How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Contraction

I hate group projects. You can never really tell if your group-mates will live up to their side of the bargain. Luckily for me, one of my team members was on top of things, hell, he was the one sweating bullets for the rest of us. Then another member was completely AWOL, waiting in line for a Shocktoberfest wristband rather than contributing to a report that was due the next day. The last group member--well, let's just say he inspired this entry.

As the team writer, it was up to me to get everybody's notes and write a report based on it. After I finished, I sent it out again for "final edits." The last group member, whom I shall henceforth refer to as "DH," pointed out that I had many mistakes that had to be corrected--namely--the contractions.

So there really are people in this world who are still hung up on this concept of contractions. I told him that there was nothing wrong with contractions, but his rebuttal was "Well I want to get a good grade." The poor fool has been brainwashed by a system that has turned guidelines into absolutes.

During my grade school days, I remember my teachers admonishing the students for using contractions in "formal" essays. Children today are now taught to fear the contraction, for its use provokes censure. I think this is a horrible thing. There are certainly arguments against the use of contractions, but to instill such fear of the concept is going a little overboard.

As you can probably tell, I love my contractions. It irritates me whenever somebody, such a peer reviewer, points out contractions as an error. There's nothing inherently wrong with a contraction or else it wouldn't exist to begin with. I love contractions because it serves its function well, to communicate clearly and concisely. The most important thing about writing isn't styles or formalities; it's about how well you can communicate. Writing is a fundamental medium of communication. Whether or not you use contractions has no bearing on the communicative aspect--actually, I would argue that contractions, due to its ubiquitous use in everyday conversation, could possibly enhance communication.

There's more to formality than splitting "don't" into "do not." I can still write an incredibly formal essay chock-full of contractions. Formality is really determined by the content of writing, not how you present it. That idea may run contrary to what is taught in school, but getting rid of contractions doesn't make your story of taking a shit in the bathroom any more formal than its subject matter.

So when is it not appropriate to use a contraction? It's really a matter of respect. If you're writing a request to somebody above you, it might be better to not use contractions. Yet, even in that situation, I still find myself using a contraction just because it’s natural to me. It's natural to everybody, because that's the way we speak. Maybe I'm just completely off-base here and contractions really are the devil's playthings. If it is truly sin to contract, don't expect me to repent.

The Crysis Effect

I’ve walked through a tropical rainforest before. The trees shoot up to the sky and fan out, forming a canopy, rays of light peeking through the thick cloud of leaves. When the wind blows, shadows shake and jitter over the forest floor. The ground is covered with so many leaves that my every step makes a loud crunch. Every inch of the place has something sprouting out of it. When I think of nature, I think of my walk through the rainforest.

But it’s not a real forest. It’s all in a video game. Virtual. Simulated. I think it’s fascinating, amazing, and sad that its only after taking a tour on a computer did I come to appreciate real nature.

I admire the craftsmanship that goes into rendering these virtual trees. I can recognize the hard work behind it because I like to draw. Making sure people can recognize what I’m trying to draw is a real challenge. I used to draw my trees with two vertical curves with a cloud plopped on top, and become ecstatic when people saw a tree and not a stick of cotton candy, now, I’m obsessed with the details. As I gallivant through these virtual environments, I ask myself: Is that really how it is?

I scrutinize every little detail of the graphics in a video game. I walk up to trees until my face (or the camera) is colliding against the bark. I crouch up and down, twist and turn, all in order to inspect objects from different angles. I closely examine the textures, I watch how the light bounces off, and I observe how the shadows glide across the surface. In my final experiment, I shoot it with my gun and inspect the bullet holes.

I don’t shoot trees in real life. The greatest act of violence I ever committed against a tree was taking a hammer and pounding it against a branch as a child. That was in my old neighborhood. I came back to visit a decade after the fact and saw that the scars persist to this day.

The odd thing about a video game is that everything catches my attention, how realistic everything looks and how accurately they resemble their real-life counterparts. After spending so much time poking and prodding these worlds, it’s only natural that I continue to poke and prod outside of it. That’s when it hit me. The world’s greatest graphics are real. I often find myself walking along campus and staring at the trees. When most people think of trees, they think of a general all-encompassing tree. There are at least twenty different types of trees on campus with obviously distinct features. In Aldrich Park, it’s too easy to blur out nature and only see the roads and places we have to go. If you actually stop to look sometimes, you see things you didn’t notice before—like the flowerbeds. Even a quick glance lets me see details I never knew were there.

I went hiking with my friend the other day and we sat on a bench overlooking a lake. Hills rolled in every direction. They weren’t rocky, but they weren’t green either. It was probably the season. They were yellow, and they sprawled all around us and in the distance. It was a scene straight out of a movie—or maybe it was the opposite—a scene movies rip straight out of nature. I thought, “So these places really do exist.”

When we look through travel catalogues and photo albums, we see exotic locales that seem far away. California is a unique place that has exotic locales right in our backyards. A twenty minute drive is all it takes to get out of suburbia and into the wilderness. The city feels closed in, noisy, and relentless in its assault on all senses. I think of Blade Runner and its smog-choked constantly-rained Los Angeles. By the movie’s end, Harrison Ford and his replicant girlfriend ride off on a mountain road lined with trees.

One of the appeals of a virtual reality is a chance to explore exotic environments without the inconveniences that follow in real life. Scaling mountains and trekking across treacherous terrain is a lot harder than holding down a key. Exploring exotic locales in video games is certainly a cheaper way to experience “nature” than actually traveling there, but is it really a substitute? It isn’t.

I appreciate nature’s design. Details don’t disappear the closer you look, rather, more details are revealed. There are entire worlds on a microscopic level that exist on and underneath the surface of trees. The smallest unit of graphical representation in a video game is a pixel. They are geometrically based. In order to create the semblance of a curve, you need thousands upon thousands of polygons. Computers favor sharp clean lines. The varied forms of nature are a nightmare to render. The sprawl of branches, the thousands of leaves, the roundness and twisted contorted shape of everything stumps even the most powerful computer. Reality doesn’t have that problem though. There is no approximation of curves, no polygons or vertices parading as rounded objects. It’s real and infinite in its design.

There is something about nature that is inherently pure. Our attempts to capture its essence always falls short, no matter how much it resembles the real thing. It’s not just about appealing to all of our senses: the sight of hills, the sound of water, the smell of earth, or the feel of the wind, it’s about knowledge. There’s more to nature than its beauty. There are things that we can’t immediately observe—the food chain, how the ecosystem functions as a coherent whole. We take on look at a forest and we see a forest, not an entire world chock full of self-sustaining processes. Nature isn’t static, it is constantly changing. Nature’s very essence is change, and that’s something no reproduction can truly recreate.

Class Distinctions

Which would you prefer? If somebody said to you, "You're stupid," or if somebody said to you, "You got no class." I think the answer is pretty simple:


There's just something about the word "class" that provokes knee-jerk reactions from even the most level-headed cucumber. Typical insults like "idiot" and "stupid" have pretty much lost their bite through overuse and juvenile association. Anybody who's stupid enough to call anybody else stupid is...well, stupid--like what are you, ten years old? Grow up.

So what are the insults of choice for adults? Douchebag, dick, asshole, and motherfucker are common enough, which by default, makes them exceedingly vulgar. Cool cucumbers can brush off layman insults simply because its beneath them. So how do you get under the skin of Mr. Freeze?

Calling out their family members is one way. For some reason, everybody sees blood when their mom is insulted. Family in general is hallowed ground, but because its hallowed, it's a pretty desperate attempt to undermine someone's cool exterior. Besides, it's a grade-A dick move, you get no respect from anybody for doing so.

So the last resort really, is to say to them, "You got no class."

Holy shit. Did you just say I have no class? Fuck you.

What differentiates a straight up insult like "You asshole" to a seemingly innocuous observation of "You got no class" is precisely just that: it's an observation. It's one thing to call a spade a dick, but it's a whole 'nother story when you're calling a spade, a spade.

For the most part, the "no class" insult isn't all that common, so when it does come out, most people get blindsided by it. They are ill-equipped to handle such an insult since they've never encountered it before. They don't have the counter-strategies, and in their attempt to come up with one on the spot, they sputter and manage to make themselves look like idiots in the process. The thing about being called out for having no class is that its a fundamental evaluation on your being as a human being.

