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joeydrumstick
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Name: Jeff
Country: United States
State: Pennsylvania
Birthday: 1/3/1980
Gender: Male
Interests: Popular music, film, television, acting, singing, research, reading, writing, exercise, graphic mediums (comics)
Expertise: I'm presently working on two projects which are both on hiatus as things settle down with the internship turn-over. The first project is on U2 and their corrolation to the bards of ancient and medieval Ireland. The second project focuses on the hedge school system in Irish society and the plummeting usage of Irish as a primary language during the onset of the 19th century.
I am pretty good at research and teaching, and can make for a good director or critic.
Occupation: Supervisory
Industry: Research
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  joeydrumstick
Member Since:
4/30/2005
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| How to Disappear
Completely
That there
That's not me
I go
Where I please
I walk through walls
I float down the Liffey
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here
In a little while
I'll be gone
The moment's already passed
Yeah it's gone
And I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here
Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes
I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here
---
There are those times when you feel like you already don't exist anymore, you know? Good song, and I will tell you why when the right time comes...
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| A lot can happen in a week...
I bought a Creative Labs Zen MP3 player, and I must say, it's good to finally arrive to that state...
I'm going to be working on a podcast of my own, if just for kicks...
Sarah and I have reached the five-month mark. Wow. Time expands and then contracts when you're spinning in the grips of someone who isn't an ordinary girl...
I'm slowly crunching out some of the screenplay.
I'm sketching again.
I'm now two weeks removed from being rid of some lecherous waste of time. The art of exclusion continues...
One position filled (the CU-ILL one), though two (the better ones, anyway) remain. Cross your fingers.
Got some good plans for next weekend (we want the lion!).
Home twice...including now. Good stuff. | | |
| Less than three weeks now.
I've been putting my resume to several colleges and universities in NYC. I hope to hear from at least one of them. I was going to apply to a postion at Rutgers, however, once trying to figure how that would work in terms of transportation, there was little sense in riding the rails for well over an hour to get to work. Nice pay, though. I wish I could say the same about certain "temporary" positions that move you around the campuses of Manhattan and St. John's...$8.50/hr? Good lord. Keep a change of luck in your prayers.
I'm going home tomorrow. I will be back in Grantham by Saturday. Something about seeing the girl as much as I can before I'm a ghost in these parts. I hope to get down to Maryland at some point soon. I'm thinking I will be doing some visiting and calling when home.
I'm stuck in the 90's. I can't seem to get enough from this decade, musically speaking. Sure, Nick Drake is on the spinner now, but with me I brought The Bends, OK Computer, Recovering the Satellites, August and Everything After, and a greatest hits disc of Sublime. Speaking of your groups cut down just as they were beginning to see their success. What a waste. The music industry is taking their rage out on my peers, which really put file swapping on the map; however, the assault is a bit presumptuous if it is thought that my peers aren't buying music because we'd rather steal it. Perhaps if we had musicians and groups, exclusive to our "impressionable years" who weren't eccentric auteurs who took years to produce new material (ex: NIN and Tool), broke up for any reason (from Smashing Pumpkins and RATM to those sell-outs Limp Bizkit), or, well, died (Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, 'Pac, Biggy, Bradley Nowell of Sublime, or Elliot Smith), we'd be more than happy to keep buying music. There isn't much around from our school years, unique to us, I must add, that we should "stick with" the scene. Beyond some of those groups, like Radiohead (please come back to orbit), Coldplay, Counting Crows, and Ben Folds, I have to stick with groups like U2, Beastie Boys, Tears for Fears, and whatnot. Of course, when I borrow and burn a lot of my brother's cds for that fix, why bother going to the store. I'm sorry, music industry, but this product of the slacker generation says "why bother?"
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| we couldn't all be cowboys
so some of us are clowns
and some of us are dancers on the midway
we roam from town to town
i hope that everybody can find a little flame
me, i say my prayers
then i light myself on fire
and i walk out on the wire once again...
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| Honesty is a value horridly neglected.
