A follow-up to my last post.
I said in my last post that I was feeling homesick and occasionally wanted to go home. This seemed to raise a few eyebrows amongst my friends and family, so I just want to make it clear that I will not be leaving America until the date written on my ticket - 17th July 2007.
Although I may feel homesick at times, that feeling is fleeting, and has little consequence. I want to stay here in America, and would gladly live here for as long as possible. This place is amazing, and every day I discover something new about myself and the world around me. It’s fun, and scary, and exciting, and hilarious being here. I don’t for one second regret coming over to the States.
30 April, 2007 - 01:32Comments (View)
Homesick.
I’m feeling all kinds of homesick lately. It’s not all the time, in fact it’s not that frequent at all, and it only lasts a few seconds. But it’s there, and I really thought it wouldn’t be.
The other day, for instance, I realised that I couldn’t just go home if I wanted to. Most every other journey I’ve ever made has been easy to undo with a short train ride, but leaving this place would involve 24 hours of plane and $300 in ticket charges. And I couldn’t just come back if I regretted leaving. That’s pretty heavy.
This isn’t, of course, me saying that I want to go home. I totally don’t - I’ve barely scratched the surface of Santa Fe, and even once I’m done here there’s still 50 states and hundreds of cities to explore. I’m here for the duration, barring sickness or death. Still, I’m missing things like the aforementioned trio of friends, my family, Tim and the trips to Poole, the ladies, Broadband, and the safety of staying in my room all day.
That last one is a big one. Sometimes I wish I could just be in my bedroom, on my sofa, browsing the net all the time. It’s not healthy to want, sure, but I still want it occasionally. The great thing about this trip, of course, is that I can’t always have what makes me feel safe and secure. That’s really what these three months are all about - moving me outside my comfort zone and hoping against f*ck that I manage to grow in the wilderness.
27 April, 2007 - 01:31Comments (View)
On thermodynamic miracles. And pretentious blog posts.
When I was young, say 12 or so, I used to stand in line outside the school canteen and think. I didn’t have any friends, you see, so I had to think to entertain myself. Usually the thoughts were of tv shows, or books I was reading, even an occasional urge to take part in the football game across the playground. The one constant, however, was my thinking about the line itself.
I don’t recall exactly when it occurred to me, but one day when I was standing out there I realised that someone had to be first. When the line started at the beginning of lunch someone had to be the first person in it, had to be the first person to get their food, had to be the first person to sit down, to take a bite. It seems like an obvious thought, but to me it was amazing that every day someone was first. I thought it mystifying that out of all the possible people joining that line, one of them would be first.
I thought about this every day, eventually ascribing a strange quality to the whole process. I day-dreamed of being the first in line, and the bizarre journey that would occur(I seemed to think that whoever was at the front of the line got some odd reward for their efforts). Eventually, I learned to put these thoughts out of my mind. First was first - it had to happen, and so it did. No strangeness about it at all.
Years later, and I’m reading Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In it Dr. Manhattan, a being so powerful that he loses touch with his humanity regains that sense of wonder at life when confronted with the circumstances surrounding his girlfriend Laurie’s conception.
Doctor Manhattan: Thermodynamic miracles… events with odds against so astronomical they’re effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing.
And yet, in each human coupling, a thousand million sperm vie for a single egg. Multiply those odds by countless generations, against the odds of your ancestors being alive; meeting; siring this precise son; that exact daughter… Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold… that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermodynamic miracle.
Dr. Manhattan sees the immeasurable odds stacked against the outcome of Laurie being who she is, and proclaims it a miracle. He declares that although she had to turn out any one of billions of ways, the fact that she became who she is instead of any other option is amazing.
At this point in the book, I realised that when I’d been thinking about the lunch line all those years ago, I too had been wondering at the fantastical nature of the thermodynamic miracle- I just didn’t know that this idea was acknowledged and named by anyone else.