It pretty much goes back to old-school society. They're basically calling you a peasant, a peon, a lower-class citizen. You is in the lower-echelon of humanity my friend.

Fuck you, I totally have class.

Or do I?

What does it even mean to have class? Does it mean being honest? Being nice? Grateful? Never saying a bad thing about anybody?

Face it people, we are all classless to an extent. Every time you make a joke that mocks misogyny and racism, that's not very classy. Every time you revel in the failures of the people you absolutely despise, that's not very classy. The long list of things that make us unclassy is exceedingly long compared to the things that do make you classy. But the thing is, the unclassy list is the same as the being human list.

Few people are class all the way. There's always a bit of classless in all of us. It's what it means to be human. So the next time somebody says to you, "You got no class," just smile and ignore the hypocrite.

He's a classless fuck anyways.

Fat Boggles

As my eyes gazed upon another human boulder rolling along campus, my brain can only think: how? The phenomenon of "fat" simply boggles the mind. Or perhaps its more accurate to say that fat jiggles the behind. Whatever undulating motion those waves of flesh finds themselves in, the concept of fat forever remains elusive to me. I can't imagine being fat. Never mind that I was a slightly pudgy kid.

It's such a foreign concept to me. How does one become fat? My appetite is so weak, and my genes so lean, that I don't think I can ever eat more than a mini-sized bag of Doritos. Those who continue to wolf down bite after bite after a full course meal have my respect. Mad respect. Just the idea of having that much weight to carry around me...how do they even get around? What does that do for flexibility? I may not reach my toes, but I can at least see them.

I remember for one of my club outings, we went to a Korean BBQ place after a tiring day of fun at Six Flags. The food was legitimate. It was good stuff, absolutely delicious. But I know my limits, and even though the food kept coming, I stopped. But that didn't deter the female members of my group, who persisted in their efforts to ravenously consume all they could eat. Vultures. Unabashed vultures. The lot of them.

There's probably a threshold, a line where once you cross it, you just go "fuck it." I think most of these people found themselves over the threshold before they realized that there was a threshold. To be honest, it's insulting. Years of natural selection and the final result in the evolution of man is ball. Gluttonous human fat ball. Our first invention was the wheel, now we have become it.

I hardly think that we scraped and fought our way to the top of the food chain only to be rolled off the top to pave way for our new alien overlords. Obesity is a serious issue. Diabetes and all that jazz. Somebody's gotta fight the fat.

Fight the fat.

Screwed

Don't give me daylight if there's going to be a solar eclipse five minutes later. Don't give me hope if you're only going to disappoint me in the end.

Journalism is such a haphazard occupation. You really don't know whether you've hit the jackpot or if you're being bamboozled. So much of your livelihood hinges on the whims of your subject. If they clam up and start making you sweat bullets, there's no turning back. And what you're left with is pieces that you try to stitch together to make somewhat of a coherent story.

Not a very fun experience. I don't know where I read it, but I hear journalists rank very low in the realm of prestigious occupations. Guess we really haven't recovered from all the muckraking back in the 20th century. Hell, I still wouldn't trust any of today's journalists, especially when twitter and blogs have increasingly become the face of "journalism."

It's certainly a very special feeling. Feels quite like death. You deny, hope it isn't true, but in your heart, you've already accepted it. The feeling of being screwed over. Royally. I'm left in a situation that can only be described as "fucked." But I'm a scrambler. Somehow, I could pull shiny nuggets of gold from the deepest and darkest pits of despair.

There's a simmering rage in my heart. Being screwed over isn't a pleasant experience. It sucks. It sucks balls. Huge hairy balls. I don't explode. Usually I can think myself in circles long enough to blunt the impact. Blunting can only do so much. I guess this is where the magic happens. Crunch time and pressure. How well can you operate with the weight of the world on your shoulders? This is the time for action, quick-thinking and solutions, not lamentations, moaning, and wailing. We are in the business of doing things, doing good things, and doing things good (well).

When it comes to reporting, you always gotta strike a delicate balance. If you're not in their grill, its easy for them to brush you off. Reporting over the internet is an enterprise that nobody should bother with. No verification, no consistency, we're not even in the same timezones. I'm so pissed that I question my ability to report. Only one interview, granted, it was like a four-hour interview but c'mon! We all know reporting takes more than four hours! While I'm besieged by the ghosts of stress, my subject is off dawdling over whatever the hell. I'm sitting with my thumbs up my ass waiting for a response that never comes.

Could I blame her? Do I appear like a stalker dressed up as student reporter trying to learn the ropes of my profession? The most futile endeavor is trying to convince somebody something that they believe without question to be false (insert joke about religion here). I don't think many people have the experience of trying to explain that they are not weirdos and stalkers but the sad reality is, to be an effective reporter, you got to crank up the stalker skills and amp the weirdo factor. Only curious mofos get all the info.

So while I'm off in a mad dash to concoct something that isn't entirely false, she's probably wiping her brow and patting herself on the back for successfully eluding an online rapist. I only need to talk to her one more time, preferably before the end of the next week (deadline and all that). Is it seriously too much to ask for just one miserable little response, just to make sure she wasn't all in my head? Just one fucking interview and then we can all get on with our lives.

By the grace of all that is divine, I hope that I pull this one out. Alternatively, if I don't, then I hope karma will screw her -- in the most painful way possible please.

Paper Thin Wafers

It had dawned on me the other day that my life has been a lie. Well, not so much a lie as it is an egregiously detailed and complicated paper-thin construct of sheer pretentiousness and imagined depth and dimensions. It's as if I found out that I was actually a robot all along, and all my emotions, memories, and experiences were simply programmed into me. This, my friends, is what they call, the moment of truth.

People like to think that they're sophisticated, deep, and unique but the truth of the matter is, we're closer to being cardboard cutouts than we are to such great literary characters like Blondie or Jules Winnfield. We have to shed our masks and see ourselves as we really are. Nobodies. You have to ask yourself, why does your existence matter? Why should we care about you? This is the fundamental question that most people fail to ask themselves. The number of cagey, antsy, and clueless people out there is staggering, there's no shortage of dummies in this world. Even if we're paper thin constructions, at the very least, we can be useful paper thin constructions. Is a robot still not valued by his contribution to society, regardless of whatever prattling memories were inserted into his memory banks?

The basic goal of every college student after graduating is either to a: get a job or b: get into school. I tend to think of it as a: start your life or b: stay in school. There's something oddly comfortable about being sheltered by the educational system. Classes are orderly, and it gives clear objectives to be completed, but getting a job? Being expected to be an active contributing member of society? That's scary! This is where most people flounder. What separates your wafer thin ass from the hundreds of thousands of other similarly vanilla colored thin wafers? At first glance, you all look thin, fragile, and simply put, the same.

College graduates have been deluded into thinking that more is better. As if increasing the thickness of your wafer can actually make you stand out among the throngs. It's not about doing more than the other guy, it's about being different. Nobody cares if you got substance if they don't give you a glance to begin with. The key to solving this problem? Coloring. You have to make yourself a different color. Everybody packs their resume in beige. Don't be a follower and commit that cardinal sin of conforming to standards. Screw the standard resume format, put the things you find valuable about yourself on that piece of paper, not what you think employers might find valuable. The difference between graduate a and graduate b is all a difference in perception and branding. A resume is not the be-all end-all summary of your available skills and capabilities, take the initiative to brand yourself as something more than your accomplishments. I want to know your ambition, I want to know how you're going to change the people around you, how you can fucking change the world boy-o.

This world has got enough automatons. We need real robots. The rogue kind, the kind that gets shit done. I'm talking terminator, not weaksauce i-robots. You have to ask yourself: what do I offer? If you can find that answer, and emphasize it in every meeting, and in every interview that you do, then you're well on your way to killing John Connor.

Soul Mate

"Do you believe in the idea of a soul mate?"

