm gonna go ahead and blog only privately for like, two weeks or more, just so i can get in touch with myself again. there's a bunch of stuff that i never blog about because i wouldn't be able to blog it publicly. so as a record of my life, my blog is missing a chunk. also, i've become too consciously aware that people read this stuff, and it actually makes me feel kind of like an idiot. i fear (and know) that (some) people read my blog, misunderstand, and judge me to be pretty stupid, because of the way i present certain ideas. as if people take me seriously when i'm not being serious, or too literally, or they don't understand the underlying context of something, or they think i'm just a younger version of themselves (and thus all i need to do is "grow up"), or they already think they "get" me and thus their interpretation of whatever i say is subject to confirmation bias...

but this blog is supposed to help me identify what i need to change about myself, and i'm not gonna change anything if i always feel like i have to be defensive about what i have written... (even though it's not often that i actually get comments that imply i am an idiot, it feels like that's what people are often thinking.) i have to be open to the idea that some things need tweaking.

i am also embarrassed because i am twenty years old and i am so far behind where i "should" be in life. not only education/career/whatever; i mean who i am and what kinds of things are important to me now. although apparently it's not that uncommon for someone "like me", probably because things are more challenging so they do take more time. but i'm pretty sure no one understands that or thinks it is a legitimate reason. they would probably interpret what i just said to be an "excuse", rather than a "reason".

this post is kind of ironic (or coincidental?) because i found myself going back over it and altering words and phrases to eliminate all of the potential misunderstandings i could think of. (and i couldn't fix them all.) it will be nice to not feel the need to do that for a while.

It was refreshing to write an essay for the first time in a loong time. I'd forgotten how much I like essays. I always make random stuff up, because I don't like talking about anything personal. And since ~8th grade I have always ended my essays with the same exact sentence. It's a parody of the "connect to the reader" and "broader significance" conclusion styles, and the simple fact that I suck at conclusions. And more recently, I began starting my essays with the same 7-word phrase, as a parody of "general to specific" intro styles.

The writing prompt was something like: It has been said, "Laughter is the best medicine." Using your own personal experience, explain your opinion about this statement.

I wrote:

---

     Since the beginning of time, mankind has been told, "Laughter is the best medicine." Many people hold strong beliefs that oppose or support this statement. Some people argue that laughter makes light of a serious situation and is wholly inappropriate as medicine, while others claim that the positive effects of laughter on the mind can have a significant impact on a person's body as well. Personally, I tend to side with the latter group of people for the most part, although I have witnessed both the success and the failure of laughter as medicine.
     One example of my personal experience with laughter as medicine was with an uncle who had a cancerous tumor in his face. The hospital doctors had given up hope, informing him that surgery on his face would put his physical appearance at too great a risk. He was about to die when a new young doctor unexpectedly recommended one last treatment - laughter. The doctor showed him a video of the hilarious comedic stylings of the amazing Dane Cook. Miraculously, the tumor began to shrink, and after a few more hours of side-splitting joviality, it had completely disappeared. This experience made me a firm advocate of laughter as medicine.
     However, a more recent example of my personal experience has recreated some skepticism. A cousin of mine was experiencing severe depression after her husband spontaneously combusted. Her family immediately chose to try laughter as a remedy. She strongly objected, but the family locked her in a room and forced her to watch three hours of Dane Cook. Unfortunately, after a mere ten minutes of watching his performance, she had desperately stabbed herself in the eye with a nearby fork, causing her death. Seeing laughter fail so spectacularly to remedy depression has instilled in me a great doubt about its medicinal merit.
     The controversy about laughter blazes on in America today. Wars continue to be fought, as soldiers valiantly live and die fighting for their belief or disbelief in laughter as medicine. Remember that when you feel you can't go on.

---

Today I wrote another essay, but I don't have a copy of it. The prompt was "For you, what defines success? Write about a successful person." So I wrote all about my great-granddaughter Shanay     , and how she has achieved what I consider to be success in life: lasting happiness. I wrote about the admirable way she kept smiling even when the bank foreclosed on her family's home and they were forced to rent space in a homeless guy's box. Somehow, she is always able to maintain her inner peace, no matter what life throws at her. In my second body paragraph, I wrote about the way her amazing happiness didn't waver even when her family informed her that her mother had miscarried her unborn brother. She just kept smiling. The family held a funeral for him, during which Shanay      did cry briefly, but that turned out to be because she needed a diaper change, after which she was back to her regular smiling self. In conclusion, I wrote that my one-year-old great-granddaughter Shanay      is the most successful person I have met, because she is the only one I know who is truly happy inside. Remember that when you feel you can't go on.

well........

my cat just licked up some remnants of my McDonalds shake, to my relief. i wasn't sure it technically qualified as food.

on a slightly related note, i noticed that i actually like certain healthy foods. i don't think i'd have a problem adopting a healthy diet, if only it weren't so damn expensive. maybe a step in the right direction to solving america's weight problem is to take steps to reduce the cost of healthy foods (by subsidizing the right things, i guess).

