I slept a bit more last night than I have been the past few days, because my internship meeting got canceled today.

I don't remember all that I dreamt, but there at least three separate storylines going on. In one of them I abducted a bunch of people and had them all in a large room where I made them compete to see who I wouldn't kill. There were maybe six or seven women (including a trans woman who talked to the others about how she had been circumcised) and I was going to let two live. The first contest involved dancing and they were all terrible but to the point where it kind of amused me, so I decided I would pick the winners based on who amused me most. Then this guy showed up and apparently wanted to enter the competition by choice, because he felt confident that he could win. I saw no reason to stop him.

In another one I was talking to Sean on a crowded lawn while this grotesque girl hovered around him. Apparently they were friends from OKC and she had been interested in him before he met someone. I found her face disturbing and didn't want to look at her, but I couldn't avoid it because she was so close to him.

Today I don't feel particularly angry but I feel kind of mentally tired.

---Edit---

My therapist found my dream very interesting. He loves doing dream interpretation... I'm okay with that in a casual setting but I feel iffy about it in a counseling setting. His suggestions for what aspects of my dream might mean didn't really feel right to me.

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I was feeling very angry earlier, and my thoughts were unproductive, going in circles of negativity and reaching no true conclusions. I decided to play a game and felt much better afterwards. Calmer. More clear. Looking at pictures seemed to help too.

The quarter is ending in a couple weeks, and then I'll have Spring Break. Don't know what I'm doing for that yet...

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We started on virtue ethics in my Ethics class today. It was kind of weird for me. I've never actually read anything about virtue ethics before that I can remember, but I feel like to some extent I've kind of been practicing it. >.> At least... from the overview we got today. So that's... strange to think about.

Or maybe I haven't actually been practicing it. My personal development wasn't motivated by the drive to be happy. I dunno. I'll probably have to think about it more as I learn more about it.

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So I played this game.

MARCH

It hit me harder than I was expecting. Especially the end. The game kind of forces you into a sad ending. You have the option to end it at a happier place, but it gives you an option that suggests that's not the real ending.

And the feeling is sort of sadness and sort of pain and sort of loss. Which makes perfect sense given the theme of the game.



"Don't Touch My Bikini" by The Halo Benders.


"Art Decade" by David Bowie.


"The Garden" by Cut Chemist.

Translation of the lyrics as posted by a Youtuber:
He who is a good man does not betray
The love who wishes him good
He who says a lot that he goes, does not go
As he doesn't go, he does not come

He who doesn't come out from himself
Will die without loving anyone
The money of he who does not give
Is the work of he who does not have
Capoeira that is good does not fall
And if someday it falls, it falls good

Capoeira told me to say it already came
It came to fight
Berimbau confirmed me there will be a love fight
Sadness, my friend

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This guy who's been visiting my profile on OKC for years finally messaged me. He said he's had me bookmarked for a long time and thought he'd send me a message. Now I feel like there's pressure on me to be cool and interesting so it seems like it was worth it to have me bookmarked all that time. >.>

It is kind of exciting though, I guess. I've had one other repeat visitor that has never contacted me to my knowledge, and I don't know what's holding him back. Well actually no, I guess I do... His profile says he's only interested in long term dating and I've never been single when he's visited me. So I'm guessing that's it.

I was talking with my friend Alice just now about guys with skills. It started off kind of as a joke when we were discussing programming last night and how neither of us really knows how to do it. I feel like it would be really cool to have programming skills, but I wouldn't even know where to start with it, and I feel like I get confused easily by it (maybe because the people I talk to about it go over specifics and I don't know the basics).

Alice: There are people to pay to do that for me.
Me: There are people to date to do that for me. XD
Alice: Lol! I suppose I suppose.
Me: As Napoleon Dynamite once said, girls like guys with skills.
Alice: Hella skills. I only like guys with at least 3 skills.

We went on to discuss whether or not the kind of skills mattered, and I jokingly suggested basket weaving, pancake flipping, and masterful toaster oven fixing. She said she would find those acceptable. Then I asked what skills her boyfriend has to compete with the hypothetical basket-weaving, pancake-flipping, toaster oven-fixing guy we were talking about, and she listed a few things, including obedience and patience. I thought it was kind of funny that she mentioned those as skills. I guess she's right, though, in a way. They are things that you can cultivate and get better at, so in that sense they are skills. Patience is something I'm always trying to increase, myself. To some extent I feel like impatience is connected to selfishness. Like, not being able to look past your own wants, I guess. I'm not sure though, I haven't thought about it too much.

