Coining The Social Requirement

Hello, world!

One night earlier this school year, I had to miss out on the homecoming football game at Tropical Park - right behind my house - only because I hadn't done my homework. I wa frustrated, no doubt, but by the time I finally finished, it was only an hour into the game! So I made the horrible, horrible choice of riding to Publix to pick up some groceries (which my mother told me to do) and on the way pass by the park, to see all of my friends cheering from the stands, all the while wearing that sad, puppy-dog, eye-sparkling face the lead actors wear in all those dramatic romance movies. After reaching an indescribable low point of depression (well not really; when I left the park someone gave me a red banana that tasted like an orange, so I rode bike home just fine), I began thinking about what I later coined, the "social requirement".

Why wasn't I able to go to the football game? Because I didn't realize the importance of social opportunities, of something as socially and psychologically beneficial as the opportunity to hang out with friends (and meet new people) at the homecoming football game. I did not equate the priority of an outing to the priority of homework - so I reserved an unlimited amount of time for my work that had no respect or consideration towards the football game. So I decided to come up with a concept to help me divide my time properly, and I called it the social requirement.

Essentially, the social requirement involves applying the same time-management skills you use to divvy up long projects, to divvying up time between your work and the social outings you can attend. So next time you're debating whether to stay home on Friday and work on that history report due Monday, or instead go to the movies to see Toy Story 3 with your best friends, go see Toy Story 3! Sure, you might have to accelerate your work on the report a little bit, but the social requirement is just that! It's believing that a drool-inducing 100-page report about the influence and importance of the color red in modern culture is just as important and professionally and socially and psychologically and optimistically beneficial as going to McDonald's with a group of five friends from the neighborhood to reap the benefits of half-price cheeseburgers on a Sunday.

Coining The Social Requirement

Cisco, Desk’s Livelihood on Day Ten

What makes a desk?

This is unfortunately not my desk.

For me, personally, my wobbly, fake-wood, fake-metal, scratched up, mayonnaised-on desk is my livelihood!

In essence, the little corner where this and a second glass desk sit, represent my little office. “I work here,” I say, as I sit down in my trusty reclinign chair and start either working on a term paper or hooking up some Silent Hill 2 or just browsing the Internet for videos of peoples’ game rooms.

But my desk isn’t without its inconveniences. I mean, yeah, it’s a little banged up and it has to support an overly heavy Dell 17″ CRT, but there’s one thing – just one thing that really brings my chicken nuggets out to the feeding yard: IT WOBBLES. Do you understand how absolutely inconsiderate and in-respectful and in-friendly (yes, I know that’s not how you spell those words) it is for my desk to have the nerve and take the liberty – the AUDACITY – to wobble vigorously left and right when I’m viciously erasing something from my homework? Like, what happened to enterprise and customer satisfaction – what happened to love and peace?! It’s all gone! ALL of it! All because one little 20 dollar desk supporting a ridicuslosuly heavy monitor from the 1990s decides to wobble left and right when the action becomes too much to handle.

Like, are you serious? I build computers on this desk, I sign contracts at this desk! You can’t do this to me, Daphne!

But anyway, despite its misconduct towards my person, I will be rewarding the desk this summer with a phone along the lines of the Cisco IP Phone 7970.

Actually, no, I’m gonna get this phone and put it on the glass desk instead. Daphne doesn’t deserve such luxury.
Though on second thought, that’s a lie too. This Cisco IP Phone is the absolute most awesome thing I’ve ever used in my history of using telephones. It’s AMAZING! It comes decked out in exciting gray and black, with a touchscreen display (touchscreen on a phone! WOW!), customizable settings for speaker and earpiece volume – everything! And the best thing is, I haven’t even penetrated the repository of things that this phone can do. It has voicemail, internet services, a boatload of buttons. It’s powered by two ethernet cables, which is enough of a landmark in my opinion.

But perhaps the best thing is that it’s allowed me to do so much. I sit next to this phone everyday, as I attend what is one of the best experiences yet – the Miami Montage 2010 Workshop. I’ve been given the chance to practice my journalism skills, which I haven’t been able to practice before. I’ve been given the chance to combine research with interviews, to bring together technology with the ages-old art of writing. I’ve been given the chance of a lifetime, and it’s absolutely great. Now I’m off to touch this phone some more.