No. No I do not. The idea is completely and utterly ridiculous. What was it again? That there is a single individual out there who completes you in every way possible? The perfect complement, the yin to your yang? The other half of your soul? Please don't make me laugh. The idea of a soul mate isn't just stupid, it's obvious. The statistical probability that there is someone out there from the 6 billion people on this earth that makes a perfect match for you is extremely high. Of course that person exists, so the central question is, can you find them? No. It's impossible. Unless there's some key formula, some ground-breaking algorithm that can find you your perfect soul mate, the dream of finding that special someone should remain in the pipe from whence it came from. Is this a cynical view of the world of love? I don't think so.

If you reject the premise of the soul mate, what are we left with instead? Options. That's the key, having the option. Instead of looking for that one ever elusive individual, the ephemeral fairy queen (or king if that's your scene) forever hidden amongst the forest sprites, you will never learn to see past the trees for the forest. I'm not saying that you should settle, but you should look for people for who they really are. Relationships aren't sanguine ships, they're gritty duels and fights to the death. Each victory and loss is as rewarding as the game itself.

One of my favorite songs of all time comes from The Rolling Stones, and it's called "You Can't Always Get What You Want." I love it because it's a simple but universal truth. The chorus doesn't stop there though, it adds a little extra, "but if you try sometimes, well you just might find, you get what neeed." Few creatures are as dumb as humans when it comes to identifying what it is we really need. Animals fucking maul each other for mates, food, and territory -- such a simple life does not extend to us complicated humans. Beneath the veneer of culture, expectations, ideals, and all the garbage that we've collected throughout life, the truth is, we are fucking clueless.

The soul mate is a convenient concept that our brain grasp onto in our attempts to justify our woefully inadequate state of existence. Don't give into the temptation. Don't sit your ass down, waiting for that special someone to come into your life and sweep you off your feet because it will never happen. Then what to do? What is it that we can do if we can't hold on to soul mates? It's easy, you try.

Transience

There's no point in having an attachment to your homeland. "My father lived and died here, and his father lived and died here, and his father etc..." Such a sentiment is increasingly becoming irrelevant in the face of globalization. Not only that, but such fervent nationalization can only lead to one thing: war. 80% of all conflict can be attributed to plain and simple greed, and the remaining 20% is due to pride. Funny how two of the seven deadly sins has lead to so many deaths throughout the history of history.

Ethnocentrism is an outdated notion, the sheer audacity to hold your own culture superior to all others is the first step to having your entire existence summed and reduced to a curious Wikipedia entry. People try too hard nowadays. The lines between "nation" and "country" are getting blurred each and every day. Sooner or later, it won't matter where you live or where you die because everywhere is everywhere.

I don't profess great faith in the US nor do I profess great disdain because to be honest, everything looks the same. The idea of tying myself down to something as grounded as "property" just isn't all that appealing. In the words of Solid Snake, "I'm nomad too." Perhaps I'll change my tune as soon as I get a family of my own, but the American dream of owning a home is as foreign to me as the countries I want to visit one day. I think a life as a globe-trotting writer sounds like an awesome and incredible experience, certainly much more attractive then getting some paltry two-story home out in suburbia. There's no need to limit yourself, there's a reason why "right to property" was replaced with "pursuit of happiness."

They say that true nationalism is holding no punches when it comes to criticizing your government, and America isn't afraid to express their discontent in the most vocal and irritating manner possible. People trumpet the same horn, "this country is going to shit," yet they comfortably whine without making an effort to do anything to, you know, actually change it. "It's impossible to change," "it's too entrenched," excuses excuses. Maybe you're right, or maybe you're wrong, but your lack of any ambition doesn't impress me, and the free reign you have in venting out your frustration at a country you perceive to be going down in flames is an outright luxury compared to most other places where your head gets chopped off, no questions asked.

America is a nation of whiners, hell, the nation was founded on the principle of whining. We want to whine, we love to whine, we whine our way to freedom, but at some point, there's comes a time where whining has to turn into action. If you think the country is going down the shitter, then fucking do something about it yourself. Change doesn't come from whining, it comes from ambition, from aspiration, it comes from the single-minded dogmatic fervent dream that tomorrow can and will be better than today. So stop whining and do something.

Perhaps you're thinking, "well what the fuck are you doing then?" That's easy: I'm not whining.

DinYomo Inc.

Apple. Microsoft. Nike. Coke. Nintendo. All sterling brand names, names that instantly inspire images, the kinds of images that marketing execs cackle in the limelight for. The very presence of the brand name suggest a conveyor belt, a constant feed of merchandising and market-speak straight into your cranium. It's impossible to escape from and it's impossible to separate reality from the reality these brands create.

Is it so strange, then, that I should want to put my own creation on that list of instantly recognizable brands? I have a dream, and that is to be creator of one of the most recognizable brand names in the world, and I'll call it "DinYomo." I think DinYomo has the potential to be the next "Google," a new and upcoming company that achieves massive success. It has a nice ring to it doesn't it? What kind of products would DinYomo deliver? A little bit of everything, it doesn't matter what the product is because what DinYomo promises is so much more than a simple product. Brands are successful not because of the products, but because of the meaning behind the brand.

Coke offers a sense of classic timelessness, Nintendo promises fun and innovation, and Apple inspires the free spirit in all of us. I want DinYomo to be more than just a series of syllables, I want it to send you a message, a message that only DinYomo can deliver. DinYomo is a promise of a better tomorrow, a better future, a better world. DinYomo isn't about what you can do, it's about what you're supposed to do. Failure to adhere to the principles of DinYomo would be a failure to adhere to the principles of life, that's how important my message is. I want DinYomo to leave people absolutely speechless and breathless all at the same time. When they see DinYomo, I want their words to be stuck in their throat, their mind numb at having DinYomo thrust into their faces. It will be a revelation, an explosion of epiphanies, where the truth of the world spells itself out on the shocked expressions of every spectator. The plain white truth shall never taste as sweet as DinYomo.

I want to beat you over the head with it, I want to stress how much of a slap in the face DinYomo will be. It may be uncomfortable at first, letting a brand penetrate your life, to become a guiding principle, but many people have already done this. Just ask the Apple diehards, Macs are for free spirits aren't they? Think about how conditioned we are to drink a refreshing sip of coke along with our burger. How often do we get that tingling sensation when we hear the log-in jingle for our electronics? I want DinYomo to give you that same tingle whenever the words "DinYomo" rolls off your tongue.

Mark my words, DinYomo will be huge, massive even. What it promises is so big, you might not be able to comprehend it at the time, but with enough force, you will see the light. It will fit. It will all make sense. What is DinYomo? It's a shortened form of an expression that I say routinely in intense sessions of Battlefield Bad Company 2: Dick. In yo mouth.

The Last Compliment

I never realized how starved for compliments I really am. Truly, the only one compliment I remember was back in third grade, when a kid named James told me I was the "smartest guy [he] knew." After that, it's been dry pickings. I'm sure for most people (like my alter-ego), compliments are a dime a dozen. For me it, it's like the appearance of Jesus, a fucking once-in-a-millennium occurrence. There's the token compliment, and the genuine compliment.

I can count the number of genuine compliments I received on one hand. That was one of them. It's amazing to think that to this day, I can still remember his words with a kind of crystalline quality reserved for the most traumatic of experiences. It was third grade, Mrs. Williams (if I recall correctly, her father was a dentist, and her husband a mountain climber -- they actually climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and knew some Swahili) was our teacher. Third grade was when we heard to memorize this thing called the "multiplication table." Rote memorization was always one of my greatest skills. To test our multiplication tables, the class had to answer, quick-fire style, 50 multiplication problems (vertically). After completing it, we would pass it to someone else to correct as Mrs. Williams drawled out all the correct answers.

We turned in the papers, and then the papers were passed out again so it wasn't like we just gave it to the dude next to us. It just so happened that my paper fell into the hands of James. That was his first name -- and no, I don't remember his last. James was black, and had this arresting manner of speech. He would exhaust his breath in tandem with his sentences, like he was breathing out the words he spoke. Even in the short time that I knew him, I could see that he was a thinker -- a philosophical child, unafraid to ponder the big questions in life. News had come that he was moving soon, so it was with a heavy heart that the class shared what little time was left before his departure.

