Jacob’s Escalator

I am thankful for my parents.

I could start with a snarky something about how I wouldn’t exist without them but we already know that. What’s important is that not only did they make me, they made me well. Any compliments regarding my thoughtfulness, my respectfulness, and in general the way I handle people is really better directed to them than me.

Sometimes I don’t really express, or remember to express, or comprehend how to express, how important my parents are to my life. I am going to college without accumulating debt because they decided to pick somewhere close enough to my university of choice to move to, so that I could stay there. (And they continue to put up with my presence.) I’m allowed to frequently borrow a car for escapades to Seattle or beyond for any of a number of reasons. They’re welcome to host Shelby up here, and more than that, they are welcome to spend a great load of money on taking her to Hawaii. (I just can’t get over that last one!)

As a person, I owe much of what I like about myself to them. But also in my living situation - I owe pretty much all of my comforts and reliefs to them, as well. They are at the top because I cannot thank them enough.

I am thankful for Shelby.

Okay. You  might think you know what I’m thinking. And yes, Shelby is wonderful because she’s adorable, smart, nice, thoughtful, and patient, and those are all definitely things I am thankful for. But that isn’t the point.

Shelby suffered through an education at UW, and the entire time, made sure to keep me well up-to-date on her suffering (I call it that, she might not). The amount of effort she put in to it, the seriousness she regarded the whole affair with - all foreign and alarming and confusing to me. I couldn’t comprehend how she could just be so stressed about it, about things that seemed beyond her control even. But secretly, I observed and took note. Her urgency and concern have rubbed off on me.

Shelby knows how to keep herself in shape. She doesn’t always worry about it, but she knows how to do it - and she is very willing and excited tot each me, as well. I wouldn’t know really anything about it aside from what she’s taught me to do. You can say “Exercise and eat less!” but there’s so much more involved - one has to fit it into their routine, into the rest of their life. And Shelby is the first one to point out to me that trying to just cram it in will always fail.  You have to ease it in, she said.

I can tell Shelby what I’m thinking because I know she won’t judge me, but she will offer honest criticism. I can ask her strange questions and try strange things because she is willing to sit through my attempts to understand social interaction and circumstance. And all through it she maintains an incredible patience. Sometimes, she even seems to enjoy it.

Shelby has taught me so much about not just the kind of person I want (and need) to be with as a partner, but also about what I want to be, and what I need to do to get there. For that, I will always be grateful.

I am thankful for Julie Marx, the advisor at WWU Computer Science. That probably sounds weird but I really am thankful for her. She’s forward, to the point, and earnestly wants to help - and while she won’t break anyone’s rules, of course, she will definitely ‘play’ them to get the information you need. She’s just wonderful. I love visiting her.

I am thankful for the Internet, and especially Google, moreso every day. Got a question? “How do I draw Torchic?” “What is chauvinism?” “When was Avatar released?” Seeing a photograph that you swear you’ve seen before but don’t know where? Missing a word in your brain but you know what you want to say? Curious what a foreign-language webpage says? Need to send documents to someone halfway across the world? This thing that we’ve invented is beyond incredible - and somehow it just works. Constantly, and without fail. We use it without a care in the world, and indeed we get pretty angry when it disappears!

I am thankful for Ryan. Man, this Ryan kid just gets cooler every time I see him.

I… I think that’s all for the moment actually, that seems to pretty much cover it.

That is, if I assume that you all know that I am grateful for the life that I have and the people I live it with. I kind of think that goes without saying.

…Wait! I am thankful for everyone who actually listens to my songs! <_<

This has become a bit of a ritual. Or maybe it hasn’t and I’m pretending it is. One way or another, I enjoy it, so I’m doing it anyway.

I remain thankful for Asperger’s Syndrome. There is a reason it is not called a disorder.

I am thankful for computers. I’m fascinated on a daily basis by their complexity and the level of detail and evolution involved in everything they do. For example: as a programmer I’ve always believed or assumed that programs are entirely sequential in nature - that is, a computer does everything in order. It has a list of instructions that it executes one at a time. This is not true; a modern computer has two or four “brains”, more officially processors, that execute instructions simultaneously. Programs can be written in threads - where each thread is a piece that can be executed at the same time as other threads. My computer is running 927 threads, as I type this. I’ve seen it run tens of thousands.

I am thankful for Pokemon. This may  sound a bit silly, but it is very, very serious. Pokemon is responsible for most of my life. Pokemon is the reason I want to be a game designer, and my aspiration as a game designer is to make some child out there have the same experiences I had with Pokemon. Maybe that’s good and maybe that’s bad, but all I know is, it was so. much. fun. Pokemon has given me a collector’s attitude; it has taught me how to approach something with a competitive mindset, and that in turn has proven to be valuable in far more than just games. Pokemon has given me inspiration for stories that have in turn given me the inspiration to be a writer at all. Pokemon has given me friends and a social life. Pokemon is probably one of the biggest reasons I am with Shelby.

Pokemon is a big deal.

I am thankful for mechanical pencils. I just can’t get enough of them.

I am not sure if I am thankful for contacts yet, but I probably will be in the future.

I am thankful for Andrew Hussie. The man is… just… amazing. He is the master of a whole new media. He has invented something powerful and demonstrated its full potential. But further than that - he has shown the power of open source and the internet, in a roundabout way. He has shown the connections that the Internet can forge between talents and powers that would otherwise have never met - but can together create something extraordinary.

Andrew’s going to be a movie director someday. Shelby and I (and likely several others I know) will probably follow his movies religiously.

…Okay, I am kind of thankful for Facebook. I joined it because there are people that I did not keep in contact with, that I wanted to keep in contact with. It is serving that purpose very well!