Then I realised that thermodynamic miracles are everywhere - the arrangement of stones on a rocky path, the way a flame flickers on a burning log, even the entire way the world is now could have gone thousands of different ways after the Big Bang, but it didn’t - that is a thermodynamic miracle. And as I realised this, my sense of wonder and appreciation of everything in existence grew, because everything could be so different, but it isn’t.
27 April, 2007 - 01:31Comments (View)
Boating down the Rio Grande.
Good ol’ Jim and his friend Ray
Went on a fishing trip today
They thought that they perhaps could play-
By boating down the Rio Grande
But the water, it was too fierce
And their complaints fell on deaf ears
So they decided “Lets just stay here
And camp right where the water’s near”
They had to repack all of their bags
This really made their whole trip lag
Their jolly faces began to sag
They felt so sick they thought they’d gag
With the bags remade
They ran and played
But were delayed
Before they could wade
There were two of them, but they’d made bags three
They’d need another carrier, see?
Who would that lucky person be?
You guessed right! Poor old me.
We trudged down half a mile of hill
I began to feel quite bad
I was counting down the seconds ‘till
The distance we had to go was nil
We finished the hike - I was all worn out
The joy in my heart had turned to doubt
But I hadn’t yet begun to shout
Because I was still stranded, a mile out
But I’m glad I did it, I must say
I really built character today
And all ‘cause two guys thought they’d play
By boating down the Rio Grande
24 April, 2007 - 01:29Comments (View)
I'm on dial-up. Argh.
Currently, I am under-going an excercise in patience. Since Jim (the guy I'm staying with) lives out in the desert, he can't get broadband, and I'm stuck with the long load-times of 56k modems. This has been good, since it keeps me away from the computer and enables me to experience more of the amazing country that I'm in, but I miss being able to go to a page and have it load instantly. I can't wait to get to San Fran and hook myself up with the free WiFi that Google provides up there. In other America news, over here they Diet Dr. Pepper with Cherry and Vanilla. Isn't that crazy? Tastes good, too.
21 April, 2007 - 01:28Comments (View)
Well, I've arrived.
Yesterday was spent traveling, for pretty much the whole 24 hours. Flew 5500 miles from London to Georgia and then on to Albuquerque. It’s awesome here.
It was my first time flying, and I didn’t know if I’d be scared or not. I mean, I was scared, but only of the whole mess of cr*p involving what to do at the airports - where to go, who to talk to, what forms to fill in. The actual flights themselves were pretty okay and I particularly enjoyed the take-off and landing parts. The feeling of the G-forces pushing on my body was amazing, and unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.
The noise of the plane was less fun, however. As was the food.
Arriving at Georgia airport was a strange experience. For a moment, my brain couldn’t seem to process the American accents all around me, and I couldn’t understand anyone entirely. That fixed itself, luckily, and I wandered around the airport, taking everything in.
The food court was huge, and varied. It took me a while to choose what to eat, as they weren’t any eateries I recognised. I decided on a $5.99(£3.00) chicken and fries meal, although apparently I forgot to read the fine print as this thing was so spicy it nearly burnt my tongue off! It turns out that in the West they like their food spicy. Good to know, huh?
After another 4 hours waiting and 3 hours on a new plane, I landed at Albuquerque and was met by Jim, the guy who is kindly letting me stay at his house in Santa Fe. As we drove there, we talked about the differences between the our tmo countries that I could already spot(like when I tried to get into the drivers side of his Prius) and this countries need for a revolution, and what incident might spark it off.
We arrived at his house which is in the middl of the desert, which is so cool. There are no street lights for miles, and when the indoor lights are turned off, the place is enveloped in darkness. I’ve never seen the stars look so bright.
I finished up the day by relaxing in his hot-tub and then accidently dropping my towel in it, leaving me a very cold walk back to my room for a new one, and 10 minutes of frantically trying to work out what to do with the wet towel.
They can’t all be winners, eh?
19 April, 2007 - 01:28Comments (View)
My last post from the UK. For 3 months, anyway.
Funny story.