When the grading was done, we were all filed outside the classroom, lined up for either some physical or library excursion. We were standing on the ramp and he was beside me. He said something to me that I could never ever forget.

"Thanh, you're the smartest guy I know." According to him, I missed one problem on the quiz, yet, it was still enough to elicit from him, a genuinely heart-warming compliment. He told me, with a straight face, with such strength of force and conviction that to this day, I don't think I have ever received a compliment on quite the same level as James' premature declaration of my all-encompassing intelligence.

Token compliments are a dime a dozen ("you look great!" "good job" "nice work") but a genuine compliment is once in a lifetime my friend. Who knows, maybe I've been genuinely complimented all this time, and it's just that my cynical sardonic nature fails to recognize them as such. Effusive praise always did ring a little hollow to me, but its not like I do anything to warrant normal praise to begin with.

Most people think that they're cool cats, but the truth is, their cool exterior cracks the moment someone says something nice. Then all of a sudden, they appear mortal, blushing at the mere suggestion that they did something better than average. As you stroll along in life, I urge you to channel your inner James and give somebody you really respect and admire, a once-in-a-life time compliment. I'm not talking about your standard-issue ass-kissing compliment, but a straight-from-the-heart outpouring of, well, your respect and admiration for this person. Let them know because it's nice to know things.

On that note, this is to you James:

"You're one of the nicest guys I know. Thanks for the compliment, I truly appreciate it."

Mydoppelganger.net

I just had this revolutionary idea the other day, and it is so mind-bogglingly awesome, I find it hard to believe that nobody has used the idea already. Welcome to Mydoppelganger.net, a search engine designed to find your very own doppelganger. Most people like to think that they're unique but the sorry truth is, we aren't. The possibility that one out of six billion people can be truly outstanding is a statistical impossibility. Given the unequal distribution of resources and social stratification, it's not hard to see why we don't exactly see two of everybody because the difference in opportunities makes sure that one succeeds while the other fails.

Now when I say "doppelganger," I don't mean someone who looks and thinks like you -- hell, or even someone with the same name as you. I've had the rare fortune to meet someone who had the same first and last name as me, and I can tell you, it's quite interesting (especially considering she's a girl). She is what I would call, a nominal doppelganger -- that is, doppelganger in name only. You can pretty much find this easily, and one way to do that is to just type your name in and see what comes up. The history of "Thanh Le" in a search engine, unfortunately, does not yield any exceptional results (yet anyways).

My search engine does not concern itself with such trivial nominal variables such as name, sex, or age, but rather, it will match people on the basis of their personality type and preferences. It will deliver to the end-user, a person who is identical to you in every way except for appearance and name. Now why on earth would anybody ever want to find their double? Why haven't you heard? Two heads are plainly better than one, and if you have someone who thinks like you, it's like multiplying your thinking power by 2x!

That's certainly one possibility, but there's also one other reason to find your doppelganger. In some cultures, meeting your double is bad news, akin to seeing a black cat or walking under a ladder. There's a whole manhwa (Korean manga) based around the concept (I can't recall the name, but don't worry, it sucks). Misfortune and doppelgangers are inextricably linked, so why on earth would we want to risk the wrath of god for an opportunity to meet our double? Easy: to kill him or her.

Conventional wisdom dictates that if power is divided, then reducing the number of divisions will only increase the power of each remaining unit. This concept has been showcased in the aptly named movie, "The One," starring Jet Li and Jason Statham. Even though that movie dealt with parallel universes, the concepts still apply. Having the strength, speed, and intelligence of two people should be more than enough for even the most retarded man on earth (at the very least he becomes competent). Consolidation of physical and mental attributes would be the primary reason why you would want to find your doppelganger. All of a sudden, my service is no longer some trivial "hey-this-looks-kind-of-cool!" non-sense site, but rather, it is a gateway -- a portal to a new you. A stronger, faster, and smarter you. What are you waiting for? Why not power yourself up right now? Oh, that's right, because you can't find your doppelganger.

Well then, welcome to mydoppelganger.net.

A Bloody Mary Please

There was a brief moment in my life when I was devastatingly terrified of mirrors because of the concept of "Bloody Mary." The whole idea of Bloody Mary had filled me with such a profound fear of mirrors that to this day, I still stare behind my reflection, almost expecting some apparition to suddenly show its grotesque face. It never happens, not for as long as I remember staring at the reflective glass, yet the irrational fear still remains.

I attribute this to the story of Bloody Mary, which promises visions of a grisly brutish face right before your death, only because you decided to court the mistress in a one-sided affair. The story is, of course, a cautionary tale, designed to warn kids of flirting with the kind of risque, the dangerous, and the taboos that are, rightfully, banned. The ritual comes from the same breed as playing with Ouija boards, knockin' down grave stones, reciting incantations from the Necronomicon, or as Paranormal Activity has shown, messin' around with demons. The lesson is clear, don't fuck with the unknown. Yet, there's a certain appeal, an exhilaration that comes from skirting with unnatural dangers. Maybe its the idea of touching beyond the physical borders, revealing some supernatural plane where ghosts, demons, and angels exist, that gives us a kind of solace in life after death. We go through these irrational extremes as if to confirm our own immortality.

When I first heard of the story of Bloody Mary, I was afraid to go into the bathroom for weeks, especially at night. It didn't matter that I didn't satisfy the conditions for her appearance (lit candles at darkness, and chanting her name several times in succession), because in my mind, she had already appeared. Jaundiced and hollowed out cheeks, fleshy green and yellow mottled skin, crooked, jagged teeth, and dark impenetrable eye sockets, with rivulets of blood streaming out, a sickly grin stretched across her face, arms reaching out from behind the reflective surface, until finally, I am engulfed in her sweet deadly embrace.

It is particularly apt that a mirror is what scares me most since what scares me isn't what I see, but what I imagine seeing. My mind often thoughtlessly invents the most terrifying of visages in some sick contest of creating the most horrifying face imaginable. The train of thought is dangerously linear, relentless in its pursuit of horrific perfection.

Build It and They Will Come

The old saying presents something of a conundrum for today's modern audience. "Build it and they will come" might've worked in the old west when pioneering explorers traversing the sand-blasted plains saw an odd saloon built in the middle of nowhere as a proverbial oasis. Taking it to the 40's, even when the press caught wind of the the world's "tallest building" ever built, crowds would flock to that one single spot, swarming like bees to engulf a topical hotspot made hot by the media's singular voice, delivered by newspaper, radio and TV. Nobody knew everything, everybody had to know somebody who knew something. Whether it came from the air waves or from the dead tree, people made choices based on what they could see. Build it and they will come simply because your building's the only one around.

But the world has shrunk. No longer are people wandering out in the wilderness in desperate need of a good saloon, and information has become so free and unhindered, the popular press' influence on tourist-habits has taken a backseat to impersonal blogs and twitter posts. "Build it and they will come" no longer applies to this glitzy fast-paced world where every building looks the same and everything is the same. The most pressing question is: how can you stand out from the endless hordes of duplicate and similarly qualified individuals?

The American education system is designed to put kids through the grinder, pumping and relentlessly promoting children to higher and higher levels of education. You get the diploma, then you get the degree, then the masters, and finally the Phd. Surely if you follow this path to success, the accolades are all but ensured...right? The truth is, building it alone no longer works. There are tons of buildings that have the same height, color, and look as yours. No longer does the old adage apply. I propose then, a simple revision to make it more accurate to reflect today's modern sensibilities.

Build it, advertise the shit out of it, and then maybe, just maybe, they will come.

Destination: Nowhere

When it comes to my first memory of video games, it wasn't as if I opened Pandora's Box, unleashing a torrent of hell-frenzy, 8-bit blips and bloops, pixel storms and scrolling flicker lines. It is a rather humble memory, jumbled, and mixed in with all the subdued undulation of an ocean wave. My first experience with gaming didn't sweep me away in a tsunami, rather, it softly encircled me until I began to float to the shiny reflective surface of sprites and MIDI synth sounds. Retro all the way baby.