i beat GTA IV today. the ending was good, although most of the plot tended to leave me wanting. i don't know if it was worth buying twice. i actually had to buy the game twice, because my first disc got messed up somehow after the 14-day exchange period. so i bought a new one, then i exchanged the old one using the new receipt. so now i have two good discs, and one is still wrapped. maybe i can sell it to someone.

i cut my finger at work again, probably 75% as bad as last time. but i reaaaally didn't want to make a big deal out of it. so i quickly grabbed a paper towel and applied pressure, as i tried to nonchalantly do whatever work i could with one hand. five minutes later, i ran out of one-handed things to do, so i checked to see if it was still bleeding torrents, and it was, so i looked for band-aids. i couldn't find them, so i had no choice but to ask a manager. remembering last time, she wanted to see my cut, so i lifted the paper towel very briefly. very luckily, only one bead of blood began to form while she was looking, so it didn't look that bad. but after she was gone and i was trying to put the band-aid on, it was rather impossible because every time i lifted the paper for half a second, my finger became covered in blood. so i ended up just putting the band-aid on anyway (atop of the blood), and wearing two white latex gloves on that hand. when i looked closely enough, i could see the blood coating my finger.
i took the band-aid off an hour later (because i couldn't nonchalantly leave with the gloves on) and cleaned my finger. it was STILL bleeding, but it was manageable. and luckily, the manager had given me two band-aids before, so i just put the second one on.
i'm still wearing a band-aid because if i don't, it feels like my finger wants to split apart.
ugh, i hate knives. when i accidentally slice myself with them, anyway.

i haven't cut my hair in approximately 1 year. it's partially symbolic, but it's mostly because i want to get it straightened. there's this "japanese hair straightening" thing i've been looking into forever, and i was gonna do it a couple weeks ago, when i read some more details about it. "This revolutionary Japanese hair straightening technique works on all types of hair!!! Yes, all! ALL TYPES OF HAIR!!! (except African hair)" ... and, considering that my skin is brown and my hair is very curly, it's a safe assumption that i'm african. (i never actually bothered to ask my parents because i never cared.)

since the soonest GED test is in mid-september, i won't be going to community college until january at the earliest. fucking awesome, now i have all of september thru december to continue sitting on my ass with a penetrating feeling of unfulfillability. at least going to college would provide the illusion of progress.

i don't know what people find so creepy about schizophrenia. i think it would be awesome to see/hear/etc things that aren't there. i know there's more to schizophrenia than that, but that's the part that i think would be cool. like, if i had an imaginary friend, and i could actually see and hear him.

i still haven't finished writing my "Fantasy" post. i reached some snags. certain things were ineffectively conveyed with a mere sentence or two. effective writing must "show, don't just tell". i couldn't get what i needed to get across without expanding it into a full paragraph that detailed an actual, specific experience that would cause the reader to conclude what i wanted to express on their own. that wouldn't have been a problem, except that it is making it really long. too long for a story with, as the name "Fantasy" suggests, no real conflict. so i had to think up a conflict to keep the story interesting. but now, with the conflict, i feel like it is no longer the story i had envisioned. so i'm a bit stuck right now.

oh also i turned 20 yesterday. i have internally identified myself as 20 for about ten months now though, so no difference. it's not like i can legally buy alcohol yet.

So I went and took the "Intake" test today, which is basically a placement exam for GED Prep class. If today's test is anything to go by, I don't need any prep. It, and perhaps the GED itself, will be a total joke. It was kinda fun to be taking a test for the first time in many months, but I finished way before everyone else and didn't even have any trouble on any of the questions. Some of the questions were degradingly easy. Most of the other test takers were older, and/or Mexican, or just generally seemed disadvantaged. (There were two other normal-seeming kids like me, though.) I kept thinking, "What the fuck, I'm not stupid, why am I doing this? I only have trouble with homework. I should just be taking some sort of test that is the equivalent of high school!" I had to keep reminding myself that that's indeed what I was doing.

Oh, also, I don't think I'll be posting "Fantasy" tomorrow. It's more difficult to put together than I had originally expected.

I'm gonna have to hold off on going to college. The soonest GED test is in September, but community college classes begin August 25th. Ugh. I had hoped that I could take the GED test that is occurring on July 18-19, or August 15-16, but nope, no space I guess. I shouldn't have waited until the last minute.
At least this means that I might be able to take some prep classes first. I thought I might be able to pass without any GED-specific prep, since I practically already passed high school, and I'm great at taking tests. But since I have to wait two months anyway, I might as well.

Anyway, today being one of every other Wednesday, I am due for a more significant and preplanned post, but I'm still working on it and it's not ready yet. It's a post called "Fantasy" that I've been thinking of for at least a month now, but I couldn't come up with a good plot point to hold it all together. But it suddenly came to me yesterday. I hope to post it on Friday. I think it's gonna be really long, though.