Note: this is the first entry which I date by when I stopped taking notes for it, rather than when I actually wrote it. Bear with me.
Over the last few days I've been significantly more sociable / willing to violate social conventions (so I guess I basically mean less shy) than I usually am. It's far too early to tell whether this is the start of a permanent change or just a one-time thing, but I was consciously wondering while it was going on whether it was a reaction to Thomas, an attempt to differentiate myself from him. On Friday evening, I believe, I hung out with Cara and Clea (two of the girls who live next door) in their room, took a picture of the now very dried up roses which I left for them last semester and talking about all kinds of stuff. I thought about the fact that Clea is quite attractive and they're both very friendly and I wondered, as I sometimes have in the past, what steps one needs to take in order to move from this type of thing into dating. I don't really even think that it would be a good thing for me to do that at the moment - I'm a senior at the moment and will be leaving in a semester, while they're freshman and will probably be at CMU for some time to come. And unlike Thomas, I want my relationships to mean something. I suppose it's just noting a significant lack in myself of the basic social skills to know how to go about something like that if I did want to. Oh look at me, I'm such a pathetic loser, I have no social skills, la la la. Complaining is so empty and stupid.
I recall one time when I screwed up my courage quite a while ago. It was freshman year, and I was totally stressed out. I think it was at the end of the first semester. Anyway, I was in a very weird mood going to math class in Scaife, and somehow I ended up asking Jadda if she wanted to go to a movie. She was already going out with Jared at the time, although they hadn't told anyone yet, so she declined without giving a reason, but the cool part was that I didn't really feel let down at all, whereas usually I would have felt totally crushed in that situation. I think that a large part of being less scared is sort of letting go of the result and concentrating on what you're doing. Also, having someone else on my side makes it much easier to be confident.
Friday night, Thomas and I went to see White Oleander. It was a very good movie, in my opinion, and bears seeing if you have a chance. Thomas also met a strange-looking girl named Kat there and struck up a conversation with her while recording her on video. He got her email address and sent her one, and she replied and told him where to find her, but he never did.
Explanation of Thomas' entry of 02/07: while what he said there wasn't a lie, it does seem to have been deliberately misleadingly constructed to make it appear to the reader that I have a crush on Laura. First of all, like Thomas said, I did say I'd take Laura with me on a spaceship if I only got to take one person, but it was so totally arbitrary that I think I said it mostly to piss him off. Second, I wanted the footage of the slave auction because it was of the slave auction, not because it was of Laura; although I listened to the whole thing, I didn't watch all of it by any stretch. I actually wished Thomas had been trying to tape the auction itself rather than just Laura, but something was still better than nothing.
On Saturday Thomas went to a psychology experiment. He said it was really boring. Sunday he went to another one but was so bored he just left. Later Saturday we went grocery shopping again. Then we went to The Tuxedo, the first Jackie Chan movie I've seen, which I found very funny. After that, Misha and Yuliya stopped by wondering whether Yuliya had really seen "boredatheist" in the hallway. Misha stayed here for several hours talking mostly about Laura.
On Sunday I started my Networks assignment and watched TV. Don't remember anything about the whole day other than those two things.
This is a not up-to-date update containing the bits of a file of notes I made that I've actually fleshed out into full sentences. I may have to consider dating my journals from now on based more on when the events detailed in them happened than when I wrote the entry itself. Anyway:
On Friday, KGB held a slave auction to raise money. (The slaves serve for six hours and are allowed to reject orders that violate their moral principles or cost them money or would cause them bodily harm.) I told Thomas about it since I intended to go and I figured it was better to inform him. Laura was one of the people up for auction. He emailed her asking if she would invoke the anti-stalker clause (a slave up for auction could have a patsy in the audience to outbid any potential stalkers) or have him thrown out if he tried to bid on her (saying that if he won he'd just want to take her out to dinner and a movie or something like that, no touching). She responded rationally but did tell him he wouldn't be allowed to bid on her. (She also said he couldn't afford her, which ended up being an overstatement: Thomas has somewhere around $300 to his name, and Laura only went for $170, a slight decline from her price last year of I believe $210.)
Through the few days leading up to the slave auction, I was unsure whether or not I wanted to be auctioned off in it. In the last day before it happened, I talked to Charlie and Ed about it. Charlie seemed surprised that I didn't object to it on principle, but couldn't see any reason not to participate if I didn't object, and Ed said the biggest detriment was that I might not receive many bids, since not a lot of people know me all that well.
In the end I decided in the few minutes leading up to the auction that I would be a slave. Thomas went with me and brought his video camera. He and I first sat in the back, but then I moved to the front and he stayed in back, filming until his camera ran out of batteries, pointing only at Laura the vast majority of the time.