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Last night I saw VAN valami furcsa és megmagyarázhatatlan (For Some Inexplicable Reason) with my friend Alex. It's a Hungarian comedy about a 29-going-on-30 unemployed guy whose girlfriend recently-ish broke up with him. We both thought it was pretty good. The main character was pretty awkward and maybe kind of ineffectual too. He didn't seem to have any particularly defining qualities to him. Still, you got a sense that he was just having a really hard time dealing with the breakup and that was affecting him.

What I really liked about the film was that it didn't have the kind of storyline you'd expect from an American movie that had the theme "guy got broken up with recently." I feel like American movies, at least the more mainstream ones, almost always "solve" the dumped character's problems by having them find someone new. There's this implication that if you just pave over the past with a new relationship, you'll be happy and things will be fine. I don't think that's necessarily true, though, and I think if that's the only message people are presented with, it can mislead them.

In this movie, the main character does find a new girlfriend, but his feelings for her fade and he still thinks about his ex. He ends up leaving the new one, but he seems to get over his ex anyway, and he meets with his ex at a cafe or something just to chat and catch up a bit. There was no "happily ever after" type ending, and the character wasn't suddenly imbued with a passion for life. He still didn't have a great job, although he had developed a new hobby (which was briefly referenced a few times-- you don't actually see it too much). All in all though, he seemed like he was okay. It felt realistic, I guess.

While we were driving home, we talked about the movie a little. Since it was a Hungarian film we were trying to figure out if anything we saw was a specific cultural difference between Hungarian and American culture. I think the most prominent difference was how much people smiled. Expressiveness in general seemed like it was lower in this movie than the average American movie. There were also some different visual metaphors that gave the sense that the main character was rather detached from the rest of the world. He would often just walk away from people and situations, and nobody would follow him. I feel like this is sometimes used in American films I've seen, but the character often snaps back to reality and hasn't actually left, whereas it seems like the character in this film really did just leave and nobody minded or noticed. Little things like that gave the movie a slightly odd feel at times.

I forgot to set my clock back last night, which luckily didn't matter because I didn't have to get up for anything this morning, but I was kind of confused when I woke up and my tablet said 10 AM but my alarm clock said 9 AM. Guess I'll be extra sleep-deprived for a little while.

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So I saw La Vida Después (The Life After) at the film festival with my friend Gwenny tonight. It was kind of a graphic/uncomfortable/sad film to watch, but it was interesting in its own ways. I don't know if I'd want to watch it again. After the movie we got to talk to the director, David Pablos, and ask him questions. There was a small group of seven of us standing outside the theatre discussing what various elements of the movie meant, and the director explained his intentions for different parts. He was very friendly and willing to talk to us, which was nice. I think the conversation kept him later than he wanted to be there though (the movie didn't get out until almost midnight, and we were standing out there probably past midnight), and after the group dispersed we watched him... not sprint exactly, but jog away kind of quickly. Gwenny and I held back because he said goodbye to us but was going in the same direction as where we parked, and we felt like it would be weird to go the same way.

Tomorrow's going to be a busy day for me, I think. I have work at the nursery, then in field with my client, then I might watch a movie with my Spanish friend. After that I possibly have a Craigslist gig scheduled (I thought it was today but things got mixed up) and Gwenny and I are planning to watch more stuff from the film festival around midnight. I hope I have enough energy for it all...

Oh and I've been playing a ridiculous amount of Mamono Sweeper. I haven't been able to beat the Huge level yet. :( It's hard because when you start out it's kind of just luck until you kill ten level 1 monsters, as you have to click around blindly on the board to find things. And then after you hit level 2 at 10 experience, you don't level up again until like, maybe 90 experience? Once you run out of squares to click that are clearly safe, you have to go back to blindly clicking in unexplored areas, and I keep accidentally clicking high level monsters that wipe out all my HP and end the game. D: It's so difficult but I really want to win...

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I've been playing Mamono Sweeper, which is described as a cross between Minesweeper and an RPG. It took me several tries, but I managed to win with full health! Just took a little to figure out the strategy. I feel like "strategy" is kind of a dirty word to me sometimes but when I actually get into little puzzle games like this I really enjoy it. This game is also free in the Google Play store, so of course I'm downloading it.

I volunteered at the crisis line Wednesday night. This one guy who's been marked as a sex caller kept calling, but I won. I got him to hang up on me! Sweet victory.

Have been reading articles about rationality and such again thanks to Max. It's nice to feel like I'm actually interested in something instead of just briefly entertained or something.

Stuff coming up:
Film festival!
School celebration
More film festival??
CL gig
My regular "consulting" work (my "client" refers to me as a consultant, which amuses me endlessly)

And... I dunno what else. It is 1 AM and I should probably go to sleep. I feel really tired but also really... energetic in a weird way.

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