So I got Pokemon Diamond last weekend.
It came with a little stylus with Dialga on it because I preordered it like a nerd. Cliff dubbed him “Spikedog,” and so I’ve decided that when I catch him in the game, he too shall be called “Spikedog.”
I already made two trades and managed to get myself all three of the starters. Which is pretty cool, because in the old games that was about impossible to do. Yay! 
So my great grandmother is in the hospital again, and was perhaps at one point not doing so well. I don’t really want to write about that right now.
What I do want to write about is the damn church pastor who showed up and was asking me about my major in school. Who maybe was once an art major too, but he decided to make the proclamation that it’s a “good hobby,” and that designers are “sellouts,” and it just occurred to me how very offensive that really was.
You know, you may be a “man of God” or whatever the terminology is these days, but that doesn’t make your opinion law. “Art” might be a “hobby” for you because you probably suck at it. I bet you were one of those kids who actually fell for all the crap the zealot campus Christianity groups try to pump into your brain. I bet it went something like this: My God, I’m in art. This is sin. How can I sit around all day and freely express what I feel is important so that someone else might understand my idea? I’m going to Hell! NO! I need to be saaaaaaaaaved!! They try to make you feel bad for anything you ever might do, regardless of meaning or value. Everything is sin by their definition. Get used to it.
I’m sorry, but if that’s how you think, I really, truly, hope you don’t continue drawing or painting or whatever it is you did in school and call it “art.” It’s not. It’s not anything. It’s not even a “hobby.” As they say in gaming, GTFO, n00b.
Your opinion means nothing to me. Your rank or position or occupation or what have you means nothing to me, and your presence in the room quite honestly made me uncomfortable and offended me. I’m not in this for money. I’m not in this so it can become a “hobby,” and I sure as hell am not going by your cute churchy little opinion of what I ought to be doing as a “woman” and la-de-da waiting my days away until some man comes along and marries me and I spend the rest of my days having kids and scrubbing kitchens and praaaaaaaaaisin’ God like a good little brainwashed, braindead servant. Fuck that. I have better things to do with my life. I want to use what I do and make the world a better place. I want to improve education. I want to improve semiotics and the way signs and symbols are created and used. I want to be part of the movement reshaping and changing the internet and technology and the way people communicate. Sounds like a lofty goal, I know. But then again, so does “saving” all the people of the world from their “sin.”
Bite me, church man. Sucks to have your “thing” stomped all over by someone else, doesn’t it?
Year Zero is some good, noisy, musical business. I have just spent the entire evening decoding the secrets on the disc and in the packaging. I am impressed. This all is supposed to go on for the next 18 months. That is a long time. 
It came with a little patch with the “art is resistance” flag on it. I think it shall go on my backpack.
Good music, though. And a good game, thus far. I’m interested to see where this goes.
this is the kind of work i’d like to be doing someday.
Well, the game design bit, anyway. I’m no musician. I’ve been poking through the clues that have already been revealed, but it looks like I heard about it a bit too late.
Regardless, the merging of the music and the reality-game media through the story (which is really a pretty fascinating and complex one, when you piece it all together) is a very interesting concept. Even if it is just outstandingly excellent marketing.
Hey, works for me. I think I’ll be picking this one up.
I’ve come to the conclusion of late that most of my classmates will go nowhere far. Not that I know I have particularly a better chance or anything like that, but it’s the attitude that gets me. They act like they know everything about everything, no matter what, and that they’re always right. Then what’s the point of being in school? Why are you here? School is nice when it’s easy, but if you’re not getting anything out of it, what’s the point? When I was at GCC and that thought finally occurred to me, I transferred out, and now I’m doing a ridiculous amount of work and my grades aren’t quite as high as they were, but I’ve certainly learned a lot and come a long way from where I was. It bothers me that these people act like school is such a burden and that homework and projects exist purely for the purpose of eating up their time. Granted, I do my share of ranting and raving about projects, but it’s usually my own fault for waiting too long to get started on them. That’s just how I work, it’s nobody’s fault but my own. They act like the professors are just these cardboard cutout people who are just kind of “there,” and aren’t really people. In my opinion, class becomes more meaningful when you stop pretending you’re still in high school and everyone and everything is still out to get you and teachers are the enemy. Half of everything I’ve learned in school comes from talking to teachers as if they’re people. They’re as much a resource as any textbook is. The lack of respect bothers me.
Sort of relatedly, some of the things that come out of the art department in general frighten me. Some of the sentiments, I should say. People are all too willing to latch onto an idea if it’s presented to them well with little regard for reality. If someone says something is bad, then they take it as being completely fresh-outta-Hell evil, and damned be anyone who disagrees, regardless of fact or truth. This is mildly troubling coming from a department where most of the work anyone does is based on freedom of speech and the presentation of information. I bring up this point only to discuss most of the reactions I’ve heard to the whole Imus fiasco that’s been all over the news of late. What do I think about what he said? That’s unimportant here. What I do care about is the fact that my colleagues are too busy rejoicing about the fact that he’s been fired to look at several key points in the entire mess. There have been a lot of things said about who “is allowed” and who “isn’t allowed” to make particular statements, and I think that’s a very dangerous double standard to hold, particularly where freedom of speech is concerned. For the sake of example, am I more entitled to make cracks about women being stupid because I happen to be female? I know I do often among male friends, if only for the sake of making a joke, and only within certain context where it is understood that what is said is, in fact, meant to be humorous or satirical and not [entirely] serious. But realistically, I’m no more or less entitled to say such things than anyone else is. That’s the great thing about America – the first amendment. There’s been a lot of debate in recent times about whether the first amendment extends to statements such as those made by a particular Mr. Imus, but really, how can it not? Wasn’t part of the point of it originally to protect those who wanted to say “Hey, ’sup guys, you think the King’s an idiot, too?” If you want to say something unpleasant about someone, you should have the right to. If you don’t like it, don’t listen. No one is making you. And quite honestly, I think I have the right to not be offended by supposedly “offensive” statements. It worries me when you take a bunch of people who are supposed to be interested in the free flow and perpetuation of information and they’re perfectly happy to stand by and take what they’re fed because it’s “right.” To quote Penn of the TV show Bullshit,
“We’re all offended, all the time, and we don’t have a fucking right not to be offended! A free country is a marketplace of ideas.”
So that’s all I have to say about that. Well, not really, but y’know. Whatever.
Tried to sort out my fall schedule today, and what I thought would be my summer schedule. Ha! Not happening. Summer classes are full already, and I had to shuffle all the classes I thought I was taking in the fall to fit one that just opened that I really wanted to take. I’ve been planning since transferring to UB to take Japanese for my language requirement, and I finally, finally got in, and then had to swap out of it anyway to fit a design class in. Unfortunately design > language, so I had to pick something else. Latin 101 it is, hopefully shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ve always sort of wanted to learn it, and they started offering it in high school after it was too late to fit anything else into my schedule. Funny how that works. I’m a little disappointed, but it could be worse.
Aside from that, things are a general mess. I haven’t really got a clue when I’m graduating anymore. I guess it’s normal for transfers to end up here an extra year or semester or so? Whatever. I’m not pleased about it, but not exactly upset either. It’s nice knowing I’m not going to be forced out into the “real world” just yet (is there a “fake world”?) but some part of me still wants to get out there and get on with it already. Time’s a-wastin’, I’m 21 and still have a million and twelve things to do before I die, bring it on.
Roughly two weeks of classes left and then it’s “summer break,” but it’s still snowing out. There’s something not right, there. At least my summer of building snowmen won’t be marred by taking world civilization all summer? Ugh.