I’ve been reading through the archives of Penny Arcade for the last few days, something I do every know and then because I want to remind myself what epic funny is. The site is set up so that, for most(if not all) of the strips, once you’re done reading you can hit space and click your mouse without moving it one inch. I like this, because moving the mouse seems like a chore to me, and having a rigid system for getting to the next page is very much in line with how my brain likes things.
Every now and then, however, I’ll have to read an e-mail, or a new RSS feed item will appear in my Newsfire, and moving the mouse is now handy again. However! If I move it, when I get to Penny Arcade again I’ll have to move it back to the position where it hovers over the ‘next’ button.
And so it begins, my mind weighing up the factors - is it worth using and remembering all the keyboard shortcuts so that the mouse doesnt have to be moved? Will I save more time using these shortcuts than I would by moving the mouse, clicking, and then moving it back again?
Then, of course, I question whether it is the right course of action to spend all this time deciding between the two options? Is it worth my time if I make my system of clicking more efficient? Should I maybe create some other system so I can view more Penny Arcade pages at once? Does saving my time even matter, considering that I have no job, no school and nothing else to do?
Ladies and gentlemen - my mind.
17 April, 2007 - 01:26Comments (View)
Chair-o-plane abortion.
A few days back, Jack and I decided to dye our hair, with me opting for manly red, and he for girly purple. You can see from the picture above that I clearly made an excellent choice. That cheekbone you see isn’t usually there, ladies and gents. I can only assign the blame to my fire-headedness. Which is definitely a word.
I was considering the other day, however, that I might not want to travel to the US(which I am in… 36 hours) with my hair in such a state. It doesn’t really show me off as best as I can be, if you get my drift. I mean, it’s bloody red! I decided to dye it blond, as blond as I could. I like my hair being blond, it reminds me of a time when the world didn’t seem quite so real.
I picked up some Live! hair dye at the Boots today whilst I prepared for my excursion across planetary waters. I had a spendy day today, as my latest student grant came through. In addition to buying a superb red suitcase(which was fun to unicycle around Poole carrying) I got a Fujifilm Finepix S9600 to document my stateside travels with. It cost a lot, especially with 2gb flash card and battery charger, but it is gorgeous. I am getting that sick feeling in my stomach though. Sometimes spending inordinate amounts of money isn’t fun.
Anywho, I got home and immediately started dye-ing my hair, which was stinkier than last time and made my eyes water and my lungs gasp for fresh, non-chemical, air. No matter though, because it made me look like this:
Oops, wrong picture. I meant to put this one:
Awesome, huh? All salmon and dry, plus you may also spot my damaged skin, due to a slight allergic reaction to the dye. What we must suffer through for beauty, eh?
Due to the fact that I am still tinted with shades of orange, I am going to have to buy even more product tomorrow, and hope that my hair gets sorted before the final boarding announcement! If not - there’s always the razor!
Y’know, for my hair. Not my wrists, you sick bast-
17 April, 2007 - 01:24Comments (View)
Here it is, all shiny and new!
I have officially finished the fastest redesign of this site I have ever done. Whilst I refuse to divulge the official length of time it took me(because, really, this one is pretty simple and should take only 5-10 minutes), suffice it to say that other designs took days, whilst this took hours.
I am loving this mixture of pink and charcoal, although I did crib it a little from a blog I saw on Design Shack. Still, I figure that since this place up and changes it's face every 30 days, it's no big deal.
There's nothing too crazy this time, so IE should display fine. If it doesn't, please feel free to comment and let me know.
Aside from that, I should sleep now. Big post tomorrow, I swear.
15 April, 2007 - 01:20Comments (View)
"I don't want to got drunk!"
Okay, I'm officially taking a break from this site for the next three days, whilst I take the time to re-design. My goal was to post each and every day this year, and while I have not attained that goal, my ratio of posts:days means I can afford to float the next few days. In the meantime, here's the video of Jack drinking crazy things. Apologies for the shaky camera-work and shortness, especially since the soundtrack ends just as it reaches it's crescendo.
12 April, 2007 - 01:19Comments (View)
In which Kyle wishes he’d had the foresight to start all his posts with “In which…”
Because, in retrospect, that would have been cool.
