Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in _bazilisk_'s LiveJournal:

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Friday, March 20th, 2009
12:04 am	New Time Wasting Rules: Blog REDUCTION, not ELIMINATION I have developed an unusually bad social networking/timewasting addiction on the internet, and to stop it in its tracks, and allow me time to further develop the skills I have that require disciplined self-study, I have developed a strict regiment: ONE daily internet check, these web sites are YAHOO MAIL GMAIL FACEBOOK. On FACEBOOK, I just refresh myself on new things- do not look through photo albums at pretty pictures from Thailand, do not play any applications at all. Maybe message a friend I have not contacted in a while, but more likely, I would do that through my PHONE. This happens ONCE. A DAY. Anything urgent? TEXT ME or CALL ME. I have unlimited one, practically unlimited in the other. If I have a longer-time-taking task on the internet, I WILL do it on FRIDAY. Which is a day that I have 2 DESIGNATED INTERNET TIME WASTING HOURS. This is for reading and possibly writing blogs, music researching, facebooking, meme catchup, web comic catch up. Of course, I implemented this yesterday, and have broken the rules- but only BARELY, wasting a total of FIFTEEN MINUTES. In time, I will break the rules less and less often, until it is VERY INFREQUENT. I have already increased my productivity after only a day. This is coupled with strict television cutbacks. This is also working well so far. I tried this a few times in High School, but I was not nearly as aware of how I ticked, so I just failed miserably. This time, I understand the reasons behind the addiction, and I see first-hand (IE empty checking account) the results of laziness as an almost-fully-adult. (I am not aspiring to full adulthood, but it is almost here whether I want it or not, and trying to reject it is idiotic. I just wish I had more non-academic service-economy skills/experience going into the transition from parent-supported to self-supported...damn my lack of high school jobs! Damn NYC's job market full of perfect models with 6 years experience making goddamn paninis! DAMN!) But, I digress. IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW ME DIGITALLY, I would LOVE to join you in a mutual Twitter relationship! It is the EFFICIENT, TEXT-or-WEB-using witticism-generating tiny-little-update MICROBLOG, friend to SELF-IMPORTANT DOUCHESACKS and GENUINELY FUNNY PEOPLE alike. I think mine is perfectly in the middle. I hope you will agree. http://twitter.com/bazilisk You are CORDIALLY INVITED to join the silk-stockinged ranks of the HURRIED TEXT-BASED BLATHERERS. -Sylvia Current Mood: sore (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
2:45 am	So Now I do Film It seems to be the most popular art form among the creatives and media types at my school, Hunter College. Since I love collaboration like a fat kid loves cake, I did seek out random acquaintances to do film with, just because I had never done it before, and wanted badly to learn what it was like. So now I know what it is like. It is insanely difficult. It takes balls (to be a producer.) It is ten times more enjoyable, dynamic, and wanted as comics. It costs 100 times as much to make, as comics. I was mostly acting as producer, so I did the dirty work of finding talent and locations that agreed to shoot, but I also did cinematography/storyboards, directing, and special effects. I feel like I have an understanding of what indie film shoots are like now. That is exactly what I was seeking. This is part of my current experimentation with all forms of mass-reproducible art and facts (read: media) to see which I like most. This is the best. Better than fiction, poetry, drama, comics, in my humble opinion. So much more engaging than print journalism. I could see documentaries being just as much fun, and at least those, when short and non-controversial and visual enough, can come close to presenting facts instead of opinions (something I value in non-fiction.) It was for a week-long contest. The end result had to be less than 5 min. It is barely. I did it instead of studying for midterms, but so far, the ones I have gotten back are all A's. Man, this is an awesome art form. I think I found a new hobby. My career is still library science, only a moron would bet their bank account on Hollywood or Sundance, but this is a great new way to throw shit together in a chaotic clusterfuck of ideas and sweat and end up with something crappy and entertaining. Well, this one was crappy, because only 1/6 of the cast and crew had EVER made a film before! EVER! Throwing myself headfirst into dynamic creative productive brain-crashes is the best thing ever. Shit, yes. Even better than...academic studies. I don't believe I admit that. THAT IS SO NOT LIKE ME. But I can do both. Forever. <3 <3 Current Mood: giddy Current Music: Godspeed you (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 1st, 2009
10:45 pm	Petrified. If my dad doesn't find a new job here before November, we can not afford to be in the city anymore. I will have to severely interrupt my college education and start paying the loans prematurely. And live in another city entirely. I really, really, really do not want that. I really, really, really hope my dad can find a similarly lush job. I really, really, really hate how he is drowning in debts that take so much off his monthly income. I really, really, really wish I was a doctor instead of a college student right now. The idea of my education being severely interrupted is 100 times more terrifying than the idea of having to move to a new place in general. I wish I was just switching jobs and not schools in that potential transition. God damn it. I wish there were stupid jobs like coffee around for me to even get, here. God damn it. Current Mood: worried (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
9:48 pm	Adjusting Focal Length.... Getting things into focus. I feel so much better now that I decided I can at least pursue this. JOB: Media studies related, to pay bills. Possible PhD in the future- keep that alive with continued GRAD DEGREE: Archival studies or Library science at a place respected for such subjects. DREAM JOB: Keeping old lithographs safe and preserved and digitized. OTHER DREAM JOBS (Achievable through continued dedication to Hobbies): Professor. Comics publisher/promoter, including for online comics company Editor Something Useful at any institution whose mission I seriously agree with (ex: museum, cool nonprofit.) HOBBIES Writing, and attempting publishing and A/V production A/V editing and making (amateur/youtubes) Comics, long form only (for now) Volunteer Work Anything outdoors Anything sculpture-like including sewing and jewelry. Staying in shape. SCHOOL HOBBIES of IMPORT: Independent research re: media studies. Internships.At museum, newspaper, nonprofit. Issues: Media, education including literacy and writing, birth control, gay rights, public health. SMALL JOBS Coffee, retail. No waitressing. Selling art and editing, when available (rarely.) CITY Will be determined. Prefer Midwest or West Coast, will settle for East Coast. WTF why do I love great lakes area so much??? What about the rust belt is so damn sexy?? Probably largely determined by grad school. REMEMBER Do not worry about whether or not you can predict everything perfectly and make a perfect life through exact planning. It never quite works out that way. Current Mood: calm Current Music: Dark ambient. (Sophia-Downfall) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, February 16th, 2009
1:43 pm	Missing Nature Bad I would go into nature at least once a week in high school, usually, much more, since there was a great little park down my street. In my first two years of college, I was in a small rural town that happened to have a university in it. It was surrounded by mountains and had a few close by patches of the natural world, reachable by foot. Just enough to go there at least once a month, not to mention simply being surrounded by grass, geese, trees, bushes while on campus itself. Now, I am in New York City. All of the natural places within an hour of my place are heavily landscaped glorified gardens without a single unplanned non-linear angle. I doubt the patches of green on Long Island are accessable without a car, which my household does not have. I am solidly in the middle of the concrete jungle. Cool, right? Who cares? Well, I find something missing. I really think it's bad. It is just missing something that was once part of my daily life, a calming, necessary interaction on a semi-weekly basis. I guess several months of not having it is getting to me. I guess it does matter. I don't want it to, I feel weak, but it does. It's different from just nostalgia, the sort of feeling one gets missing the innocence and irresponsibility of childhood, no, it's not that. It's not just aesthetic, either, I don't just miss the nonlinear half-chaos half-order patterned wild. It's something deeper, it's like a sex drive on extremely slow motion. Just that powerful, but much, much longer, more tolerant of long passages of time without getting it. But it's been too long, now, and that drive for anything not made by the hands of man is bothering me. I wish I was better at adapting to a pretty much pure urban landscape, but it is hard for me. I was the kid in the suburbs and the small town who would rather be in the woods than playing Guitar Hero.   Now all I have are screens... and my own species, and all of its incredible creations. I miss it... I would take it in its winter form, a form most people don't like at all! I would take it with the bitter cold and freezing wind. I would take it if it got into my gloves and through my shoes to my socks, if I got jabbed by thorns and didn't even see any interesting species, I would still take it... Current Mood: aggravated Current Music: Daft Punk (Comment on this)
Saturday, February 7th, 2009
2:27 am	Albums I Will Always Associate with my Brother (That I Still Like) The Clash- London Calling Outkast- The Love Below Johnny Cash- Live from Folsom Prison Postal Service- Give Up Nine Inch Nails- The Downward Spiral Molotov Cocktail- United Colors of Poverty and Shame Jonathan Richman- Her Mystery Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers- The Beserkley Years Girl Talk- The Chemical Brothers- Come With Us These all live under my skin, where nothing can ever touch them. Next to my skeleton. I was so miserable then, as a confused kid, as all confused kids are. But my brother was the person who kept things from being shitty, somehow. There are many more albums, from earlier, when both our tastes were less refined: Green Day, Offspring, Blink 182, Jane's Addiction. One from later that I barely understand his interest in: Audioslave. Current Mood: melancholy Current Music: Clash (Comment on this)
2:23 am	Logic is my friend. Logic is great! It solves problems. Logic can be pessimistic or optimistic though. Also, it can be very much shaped by emotions. But despite all its oddness, it is still great. especially when you write shit down you're trying to figure out and go with the logical conclusions. Also, diary writing is great. Also, so are The Clash. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
7:54 pm	the stress never ends. I can't decide what I want to go to grad school for.This is the final thing to decide. I think I want to have a grad program with good job placement. That is all I know. I want it to be useful instead of academic. That narrows it down to...infinity. Teaching kids, social work, law/paralegal, marketing, publishing, evil marketing statistics, library science, environmental studies, technical specialty side of multimedia world. Why do things never, ever become clear? Yet the world expects clear answers from everyone. As though I could actually give those answers.This feels all too familiar. As soon as I decide my major, it's back to the indecisive personal hell all over again... I just want to study things or make things and also be paid money for doing this. How do I do that? And am I utterly evil for wanting to make more money than a starving artist, and for wanting to use grad school to help me do that? Shouldn't I be out changing the world or something? How much am I an idealist? How much am I a greedy conservative asshole? How much do I just want to have my own solid health insurance as soon as I possibly can? Current Mood: frustrated (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
11:44 pm	<3 Media Studies <3 I've always taken pop culture way too seriously. Now, did you know? There's a whole ACADEMIC WORLD about that? Hah! I feel like I am cheating, getting this degree! And after I graduate, I have both freelance and academic and (food service) options. Rock MY socks. It only took ten years to find. Current Mood: enthralled Current Music: NIN- Ghosts (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 24th, 2009
8:55 pm	The Power of Negative Thinking Currently trying really hard to not let the depressed economy and my lack of job DESPITE searching and my brokedness get me down. The cure to all of these things, to solving them, is to hope for the future. So all I need is that "hope" kool-aid everybody keeps passing around since well before November. Okay, I guess it is just a matter of time before I stumble upon where the hell that spigot is. Six years later, I hope you do not see me tromping through the marshes of Florida, seeking a prize the size of Ponce de Leon's neverthere surprise. The most annoying thing about the pattern of hopelessness is its repetitive, cyclical behavior, its downward spiral semi-reasoning. You need to get out, and you can, but the initial push is from fuel you often don't have--except by lucky coincidence or sheer determination... IN OTHER NEWS HILARIOUS BBC SERIES ABOUT "THE FUTURE": TIME TRUMPET (Comment on this)
Monday, January 19th, 2009
2:10 pm	Hierarchizing. Never do it to people. Ever. Not sure if this is done by other people, the same way I used to do it all the time, but if it is, stop it. It leads to nothing but nonsense and misery. Humans are sacred. They are not formulas and they are not objects, simply because of how bizarre human behavior is. -An old lady in a rocking chair Current Mood: cheerful (Comment on this)
Friday, January 9th, 2009
8:33 pm	Number of Awesome Things I am Not Allowed to Attend Because I am under 21. So far this week: 3 I am keeping a tally now. Fucking A. Less than a year. And I just want the events, not the booze. Seriously NY's underage laws are evil. All. Interesting. Things. Electronic music. Rock music, by an artist I kind of know, that I was planning on seeing until the last minute. Art exhibits. Figure drawing. Trivia contests. And did I mention electronic music? The type that dancing to is lots and lots and lots of fun? Current Mood: angry Current Music: LCD Soundsystem- NY I Love You (But You're Bringing me Down) (Comment on this)