So why am I lying about getting this phone? Because there’s no way I’d be able to afford this beauty I have sitting right next to me. I’ll buy something similar. I want to be just like that guy in “The Insider”, who has an awesome phone too, even though it’s undeniably 90s. He has an undeniably non-wobbly desk too – what a lucky guy!

Cisco, Desk’s Livelihood on Day Ten

Checkerboard and Pizza Dice

Well, hello everybody! It's Tomás at Large, summer edition, because over here in my neck of the woods, summer vacation started a considerable two or three weeks ago  and we're all soaking up the sun (or the A/C) as we enjoy our brief respite from the daily stress of school. I've personally been spending lots of my time editing the documentary I began earlier this year, heretofore titled, "The Sophomore Slump". I've restarted the editing process more than three times, and with editing comes a lot of frustration (especially considering I had to run out and buy a new fan/heatsink for my machine) that eventually leads up to those amazing, happiness-inducing bursts of creativity where you find yourself editing for hours when you thought you'd only spent a few minutes.

Editing, like many art forms, is one of those things in life that requires full devotion and concentration. When you're editing something, be it a feature length film or a 30 second TV spot, you need to completely envelop yourself in both the creative process, and the world of the production you're splicing and cutting. In other words, you need to be a part of the film or video as much as the actors are. So if you're editing a horror movie, you're going to become entrenched in the fear of the innocent Valley Forge girl as she unwittingly creeps into the house, only to be attacked by the mask-wearing, knife-wielding hockey player bad guy. If you're editing a documentary, you're going to become a part of the bad situation it addresses, or the cause it's advocating. And here I am, editing a documentary that's essentially about myself.

It's about teenagers, about school life, about what teenagers think about, what they say, what they do in class, what "drama" they get themselves in, what they think about their teachers, their relationships, high school. To top it off, all the main interviewees are some of my best friends (yes; I suppose the documentary is biased in this respect, but I'll explain more about this in a later blog post). So I can't help but think and rethink and think again about what they're saying.

When Jeannie says, "middle school, you're walking around and your drama is like, 'oh my god, she hates me'; in high school, it's like 'oh my god, she fucked him", I can't help but think about all the rumors one kid supposedly spread about his girlfriend.

When Chris says, "high school's high school; [for some] it's a prison, [for others] it's the next step before college", I can't help but think about the numerous amounts of times I've heard some of my friends say they hated coming to school.

When Yero ARMANDO Lopez says, "it's ... your prime, like you just want to, like, turn Super-Saiyan right quick; just wanna, ugh ... get bitches!" I can't help but think about ... about ...

see, that's where I'm stumped. The reason why there's a whole section in the documentary devoted to the interviewees and related B-roll talking about relationships and teenage romance, is because it's undoubtedly a big part of teenage life, right? As an editor, as a screenwriter, one knows the things a movie has to have for it to be complete. If I were writing a James Bond film, it'd be dumb not to include some attractive femme fatales to serve as the Bond girls.

Well, when I was thinking about what I had to show about teenagers to make the concept clear, I knew, without a doubt, that relationships would be one of the many things I had to show. In fact, that was probably the first thing I thought about.

From film screenwriter, I transform to audience member and as I watch the same edit for the 573rd time, I'm trying to grasp the thoughts teenagers have about this relationship business. And there's still one thing I really don't understand, and considering it's frustrated my existence for a while - long before this documentary even began - I figure it's worthy of an open Blogger question.

More than two years ago, I met one of my old best friends - let's call him Checkerboard. At about the same time, I met another friend of mine - let's call him Pizza Dice. I was, of course, much younger and terribly more naive back then, and these guys had understanding of things way beyond what my innocent mind could grasp at the time.

One of them was a well-rooted attitude towards girls and relationships. At the time, I was in a relationship, but when I asked the girl out, I did it more out of the novelty of having a girlfriend, rather than really needing someone. Now, don't take me wrong - my relationship with her turned out to be one of the most spiritually uplifting and utterly wonderful friendships I'll ever remember - but the truth is that at the time, I saw it as something cool because the grown-ups did it, not because I needed a partner.

