I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to write stuff in my blog and once I do have time I can't remember it all. Like I said earlier, I don't think I'll be having much of a social life this semester. I work 4 days a week with only enough time between class and work to get ready to start working. But I'll have money. I don't know if I'm going to make many new friends this year anyway, GenEd classes are pretty bad environments for meeting new people, especially if you have no time to talk to them outside of class. Well, we'll see how it goes.

I was thinking about something the other day in my psychology class: racial scapegoating is obviously a sign of unjustified fear and ignorance, and we can condemn it because it's clear to us that the allegations against whatever group being persecuted are false. They're really not conspiring against us or contaminating our society or any of the gibberish bigots try to get us to believe. But what if there actually was a group of people that, by their very nature and not necessarily out of malicious intent, was a threat to our society or our very existence? Would racism be excused then? There's no real life example, of course, but one of the things that got me thinking was a recent episode of Stargate: Atlantis. A Wraith, the main enemy on the show, asks one of the characters if he blames his species for feeding on humans. The only form of nourishment the Wraith can consume is humans, so can the Wraith be blamed for feeding on humans if the alternative is starving to death? And what is the logical conclusion of the Atlantis team's ultimate goal of defeating the Wraith? They can't simply beat them back to a single world and have them just eat the humans there; they want to liberate everyone in the galaxy from the Wraith. So does that mean eliminate the Wraith entirely? Since they mention abiding by the Geneva Convention when dealing with captured Wraith I'm guessing they're not going to adopt a policy of genocide. But the only alternative is letting all the Wraith slowly starve to death, which is ultimately a slower, indirect genocide.
Another example is from a game called Master of Orion 3 where one of the races, the Ithkul, is actually a sentient biological weapon that was designed to fight all the other races in the galaxy. When one conquers a planet the inhabitants then become members of that empire and can actually migrate in small numbers to other planets within the empire, or randomly create their own colonies loyal to the empire that conquered them, not their actual race. The alternative, of course, is to just destroy all life on the planet and recolonize it. I opt for conquering, both because it's a developed infrastructure I'm taking over but also cuz I tend to follow my own real life moral code when playing games and it just seems wrong to exterminate a planet. My only exception is the Ithkul, because if you leave the inhabitants alive when you conquer their planets the computer will treat the population of every planet equally (as a good empire-wide intelligence should) and allow them to migrate to your other planets. Once there, they start to eat the rest of the population. You see the problem, so would genocide be justified in this case?

Sci-fi though it may be, I think they're interesting ethical questions. All this can also be related back to my post on 9/20/05. Remember even if I were content to stop from wiping out the Ithkul entirely, or in the case of the Atlantis expedition the Wraith, genocide is the extermination of a race "in whole or in part". So they're still stuck in the same moral quandry.

The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder. The same author as one of my favorite books, Sophie's World, I was figuring this would be of similar caliber. Unfortunately, it's of far too similar caliber. I can't object to the story or the writing style or anything within the book itself, but it's incredibly similar to Sophie's World in plot, plot devices, characters and I think some of the names are the same too. This book was written before Sophie's World, so I suspect Gaarder just gathered up the best parts of all his previous stories and merged them into that book. I was a little bugged by the rather limp dialog between the two main characters but I suppose it fits the whole philosopher-apprentice theme that the author was going for.
I remember a review of Sophie's World calling it "the Alice in Wonderland for the 90's" but that title really lends itself more to The Solitaire Mystery, one aspect of which you could guess right from the name of the book.

Now, I know it's only the first week and my classes are almost exclusively lecture halls, but I miss how my classes were Uppsala. Everyone was so friendly there and willing to talk to strangers, now it's back to aloof, exclusive cliques. I have to admit, there is a certain irony to the idea that more people in a class makes it harder to talk to people. The classes themselves are nice; I think my NATS class is shaping up to be my favorite. Aside from the obviously interesting subject matter (astronomy, space, the Universe) the teacher is quite fun. He bears a resemblance both physically and personality-wise to my favorite character in Stargate: Atlantis, Dr. McKay. He also makes references to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, so instant awesome right there.
My professor for Structure of Mind and Behavior claimed she would implant a false memory in the entire class sometime during the semester. That's slightly unsettling. What if she already has? What if it turns out I was never even in that class?

