squonks_tears

Mon, 22 May 2006 23:13:41 GMT

so i moved out of my parents' house, to their dismay. but i'm doing pretty well. sweet freedom, etc. graduation friday.

Fri, 05 May 2006 00:06:37 GMT

state UIL this weekend.

applying for scholarships like mad. all i need is like $6000. hrmmmmmhrmhrm.

so i'm 18 now. i can buy cigarettes, porn, vote, and get the death penalty.

ap calculus and literature tests the past two days. calculus was surprisingly easy, and literature was surprisingly a hard bitch of a test.
i find out scores in july.

two more weeks of school, i think, something like that. and i'm failing physics. shrug. i'll still pass the semester anyhow.

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:15:59 GMT

lincoln-douglas district debate today.

i got third in the district. i should have gotten fourth.

but now i'm going to regionals. ewww. debate is so stressful, too. but fun.

Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:34:47 GMT

well, shit!

it certainly has been a while.

good news. i may be getting a job with a law office in town. this means no more whataburger.

however, he's running for county judge and has a billboard that has his face and the words "TRADITIONAL. CONSERVATIVE. TRUSTED. Vote Eddie Northcutt for County Judge"

It'll be fun, anyway, and he seems very personable over the phone. I go in Wednesday for an interview. Fingers are crossed.

I will never work food service again.

I'll probably end up eating (ha) my words. But hey.

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 05:42:00 GMT

no school tomorrow because of the TAKS test. hurray for standardized exit tests that are unfair to certain students.

no school because seniors took it last year. at least, none until 6th period.

let's hear it for high school. right, enid? right, becky?

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 02:03:53 GMT

is there a reason i'm so in love with She Wants Revenge again right now?

Because who could be cooler, honestly?

and p.s., google earth is hella addicting

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 01:46:48 GMT

well, kids, it's that time of year again.

i have to have my LD cases ready by 4 o'clock tomorrow.

and don't forget that i have school from 8 to 3ish.

oh boy, here we go...

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 02:22:25 GMT

UTD is offering me full tuition + 1500 a semester for books and whatever else i want to spend it on + 1000 towards housing. unfortunately, their school of humanities appears to suck. theyre mainly business/engineering.....gah.

i could kick myself for not applying to the claremont-mckenna colleges before scholarship deadline.

ah well. the stress is pretty much gone and i've just sat back and relaxed.

crossing bridges when i come to them; that sort of thing.

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 02:28:13 GMT

ok, so YOU try to listen to m83 and not want to die because it sounds so nice.

and you, just TRY to tell me anthony gonzalez is not the most beautiful man in the world.

well, he's not the MOST beautiful. but still looks quite lovely.

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 13:47:56 GMT

new cds.

edit: aww, now i can't view my own post, since my school's computers have apparently just blocked livejournal where i can update, but can view no actual LJ blogs.

so i'm trying to learn russian.

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 18:06:15 GMT

communist chic, etc etc.

but is that the only reason i'm learning it? no, not really.

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 14:03:56 GMT

i got accepted to austin college. :)

originally, i thought i had it in the bag, and then after i applied i saw scary statistics like a 20% acceptance rate (or something) and got slightly worried since my rank is kind of lacking. as in i'm the person DIRECTLY BELOW the top 10% cutoff. 26 of 258. unless they round up, i guess. of course, my test scores (as i love to brag) are stunning, so maybe that's it. ;)

now to just wait on scholarships. i've got a hook up (so to speak) in the financial aid department who's checking things out for my and trying to appeal to the higher-ups on my behalf (those of you who don't know, my parents recently told me they're cutting me off after high school, and they're not going to finance my surely promiscuous life as an "active homosexual." P.S., whenever i told them "you make it sound as if i'll be fucking the entire county" my mom said, "well, your definition of promiscuous is different from ours. promiscuous means having sex before marriage." to which i responded, "sorry, that's incorrect. there's a word for that, and it's fornication.")

so things are looking up? i think so. now if i could only figure out what the hell is going on in physics.

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 17:29:20 GMT

Presidential scholarship essay for Austin College is written and in the mail. Unfortunately, right after I sent it in, I noticed a horribly embarassing dangling modifier. But I corrected that and am going to put it on here.