I had a great deal of fun, although I was kind of annoyed that Shawn (who was acting as auctioneer) took so long to get around to me (he was going in arbitrarily-chosen order). I made several bids on various girls, but most of them got too rich for my blood. The only one I won was Jamie, a fairly attractive female freshman, on whom I went in three ways with Ed and Mark Tomczak, meaning I only get 2 hours of her time. I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet.
I didn't bid on Laura, who went for $170. I sort of wanted to, but I wasn't sure whether or not she'd have invoked the anti-stalker clause against me as well (as opposed to just Thomas), and I didn't want to deprive the KGB of that much revenue. Also, I thought that doing so might create tension, and there wasn't anything specific I had in mind to do with her - it just seemed in the abstract that a few hours of Laura-time was bound to be useful to me somehow. Nevertheless, I don't think that I made the wrong decision. It was just a difficult one.
Later, it was my turn to be auctioned. Knowledge of OS seemed to be my main marketable skill. When I first came up, Shawn (the auctioneer) tried to sell me to the audience, then asked me to describe my talents myself, but I got kind of flustered, and Ed had to pitch me. I ended up going for $40 to Alisa and Dave, after a respectable number of bids. She told me they're going to make me do dishes and teach them OS at the same time. Almost no one went for under $30, but at least my bid wasn't humiliatingly low.
After the auction I asked Thomas if he had enjoyed it. He said that enjoyed wasn't exactly the right word, but that he was glad he had gone. I asked him later if he had started to become disillusioned with the prospect of seeing Laura in person, and he said yes. I asked him further if he was now less likely to seek her out and he said yes, but I had a strong ungrounded suspicion that he was saying this mostly to conform to things he'd already claimed rather than out of any particular conviction. I get the sense that Thomas does this often. Thomas' level of suspicion and skepticism is truly impressive, but at the same time I get the sense that he has permanently locked himself in to a pattern in which I've found myself in the past to be very unproductive: that of questioning one's own thoughts as they happen to such an extent that one stagnates rather than exploring any path sufficiently to be really sure it's a dead end. It very effectively locks one into the state one is already in, which I fear for Thomas is a significantly suboptimal one.
Well, Thomas is gone. He decided to go to Atlantic City on Friday, I believe, not even telling me in person but letting me find out on his website. He's going to gamble probably until he runs out of money (he thinks he might be able to make a living as a gambler, but I'm dubious). I asked him to buy a ticket to see Krystle, who did finally agree that he could stay there, but he said he'd wait 2 days in Atlantic City before doing so. I hope he makes good on that and that he still has the money left by that point. I don't know why, but I really don't think it would be a good thing for him to join the army.
In the last few days of his visit, Laura wrote a LiveJournal Entry about Thomas which she started as friends-only, then made public in order to share with him. I'll assume that if you're interested, you've just read the entry I linked to; if not, some of the following might not make sense. I met with her on Thursday evening, a description of which I wrote in stream-of-consciousness style, and which I will now attempt to adapt into full sentences.
Laura sent me an email on Wednesday evening, telling me that she'd like to meet with me some time. She advised me that she could be found in the Baker cluster "all night", so since Thomas was at a movie I headed over there, but I was a little too late. So the next day, after Networks when I knew her Intro Psych. course had met directly above me, I left a minute or two early and went upstairs and waited outside the door for her. We talked for a few minutes while she walked over to her next class. We agreed to meet at 4:30, after that class ended.
When I was leaving to meet Laura, I knew that she wouldn't want Thomas obsessing over what I was doing or trying to tag along, so when I left and he asked where I was going, I didn't really answer, and when he asked if he could come along, I said "no". I felt bad about it, because he looked so pathetic and I could tell that he really wanted to get out of my room, and if I'd been doing just about anything else I would have let him follow me, but that wouldn't have worked this time.
Unfortunately, I left my room later than I needed to - I wasn't thinking, classes end at 20 after, so 4:30 really meant 4:20. Laura wasn't there in the hall when I arrived, so I tried to find her, wandering around campus for a bit thinking "wish I had a cell phone" or "I should ask some random person if I can use his cell phone" after I logged into Laura remotely from one of the Baker clusters to check Laura's cell number and entered it into Pandora (the name I ended up giving to PDA). Eventually I went to the UC and asked where I could find a phone.