As my time at Murray Library and Messiah College closes tomorrow, I'm left with much sorrow and emptiness. I truly get the feeling that after leaving in February, sparing a trip for Sarah's commencement, I won't be out toward these parts again. Ever. This place has been such a huge part of my life, and has shaped me in such a profound manner. It has made me vulnerable and has knocked my confidence flat on its butt on numerous occasions, and while I thank God for such lessons, as they are always needed to become a better servant and approachable, personable confidant and counselor, what truly blows my mind is the issue of honesty and how dealing with honesty in this environment has strengthened my resolve and commitment toward keeping honesty a true virtue, but has also come in the form, all but exclusively, of sheer bitterness and abuse.
My dealings with being a straight-foward, honest person is never a perfect or easily handled act, but it is the value that I hold dearest because truth is so important, whether subjective where applicable, or not. My Messiah history, though, shows that by doing the honest thing, saying what is or was on the mind for the sake of accountability, has been nothing short of disastrous. It hardens my heart to say that at no other time in my life, the place where Christian character and ethics are so brandished and etched into the lives of all who study, have studied, work, or have worked here, has so poorly handled honesty when it has either been called upon or placed. At no point in my life have I ever felt guilty for being honest or disappointed in expecting honesty but receiving so much less.
There, of course, is the instance in which solidified my need to cultivate other talents by transferring to PSU when I was, at one point, a Messiah theatre major. Where a practicum credit (yes, one credit) called for a notebook asking for honest feedback on The Illusion's rehearsal structure, I wanted to express the frustration I felt wherein I almost quit the show, was belittled in front of a fight coreographer over a matter of stage-placement where I was actually correct on the very issue that got me booted offstage, and felt little benefit from the overall process, wound up costing me an opportunity with Disney World, no stage activity my last year, and continued black-balling in my second run at the college. Being honest not only created a rift between me and my academic journey here at Messiah College, but it also brought upon such harsh dishonesty from one certain party, that, even today, has created a wound that just won't heal, despite forgiveness, even. Bigger still was the fear I had in truly expressing my belief's at PSU in fear of a similar response despite knowing, still even to this day, that what was said needed to be said.
I can recall several female-related issues where expressing myself truthfully over issues involving relationship definition and emotional attachment seemed to have treachery curtailed behind the lot. I am most reminded of M3, M4, and M5.
...and then there is my current status at one such position that hasn't ended yet. While the "Harrisburg Hostel" (as I like to call it) is not Messiah College, its affiliation is deep and direct. Both husband and wife have instructed or lectured there. A majority of the full-timers have studied there. I got there because of the library. I am reminded of an instance where I counseled a friend and co-worker to stay onboard at where they were working, weighing the issues at hand with happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, and challenge all in mind. I advised this person, based off of the sentimentality, that not taking the position offer would be best, given everything. Over the summer, based on a hunch, I learned that the advisee, whom I had referred to the bookstore and had worked far less time than I had, by several months, and only in little spurts of time, was now making almost a dollar more an hour than I was for doing less than what it was I was doing. Was it a mindful act? When confronting the manager, I learned that it was, along with opening the floodgates of various other truths. The advice, nothing really more than just assisting a friend with a hard choice with no malice toward either party, actually caused the closing of a full-time opportunity at the college. It didn't matter to me, really, that it would mean having to remain in my predicament, but it didn't sit well with me to smile, nod, and offer empty platitudes where one Christian was struggling. I am not sorry for what I said, though I believe that others have acted in such a way to make me feel that way. Not to mention, that any advice or criticism on procedure has won me the "complainer" tag, where unrelated tangents stand as the only reason to shoot me and any advice down.
...and it never got better, and has gotten to a point at this place that making the kind of exit there like I did at Messiah in 2002 with the person who wronged me there is just not the option to choose given by any means.
When slighted, one must turn the other cheek, offer a quaint disagreement, and move on if reconciliation is not to be. I admit, pride didn't allow me to make a godly exit in 2002, but in 2006, in a situation very much similar to one four years prior, doing the right thing isn't only the best option, it's the only one.
It's sad to see hypocracy. It's sadder still when those who are doing the double-speak are those who brandish higher spiritual mandates or justice-seeking worldly equality. Where I cannot comment on the sincerity and commitment to faith, I can say that honesty is often an issue far-too-poorly cradled and maintained in this community. To think, that around Christians is where I have felt the most afraid and discouraged to express truth. It's sickening.
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