I remember Castlevania, Metroid, Mega Man, and of course, Mario. The NES wasn't something I touched, but a divine object, a relic worthy of worship. Gaming to me was something to watch, not to engage in when growing up. The messy and fun task of tackling gaming objectives fell on to my brothers, while I watch enraptured by their ministrations on the d-pad and A and B buttons. It was truly a vicarious experience, but it certainly planted the seeds for my full-blown passion of today, where video games are truly a meaty and substantive part of my every day life. A world without video games is a world without oxygen.

When I think of the toddling doe-eyed youth that absorbed his brother's digital feats on the NES, Genesis, and Playstation, I can only shake my head. How was this little boy supposed to know that one day, he would soon be able to play his own video games? That he would own not one, not two, but three next-generation platforms that include the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC? How was this boy, who, delighted with the Gameboy Pocket, would soon come to possess not one, but two portable platforms that include the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP?

I still remember when I was a boy, tucked away in bed at night, I dreamed of owning my own Playstation and playing "Blasto" (the commercials made it look great, sue me) all by myself. The thought was always "when I'm older," or "when I have enough money." That time has long passed. I've gone a long way since then. I didn't really become a full blown gamer until well into the PS2 generation. Until then, me and my little brother had to be content with playing our own portable gaming devices. Pokemon was a godsend. We couldn't touch the old Playstation, but the Gameboy Pocket was all ours. Pokemon was the perfect game for us to play. Then we steadily advanced to Color (Metal Gear Solid and Legend of Zelda DX, Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Time, truly the best GBC games out there), and of course, the Gameboy Advance (Castlevania, Advance Wars, Golden Sun).

It was around this time that restrictions on consoles became lax. My brothers' enthusiasm for gaming had dwindled while mine only increased in fervor. Gaining access to the Dreamcast was a lucid dream come true (Sonic Adventure, Code Veronica, Shenmue 1/2), access to the Playstation was a nice bonus (Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VII), but the biggest moment was when we acquired a Playstation 2 (FFX, MGS2, GTA, DMC, GoW, SotC, RE4 -- bonus points for understanding all the acronyms). Suddenly, I am now left with a predicament that I never thought possible: I have too many games to play.

The backlog is an ever present list of games that I've started, but that I've yet to beat. It sits in the back of my mind like a gnawing sensation that can't be satisfied. Some of my biggest and most memorable moments in gaming have to do with beating a game that I've been working on for the longest time. Final Fantasy VIII, which I borrowed from my friend for almost three years and restarted three times was one of the most satisfying accomplishments simply because I've been on it for so long. Hell, I've been working on Persona 3 for that same amount of time and I own the damn thing. Persona 4, Tales of Vesperia, and Yakuza 3 have remained untouched in my gaming library. Psychonauts and Portal has been sitting in my Steam queue for months. And I never got the chance to beat the original Star Ocean: The Second Story (re-releases give me ample opportunity to revisit though). Despite all this, I have the gall to borrow Assassin's Creed 2 from a friend, and just purchased Super Street Fighter IV. There's something to be said for the expression, "He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough." When will the gaming madness stop?!

The problem is, there's still a ton of games that I'm still looking forward to. Having just beat the shit out of Batman Arkham Asylum, I can't wait for the sequel. There's Red Dead Redemption in the pipeline, Alan Wake, StarCraft 2, The Last Guardian, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Halo Reach, etc. etc. It's easy to see where I'm going for vacation: Nowhere.

Quality From the Source

I never understood the idea of, "we'll edit it out later." As if editing programs can miraculous cover up bad acting, lighting, and terrible direction. Depending on editing tools to clean up the uncleanable is akin to polishing a turd, it doesn't matter how many quick cuts and music overlays or generic graphics you use, it doesn't the change the fact that what you have filmed is simply shit.

Quality from the source has always been my mantra, which means that the best movies are not always the best edited. Those who rely on editing, splicing, and splitting for their video work fail to recognize that great movies come from great scenes. No amount of computer wizardry can make up for genuine performances and carefully crafted shots. The story that you're trying to tell is first and foremost the central anchor, and all else is ancillary.

I came to this realization after years of experience. I think PhaMeLe Guy Productions was a pioneering concept. Surely we weren't the first to create a video project in the entire history of high school projects, but I'd like to think that we paved the way for future generations -- at least at Orange High School. After our first movie, they suddenly became all the rage. Chalk it up to my directorial aspiration, I've always wanted to make awesome movies. Jack the Ripper will stand as my crowning entry into this world of amateur film-making (the fact that my first movie doesn't really have an official title says a lot though). It was an amazing project for its time and I'd like to think it broke new ground at OHS. The floodgates busted open, and everybody but everybody wanted to do a video project. I pulled double duty, providing not only for my own movie, but did some shooting on the side to help out another group in another class, planting my mark on two of the best projects in the history of AP World History.

The idea that I peaked creatively in high school kind of pisses me off. Surely there's more to me than those projects because despite their breakthrough quality, it's shit. Looking back on them, I cringe at all the bad moments, those awful awkward moments that smack of inexperience. Even when I watch over my little brother's shoulders when he was off making his own movies, or when I look to the projects that other people have made, they all share one thing in common: they don't tell a story. I realize now that story is the key to everything. It's about how you present it, how it shows through in not only the scenes, but in the scenarios you concoct. The helter-skelter style of movie-making just doesn't cut it anymore, there's no room for improvisation, everything has to be scripted, planned, and laid out days before the actual shoot. The difference it makes is absolutely staggering. Quality from the source means quality from the script. If you break down most of the movies on paper, they read terrible -- just like their actual quality.

Making a movie is no small feat. It requires ambition, actors, (which are hard to come by since friends hardly make for the best of actors and, they're always too damn busy to whet the appetite of amateur auteurs), time, and hard work. Getting the equipment together is a hassle all on its own, but the reason most movies never make it off their feet is because people never spend the necessary time in pre-production to plan a really great movie. The last movie I made used no cameras at all. It was for all intents and purposes, an "anime."

The movie was for my Japanese class and it was nothing short of spectacular. I drew every character myself, made use of black and white photographs as backgrounds, and scrounged up some students in class to be voice actors (have you ever had foreign language voice directing experience?). I had to write the whole script, have it translated, proofread, and then have all the actors act out their roles with their voice in addition to drawing all the necessary panels, putting together the voice track with the pictures, and adding in the right music. I pulled it off in about 3 weeks and in the process, probably shortened my life by 3 weeks. It was so amazing that the traditional bounds of "extra credit" had to be broken because such a project was deserving of so much more. I don't think I've made such an exertion sheer will and effort since.

Upon review though, the script has a lot of unnecessary moments and pieces of dialogue that I put in for the sole purpose of demonstrating many of the grammar structures and vocabulary we learned in class, so the audience was very specific. I've always wanted to do a "director's cut" version that cut down on all the extra chatter but I'm too lazy to get around to it. I should probably put that on my schedule of things to do now that I think about it. I'm feeling particularly ambitious right now though. I believe this year is due for another project, but I don't know what I should do. It should be something dazzling, something big, and something that demonstrates my creativity. Whatever it is, I'll make sure to remember one thing: quality from the source.

The Ideo Girl

Unknown to most people, Ideo has been responsible for many of the product designs that we see today, and their invisible guidance has seen an increase in profits for their clients, and an increase in the ease and usability of the products they designed.

In the swampy wetland of my mind, with the anxiousness regarding my writing workshop swirling around with my new-found entrepreneurial spirit ignited by watching the first season of The Apprentice, an idea emerged. A combination of product design and what I see as my ideal girl. If only we can manufacture for ourselves the perfect soul mate, half of the world's problems would undoubtedly be solved, but until that day comes, we have to make do with the messy affair of actually meeting up with vapid paper-thin machinations that we call "people," and go through the time-consuming, fund-dwindling enterprise known as "dating."

In either case, there are certainly some expectations that people have of their partners, and I will summarily provide my own. I won't say that my standards aren't impossibly high (or simply out of my league--so they say), so I have but only three conditions for my ideal girl.

1. Share my sense of humor.

Humor is a universal thing--well, most of the time it is, but that's what makes it such a unique skill. Comedians definitely have their work cut out for them because finding the one thing that makes everybody laugh is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Thankfully, these poor fools provide the rest of us, at least a shared base of laughs that we can dip into. How often have we quoted "The Chapelle Show" for cheap laughs since its inception? Because of their work, even the most unfunny of us can bring up a reliably funny quote and not sink into the pit of shit sense of humor.