I tried to call Laura and it rang but there was no answer. I went outside, just about ready to give up, and I saw a Laura-like person heading towards the UC from the Doherty area, so I walked in that direction, and the Laura-like person was actually Laura. She had tried to call my room, but Thomas had answered and she had hung up. We walked down the grass and into Wean. Laura's hands were very cold, so I helped warm them up. Inside Wean, we went to the 4th floor and sat down after wandering through some of the clusters, running into RJ, who jokingly chased after Laura and who I then slammed (not too hard) into the wall. We found some nice chairs on the 4th floor, sat down, and talked for a while.
Laura and my communication was amazing. I felt that I could be totally open and honest with her, that ideas poured directly out of my head and into hers and vice versa. I was talking extremely fast, as was Laura much of the time. I was also noting the contrast with how Thomas always says he has an extremely difficult time improvising in social situations. Laura said I have good social skills because I know when to make eye contact and use voice intonation and body language and laugh at the proper times. I guess studying psychological disorders a significant amount gives one a different perspective. It's also true that I have a decent base on which to build, though.
Eventually we left the comfort of the 4th floor of Wean so Laura could drop in on her BSA meeting. (BSA seems to be the interdisciplinary college thingie at CMU.) She asked if I could be a guest at the meeting, and that was okay. They had food there, which was nice. I mostly just sat there while Laura talked to people; I felt slightly awkward since she knew everyone whereas I knew no one, but it wasn't too bad. Laura was going to a roleplaying session in Squirrel Hill later that night, and I convinced her somehow to walk there, walking with her so we could keep talking a while longer.
On the way there, Laura suggested that I call Thomas and tell him what I was doing. I was sort of nervous about it, but Laura said to just act nonchalant about it, so I did. I pegged the chance he would follow us relatively highly, so it was decided not to tell him where we were, and I called him on Laura's cell phone and said "Hey Thomas, I'm walking Laura home." He disappointingly had almost no reaction, though - I had expected something.
As Laura was walking up the big hill on Forbes, she almost got winded, so I helped her up. Then all of a sudden she turned around and had to go back a bit to show me something. It was the arch where Erik and she hadn't kissed. You see, freshman year she was being a bit... easy... and when she had met Erik she could tell she really liked him, and it was special that under that arch he hadn't tried to kiss her because it meant that he had actually been listening to the stuff she had been saying all night. Umm, I'm sure this story would both sound more impressive and make more sense if you heard it from Laura.
Eventually we got to Squirrel Hill and proceeded to try to locate the actual house where the roleplaying session would be. Laura called one of the other people who would be there several times on her cell phone to try to locate it. It turns out that all the lights were off in the house, but we did finally find it. We sat down on the swing on the porch and continued talking for a while.
Laura thinks that Thomas has Asperger's. I'm not convinced, but neither am I convinced that it's false; I simply know that I don't have enough evidence one way or the other. I was noticing how a lot of the symptoms she asked whether he had were things that I do, and was wondering about the legitimacy of the whole thing, but as she pointed out, "if something doesn't cause you problems, it's not a psychological disorder".
That night Mark and I finally finished up the Distributed project somehow, and Saturday Shion and Mark did all of the Databases project and turned it in without me working on it at all. I know I could have done it, and I said to let me work harder on the next one to make it up, but I felt bad about it. Oh well.
Last for now, I wrote an email which I think is the most objective summary I've yet given (to the point of being painful for me to re-read) of my relationship with Alison. I decided to post it here as well, in the interests of full disclosure. If you choose to read it, I ask that you keep in mind that I am literally not the person that I was while I was going out with Alison any more; that I think the best way to explain things is that another self inhabited my body at the time. That said, you can find it here.
Well, I'm sitting here in the classroom where Linear Algebra would be held, were it not for the fact that classes were canceled. We got something like 10 inches of snow and for apparently only the second time in the school's history, CMU decided to cancel classes. I woke up half an hour late (that is, at the time I woke up I would already have missed half of Distributed had it been held), but decided that half a class wasn't worth it and got ready to leave at a leisurely pace, yet somehow I still managed to miss the two copies of the class cancellation notice that wound up in my inbox (and yes, I did briefly look at my email). I have wireless ethernet, so I suppose it doesn't matter much, although I hope that the KGB meeting is still held, primarily so that I get to see Ed.
I just returned The Bell Curve to the school library, having read under a quarter of it. It was due today, and CMU was kind enough to send me an email reminding me of that fact - this time, one that I did notice. I briefly considered renewing it or checking it out again later, but let's face it - the main reason I was reading it anyway was to get a better idea of where Thomas was coming from. Although I found it plausible, I also found most of what it said fairly weak and commonsensical, and I didn't see anything it had to say having much impact on my day-to-day life. Furthermore, as evidenced by my failure to read any more of it in the approximately one month that I had it checked out, it was boring.