Checkerboard and Pizza Dice were different - they were leap-years ahead of me in this respect; they'd grown enough to be able to want someone that way. Regardless, they often talked about girls in ways that - at the time - I found less than honorable. "Dude, she's so hot"; "dude, I bet that guy's made out with her like crazy" ; "dude, OMG, look at her ass" . Being as naive as I was, I dismissed these comments as derogatory and disrespectful, and instantly shot down my friends when they said them. But in reality, they were doing nothing wrong. Sure, the comments were most likely guided by hormonal instabilities, but they weren't without their moral equivalent. In other words, Checkerboard and Pizza Dice said these things in truth, but they still knew to respect girls and talk to them nicely and all that. What they had was an extra bit of braveness and maturity that allowed them to be playful this way, and be able to express their true opinions about girl's physical attributes without shame. I couldn't handle this amount of maturity at the time, and so my defense mechanisms said to ignore it and call it wrong.

But the truth is, I'm falling into that trap now (well it's not really a trap, but I guess it's a nice way to put it). I go around looking at my friends on Facebook (on the NEWS FEED only; I'm no stalker) and I realize, when I look at some of my female friends (which I oddly have a ginormous amount of) how I find myself saying those same comments in my head when I see their profile pictures. Or, how when I go to parties or the mall or any form of social gathering that isn't a dick-fest, how I see myself looking at hot girls in the hallways and saying the same things.

Now is when my "maturity" has allowed shameless admittance of such things to be possible, but now is too late! When I talk to my friends about how hot this girl is, or how lucky that other dude is to be *&#^$'in that chick, the conversations are short and do not allow for my newfound maturity to have its support base. In other words, those shameless comments Checkerboard and Pizza Dice used to say are now replaced by honest emotional cries of necessity for a special someone.

And trust me, I have that too - I also want a girlfriend, not just for a #*$& buddy, but really because I want someone to share special moments with, someone to talk to about my newest computer hacking project - but that earlier stage of physiological need, which was hidden and prohibited from coming out way back when, has now been set loose without that support base that Checkerboard and Pizza Dice could've provided back then! I have no brothers in arms to join with when I'm strolling around the mall looking at hot chicks, or when I'm at a JAMA party sitting down sipping on a Sunkist whilst checking out the new arrivals! In Freudian fashion, I'm regressing to a previous stage of hormonal development that never developed properly!

Or am I thinking too much? Will attending one of those crazy beach parties help? I want y'all to help me understand this, to understand myself. Maybe Checkerboard and Pizza Dice will help out. Thanks, guys. I think some time playing Metal Gear Solid is well overdue by now. 'Til next time, folks.

Checkerboard and Pizza Dice

Thoughts During Summer - Pt. 1

2:52 AM, my room. 

It's in moments of great inactivity, it seems, that one has their brightest, and deadliest, ideas. Last summer, my boredom was enough to catalyze what would've otherwise been a disastrous break-up between me and two of the best friends I've had to date.

This summer, my excitement is enough to keep me awake during moments of inactivity. Excitement about what? Well, about everything I could do that needs doing.

A documentary titled "the Sophomore Slump", that needs to be finished (I'll be resuming work this weekend when I get a new heatsink/fan for my heat-inducing CPU), a Russian exchange student I could be spending time with, a Chili's or McDonald's tea party I could be hosting, PSP and PS2 games I could be playing (halted at the moment by a 2GB Memory Stick on the PSP - I need at least a 16GB to be able to store a proper amount of games and music - as well as by a PS2 that unfortunately broke down after nearly nine to ten years of faithful service), a bike I could be riding, a video game system I could be working on (titled Daphne VGS (Video Game System); details coming up soon), two or three AP summer assignments I could be working on, a premiere party I could be organizing for the documentary - in essence, summer adventures I could be having.

Summer is a very dangerous time, thus, for teenagers. Because it's essentially a time you have to make yourself. School provides an itinerary that too many teenagers aren't able to develop during the summer - sure it involves sitting in class for 2 or more hours (less if you're lucky) but it incontrovertibly provides a sense of direction that can be very difficult to forge during summer. If you don't have a good set of activities to embark upon, you might be bored in your house to the point of mental rotting. On the other hand, too many activities and you might be doubly frustrated when you realize you can't be doing them all. Hell, when you have too many activities, the smallest period of inactivity makes you anxious because you know you should be getting ahead on that stuff you plan to do.

It's 3:00 AM, now, and what am I doing? None of the things described above! Why? Well, because ... I don't know why. I do know, however, that excitement and anticipation for all those activities I listed is only building up more and more as my body naturally calls for sleep, for some ZZZs. I'm gonna go try to satisfy its needs.

Thoughts During Summer - Pt. 1