That's why this requirement shouldn't be too hard to satisfy, though much of my humor has been informed by the admittedly nerdy gamer culture--rife with references to Engrish mistranslations of 8 and 16-bit games, full of message board 4chan memes and obscure allusions to shows from the 80's, with a healthy scoop of demented off-kilter Sacha Baron Cohen and Flight of the Conchords on top.

You know, I don't think I can ever recall a time in which a girl has made me laugh. How many times have I seen on TV, online, in real life, girls who say they want a man that can make them laugh? Relationships aren't one way, ye giveth, and ye taketh. If I'm gonna have to bust my ass to make you laugh, how bout you repay in kind? Unfortunately, I think my sense of humor is so demented and bent towards gamer culture, the girl's just going to have to rely on mainstream movies like "I Love You. Man," after all, who can't laugh when you're "slappin' the baaaasss!" In either case, if she laughs when I say "dick. in yo mouth," that's good enough for me.

2. Be daddy's little girl.

Never underestimate the power of childhood trauma. It can make even the most well-adjusted gentlemen turn into an outright dick, or a seemingly innocuous girl into one crazy-ass bitch! A girl with daddy issues is a recipe for disaster. This is my psychological-screening demand. It's not like you can ask a girl, "are you obsessive compulsive, bi-polar, or manic depressive?" No, you can ask, "are you daddy's little girl?" Girls who adore their fathers will demonstrate no issues with male authority figures, and because of that, we can avoid the case of obsessively mistrustful and jealous girls who have no faith in themselves. Really, with a daddy's girl, there are only two possibilities: a well-adjusted personality that is rewarding to spend time with, or: she and her father are psychotic partners in crime. 99% of the time, it'll be the former.

3. Be a worthy opponent.

I believe in equality. I don't want a girl that will feed my ego, it's horrendously big enough as it is, and if it got any larger, I'd miraculously turn into a jerk--if I'm not one already. Just to be on the safe side, I wouldn't want a girl that I could dominate because domination gets pretty boring after awhile, as my friend would say to me, "don't be a bully." I'm sure there are men out there who would love their women meek and mild, but that's not for me. On the flip side, I wouldn't want to be a dog either, the idea of a whip-cracking dominatrix for a partner does not entice me in the least. I don't wanna be henpecked to death by a "strong-willed" woman either. I'd like to keep my balls thank you very much.

We all have issues, even if we don't want to admit it. I just need somebody to help me sort them out. We all need to win and lose on occasion, and for that, I'll just need a worthy opponent. It gives me something to strive for. The final boss can't be mind-numbingly difficult, or easy as pie, it just has to provide the right amount of challenge that doesn't make it too frustrating, but still give you that sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.

Those are my three conditions and chances are, I will never ever find those three in combination in this vast wasteland of a world. Who knows, it's not like I've been looking for a relationship to begin with, although I do have to add that I find short boyish hair completely irresistible. Some guys like long luxurious locks but I find those short pixie bob cuts incredibly sexy. I'll stop now.

One Hundred Steps

Nobody keeps count of this shit. The only one who does is the only one who cares, and as such, it falls down to me to put the celebratory touches on my very own, 100th goddamned motherfuckin' Facebook Note. One hundred ain't no joke. Such a number is powerful in all walks and avenues of life. One hundred dollars? That's some serious coin. One hundred tacos? That's some serious taco. One hundred is a landmark number no matter how you slice it, most of us could only hope to reach one hundred in one way or another, whether it be our savings account, how many years you want to live, the number of hugs you get, or the number of people you kill. There's just something special about the juxtaposition of one next to two extra zeroes.

So I shall spend my 100th note explaining the whole reason for my Note enterprise--doubtless, a thankless and glossed over enterprise that necessarily takes a backseat to all the schooling and working that keeps you guys busy for the bulk of your days. To toil away, mostly for my own amusement, on the keyboard, pumping out Notes day in and day out only to have no one read it kind of pisses me off. My talents are wasted on you swine. I started this whole "Note" thing to get myself better acquainted with writing. As an aspiring writer, it comes as no small surprise that I would practice the damn thing, and what other reason is there to write then for other people to read? So I've gotten part one down, as evidenced by the fact that I got 100 notes underneath my belt, but the lack of feedback from anyone is a serious detriment to part two. It hampers any chance of development on my end in my pursuit towards greater and higher levels of writing.

I understand though. I probably jumped in at just the wrong place at the wrong time. We are all university students (or something like it) and its not like we can afford to waste time chatting on FaceBook, going out with friends, watching movies, making wall posts, playing Farmville or Texas Hold'Em, considering that we have to go to school and work--oh wait...that's right you thankless fucks, you have more than enough time to take ten measly minutes and entertain that dude named "Thanh" on your friends list and give his quest for writerly stardom some credibility, otherwise, delete my fucking ass already. I'm just walking up the escalator at this point. I may be calling you guys out, but it's not like you're reading this anyways. You be damned if you do, and you be damned if you don't. It's called the catch-22. No matter who wins, we all lose. That's life in a nutshell. A series of losses and punches to the face that come no matter what you do. The only thing we can do, is try to take it the best we can.

I want to become a journalist. Not just any journalist mind you, but a legitimate video game journalist. The state of gaming journalism right now is more or less, consumer-orientated advertising. All the power lies with the gaming companies, they decide what gets shown and what doesn't, and the enthusiast press have to battle each other for the scraps. People have often remarked that the gaming press is really a bunch of fanboys dressed up as writers, and that the volume of the content produced lacks the kind of austerity and objectivity of legit everyday journalism. Basically, none of it is particularly good writing, and most, if not all, is simply mindless fanboy drivel. While I'm not pretending to become the first legit gaming journalist, I would like to expose some of the lesser known parts of the gaming world. There are so many stories out there that have been touched upon, but not really focused. There's already a few topics I could think of, the life of a Chinese gold farmer, love over the MMORPG, an inside look into the vintage gaming collector, development hells, and all sorts of things--typically the kinds of things that take a backseat to reviews and previews of the latest and greatest.

Print's death isn't a question of if, but simply when. There's so many tech-savvy gaming enthusiasts out there, one writer into the pool isn't going to make much of a difference. I honestly don't know if my aspiration will get me paid, but all I know is that I will be doing what I love. But like all dreams, it's just a speck in the distance. I'm taking steps to get there but I don't know how far I'm going or how far I've gone. 100 Notes? That's a pretty good distance, but it feels like I'm just getting started.

Your Shoes Are Untied

As a pragmatic, grounded, and realistic individual, I generally manage my expectations--things just don't jump out and surprise me. It's a large part of the reason that I don't believe in any of that fate or "love-at-first sight" nonsense. That kind of stuff just doesn't happen in real life and to expect that it will is just plain unreasonable. You'd have better luck winning the lottery than finding that one true perfect soul mate that complements you in every way, but that doesn't mean that I'm immune to epiphanies, the kind of earth-shattering revelation that makes you question your whole perspective on things. Today, I woke up and had one such momentous and tremendous discovery: I am in love with a man.

It all happened over spring break, it was the time to be loose and free, having come off the heels of finals, I was looking to celebrate. I drove over to my friend's place for a few drinks--I was entitled to it, after all, I triple aced my classes (probably). My friend warned me that he was going to have a couple of friends over, which I didn't mind since I was sufficiently buzzed enough to not care about unfamiliar faces, but how was I supposed to know that at that moment, everything would change? That my entire perspective in life would suffer a paradigm shift so dramatic, that the very tectonic foundations of my life have, more or less, been disintegrated?

It was when I saw him for the first time. It was an odd sensation, it felt wrong, almost...forbidden, but the leaps in my stomach and the warm feeling that rose from up inside me was pleasant in a way. I've never felt this way towards another man before so its foreign nature was exotic, alluring, and irresistible. I tried to chalk it up to my alcohol induced haze; surely, I could not be attracted to another man could I? Trying to quell this new-found urge was a difficult and trying task; it went against everything that I thought I knew about myself. Despite my attempts, it persisted.