I watched Gattaca last night. I'd had it downloaded for over a week, but a good time to watch it hadn't come up yet. I cried at the end when... well, it's near the very end, and I think it will be obvious to you if you've seen it, and if not I don't want to spoil a good movie. It was weird, though, because it was almost like I consciously decided to cry (?). Like there was one part of me that said "okay, crying center, commence tears" and from then on it was all automatic. I think I should start thinking of my unconscious as more integrated with me. If I do that, then all of these concerns about being or seeming "unnatural" will be irrelevant.
I'm noticing myself simulating Thomas sometimes, even though he's left and the one conversation we've had on AIM since then was completely fruitless. It's especially noticeable when doing a prototypical Thomas-like activity like writing a journal entry. I've also been noticing myself actively attempting to differentiate from Thomas. Thomas is gone, get him out of your head! Heh, he'll probably be flattered I'm still thinking of him when he reads this.
I wonder why I so easily buy into whatever message a movie is trying to send. I mean, you can make a movie in which I won't sympathize with the main character's goals, but usually you have to be trying to do so (comedy sometimes really annoys me because despite what the creators likely consider the obvious comedic overtones, I still end up taking things seriously enough that the main character's failing spectacularly would seriously upset me if I didn't control myself). And after watching Gattaca I was seriously thinking that hey, maybe outlawing genetic testing wouldn't be such a bad idea. Of course, it would likely be irrelevant. Once it becomes cheap enough, it will be so easy to get a few skin cells or a hair and do a test, and the benefits will be so high and obvious, that everyone will do it anyway. I suppose this really has nothing to do with genetic testing, and more to do with the fact that I'm not especially happy about where the world seems to be headed at the moment.
Now to get old notes out of the way, I guess...
On Monday morning, I hung out with Varun and James in the hall until like 8 o'clock in the morning. It was a very discursive discussion, but it seemed like the central topic was dating. I was asking for a lot of information, but I don't really know why. James has a girlfriend now. It's funny, a few people always seem to find girlfriends around Valentine's Day. That's probably not a coincidence.
My Distributed take-home was due on Monday, having been out for a week, and I hadn't started it until after waking up that day, so I figured it would be a disaster. It actually ended up pretty easy, though. Greg said later that he had actually designed it for a 50-minute period (our normal class length), but just made it take-home cause he didn't want to have to read our handwriting. Hehe.
On Monday evening, after Ed had left after his typical post-KGB meeting visit, Laura randomly (at least it seemed so to me) called me up and asked if she could come over to my room and work (this not being entirely unprecedented, since she did it once with Ed last semester). I said sure, and she actually ended up coming over, goofing off for a bit, and then cleaning my room. Wheeeee. I'll have to have Laura over more often.
I can't remember anything relevant from Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday I started my networks project, a bit too late, as I ended up turning in a substandard project a day late (for an 8% penalty). I've been so demotivated lately.
On Thursday, Laura asked if I wanted to walk with her to Squill again. I said sure. I met her after her class, but before going to Squill we went to KGB's Exec meeting and she worked on her essay afterwards. We went to the room where Exec would be held and were a bit early, if I remember correctly. I looked a bit out of it and Laura told me to go to the 2nd floor and get sushi. They were out of that, but I got a lemonade and a chocolate muffin and some carrot and celery sticks and ranch dressing instead. I really needed someone to tell me to get something to eat.
Exec was a lot like a regular KGB meeting, but smaller. After that, while watching Laura work on her essay, I realized that Laura has a very odd style of typing - she uses both hands, but her right hand covers most of the keys, and her left only a few. She types quite fast like that, though. Eventually she got her essays into an almost-done state and we left.
For most of the way there, although with many divergences, we talked about the Dungeons and Dragons alignment system (good/evil, chaotic/lawful) trying to establish where I fit on that scale. I think we eventually decided I was more good than evil, since I very rarely do things to others I wouldn't want done to me or people I care about (the latter being our consensus definition of "evil"), and that I was pretty chaotic, since I have fundamentally different modes of being between which I flip on a very frequent basis. Along those lines, Laura let me in on the fact that she's not really quite as chaotic internally as she acts towards the outside world.
So, I finally accomplished a couple of things I had been putting off for quite some time. Namely, I mailed in my refund check for nearly $1000 from CMU to deposit it, and I got my eyes checked so I could renew my driver's license. Pandora reminded me of these things repeatedly for over a week, but I still took forever to get around to them. I think rather than having a poor memory, I may just be lazy, which Pandora can't really help me with. Oh well.
I posted to the class bboard for Networks the following message: