| My name is Simon, and I like to do drawerings |
[30 Dec 2006|03:49am] |
So I'm going to continue not writing things on this journal and just use it post pictures of my more recent drawings. Criticism appreciated.
Charcoal on paper, Charles Darwin
Colored pencil on paper, Random Black Guy Portrait That I Made Up
Enjoy.
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| what the fark |
[03 Feb 2005|08:18pm] |
[whine]
so pretty much everybody i know is having the easiest time ever this semester in school and i'm definitely not and i don't like it and it pisses me off and this is a run on sentence [familyguy]and you have boobies[/familyguy]
[/whine]
seriously though, it's not too bad. it's good prep for shoot-me-in-the-face-i'm-so-tired residencies. i impressed myself by not sleeping for almost 3 days straight. i was up tuesday morning at 5:30, went to class until 4, went to bible study till 9, winged it up with the bibly study group till 11, started homework at midnight,(now wednesday) worked until 4am, played command and conquer for an hour, went to school, schooled from 7 till 3, mechanics homeworked till 10, read a ravi book till 2,(now thursday) studied for lab practical till 4, slept for exactly 2 hours and 19 minutes, biomaterials homeworked until noon, studied some more for lab practical, then classed from 2 till 6, got home late, and now i'm updating my livejournal. and i still have 2 hours of homework. i = win. so yeah.
i haven't really been tired, but i got really angry earlier over something really stupid, which is funny now, but it wasn't then. yeah.
incidently, my livejournal is oficially one year old. lam0rz.
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| i cant think of a descriptive title |
[22 Jan 2005|09:58pm] |
i accomplished so little today. i had such good intentions. it was frick cold, i had no obligations, i had nothing to draw my attention away from my work. but i failed. for some random reason i decided that i should download and play civilization ii, an old abondoned game with crappy graphics and amazing gameplay. 6 hours later, i had successfully completed the game by constructing a fusion-powered spaceship and launching 20,000 of my greek citizens to alpha centauri. ridiculous. it wasn't even fun. but i had some retarded notion in my mind that i had simply [i]had[/i] to complete this game. so stupid.
so instead of doing fluids, materials, biomaterials, mechanics, and chemistry homework, i played some silly game from 1997. woot.
in other news, my nephew started walking today. it was a-mazing.
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[20 Jan 2005|08:29pm] |
so i just had a nice long argument with my mom. we were talking about places we would like to visit before we die, and i said that i wanted to visit jerusalem and see the mountains where the prophets talked with God. so she started talking about not believing that the "stories" were necessarily true, but that it didn't really influence her belief about the Bible being God's word. she said that it wouldn't shake her faith to learn that hosea and gomer didn't really exist, but that the "idea" behind the people was what was important, and that this is what was why much of the jewish history is given in oral form.
this really scares me, because it shows a lack of intellectual follow-through. the Bible is self-authoritative, and it can be because the Author is self-authoritative. the Bible says that the Bible is Truth with a capital 't'. it has to withstand every scrutiny, if one part of it is not true then it loses its credibility, and you are calling God a liar. the jewish language is equipped with words that infer a non-tangible event, like a moral parable, and with words that infer a past history, like the old testament. this can be readily understood by examining the parables that Jesus used to teach moral truths. it was evident to His audiences that the stories were not true.
bah. if she took her reasoning to its full extent, then we could say that Jesus Himself was merely an "idea" and our recognition of it atones for our sinfulness.
i do know this much: we damn well didn't nail an "idea" to a tree 2000 years ago.
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| Nighthawks |
[02 Jan 2005|12:19am] |
I was thinking about this painting earlier today:
It's the kind of painting that makes me want to write a backstory for it.
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| my family thinks i'm neurotic |
[25 Dec 2004|01:25am] |
yeah, so we opened our christmas gifts on christmas eve because of some reason that i forgot. mine were all books, which is fine. better than fine, actually. the list includes:
mein kampf by adolph hitler
angels and demons by dan brown
divine comedy by dante aligheri
there's going to be approxmimately 1 mole of people at my house tomorrow and sunday. i am less than pleased about this prospect, because lately i haven't been dealing well with crowds, be they familiar or not.
i've been singing a little snippet of a harry potter movie today; the part with the choir singing 'something wicked this way comes'. i hope i'm not coming down with a case of prescience.
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| well done my curious savage |
[15 Dec 2004|12:27am] |
so i was thinking tonight on my drive home from bible study that i view my life like a starry sky. vast spanse of inky blackness occasionally pierced by bright light. up close the blackness is imposing and frightening, and the distance is quite far between the white dots. but when i step back and view them as a whole, the result is startlingly beautiful.
two posts in two days. whoah. simmer down, ben.
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| thief |
[13 Dec 2004|10:44pm] |
everyone else updated. i want to be cool too.
i also stole brians idea and updated my picture.
it's no charcoal brian, but i like it well enough.
i stole it from maplethorp. wonder if he'll be mad.
am i cool yet?
i don't want to hurt your feelings, livejournal, but i prefer my paper journal.
peace.
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| its really not that difficult |
[07 Sep 2004|02:17pm] |
another political rant. pretty much all i do any more. this time against the republicans.
watching tv the other day and a republican commercial came on bashing john kerry (which is not fine. bash his politics, not him. ticks me off when the dems launch personal attacks, itd be dang hypocritical of me to support doing the same against them). so the ad said that "kerry has voted 98 times to raise taxes", quoted from the commercial. now that seems a little ridiculous to me, so i thought maybe i'd check it out and find out a little more about kerry's track record. shame on republicans for padding this number. turns out, he hasn't voted 98 times to raise taxes. roughly 40 of those votes were votes against lowering taxes (not the same thing. subtle but important difference). another 16 of those votes were on various amendments to clinton's 1993 deficit reduction plan which involved raising taxes (ultimately he did vote to actively raise taxes on the final bill, so it should have counted as 1, but not 16). another 5 or so were on a cigarette tax to discourage youth smoking. finally, about 10 were on a 1997 budget resolution that closed corporate tax loopholes for the EPA, veteran's agencies, and a few other various agencies. unfortunately, i don't know much about this resolution and i can't seem to find out much about it, so i'm not sure if that was a good thing or not. i tend to lean in the direction that loopholes are bad, so i'm going to give kerry the benefit of the doubt on this one since i can't definitvely call him on it.
so that leaves us with 98-40-16-5-10= 27. roughly 30 votes by kerry to actively raise taxes. unfortunately, theres more. of those 30, about 15 of them were to raise taxes on the richest 2% of the population. the commercial ad claims that kerry is trying to raise taxes on the middle class. so we're left with between 15 and 20 votes from kerry to actively raise taxes on a significant portion of the population. i don't support raising taxes on the upper 2%, but the ad is misleading voters by claiming those numbers are factual. they could correct the numbers and still claim that kerry has a record of voting for raising taxes OR voting against lowering taxes on all members of the population. again, shame on republicans for lying to voters. is it so hard to be honest and act with integrity when in politics? im begining to think that it is. never in my life have i been lied to so much by so many who claim they want to help me.
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| keeping it real 24/7 |
[26 Aug 2004|05:52pm] |
today i have discovered another reason why i hate john kerry. let me explain.
title 2, section 39 of the United States Code of Conduct for Senators states “[t]he Secretary of the Senate ... shall deduct from the [salary] of each Member ... the amount of his salary for each day that he has been absent from the Senate ... unless such Member ... assigns as the reason for such absence the sickness of himself or of some member of his family [sic]."
plainly stated: a senator who does not work does not get paid. novel thought, yeah? just like every other American.
now then. shame on secretary of the senate emily reynolds for failing to carry out her statutory duty. obviously i'm not the first to call her on this. in a written response to a formal inquiry she said [paraphrased] that she would not carry out this statute because her predecessors had not. the logic of that utterly vaccuous statement baffles me.
now, as i see it, an officer of the senate is bound by the law as it applies to that officer. when the statute plainly and unambiguously commands her to do something, she is bound to carry out that mandate by the law of her station. i'm not allowed to ignore the law as i please, why is she? terribly, but just wait, it gets better. the secretary reynolds is not the only culpable party here.
ignorance of the law is never a valid excuse for breaking said law. all americans are, when charged, charged with breaking a law with prior knowledge. the laws are clearly and plainly written, and available to anyone seeking them. now lawyer, whom interpret the law, should be held to a higher standard considering their knowledge of law and its practice. this is the case in america, thankfully, where lawyers are held to a distinct ethical code. now a United States senator is charged with putting those laws into action. they should be held to a standard even higher than that of a lawyer. john f. kerry is both a senator and a lawyer. he should be held to the highest standard of legal and ethical conduct. he is a complete and utter failure in this respect. john kerry knows that the secretary should be docking his pay when he is absent and that there is no exception written in the law for campaign activities. any payment made to kerry when absent is an illegal use of government funds, and essentially theft of tax payers' money. kerry is blatantly breaking the law by accpeting those funds.
of course this should apply to all senators, not just kerry. but i think kerry deserves to be singled out and warrants special attention considering the fact that he is running for president, the highest office in the land. kerry has the most abhorrent attendence record in the senate. he has been absent without excuse 87% of the 2004 senate session. he is by far the most blatant offender.
last time i checked, "everyone is doing it" is not a valid excuse.
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| could it be they've lost all hope |
[02 Aug 2004|08:20pm] |
ugh. yeah. so i've been thinking a lot about what i've done this summer. in case you were wondering, i haven't done anything at all this summer. super. yeah, so i'm pretty not happy about that.
in other news...
oh wait, there is no other news. my bad.
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| "The Fey Report: Sundays from 7-10pm" |
[17 Jul 2004|01:25pm] |
All right, a quick little rant because I’m shocked by global ignorance.
Today, Sir Elton John made a press statement saying that he is angry at the US government for using “bullying tactics” to hinder free speech from Hollywood and the music industry. He is upset because of the disparity of acceptance between conservative artists and liberal artists. He cites country music singer Toby Keith regarding his pro-war lyrics versus the Dixie Chicks and their songs criticizing Pres. Bush. Okay, fair enough. I agree, Toby Keith’s song was more popular and widely accepted than the Dixie Chicks’ song. But it gets better:
"On the one hand, you have someone like Toby Keith, who has come out and been very supportive of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq - which is OK because America is a democracy and Toby Keith is entitled to say what he thinks and feels.
"But, on the other hand, the Dixie Chicks got shot down in flames last year for criticising the president [sic]. They were treated like they were being un-American, when in fact they have every right to say whatever they want about him because he's freely elected, and therefore accountable."
See, here is where Sir Elton makes my point for me. “…they have every right to say whatever they want about him…” Congratulations, Elton, you’re absolutely right. They have every right, as Americans, to say whatever they want about the president. But it surely doesn’t mean that I have to embrace whatever they say. Nor does it mean that all of America has to embrace their political ideology. The Dixie Chicks have the right to be wrong (which they are). But Free Speech (capital F, capital S) is not a binding contract that says there are no consequences to your freely spoken words. What it does say, is that the government will not arrest, imprison, or execute you for saying what you think. It does not guarantee that you escape the ramifications of what you are saying. Whether people like it or not, America is a capitalist nation. The flow of money is our life-blood, and in many cases we use money to indicate our feelings toward a subject. We endorse those things which we like, and we shun those that we don’t. In this respect, the American people have a tremendous amount of power, as the Dixie Chicks have realized. We did not agree with what they said, therefore we refused to buy their products. The end result? The Dixie Chicks lost a lot of money, and a lot of loyal fans. But it was not the result of political scheming by a despotic government or a vast right-wing conspiracy that caused this. It was their own inability to properly think through their feelings and consider the consequences of their actions. I think they have learned their lesson. They have recently kept their political views a bit more subdued, but unfortunately the damage is already done. Had they but stopped and considered for thirty seconds the consequences of their brash words, they certainly would have realized how foolish they are. Then again, perhaps they did think through them and were well aware of the likely results. If that is the case, then they certainly cannot be upset when things proceeded exactly as expected.
I am shocked and amazed at the number of people in this world that act solely on their feelings.
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| a long journal post for no reason at all other than because it was what i was thinking about |
[07 Jul 2004|12:06am] |
i have rediscovered a truth this week. self-guilt is the most selfish and prideful act that man can perform. i have, recently, considered guilt to be selfless. after all, by crushing the Self under an indomitable weight of guilt, you’d think you could squash your Self into nothingness. that reliving your past failures would keep you in constant contact with your fallibility (fragment; consider revising). by always thinking of how i've failed in the past, i can keep myself from rising above abjection and into prideful thoughts brought about by my successes. now that i have cast my thoughts to paper (read: screen) i can see their inherent foolishness. somehow, when they’re unordered and floating about my brain they seem to be reasonable. i have somehow equated a feeling of pride with a feeling of success. this is probably a result of a lack of introspection on my part recently. study is difficult when distractions are plentiful.
a quick evaluation of guilt betrays its prideful attitude: it is always me-centered. i cannot contemplate the idea of someone else’s guilt, only my own. aside from that, guilt forms a murky quagmire that encourages complacency, in spirit and in action. by reliving past failures, i embed myself in mental quicksand: the more i struggle to control my guilt through reason, the deeper into it i sink. “who am i to think that i can overcome guilt? i deserve this, poor me, blah blah”. i become mentally inactive, and that kind of guilt-centered thinking causes mental atrophy. when this happens, it usually spills over into my daily activities. i seek menial and thoughtless activities instead of profitable things. my physical activities become stagnant, mirroring the inactivity of my thoughts. then, due to my state of mental and physical inertness, i generally feel a ton more guilt. alright, so:
guilt -> mental stagnation -> physical stagnation -> more guilt
that’s just super duper, yeah?
i note that i have written “feeling of pride” and “feeling of success”. this is probably a noteworthy distinction. had someone asked me if i believe that success is wrong, of course i would answer in the negative. the reaction would have been instinctual, and there is certainly plenty of Biblical wisdom to back it up. but despite all of that, my thoughts continue to be ordered improperly. there was a time when they were one, my feelings and thoughts on a subject were plotted as a parallel course guided by reason. they did not intersect, but travel along side each other, one influencing the other’s course. when one of them was slightly off, i could rely on the truths, gleaned from the other and viewed through reason, to correct the mistake. but I have been careless and lazy in my study, and rationality has departed from them, allowing them to stray hazardously, divergent. a simple night of quiet study has alleviated the discrepency. the problem is not the study and meditation. quite to the contrary, i enjoy it greatly (as i suspect most people do). the problem is motivating myself to get up and do it. once i have overcome that initial anchor of slothfulness i truly enjoy it, but the idea of expending energy, be it mental or physical, seems abhorrent.
bah. diligence. i require more diligence.
be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. watch your life and doctrine closely. persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your listeners -1 Timothy 4:15-16
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| unbelievable can barely describe it |
[12 Jun 2004|09:48pm] |
jorb things happening. still dont have one, should change soon. new alanis cd is unbelievable, and could just oust jagged little pill as her best album yet. amazing.
i think ill go draw for a bit.
gnight journal.
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| 16 oz Guiness, if you please |
[06 Jun 2004|12:15am] |
Had a simply dee-lite-fil evening with the lovely and vivacious amber. heres the rundown:
5:50 pm - purchased 9 dolla tickets online for the new Potter movie
6:07 pm - departed from the abode
6:30 pm - procured some magazines and can-day from the wonderful mart of wal
6:50 pm - arrived at the casa del Brown, watched the last 10 minutes of Sound of Music
**BONUS** Amber bought me bulk tee from Peet's Tea in the Airport!! Darjeeling and the classic Grey Earl!! Wewt!
7:15 pm - arrived at the Levy in the fine city of Newport, and snatched our prepaid tickets from the automated box office dealie. i seriously got the best parking spot in the whole dang place. no joke
7:45 pm - Hairy Pot movie. good flick. let none deny that Hermione is hot despite her meager
14 years of age.
10:20pm - parking validation. hurrah for 3 dollars back. who can beat 1 dolla parking in Newport? i know i cant
10:25pm - dallied at Claddagh's Irish Pub for a spell, had a nice waitress named Tina. awesome decor, candles and iron chandeliers and all that
10:30pm - Smirnoffs and Shamrock Wings (soon to be famous) for Ambo, Guiness and Monte Christo sammich for me
11:15pm - a sad departure from the pub
11:25pm - return of weary ms. brown to her dwelling, with leftover candy from the movie
11:30pm - 12:05am - Something Corporate all the way home, with the evening breeze in my face
truly a remarkable evening, by anyone's standards. given the fact that i have no standards, this evening was, needless to say, quite fantastic.
many other things happened this eve, but those are the highlights.
i shall leave you with a brief proverb from Claddaghs wall :
"there are no strangers here, only friends who havent met"
quite.
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| most people are dumb |
[28 May 2004|12:26am] |
i'm shocked and amazed at human stupidity.
Henry Neils is president and founder of www.assessment.com, the "leading online career assessment company, focused on helping employees and employers work together for their mutual benefit". According to Mr. Neils, who is obviously a specialist in the field of employee-manager relations, has outlined the 13 early warning signs that you may be unhappy with your job and ready to seek new employment:
1. chronic fatigue - exhaustion, tiredness, a sense of being physically run down
2. anger at those making demands
3. self-criticism for putting up with the demands
4. cynicism, negativity, and irritability
5. a sense of being besieged
6. exploding easily at seemingly inconsequential things
7. frequent headaches and gastrointestinal disturbances
8. weight loss or gain
9. sleeplessness and depression
10. shortness of breath
11. suspiciousness
12. feelings of helplessness
13. increased degree of risk taking
just for the record, i exhibit: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12.
10/13 = ~77%
oh yeah. i dont even have a job. see, what mr. neil is doing here is he has taken something simple and uncomplicated, and then made it needlessly complicated. by doing this, hes fooled you into believing that assessing your job satisfaction is difficult to do. he then fabricated this vague and ambiguous profile of an unsatsified worker, perhaps by even studying unhappy workers themselves. because job assessment is so difficult (i mean, just look at that list! you dont expect me to *read* all 13 do you?)and complicated (and not something that your typical, average [ie, dumb] american can do), you should pay him an assload of money to do it for you and decide whether you like your job or not. this list isnt for unhappy workers, its for unhappy people. it may shock bleeding-heart-liberal-red-commie-tree-hugging-peace-loving-shroom-smoking-elitist-bastard henry that people exhibit dissatsified responses because unconciously (or conciously, though rarely) they realize that a contemporary life lived at contemporary standards is meaningless and utterly bankrupt. oh wait. nope. theyre just unhappy with their profession.
hooray for feel good world views.
holy crap i think i just might hate everything right now.
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| dont waste your time reading this self-pitying tripe |
[21 May 2004|03:09am] |
why cant i ever sleep.
i don't think i like predestination, but i cant resolve Gods sovereignty and prophecy with free will. but without free will i cant resolve the sin nature of man.
i think too much in pictures.
im angry at myself for cheapening Gods role in my salvation.
im tired of hearing about cicadas.
im bored of nearly everything.
i think the united states should get the f out of iraq.
i curse too much.
i miss fall.
i live too much in the past and future.
i simultaneously loathe and adore money.
im inconsistant and selfish.
im still not sleepy.
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| vexation of spirit |
[05 May 2004|12:12am] |
So here i am again at a crossroads, settled nicely betwixt divergent paths that lead off into the distance, a distance i can't even fathom, but one that i know exists nonetheless, leading to more nice resting places and more decisions that need making. Decisions that i dont know how to make. thankfully i do not have to make them. but the waiting is...unsettling. i have searched and grasped after perceived guidance, only to find it mockingly distant. or so it seems, anyway. i am thankful that i am able to percieve my emotions through objectivity. i feel the emotions keenly, perhaps even more keenly because of this, but i am always aware of just where my emotions are leading me. even as they now lead me down a path of despair and self-doubt. but i shall survive and persist in stumbling towards my Goal. have we, as humans, other options? i suppose i could waylay my desires, and let them rest indefinitely on vacuous things, let my mind become numb. but this is not an option for me. gladly would i choose pain over numbness.
UC did not accept my application for admission. This pained and angered me, somewhat irrationally at first. I freely admit that the ego was bruised by the ordeal. I had considered that i had quite a good chance of acceptance, considering my past academic performance and current standing. How quickly arrogance strikes down the foolish. The ego, though it is fragile, is quite regenerative (perhaps too much so), so i have few worries there. But even now in the quite hours of the night, the rejection is still gnawing at my brain. I had set a course, a goal, and a path to achieve that goal. And it was a good and solid path, not unreasonable. Yet still it did not lead me where i wished it to. Guidance from others suggested that i would succeed, even objective (as objective as possible) guidance indicated so. But it is out of my hands now (even as it always was, in truth).
I think that what angers me the most about this, is that now i must reasses my goals and redirect my efforts toward something else. Tis a lengthy and arduous process, one i do not look forward to beginning. When my course was set (even if it was the wrong course), i could prance down the path to the goal, vapid and careless, and not consider my true feelings about the situation. But now that my previous goal was snatched from my grasp, i must choose a new destination. And there are so bloody many of them. I enjoy study. I enjoy art. I enjoy physics. I enjoy biology. I enjoy enginerring. I enjoy chemistry. Each draws me and sings sweetly in my ear, but i cannot choose one above the others. I should like to study them all, but i cannot. so here i sit, waiting patiently though it tears out my insides to remain without decision.
but i have no other choice.
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benisabitterman's journal