I made a saddening discovery at work yesterday. I now have a job to make money to fund activities in my social life, but I no longer really have time for a social life. Damn. Well, at least I'll be richer and have free food.

And by the time I post this, Feifei will probably be in a plane over Asia on her way to Beijing. She was telling me the other day about her uncertainty of whether or not this was a good idea to study there. Or rather, if it would be an enjoyable, worthwhile trip. She mentioned a friend who went to study in Australia for a year with the same zeal and enthusiasm I had for going to Sweden, then went there and hated it so much she left after the first semester. And I recalled a few people I had met in my travels who were quite underwhelmed with their decision to study abroad. And I realized how incredibly fortunate I was to have had such an amazing experience in Uppsala. I went there with high expectations and an unshakable feeling that this would be an experience of a lifetime, and I got just that. But, of course, not everyone will. So here's hoping that Beijing University is everything to Feifei that Uppsala University was to me. 福气 菲菲!

First day of classes today. I wasn't sure how this would be, if my time in Sweden might have changed my outlook on college life for the better. I had been more excited during my first day of classes there and wasn't sure if the lack of enthusiasm before was because I was a freshman or because it was someplace new and exciting. Turns out it's the latter. It's really a stunning contrast. The past year, including the last couple of months in Arizona, have been like a fantasy. And now the fantasy is over.
I miss so much about Uppsala all of a sudden. Like the fact that all the bikes have built in locks, the fact that I lived uphill from all of my classes so I hardly had to pedal at all. My Swedish bike also had a cover over the gears so your pants wouldn't snag in them, I am now certain that will be the death of me.
It's weird being able to walk around and catch snippets of conversation and understand them all. Or how I see people that look like people I met in Sweden except now they're sorority girls or frat boys. It's like some evil parallel universe. On the plus side, my classes are mostly in the mornings so they're over and done with right away. (God, you'd never think evening classes would be desirable, would you?) I also found out Mountain slopes downhill slightly on the way back home, so I get a bit of a break once it's time to go home.

In other news, I'm going to be working at Beyond Bread on Wednesday. And for the first time in my life (hopefully not the last) I had to turn down a job offer (from Kohl's). Beyond Bread was so eager to hire me I really wish I knew what it was I said or did that made it work. They called me in for an interview literally within ten minutes of me turning in my application. We'll see how this job goes...

And finally, I went back to Sabino today to say hi to my old drama teacher and catch up on old times. He brought me up to pace with what's going on in the lives of the old drama crew and am glad to hear that so many of them are successful with their lives and living their dreams. I'm also glad to see that my teacher is doing well and that he's settled into the role of being a dad nicely.
The best news he told me though is that my senior year English teacher, whom I hated like I have never hated any teacher before, is gone. The best part is that she evidently (this is what he told me, anyway) left because she is a big fan of vampire culture and moved to find people more like her. Where that might be, I have no idea. Transylvania? Now, in a way this is surprising and in another way, it's not surprising at all. For someone who tended to look down upon the different ways students expressed themselves or what they believed in, this is a shock. But considering I always felt like my life force was getting sucked out whenever I was in that class, this doesn't strike me as odd in the least. I was very pleased to hear this news to say the least. If I could take this perfect blend of irony and aptness (is there an antonym for irony?) and make a candy out of it I would put Willy Wonka himself to shame.

Nightwatch with Konstantin Khabensky and Mariya Poroshina. A Russian equivilant of Constantine or Underworld. I'm beginning to see why American movies are so popular around the world. This movie was definitely trying to be like Hollywood but it comes off as a grotesque imitation or perhaps a parody. The special effects were good but overdone and the camera angles really started to bother me after the first half hour. The plot was rather straightforward though they really throw in some weird convoluded info that just muddles it all up. You have to just remember the first thing they tell you and ignore everything else that will inevitably contradict it. It seemed like they had two seperate plots that had nothing to do with one another but were individually too weak to make a movie on their own. The one refreshing thing about this movie is, sorry for the spoiler, the bad guys win.