In the increasingly partisan political climate of today, the Republicans and Democrats have relied on demographics that support the philosophy of their party. Democrats have traditionally been viewed as the party of big government, demand-side economics and government regulation. Republicans have been known to oppose government regulation of most things save national defense and a few others. However, today these parties are no longer acting within their traditionally viewed philosophies. Republicans have shown themselves to be supporters of an almost Big Brother-esque watchdog government, and the Democrats have taken a more civil libertarian stance on issues such as religion and privacy. Whereas the Republican party has sold itself since the Eisenhower administration as the advocate of “small government,” the current administration has in fact shown itself to be anything but. From attempts to legislate morality with the proposal of a constitutional amendment setting federal guidelines for who may marry whom to the extension of the USA Patriot Act, Washington’s officials have been engaging in an exploitation of middle class America.
America prides itself on its middle class—and in politics, one learns quickly that one must appease one’s demographics. One example: the Republican party advertises itself as a party of small government and one that supports the right of civilians to engage in various affairs without a government watchdog. The majority of its “hoi polloi” voters are also statistically white conservative (in a religious sense) Christian males. Also, most common-man middle class Republicans support the party for its views on economic policy and its emphasis on individuals (rather than the more community-concerned left wing). Most common-man Republicans also support a strong national defense, and most consider themselves religious. One frequent exploitation of the middle class occurs when the government attempts to entice voters by appealing to their religious beliefs; e.g. the proposal of a constitutional amendment that essentially bans gay marriage.
The interesting point here is that such a proposal seems to be contrary to the Republican party’s philosophy: that the government should play as little a role in dictating its citizens’ lives as possible. In an act of doublethink, the party’s most devout followers often praise its “small government” while lauding such an amendment. Here the party is compromising its philosophy in order to gain more voter support for its stance on “moral” issues.
Most people wouldn’t consider themselves experts in the field of political philosophy. However, it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to realize that here the voters’ religion is inspiring legislation that negatively affects a minority group. Such an idea is against our Deist Founding Fathers’ views on the role of (or rather, the absence thereof) religion in government—and the Republican Party knows that! Thus, the middle class’ religious beliefs are used to advance the goals of the party.
Perhaps the most commonly used means of exploitation is scare tactics in the name of national defense. Because of their demographic’s unwavering support of anything in the name of national defense, the administration has allowed for incredible breaches of laws concerning the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of citizens.
The Patriot Act has allowed the government to retrieve, without a court order, any sort of records for any American citizen. Government technology can listen in on phone calls, check electronic money transfers, and access medical records of citizens that are “under suspicion of aiding terrorists.” The trouble here is that there is no hard definition of what qualifies as suspicion. No court is determining suspicion; rather, a governmental department can pick and choose whom it deems suspicious.
At first thought, this law seems to do more good than harm. If citizens are innocent, then what have they to fear? However, the act becomes suspect when one considers that terrorists often lay low and pay cash for any tools of terrorism—there is rarely an electronic paper trail. On the other hand, ordinary citizens are the ones who leave trails wherever we use our credit card in our consumerist economy. Is the possibility that the government might catch a careless terrorist worth the compromise of our Fourth Amendments rights? The Republican Party of today thinks so.
As for the voting population, traditionally Republican voters support such acts—not because the citizen will weigh his or her rights versus national defense and make an educated decision for himself or herself, but because, in the name of national defense, the citizen will blindly follow the party whether or not it has abandoned its founding philosophy of small government! This ignorant voter would do well to listen to the words of Benjamin Franklin: “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”
Is this temporary security worth the cost of our right to privacy? Is the current administration justified in what it has admitted as spying on American citizens? Like the sheep’s bleating of “Four legs good, two legs bad” in Orwell’s Animal Farm, the excuse of “9/11” is one that is shallow and unqualified. Our country will never be completely protected from acts of violence. To take away guaranteed Constitutional rights in an attempt at security that will never truly be had is not a case of the government looking out for its citizens’ safety; it is an exploitation of the citizens’ fear in order to gain more governmental control.

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:48:19 GMT

i need to fill out financial aid papers tonight. and do an essay sometime soon.

i got some money for christmas. 200 bucks. spent half on cds and the rest opened a savings account.

i watched in the mood for love. it was very nice.
bear cub comes in today. i could say that i put it in my netflix queue because it's supposed to be a touching foreign film and that it feels good to act pretentious, but i'd be lying. i'm just hoping for "hot M2M action."

i'm not even kidding.

We've met before, haven't we?

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 07:01:15 GMT

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 19:53:14 GMT

owen and i saw king kong last night.

i thought it was great.

but mainly because of beautiful talented naomi watts.

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 09:52:59 GMT

i tell you, 3:51 AM is complete dead time, even on the internet.

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 23:23:15 GMT

I saw this book while browsing Amazon, and all I can say is:

Thank God!

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:16:02 GMT

so emily is moving off to winnsboro today. not too far off, only 20 minutes, but we'll have dandy memories of the apartment. owen moves in a month to st louis. :(

so my application is IN THE MAIL, so to speak, for austin college. Now to work on USC's....

and i didn't know until today that the band in the new harry potter featured phil selway and jonny greenwood. i guess i'm not nearly the radiohead fanboy i was two years ago.

Sat, 26 Nov 2005 03:28:07 GMT

those bastards (emily and owen) went to go see andy c without me!

actually, i really don't care because i wouldn't have been able to go anyway. i just got off work.

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 09:28:28 GMT

definitely feeling manic for the moment (especially for 3:30AM) and i'm listening to a very good klute mix...

see, look at him go.

emily and owen and i watched flesh for frankenstein.

"To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life in the gallbladder."

and oh! i had an interview with austin college today.

WHICH I RAPED!

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 06:18:56 GMT

saw the new harry potter. disappointed. didn't much care for it. it was really pretty to look at every once in a while, though.

now i'm watching RAN

Sun, 13 Nov 2005 02:43:28 GMT

more being busy.

so in the past couple of weeks, i've learned to spin records decently, argued quite a bit about my transcript, gone and toured SMU, witnessed the little churchy girl being given a ticket for calling somebody a bitch, among other things.

everything's really very boring, and i don't want to resort to posting quiz results, or something.
i'm going to go watch a movie with emily.

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 16:58:29 GMT

it's been such a long time!

and i've been so busy!

for example: I just finished a gigantic research essay....i chose to write "Analyzing Original Sin and the Dual Nature of Man in William Golding's Lord of the Flies." that was fun. now i have to do college application essays.....and so it turns out i won this NCTE writing contest thing, and UNC chapel hill sent me an invitation to this full-ride scholarship, but it requires a creative writing minor and 50 pages of writing by nov. 1 so THAT doesn't seem like a good idea. austin college is almost a sure bet for where i'm going anyway.

i saw a mantis about a month ago while i was mowing.....

SHIT

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:40:46 GMT

so my rank on my transcript and my rank in the couselors' big book are different....and this is bad....because it knocks me out of the top 10 percent.

shit's gonna go down, mos def.