Just a few more interesting things...

Samuel Jackson wants to be BACK in the Star Wars Films!  What a bullshit reason.  He just wants more $$$ to wield his lightsaber.

Oh and in other news, a U. Washington professor believes that we will be able to test whether we live inside a computer simulation. Of course he's a philosopher professor. Go figure...!

Well it was interesting, nonetheless.

So how does this end?

  Five months ago I was sprawled out on The Quad's singular grassy hill, reading Do Androids Dream  at my leisure under the pleasant shade of one of the many young saplings sprinkled along the Quad.

 That was before the start of this Fall semester and (well I almost can't resist letting out a laugh as I write this next part) but I must admit, that as much as I enjoyed it at the time, I can't honestly remember much of the experience.

 Much like an Impressionistic painting, my memory of that particular afternoon is a blurry, heterogeneous composition of feelings, thoughts, and emotions that I can only recall bits and pieces of.

If you squint hard enough you can see me in the foreground
reading a science fiction novel and contemplating the Universe.

 And I do like this analogy of an Impressionist painting because a) analogies are my... strong suit and b) I believe that analogies (when executed properly at least) can express complex, abstract ideas that are normally much harder, if not impossible, to communicate without the use of them.

 So much has happened in the past five months since The Quad.  I would never have been able to predict any of it - the strangers I've befriended, the friends I've lost, the mistakes I've made, the lessons I've learned. Everything constantly changing. Obeying entropy. For better or for worse all I can think of is how things have certainly changed enormously since then.

Specifically, in regards to me.

 Returning to my analogy of memories as Impressionist paintings, I realize that I had gotten myself lost in philosophical musings while reading PKD because my thought process was akin to that of an art spectator, who as a result of standing too close to an Impressionist painting, cannot make any sense of it. Only after many difficult months have I discovered, stepping away from my older perspective, the bigger picture in front of me.

 It is a very abstract work of art, but nonetheless it's representative of the near-culmination of my college existence.  A composition of my flaws and triumphs, my fears and newfound confidences, my foolish regrets and optimistic visions - everything and all that I have experienced in the past four years.

It's ugly and it's beautiful. But above all else it's me.

And did I mention that it's not even finished yet?

Something tells me that it will always be a work in progress. 

And that really excites me. Because who knows what it will eventually look like?

I just hope it never fucking looks like this.

Anddddd time for me to ACTUALLY get back to studying for these absolutely pointless finals. The education system is seriously a joke. But rules are rules and grades are grades. C'est la vie...!!

Reflections and Homages

Well guys, (that is to say, everyone who has been reading my blog), this is going to be my last blog post.  I can't say that I feel that I successfully lived up to my blog's expectations.  I'm not really sure that I'm a "blogger" anyway.  But I do hope that I entertained your interest and that I maybe even turned you on to PKD or science fiction in general.

If I could do my blog over again, well I think I would have two different options.

Option 1: I would cover a different science fiction/fiction novel each week

  (because there's so much I didn't get to write about here, unfortunately.  Kafka's Metamorphosis, Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, PKD's Exegesis, Gibson's Neuromancer, Herbert's Dune Series, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451... etc! There are so many great novels out there and I focused entirely on Do Androids... I'd say that it's almost a shame if it weren't for the fact that I enjoyed learning more about PKD in the process)

Option 2: Use this blog to write my own short science fiction stories.  

 I don't have much faith in my writing abilities and I believe that they could use a lot of work, but  I have (and have always had) a very screwball creative imagination. (maybe you already knew that as in this recent post of mine) So, hey! I figure I got something going for me at least...why not give it a go? (Perhaps I should rent out a type writer in UCLA's Powell Library a la Ray Bradbury, eh? Get some creative, hipster sci-fi juices flowing?)

Fantastic. Story telling at its finest.

Now I have to say that as much as I enjoy both of these ideas, I am biased toward Option 2.  And the reason for that is because even though I would have a blast exploring the ideas and characters in the books that I mentioned for Option 1, nothing I write will stimulate you as much as if you were to just read the book for your pleasure. (I'm not putting my writing down here. I'm just a big fan of those authors and the only way for you to truly enjoy their works is to just read them! Then come back and read my blog and we could even have a discussion about it, ideally!)

(Next book on my reading list!)

And in the vein of this logic, my reason for siding with Option 2 is because that writing my own sci-fi stories would hopefully allow the reader of my blog to absorb more "philosophy" and "sci-fi" themes than if I just blabbered on and on (as I'm doing now...), analyzing the works of various sci-fi authors.

Realistically, if I ever continued this blog I would hope to combine both Options 1 and 2. I feel that it would definitely be to my benefit and I hope that over winter break I'll muster up enough motivation to attempt to write something at the very least.

I would give that short sci-fi creative writing a go right now, but I am very busy this weekend with finals coming up soon, not to mention that I'm currently behind in all my classes. Which really isn't new to me at all, but I feel like I've sunken deeper into a blasé mindset than I have in the past. (Presumably this a direct symptom of my senior standing... but it could quite possibly also be attributed to a newfound apathy towards things in general.  Which in that case, I may need to lay off the philosophizing for a while and return to my studies.)

Anyway I hope you'll excuse me as I believe it's time for me to fight the ever-growing, endless kipple work that I've succumbed to reluctantly!

Thanks for reading
-MM

I wonder which book this is from...!

Also consider: Timeline, Andromeda Strain, Terminal Man,
Congo, NEXT, Jurassic Park, and many, many more!

Brilliant Bokonist Book

Damn you Blogger and your frustrating .jpg placement!!!

[Quick Update]

Hey guys, just wanted to say that it looks like my fears about Disney acquiring Lucasfilms were (happily) unfounded! check it out!

The original writers are back! But it looks like they won't be working on 7, only 8 and 9.  BUT there's still hope out there at least.  In a galaxy..far far away...