7:36 pm	How fast human hair grows 0.0892857 mm/day. At least, mine. Almost a millimeter in ten days. A centimeter in 100 days. Three centimeters and a half, less, a year? Really?? Holy shit that's slow! (Calculated by measuring how long my brown roots are on my bleached+blued hair, and dividing.) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
5:00 am	Bands I am Always in the Mood For I listen to many bands, but these ones never get old. 1. Nine Inch Nails 2. The Shins 3. They Might Be Giants 4. White Stripes Now, how many bands can you say that about? More? Fewer? (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 4th, 2009
12:57 am	LISTEN TO SPACE! And more, many more, space sounds here. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009
9:03 pm	Fun Food for Thought Divided we fall! Current Mood: depressed Current Music: MGMT (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
8:51 pm	All Bullies Suck. (Politics.) No group is immune, including those whose genetic history is the same as half my family's, and as millions murdered in Europe in the 20th century, no group is immune to being fucked up assholes. Relief boats? Come on. CNN reports: "An Israeli patrol boat struck a boat carrying medical volunteers and supplies to Gaza early Tuesday as it attempted to intercept the vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, witnesses and Israeli officials said. CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul was aboard the 60-foot pleasure boat Dignity when the contact occurred. When the boat later docked in the Lebanese port city of Tyre, severe damage was visible to the forward port side of the boat, and the front left window and part of the roof had collapsed. It was flying the flag of Gibraltar. The Dignity was carrying crew and 16 passengers -- physicians from Britain, Germany and Cyprus and human rights activists from the Free Gaza Solidarity Movement -- who were trying to reach Gaza through an Israeli blockade of the territory. Also on board was former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney. " OMG my ex boss was good buddies with her. So does that make me a...terrorist? That I associate with someone who associates with someone who associates with people worthy of being intercepted while on the dastardly route to ...helping civilians. Sheesh. This is just, of course, the tip of the iceberg in a story where both sides are utterly screwed up. I am still learning how to emotionally handle outrage/cynicism enough to follow the whole fucked up story. My default is to just not follow it, since "it's all just fucked up anyway, why even look," but that's a really painfully lazy attitude...TOO lazy... Current Mood: pissed off (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 28th, 2008
2:00 am	2008 Meme: The Year of Things Happening ( Read more... ) 40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: "Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise" Cheesy but spot on. I know, I know, groan. Even I roll my eyes before nodding. Current Mood: accomplished (Comment on this)
Friday, December 26th, 2008
10:03 pm	Transformeddd!!! I KILLED IT!! It's in my mouth and it's DEAD! I KILLED IT! That damn furry thing that had been hijacking my image for a decade or...two! Turns out the cut was free, the place I got it cut does it gratis if you are donating, and here I am now filling out the Locks of Love form and trying to figure out where to get a good envelope. That thing in my mouth is four seperate full ponytails bundled together, in a sealed plastic bag. I had lots and lots of hair. That is now thankfully not attached to my person. Fuck long hair. Then I got it dyed at another place, where I learned that I am either a pussy about pain/itch, or particularly sensitive to bleach, not sure which. Might be the only time I bleach it ever. Eek. But I am SO EXCEEDINGLY HAPPY about looking at myself in the mirror now. THINGS I LEARNED 1. Short hair feels incredibly nice when rubbed, on the receiving end. 2. Short hair is thousands of tiny antennae sensitive to wind. 3. My mom was wrong: my hair is NOT curly like my dad's side of the family has it. I was expecting a sheep-head. Instead, I have a WASP-head... 4. Actually, I look SHOCKINGLY like my ("half")BROTHER, who has no genes from my dad, when it is short and not colored yet. I feel like he would have my crazy annoying frizz crap if HE grew it as long as I kept it. 5. Coloring is EXPENSIVE professionally. Thank you, grandparents, and your Xmas money! I will DIY it for now on. 6. Short hair is what I need and will keep, forever. Until I get bored with it. This is the FIRST TIME my hair had been this short since it FIRST GREW IN. AMAZING TRUE FACTS, NO? Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: White Stripes and Cloud Cult (4 Comments |Comment on this)
2:00 pm	HAPPY BOXING DAY!! Remember! Your servants exist, too! And they know where the rat poison is, and how to mix it into your sweetened tea in the morning, without you noticing! So you should probably get some presents for those beneath you, too. Current Mood: awake Current Music: Magnetic Fields (Comment on this)