We’re really gearing up towards the monthly re-design here at IWD. We’re a little overdue, I believe, although not because I’m happy with the current design. I’ve mentioned before that I am totally gay for the colour blue, and I think that tends to show a little too much. I already have a much more balanced and varied colour scheme in mind for IWD 4.0, and I’ll begin working on it tomorrow, in all likelihood.
I was going to post a video of the exploits of Jack, Leo, Dave and I(we hung out yesterday and each went home in various states of disrepair). It turns out that most of the time the camera was either too shakey or pointed at the floor, so I’m going to have to excercise my super-fantastic editing skills to their full power to pull an awesome three minutes outta the footage.
As ever - truth takes time.
10 April, 2007 - 01:17Comments (View)
Forgive 'that voice'.
The other day, a frequent commenter suggested
“if you don’t want to write it - why not record it?”
I think I may have misrepresented myself. It’s not that I don’t want to write my thoughts down, it’s that I find the mechanism for doing so to be slow and torturous.
Lately I have begun to dislike being on camera. Partly due to the large amount of spots and blemishes on my face, but mainly because most of the time I feel uncomfortable in my own skin. When you’re simply writing down your thoughts, changing writing styles is easy and takes place so often in mainstream media that people barely notice. On video, however, it’s very hard to change style or present yourself differently without it seeming ‘hacky’ to your viewers. For example, I often feel much more comfortable speaking in an American accent, because it feels like it’s not really me talking. But people know that that’s not how I talk, and would call me out for being pretentious. Or a knob.
Feeling like I’m someone else in enticing, because a lot of my self-esteem issues are so wrapped up in how I feel I’m being judged by others. If I’m speaking as someone other than myself, I don’t have to worry about being judged.
One of the things that has, in the past, attracted me to acting is the fact that it’s all about being someone else. I feel like I’ve had very few moments of ‘true’ acting where I gave myself over to my character, but each of those moments had a sense of freeness that was intoxicating. It’s both exhilarating to remember and scary to think it might never happen again.
Right now I wish I could be doing this as a character. When I was writing the script for this post, I had to imagine myself speaking as a few other people, because I was paralyzed by the fear of being judged. It’s somewhat of a paradox that the truth of these words was only able to flow due to me ‘faking a personality’. It’s also a contradiction in my character that I fear being judged so much yet maintain a daily diary. We’ve talked before about how ‘not normal’ I am though, so we don’t need to go over that again.
I extremely enjoy other people’s video content, it’s just a shame that lately I don’t like to be on camera as much as I used to.
This is clearly something I need to work on. Hence, the below.
09 April, 2007 - 01:17Comments (View)
The Kyle Hayes Media Review
That’s right, I’m too busy or too uncreative(hint, for once it’s actually the former!) to bang out a real post. instead, here’s me talking about the various crap I’ve watched/read/heard lately.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - I was cautious about this flick, but as a huge fan of the original films(which everyone else seems to think were sh!te) I was almost obligated to go. I’m glad I did, because it was a really fun experience. There are so many small storylines feeding into to the main plot that I never felt bored for a minute. There’s no small number of laughs, and some genuinely exciting moments. The CGI is, at times, awe-inspiring – particularly the fight in the rain.
Blades of Glory - Though most films featuring Will Ferrell tend to think they can get by simply by featuring Will Ferrell(I’m looking at you, Talledaga Nights), some actual work went into this flick, and it paid of. With a gag-rate of 2-3 JPM(Jokes Per Minute) I was laughing for almost the entire time. Throw in some excellent performances from Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, as well as Jenna Fischer in some schmexy-time clothes, and you gots you some good celluloid.
The Show with Ze Frank - All of Ze’s stuff is envy-making. And free!
Jonathan Coulton - Not only is JC a funny, entertaining and endlessly creative songwriter and performer, but he offers every single one of his songs on his site for $1, in relatively high quality, with no DRM. Not only that’ but he features full preview of all those songs, at full quality too. With the dollar as weak as it is right now, it’d be criminal not to buy at least a couple of his tracks. I would recommend, in particular, Tom Cruise Crazy and Re Your Brains.