The first conversation was awkward. I was red-faced, too shy to be "natural" about things, but he volunteered most of the relevant information himself. His name was Jack. Despite "Jack" being the most common name and all that, the actual number of people that I've met whose name was actually Jack has been, well, zero up until that point. When you think about it, Jack is a pretty nice, strong-sounding, very masculine name. He was--it's hard to say this--considering--but, well, he was beautiful. His chiseled features were fine and rough, it was a very grizzled look. I couldn't help but be mesmerized. I hoped my glances were surreptitious, but he would catch me a few times and smile back, much to my embarrassment.

It was touch and go from that point on. I would visit my friend periodically, hoping to catch another glimpse of Jack. His presence had me far more affected than any other person, or any other girl for that matter. It was uncomfortable at first, realizing this conclusion but I could no longer deny the truth. When you go through life, and finally meet that special someone who makes your days a little brighter, it finally dawns on you on how dull your life was before meeting that person. The constant justifications didn't make things any better. No matter how many times I looked at it, I had to close my eyes.

There were just so many obstacles. My family is Catholic, how would they be able to handle the news? I mean, it took me such a long time to come to terms with it. But I've come to terms with it. All those feeling of uneasiness, after freely admitting it to myself, just disappeared. The feeling of freedom is just unimaginable. The world really does seem like it's full of possibilities. So now I'll just say it plainly: I am gay. I am a gay man. God it feels good to admit it. I hope that with this post, I can finally start my life in a new way, with a fresh perspective, and meet any challenges head-on.

February 11, 2009: Caused Car Accident

On February 11, 2009, I caused a car accident on University Drive about several blocks away from the Mesa Court dormitories at UCI--or at least I think I did. This came about a couple months after just acquiring my driver's license, and I was then trying to carve out my preferred route to school. I had been trucking it on the surface streets for quite awhile, but leaving an hour before class started was starting to wear me down, so I finally caved in and decided to take to the highways, which for inexperienced drivers, is much like going on a loop-de-loop roller coaster for the first time.

I live on the border between Santa Ana and Orange right where the 22 runs west to east. I start out by getting on the 22 East; the entrance of which, is conveniently located about two blocks away from my house. After getting on the 22, I immediately take the exit for the 55 south, and drive straight all the way down until I hit the 73. The 73 curves to the east, and I get off on University Drive, which goes down to the Mesa Court where I make a right on Mesa Rd, and then park in the Mesa Parking Structure.

The event itself was not spectacular, and doubtless, it resembles many similar events that have transpired before my time and after, an endless number of them, spread throughout America. Following closely behind the car in front of me down University Dr, moving at a fairly nice clip, I had to slam on the brakes unexpectedly when the car in front slowed down to a stop. I was able to avoid hitting his rear fender, unfortunately, the cars behind me did not have that luxury.

Besides the screeching tires, and the tell-tale phantom sound of collision, I looked in my rear mirror to see the line of cars behind me get smaller. The light had turned green, and as I was moving, the line behind me did not. I noticed that the car doors opened, as the drivers in the unlucky incident must be going out to inspect the level of damage, and as for me, well I high-tailed it out of there.

Now I might've caused the accident or not, but I was no doubt a factor. The car's sudden stop in front of me caused me to do the same and I can't be held responsible for the sluggish reflexes for the driver behind me. As soon as I parked myself, I pulled out my cellphone, and typed it "Caused car accident." to commemorate the event.

A Seat Apart

There's something poetic about the distance strangers put between each other. Not too far and not too close, but just the right amount. You can see this on the first day of school. Nobody who doesn't know nobody wants to sit next to nobody, so they set themselves down to the appreciable acceptable minimum distance of social separation: one seat apart. As if the extra 2 feet can make all the difference in the world, as if it was enough space to shield you from all the incongruities, the odors, the mere presence of somebody you don't care to know, and sends their existence careening off the edge of your consciousness.

Even when we're not in lecture halls or labs, or any other setting, we like to segregate ourselves apart, and what distance is it? One seat away. Two seats would be just too much, nobody wants to sit by themselves by such a margin--no, it has to be closer. But right next to you? That's uncomfortably close, close enough for me pick up your none-too-flattering body scent, the remnants of the last meal on your breath, the emnations of your body heat, and close enough to make me feel the general queasiness brought about when two people who don't know each other are shoved into close proximity. Classes tend not to be the most sociable of spaces, so it becomes nothing more than an endurance trial, hoping that their presence doesn't gnaw at your nerves long enough to distract you from learning.

Most of us, if the situation permits, would like to separate ourselves into our own clusters, cliques, and circles, from everybody else. The empty seat being the barrier between different groups. In movie theaters, cafes, restaurants, and public places in general, you just don't want to mix up with the "others."

Humans have this oddly detached relationship with each other. Most of us require some form of a relationship with another human being to survive, to function, to keep us from going insane. Yet, we also require a level of privacy, and keep others from getting too close to our core. We all have people at varying distances to our core, and we hope to one day find the one person that we can completely expose our cores to. But to make sure that we don't indiscriminately expose our cores to someone looking to deal massive damage, we need to maintain that peculiar distance of one seat apart.

Not everybody prefers one seat however. Some people, like me, would love to have the whole auditorium to myself and some people wouldn't mind if the other stranger sat in their damn lap. My contention is that if you average out the seat preferences of everybody in the world, the average will equal one seat. So the next time you sit down in class, in a restaurant, in a movie theater, just think about that empty seat next to you and ask yourself, would you mind if somebody sat there?

The Evolution of Literary Journalism Ethics

By Thanh Le

In the birth of the novel was a desire to illuminate the universal truth inherent in all of humanity. Instead of looking to the fantastical, as was the custom, the novel looked at the mundane, the everyday for revelations of the human condition. The logical evolution in this pursuit for universality would inevitably take narrative from the realm of fantasy, through the everyday novel, to the factuality of real-life.

Reporting has always been cursed with the expectation of dry delivery, newspeak that stresses objectivity and informative fluency over the narrative and thematic possibilities of fact, but the pioneering works of Defoe and Crane challenged that notion. From the primordial soup of narrative was born a new creature, an amalgamation of truth and fantasy that began to blur the lines between factual reporting and literary writing. John Krakauer’s Into the Wild stands as the ultimate culmination of this creature, evolved from the single-celled works of Orwell and London, taking narrative from fiction into real life. Such a transition was not without its pratfalls and conundrums however. The allure of these stories was their purported basis in reality, but just how far can readers go in trusting what the author has made? How can we tell that the author has addressed the concerns of accuracy, veracity, and that every attempt was made to ensure the truth and integrity of the story?

The early works of Crane and Dafoe were experiments in fiction and reporting. They were an attempt to infuse reality with the meaning of the novel. The idea that reality could carry across themes and universal qualities that came about from carefully constructed narratives seemed quite ridiculous, but there was something quite compelling about real life. Although reality had a quality that defied meaning, as if it was simply a world where random circumstance and coincidence collided, nonetheless, these writers saw something in these collisions of chance. They wanted to turn reporting into something “literary.” They wanted to turn reality into something universally significant and relevant.

John Hersey’s Hiroshima was a compelling story, drawing on the real drama of disaster, on the harrowing experience that followed in the devastation but the necessity for factual reporting did much to mute the scenic quality of the book. Scenes had characters speak only in curt and short workman-like phrases, but despite these setbacks, the work used its claim to accuracy to immerse the reader. Capote tried to usher in a new genre of the non-fiction novel by taking everything that made the novel, and replace it with real-life content but fact and novelistic narrative did not comply, forcing Capote to fabricate the final words of Perry, and to fictionalize an ending to provide a coherence that he was unable to find in reality. Novels and reality, despite his best efforts, were unable to reconcile.