Let’s just throw J’Neil in here haphazardly, because she loves it. I love J’Neil. She is my little sister. Mine. My own. She is smarter than I am, she is cuter than I am (okay, given), she is sillier than I am, she is more charismatic than I am, she is more charming than I am, she is just significantly more awesome than me. Why are you reading this? Go ogle my amazing sister. Actually… Actually please don’t. Please.

…Frogs.

I am thankful for the Johansons. They are just cool. It’s so interesting, what a different take on the world I get when I visit their family - the different atmosphere and attitude. They are fun to be around and their family possesses an infectious energy that pervades the things they do and the things that they drag you into. (I am thankful also for their cabin, and the fact that they are consistently willing to invite me there!)

I am thankful for Marie Raney and the WWU Web Help office. Marie is a wonderful, care-free employer that gives us work to do, offers us advice when we have questions, rants about her superiors that don’t understand that we know what we’re talking about, and likes to smile and laugh whenever given the opportunity. I’ve always liked my school employers - Laura was a bit of an experience, from the Tri-City Herald, but Gabriella Whitemarsh at CBC, and now Marie and Katrina at WWU, have provided a helpful, enjoyable and comfortable environment. More importantly, Marie has full-time work for me over the summer, and that is very, very welcome!

I am thankful for Noir!!! <3

I am also thankful for my Chingling and my Glaceon plush and really just all of my plushes. They are so cute.

I am thankful for sleep. I adore it. Is that bad?

I am thankful for my phone! It is awesome. It is a flashlight. It can tell me where it is if I lose it. It can look up recipes for me. It can investigate the weather in various places of interest worldwide. It will tell me the base stats and typing of any Pokemon I feel inclined to research. It is currently functioning as my music player. It’s just awesome.

Speaking of music players, I’m really thankful for them, and for the long, arduous life that my previous player endured in my service. What a champ. It’s got a badly cracked screen and everything.

In discussing my music-listening habits and style with Shelby, I’ve found that it’s a little hard for me to explain why my music player is such a big deal. Shelby can at least sympathize in the necessity for music - if either of us leave the house and find we’re missing our music, odds are much higher than normal that we’d go back to get it. But for me, there’s more to it than just a soundtrack to go with my actions. I’ve only recently had a good comparison: visit http://www.thequietplaceproject.com/. (Which I am also thankful for.) I’ve observed that, in response to their little prompt at the end, I don’t have a proper quiet place - I am too busy thinking and calculating and observing pretty much all the time. I should take up meditation.

But I do have a quiet place per se. That quiet place is listening to music. Lots of music. If I can’t get it, I get overloaded - no stress relief. It’s a basic necessity of my life now.

It’s… very weird to explain. And I would feel very silly if other people often felt like this!

We just had a siren-thing go off, and it sounded like a fire alarm, though, it wasn’t. Nevertheless I feel compelled to say I am thankful for fire alarms. And the people who answer them. And the people who answer any such emergency or tragedy. Where would we be, without you? Shelby will tell you that I whimper or pout whenever I hear a siren. That is real people having bad days and it is sad! But fortunately, we have some brave souls out there whose job it is to make their days and lives better.

I am thankful for Guitar Pro! It has given me the ability to create music. Music that sounds like maybe a mediocre band might have played it. Having that song in your head, that you wished existed, so that you could listen to it? Bring on water torture compared to that. Thank you so much GuitarPro for curing me of that torture!

More stuff tomorrow…

[[I do hope you’ve read the Harry Potter series all the way through. I’m not exactly kind about keeping secrets in this respect, so if you don’t want it to be spoiled, don’t read on!]] Read More »

This lovely little idea tagged me about ten minutes ago. It actually seemed quite enjoyable (and for Mom, rather accurate), so I figured why not, I might as well try it.

I say “another” game of tag because I’m waiting on a couple of things before I finish my 25 random things post, which was the first pointless game of tag. Read More »

I would like to take this time to announce my mother’s blog, Defying Sunshine.

I’ve never had the privelege of hearing what my mother ’sounds like’ in text, in an extended format as a blog would present. I know that I’m considerably more articulate in this kind of medium, when I have time to consider and revise my words rather than having to write everything mentally on the fly and hope it means what I think it means. I’m sure Kris is no stranger to this feeling, and I’m excited to read what she has to say when given the time to say it in its full, appropriate construction.

In her introductory post Kris (Uh… mom) gives a bit of elaboration to the name Defying Sunshine, and specifically the idea that she doesn’t really know or particularly care what it means. It’s, somehow, very fitting for her; it seems difficult to pin any single meaning or metaphor onto it that really defines why it fits her. I think this is because there are so many different comparisons that can be made.

Sunlight, to us, is life. It’s energy, goodness, and light all in one great ball of searing-hot plasma. Qualities that are supposedly good and attractive to the less mature of us seem to be symbolized in that ball - we don’t look on the ‘dark side’ of the sun and its meanings. We might not be here without its light and heat, but perhaps it’s doing as much harm as it is good. Or maybe even more. Isn’t it killing us just as quickly, in radiation and in overheating?

Or perhaps we think metaphorically instead. The sun is happiness - do you ever see an angry sun? (Outside of the realm of video games, I should clarify.) We could compare this to ignorance easily, for we all know ignorance is bliss… but not for everyone around you. There are a good many times we’d rather not let the idiots around us control the majority of the world.

I think the most valid comparison is the simplest of all, and is embodied in her (brilliant) top header.  I think she is a calm, happy snowman that refuses to let a little sunshine ruin her day.

I love you, Mom. Sun be damned.

If you look across the index, you’ll find all my posts - save the Anon overview - have 4 comments except the literature one. I also logged in today to 4 comments awaiting moderation (all of which were spam).

Maybe I  shouldn’t have approved yours, grandpa…