There. That’s all I’ve got in me for now. You should really look forward to the next post, though.
07 April, 2007 - 01:14Comments (View)
This is the party police. You need to slow down!
Wow, Busy busy busy over here. I mean, it must be, right? I haven’t posted for almost 48 hours. Yikes.
I get so frustrated with writing sometimes. I’m sure almost everyone feels the exact same way - thoughts you feel are so brilliant and pure that they have to be written down before they evaporate into the ether, but typing is too slow, it’s so slow. Type faster - forget the mistakes GET THIS STUFF WRITTEN DOWN.
I feel so creatively defunct right now. I keep waiting for this period of realisation - for some revelation to take place and for me to start making things again. I keep looking at everything I see with a different eye, always wishing that I had been the one to do that first.
The endless procrastination doesn’t help. Not having a job does nothing but add to the problems and inconsistency of the day. It turns out that when you have the freedom to do anything you want, you don’t end up doing anything much at all. I should be spending my time writing. Or working on learning an instrument. F*ck, even juggling. I desperately need to work on my juggling.
The only thing in my life I’ve ever had any discipline for is unicycling. That is so f*cking weird. So weird.
This is a frustrated, crappy little post. I’m sorry.
06 April, 2007 - 01:13Comments (View)
I f*cked up my arm.
The field near my house, Hauses Field, used to contain two play parks. The first was aimed at younger children, and featured swings, a slide, a roundabout and a see-saw. The second, aimed at an older crowd, featured a cool climbing net and wall, and a hammock to hang out in. Until it was burned down by youths.
Recently, both play areas have been fully excised from the field, and a “What shall we do with your area?” campaign was launched by the council. Apparently, the only people to respond were 12-year-old boys, as the addition to the field has taken the form of a skate area. Two quarter pipes, a grind rail, and some tarmac. Oh, and a bin.
I’m no good at skateboarding. I’ve owned several, but never advanced past ‘tentatively pushing myself along the ground’. Forget ollies. Those things are hard. The only real activity in that vein I’ve ever been good at is unicycling, but I’m nowhere near good enough to be able to grind or do a drop on one.
So I took one of my skateboards down to the area. Naturally I did it at night, because otherwise the yobs might laugh at/ kill me. I was annoyed at how loud the surface was to skate across, although I imagine the occupants of the houses nearby were more annoyed. I skated across the ground a little, and considered riding down one of the slopes.
Damn, those things were high.
Baby steps. Try halfway up, two thirds. Halfway again, just to be sure. Finally the moment came when I had to do the whole thing. A more talented writer would probably describe the beads of sweat hovering expectantly on my forehead. The thick, black darkness rolling in, enveloping and confusing me. My heavy breathing betraying my fear, my dread.
I’m not that good, though, so lets skip all that and cut to the chase - I did it. Easily, I might add.
Of course, now I was cocky. Why not try and skate up a quarter pipe, turn, and ride it down again? Seems easy enough on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. Of course, since I don’t have a complicated physics engine designed to keep me from falling against all odds(moon gravity is your friend, ladies and gents) I fell off the board straight away and tw*tted my arm on the tarmac. The pain reverberated right up through my funny bone, up to the brain, giving me an instant headache. Which I still have.
Needless to say, I’ll be sticking to unicycling.
04 April, 2007 - 01:11Comments (View)
Man, I really wish I played an instrument.
The past few days I’ve found myself coming up with ideas for songs. The lyrics always pop in my head first, and then it’s fleshed out with guitars, a nice drum beat… before long theres an entire orchestra backing me up in my head. Which is a bit gradiose, but whatever.
At the moment, I am filling up my phone more and more with verses I come up with in the middle of the night and immediately record via it’s crappy little microphone, just so that if I ever do come back to it I’ll know the tune.