At the end of this long line of works stands Krakauer’s Into the Wild, the ultimate result of a century’s worth of natural selection. Redundant appendages have been cut off, faux organs removed, and extraneous senses consolidated, what remains is a very different beast than Hersey’s Hiroshima or Capote’s In Cold Blood. Krakauer never set out to shoehorn a real-life narrative into the structured coherence and elegance of a novel, instead, he set out to explore and understand a young man who lost his life in a seemingly needless endeavor into nature. This is not a non-fiction novel, but literary journalism. A narrative that relies on true events and the people involved. All the stories mentioned had an echo of the human condition, a universality to be revealed, but the access to this truth was compromised, either by stylistic limitation or by fabrication.

Into the Wild is part of a category of literary journalism that has always been intrinsically suspect: the reconstruction. It is not the first nor will it be the last in a category that presumes to recreate events and present it in a manner that does not merely recall the recorded facts, but fashion them into a narrative—a story. Krakauer draws from previous models of reconstruction, using the works that have come before, standing on their shoulders, to create a work that manages to deal with all the issues and problems with reconstruction. Into the Wild is a story about a young man’s final journey into the Alaskan wilderness and the circumstances that surround his mysterious death.

The issues that plague reconstruction are quite simple; it’s a matter of trust. For events as calamitous as a nuclear explosion or as isolated as a secluded murder, we can only trust the words of those who emerged from the chaos. Readers must trust that the author had done all he can to deduce the truth from the people who experienced the very event the writer wishes to recreate. Into the Wild is a unique case, however, because there are no survivors (quite the contrary) and there are no perpetrators to speak to. The very subject of the story has already passed away.

Chris McCandless may be dead in reality, but he is very much alive in Into the Wild. Krakauer is able to revive him from the imprints he left behind in the real world. The McCandless in the story was formed from the impressions, the chance encounters, and the fleeting relationships he held with people all over the country during the course of his journey. The journey was not a lonely one, but one periodically marked with human contact. This contact is crucial in reconstructing the path that McCandless undertook. Krakauer, from extensive interviewing, should’ve be able to construct a timeline derived from all his meetings, and by cross-referencing their stories on top of each other, a clearer picture of the journey should form.

It is here that Krakauer takes a cue from his predecessors. Hiroshima’s intersecting narrative between its six central characters was a kind of built-in check to ensure accuracy. The legitimacy of a story increases in proportion to the number of people who verify it. The cross-referencing of separate story lines that intersect at key moments was done to great effect by Hersey. This was also done in the recreation of the Clutter’s last day in Capote’s tale of cold-blooded murder. Using the eyewitness testimony of the people who were last with them, he reconstructed their last moments in startling detail. The story of one man alone does not mean that much, but the stories of many can give that one story authenticity and legitimacy. Following the journey of McCandless meant following in his wake of chance encounters, and seeing just how profound his influence and impact was on the people who remember him. The list of people he involved was comprehensive: Gallien, Westerberg, Burres, Carine, and among others.

Fortunately, reporting doesn’t always rely on something as dodgy as memories. Intersecting and corroborating stories are great but aren’t always foolproof. For everything else, there’s physical evidence—records: in the form of journals, photographs, videos, and audio recordings. All of these things provide invaluable fundamental building blocks from which the author can use to lay down a foundation of truth. Into the Wild makes constant reference McCandless’ journal. Statements prefaced with “From his journal we know…” let us know that these do not arise from idle speculation, but from what was written and recorded.

Driven by the works of Jack London and Henry David Thoreau, McCandless’ journey into the wilderness was more than just some wild adventure, but a spiritual quest. Krakauer was given access by the family to take a look at all of McCandless’ possessions. He was able to get his hands on McCandless’ journal, his collection of books, and important items like the guitar. By following McCandless’ trail, he came across the abandoned Datsun, the belt that was made with Ron Franz, the video that Franz made, and read over all the letters McCandless sent to people such as Westerberg and Burres. Hard physical evidence is the currency of accuracy in reporting journalism.

Capote also had a great deal of physical evidence at his disposal. The box of Perry’s relics stashed in some motel is a reporter’s treasure trove. Capote reportedly had a whole room full with piles of court documents, notes, and such records all related to the story. What separates Krakauer from Capote is that he doesn’t hide this room in the background, but constantly asks readers to revisit this room and make sure that there is no wool pulled over our eyes. We have direct access to words McCandless wrote as “Alexander.” It’s the case of transparency versus form. Capote does reference his sources in his writing, but his aspiration for a novelistic style tended to minimize the attribution to its most invisible point. Krakauer does the opposite, putting the spotlight on the reference, and never hesitates to bring readers into his evidence locker. Such transparency is not a weakness, but an acknowledgment of the difficulty of forcing non-fiction into a novelistic format.

Take Capote’s retracing of Dick and Perry’s journey across the country into Mexico and back. Capote traveled the same path to ensure that his recreation of their travels was as accurate as possible, alluding to landmark signs and details to round out the environment but he never says he followed their path, unlike Krakauer, who details in his book his visit to the very place McCandless met his demise. As a character in the story, Krakauer shows readers what he himself observed in the bus. He remarks on the trinkets left behind by McCandless and reads the inscriptions scribbled on the interior walls. Where Capote tries to guide us invisibly with his authorial silence, Krakauer takes us with him in the story itself.

Into the Wild’s transparency and upfront nature gives us the truth in the purest form yet, with no compromise and no obstruction. The author’s note in the beginning and the acknowledgments at the end reveal a laundry list of names that have all contributed to the work. There is no attempt to hide or disguise his sources. It’s a welcome transparency that has come about from a need to combat the complex ethical issues that have plagued the genre.

On a more base level, how can a journalist claim to understand his subject? Staunch critics have leveled heavy criticism on the back of this very tenet, claiming that the reporter can never truly understand a subject and illuminate them in the same way that a character in a novel can be “known.” This issue gets even stickier since McCandless is dead. Krakauer offers to understand, but never claims to absolutism. He first starts out the book with McCandless’ death, with that sordid issue out of the way, Krakauer proceeds to build a character from his real life remnants. Yet, stories from the people who met him and journal entries can only go so far.

To get into McCandless’ head, Krakauer’s employs his most effective weapon: the analogy. Using the examples of people who have lost their lives in the wilderness before, a comparison is drawn between McCandless and the explorers before him. By showing the parallels, we can better understand the sheer negativity that surrounds the young man’s death, and we can understand why native Alaskans despised him and took issue with Krakauer’s mythical rendition of the boy. At the same time, the differences are drawn and we learn that McCandless didn’t die due to some folly such as arrogance against nature, but through the unlucky growth of molds that couldn’t have been anticipated.

His death was not driven by a suicide impulse as some may have suspected. Krakauer attempts to explicate the reasons for such a quest into the wild using his own excursion to Devil’s Thumb to call attention to a shared ideal. A dissatisfaction with society expressed through an embrace of natural landscapes and subsistence living. The author’s intrusion into the story isn’t an intrusion since the author’s word warns us of his entrance, but it serves a piece that parallels McCandless’ journey. The purpose of the selection may seem like a shameless piece of self-promotion, but it is riveting on its own, and more than that, it offers insight into the motivations behind McCandless. The circumstances between Krakauer’s own adventure and McCandless are similar enough that the only difference between the two of them is as Krakauer says, “The fact that I survived my Alaska adventure and McCandless did not survive his was largely a matter of chance.”

It’s a not a novelistic style of characterization but such a style would not work and would be ethically and needlessly complex. Krakauer uses his own experience, and the accounts of explorers before him to delve deep into the young man’s heart. McCandless still has a voice though. He speaks through the passages of the books he highlights, he speaks through the letters he wrote, and he speaks through the memories of the people he met. We can never meet Chris in real life, but through Krakauer’s hard work, we can still get to know him.

What is it to be “literary?” Is it a form or style? The “literary” can’t be defined by the form, but by the content. To be “literary” is an aspiration, a claim to the universal. It was long thought that for reporting to be literary, it must be done so under the guise of the novel. But literary and novelistic doesn’t always come hand in hand. While the allure of fiction comes precisely from the very structure an author can freely impose, the allure of fact comes from its basis in reality. Meaning can’t be freely imposed, it must be constructed according to the ability of the writer. From the early stages of literary journalism, writer’s have been attempting to dress truth in the gaudy clothing of novels to appeal to the people, but with the advent of Into the Wild, the truth needs no such clothes because after all this time, it was already beautiful.