Ryan S

Hi, I'm your best friend, it's nice to meet you.

After an extraordinary event occurred last week, I started to really think. The event I am referring to is when a friend of mine, who is a graduate from Lawrence Freestate High School, and I were talking about emo kids. I mentioned that I have seen many emo kids coming from the emo capital of America, Omaha. As an aside, he said that he went to Loveland elementary and moved to Lawrence in fifth grade. The person I'm referring to is Tyler Carmody. Some of you will certainly know him. I knew him and became friends with him before I ever knew that he was friends with anybody I knew, and this got me thinking about multiple things.

How is it, that in this large world, no matter where you go, you always seem to find people that know people you know. One would think that with 270 million people in America, you could go across the country and rarely find people that you were somehow connected to. But in our current age of globalization and efficient transportation, people get around and meet people.

So my conclusion to the question about how people know your friends even though they live across the continent is that we make contact with the same types of people. We run in similar social circles regardless of where we live--we connect with the same types of people, and they connect with relatively the same types of people. It is also easy to find these people because they attend the same types of social events as you. It is still astounding, though, that you can befriend someone in California who went to a party with your friend in New York. So Kevin Bacon isn't the only person who can be subject to the game. I'm certain you can play it with your friends at your colleges, and the connections will become apparent.

The question that arises, though, when you think about this for a little while, you realize you cannot play this game and account for the number of people that live in America even closely. This has to be due to the fact that social circles may overlap, but there are certain circles that never make contact. There are also those people who don't make much contact with the outside world. I thought I knew or knew of essentially everyone in Westside's class of 2004 by senior year, but I was surprised when making graduation invitations, that there were people that I hadn't heard of or seen before. And these were people within very close physical proximity to me. So maybe who you know has not as much to do with physical proximity, but social proximity. Certainly one generally knows more people that he or she lives around, but there are those who you just don't make contact with at all becasue they don't do anything similar to you. So you can know a lot of people living in all different places, but just as many people can slip away right under your nose.

Certainly, though, there are those who you would know if you would only live in the same area as they do. This is the other thing that I have been pondering heavily. It is my belief that I may not know my lifelong best friend yet, and that I may meet this person someday, not even knowing that when I meet this person that he or she will be my best friend. I may even disregard or hate this person when I meet him or her. Imagine how awesome of friends you could have that you don't even know yet and that you will never know. How would you know though? I guess you can only know what you have been exposed to by definition, but imagine the possibilities out there. Your best friend is out there waiting for you, and you are sitting on your thumbs doing nothing about it.

A lot of people meet people thinking and almost hoping they will never have to meet that person again. So many of the times, too, people will downright reject other people upon meeting them. I certainly try not to do this as much as other people because I do believe that I will meet my true love, and I will not even know it at first. Love at first sight is bullshit, but I do sometimes think randomly, "I may spend the rest of my life with this person" upon first meeting But when I think this, usually I get freaked out, and it pretty much insures that that thought would never happen.

A Lonely Hearts Club With No Anthem

I sit here on February 14th looking at the blank border on my computer screen. No important photos adorn my monitor or desk. My wallet is completely devoid of any fold-out pictures. All that's in front of my face are a bunch of notes on the wall telling me what I need to do, and there's a stack of unopened mail.

Tonight the restaurants will be packed, the card shops will have been hit by a storm, and everybody will be with their special someone. I won't.
But I will be celebrating. I will be rejoicing in the fact that I don't have to spend money on chocolates, roses, or anything to impress someone. The only person I have an obligation to impress is myself, and I can do a pretty good job of that without faking anything or putting on a show for anybody.

So tomorrow I'm going to sit in my room, listen to some love songs over the radio, and pretend I really know what they mean as I fall asleep thinking about how rapidly death is approaching even with 70 years left if the cogs of my lifeline don't get jammed. I mean, I can replay roughly the last twenty years of my life back in my mind in a second. Seventy years then is only three and a half.

I hope everybody has an awesome Valentine's Day and that you count slowly. As for me, I'm coming up on two really quickly.

(Insert Garden State Song Lyrics Here) a.k.a. Ryan! What'd You Do?!

With all the frenzy this weekend, there was one event that eclipses all others. We will get to that in a minute, but first I just have to say, what is with all the blog titles now alluding to lyrics from songs off of the Garden State soundtrack?

Anyway, back to the real order of business.

The day was cloudy and there was a slight drizzle. I had just gotten out of my choir practice and I was ready to do something new and exciting. I headed downtown and arrived at my destination, still a little reluctant but excited to go through with this. I went up to the counter at Big Daddy Cadillac's, payed my forty dollars, and was taken to a back room. I was only in there for about two minutes, but the end result was a drastic change. If you haven't guessed what I did thus far, maybe a picture would spell it out better.

Yes, I got my eyebrow pierced. I made the decision after walking back from physics class on tuesday and I went through with the procedure yesterday. I am actually very pleased with the result, and I hope I have the motivation to wash it out twice a day so that it doesn't get infected.

There's a side view.

I'm thinking about possible future piercings, but the only thing that really catches my attention is a Prince Albert. Just kidding on that last one, but I think I am going to limit myself to one piercing, not only because it costs money or I would have to take care of another piercing, I just think one is enough for me.
Hell, two weeks ago I would have thought zero would be enough for me, so my philosophy could always change. Right now, though, I have to think more about my C++ (C++ is the name of the programming language) programming project than another piercing.
Peace out my brethren!

Fade to White

I walked to my 11:00 class today, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. When I walked out of the building, I was greeted by a world that looked like it had been hit by one giant snowball. Within an hour and a half, the weather here in Lawrence went from overcast to snowed over. I found the campus so ridiculously beautiful in this condition, though, so after class I decided I would go on an expedition to capture some great images of the campus on the hill.

This is a picture from my dorm, 6th floor, Templin

The building that you see in the picture here is Fraser Hall. It is the highest building in town.

This is just a random place on campus that I found to be beautiful in the snow.

Seeing as these pictures were capture about 2 hours after the snow started, and it has been almost that long since I have taken the pictures, they are pretty old news as I look out my dorm window this instant, but they still give a fairly accurate representation of what the weather is like outside.

I don't really have anything too important to say, I just thought I would put up a cool picture blog.

The Internet Is For Porn

I would like to introduce to all those who have not seen, heard, or heard about the 2004 broadway musical, "Avenue Q".

I have not seen this musical, but I picked up the soundtrack, and it has got to be one of the most hysterical soundtracks out of any musical I've heard.
The playlist includes songs such as:

"The Avenue Theme"
"What Do You Do With A B.A. In English"
"If You Were Gay"
"Everyone's A Little Bit Racist"
"The Internet Is For Porn"
"I'm Not Wearing Underwear Today"
"You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want (When You're Makin' Love)"
"My Girlfriend, Who Lives In Canada"
"I Wish I Could Go Back To College"
...and more.

Avenue Q involves puppets and people and is the story of a college grad, Princeton, who moves to New York and can only afford to live on Avenue Q (As opposed to Avenues A through P). The play is about Princeton searching for his purpose. The songs are hilarious. The musical is actually somewhat of a spoof of sesame street and it won three 2004 Tony Awards. Two of the puppets in the play, Rod and Nicky, are obviously parallel to Burt and Ernie from Sesame Street, and there are two songs involving these characters. "If You Were Gay" is sung by Nicky to Rod, and "My Girlfriend, Who Lives In Canada" is sung by Rod, who is trying to cover up the fact that he is gay. Perhaps sometime I will actually get to see the musical, but I seriously doubt it will be coming to the midwest anytime soon.

Hey you New York kids, this blog is really for you!
Check it out.