Minutia: Anxiety

I’m horribly anxious today, and it’s not even because of the sniper; although he she they started it a few days ago. I must say, Scott, our conver yesterday didn’t help. Scott: “What if it’s a terrorist cell and when they catch one there are a bunch more lined up to continue?” Me: Shut UP!

No, it is other things. I am still numb from my visit to the dentist this morning. Everything was fine, nothing to report about my first time ever under the drill. (Is 27 too young or pretty good for this kind of thing?) But there were some other things about the trip that had me concerned.

First off, Miriam made me negotiate. Now, I’ve learned from her how to negotiate on consumables. I’m not quite to her level yet, but still. But at the dentist? It made an already scary thing more scary. Yes I’m a wimp. No I didn’t get anywhere with my lame attempt. No it wasn’t worth it. Miriam would’ve loved just the exprience, regardless the outcome. Not me. We are, yes you guessed it, opposite in many ways. (Thankfully we are also very much alike on some of the critical pieces.)

Second, yesterday the weirdest thing happened at the dentist, and it was on my mind all the time until now. I had mentioned that we are moving to Bosnia next year (see countdown at right). The dentist goes “I was in Russia fishing recently and this Russian guy said he was a sniper in Bosnia.” Now, first off, why the hell you even whisper the word “sniper” right now in DC is beyond me. But worse yet, I just got done, the day before (scroll down), talking about the damn tourist killers in Bosnia during the war. Many of them were Russians (there were plenty of Russian mercs in the Serbian forces as well). Who knows what the dentist’s damn fishing buddy did? Kill tens? Hundreds? And then talk about it like no big deal. And then the dentist, in his ignorance, just mentions it to me like, “Hey I know someone who was in Bosnia.” Yeah.

So that left me pretty damn violated.

I also had a Bosnian test this morning, which I bombed. Tests don’t motivate me, unlike M (another difference). Especially in a subject I’m no good at, but even when I am good at something, I want to prove my ability through a project, not a written exam. As an educator, I think tests are terrible ways to judge a student’s progress. If I was an educator, I would give the minimum amount of tests required, and just give assignments and projects. Knowledge, if not applied in a meaningful way, is useless, IMHO.

The final violation was watching part 2 and 3 of Death of a Nation yesterday in area studies class. It ended with the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo and the genocide in Bosnia. Very tough stuff. Horrifying, and we only saw the beginnings of it. Important to watch, but troubling. My heart is definately for this nation.

In other news, I’m finding this sad and funny (from a distance): Soularize (no link: bad flash site), a conference in Minn this week, had some alt.worship yesterday. I was surprised to see Cooper so so jazzed up on something we’ve been doing for years, and we’re, say, a decade? behind the UK in all this. Long since not novel. But then, it has to be novel for everyone at some point, sooner or later i guess. But that’s not even the sad or funny part. That part is that they used a photo, the intellectual property of someone who’s not even at the event, but is part of the larger community of post-evangelical thinkers, in their worship without permission. I’m currently trying to find out more, but I think it’s safe to say that if they had at least asked, she would’ve said yes.

Note to anyone browsing my images: the only ones you can take without asking are the antibrand ones. If you ask, I will most likely let u use any other images, as well. But ask. Exception being just a mention/temp use on a website or something {like on a blog/not like in a core design}, as long as there’s a link back to me; also if you use just a bit for texture or otherwise recontextualize the work to create an entirely new work, that’s ok. (I use bits from some images I found on the web, and I have no idea where I found them at this point.) Also, if you make any money from the use of any of my images, writings, music, or any of my other intellectual property, or even use it in a commercial venture no matter how successful monetarily, you are in my doghouse and will reap what you sow bastard! In the end, though, my policy is no harm, no foul.

I’m putting some Boards of Canada (note: major bandwidth and CPU required) in Winamp and am going to try and relax.

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