Words of the Day: eperopolis- a city covering a continent
Ecumenopolis- a city covering an entire planet (i.e. Coruscant from Star Wars)

Pulse with Haruhiko Katô and Koyuki. This is the original Japanese version and not the American remake. This film is definitely one of those perplexing, sit back and think about it kind of films. It really wasn't as scary as we had figured, at least not in the things jumping out at you and blood and gore kind of way. It's one of those subtle and creepy scary movies.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Now, one thing I do know for certain regarding this movie is that the Japanese must have a terrible fear of being alone, this is evidenced by this film and also Suicide Club. The thing is this loneliness they are so afraid of is one of those quasi-literal things. In the movie they keep saying how alone they are despite the fact that they do have people around them. But there are no extras, there are just the main characters. With that in mind I figured they meant they were alone in that no one understood them or cared about them since the people didn't seem to really bond with each other and were more linked through a mutual fear. So there's that part, but then is seems that the ghosts, who were overflowing from the realm of the dead (why our Universe is infinite but theirs is very finite is beyond me, but whatever) compel people to kill themselves by making them think they are not alone but by suicide the people doom themselves to be alone forever.
But why do they do that? They (kind of) claimed they wanted to trap other people in their own loneliness and the goal there seems to be that keeps the newly dead from coming into the already overcrowded realm of the dead and that it's a matter of self preservation (I think?). But the guy that died in the beginning ends up compelling his friends to kill themselves, it seemed like he was tricked into the same kind of thing he ended up tricking the others into, so he wasn't going to that realm of the dead anyway. So why did he do that? I don't think that was his motive and I'm guessing there was something greater to this than just: once you die you become a ghost, ghosts are evil, the end.
The only thing I can think of is that the ghosts can only be not alone when they're in their realm, so the ones on Earth are forever alone, they can't see or interact with other ghosts (I don't think) so they think they're the only ones. The ghosts then try to bring the living into their own microcosm, which of course doesn't work and only begets more lonely ghosts. This process continues over and over again until at the end of the movie there's no one left in the world.

Clerks 2 with Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson. Aside from a few superfluous scenes, I liked this movie. It adequately carries on the spirit of the original, though, as Kevin Smith tends to do, there is a moral to the story. In that regard it's not as carefree as the original, but it doesn't bog down the movie. It was also kind of odd seeing the Clerks cast aged 10 years and back in the same roles. Also, I would have liked an explanation as to why Randal hates the Transformers so much.

Hostel with Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson. This movie seemed like Eurotrip from an evil parallel universe. The similarities are uncanny: American college students going to Europe looking for sex, jokes about money belts, the uptight guy getting groped by a creepy guy on a train, ending up in Slovakia and so on. Hell, you could say Cooper’s mix up at Club Vandersexxx is an analogous, albeit lighthearted, version of the main story of this movie. As for this movie, you can pretty easily see it’s a Tarantino flick, what with it’s gruesome violence, endless gore and the obligatory stuttering psychopath. I, for one, am glad I saw this movie after having traveled to Eastern Europe by myself otherwise I might not have been so keen on it.
Which reminds me, while I was in Uppsala I had dinner with some Lithuanian friends of mine and we compared notes on Vilnius. Evidently this one park I walked through several times alone in the middle of the night is a spot where people often get mugged. It was right next to the big building that held the death metal concert I went to. I figure the people saw me come out of there and figured a Lithuanian metalhead is not someone you want to trifle with. Oh, and in Moscow some guy kept trying to get us to follow him behind the club we were waiting to get into. We thought he wanted our money or our organs but after seeing Hostel that opens up a whole new range of possibilities.

Sweden is still with me. I still occasionally read words on signs and pronounce them in my head the Swedish way. Or translate English words or names that have the same spelling as Swedish words; like Eller college, BARA or Hummer (it's the Swedish word for lobster). And now that I no longer have anyone foreign to act as a foil, the US seems really weird all of a sudden. I went to the grocery store and by the jelly section was at first delighted to see an orange colored jelly and immediately thought "hjortron sylt!" (I didn't even think "cloudberry jam") but was disappointed to find out it was just peach. Amazingly, I wanted to buy some cloudberry jam even though I hardly ever ate the stuff myself. I recommend you try some if you are ever in the position to do so. It's unique. a very blunt, sweet taste that at first reminded me of apricots but now seems like quince. As a jam, I found cloudberries didn't really go well with many things. As a cider though, mm-mmm!
Oh, hjortron cider reminds me of good ol' Swedish Midsummer.

Some pretty cool music videos (via Stephanie)