I’m thinking that I should try and learn guitar again, just so I’m able to record a tune with these silly little ditties. Of course, I smashed my last guitar up, which is a little annoying because it was one of the few of my Dad’s possessions we still had. Oh well, it was broken anyway.
Demetri Martin has this thing where if he feels bored he’ll create something, a picture or poem or sculpture… just anything to keep his creative juices flowing. I should do something similar - about the only creative thing I do nowadays is … well, this. And this isn’t even very good!
On the subject of this website, I am once again tempted to re-design. It’s happening so often that I should make it a theme of this place, I think. Grr.
It might not be so blue next time.
03 April, 2007 - 01:10Comments (View)
Explaining a joke totally makes it funnier.
I am not deleting this site, and I am not going back to university. For those of you with a calendar, you may notice that yesterday was the first of April, also known as April Fool’s Day, and everything I wrote in this post was a joke. I mean none of it.
There were a few paragraphs and phrases included that I thought would make clear the fact that the entire post was a prank. In the spirit of full disclosure, here they are, with my explanations:
It’s not going to be easy. I don’t want to write off this entire year, so I’ll be working through the Summer to get as much of the theory done as possible. Obviously I can’t get the practicals done, as they’re a group thing, but thankfully they’re such a small part of the course that it doesn’t matter. Hooray!
I thought it would be a bit obvious that since the Spring term has just ceased in most universities, I would need to catch up on two terms’ work in a summer. A nigh-impossible task, and one that a university would not likely sanction. I also included a dig at the very small amount of practical work involved in the filmmaking* course at Falmouth University. Both of those were probably a little too obtuse to classify as clues to most of my readers.
There aren’t any dorm rooms left, so I’m having to share one with a foreign exchange student. He’s from France or something. I hope he’s fun!
I thought the ridiculousness of me having to share a dorm room, and the bad luck of sharing with a smelly Frenchmen(no disrespect to these noble creatures) would strike as too implausible too be true. Apparently, this added detail proved to have the opposite effect, causing the whole thing to be more believable to some readers. Oops!
but that’s how the world works these days, especially today
This was a little hint to readers to think about the date. Didn’t work.
Knowledge isn’t something you can just learn, it has to be worked for in boring institutions where opinions are forced on you and your schedule is kept rigid… Needless to say, I’ll be shutting this place down. I won’t have time to update it while I’m down there, what with all the toil I’ll have to do to reach the top of an arbitrary grading system.
This is the exact opposite of what I believe, something I had thought clearly highlighted by my pejorative remarks towards the very place I was to return to next day. I’m not exactly saying nice things about Uni, am I?
always remember - your dreams are too big to roam free
Again, the opposite of what I think, something highlighted in the post immediately below the one I’m talking about. I know I can be contradictory, but not that much, surely?
Obviously, I completely misjudged this whole thing. I again want to make it clear that I am not going back to university, and I most likely never will. I’m going to outline my reasons for that choice in a separate post.
Next April 1st, I’ll probably just replace the background with bunnies or something. Yeah.
02 April, 2007 - 01:09Comments (View)
I've been thinking about things.
Over the past few days, I've been thinking really hard about where my life is going, and the choices I've made. And I've come to a decision.
I'm going back to university.
It's not going to be easy. I don't want to write off this entire year, so I'll be working through the Summer to get as much of the theory done as possible. Obviously I can't get the practicals done, as they're a group thing, but thankfully they're such a small part of the course that it doesn't matter. Hooray!
There aren't any dorm rooms left, so I'm having to share one with a foreign exchange student. He's from France or something. I hope he's fun!
All this isn't perfect, of course, but that's how the world works these days, especially today. Knowledge isn't something you can just learn, it has to be worked for in boring institutions where opinions are forced on you and your schedule is kept rigid.
Needless to say, I'll be shutting this place down. I won't have time to update it while I'm down there, what with all the toil I'll have to do to reach the top of an arbritrary grading system. I'll be deleting this entire website tonight, as I'm leaving tomorrow. There is no time to lose.
I wish you all the best of luck. And always remember - your dreams are too big to roam free.
01 April, 2007 - 01:59Comments (View)