My Futon Day
Saturday:April 7th 2007. A particularly cold weekend in Austin.Temperature was in the 30s.It was drizzling the whole day.I decided to stay in.Both my roommates were going out, one to San Antonio, the other to San Marcos. I had the house to myself.
All the matches I wanted to see on Saturday were coming on FSC.Yeeeaaah.Woke up at 8. Started watching the chelsea spurs game
on my laptop sleeping on my bed.Chelsea won 1-0.Exactly the result I wanted.Next Liverpool reading game.Liverpool won 2-1.Perfect.Exactly the result I wanted.Around the same time Arsenal Westham match was going on.West Ham won the game.Perfect result again.Then around 10:30 I moved into the living room and started watching the Manu Portsmouth match on TV.I was lying on the futon,covered with my comforter watching a high class attacking soccer match.Cud this day get any better.Yes it could, Portsmouth won the match which was as u guessed,exactly the result I wanted.
Match ended around 1.Slept in my futon for around an hour.I then walked to my laptop in my bedroom.responded to a couple of emails and then took some research papers/Vonnegut's breakfast of champions and climbed back into my futon.When I climbed back in m futon,I remembered where I had saved one dissertation which one my labmates might find useful for a presentation.But during that thought process, I had comfortably settled into the futon and i was unwilling to climb out and respond.I was anyway planning to have a haircut in an hour.I will go to my bedroom enroute and then respond to that email.
So comfortable settled in my futon, I did light research work and alternated it with breakfast of champions.Around 2:45 I got up again, responded to that email with the location of the dissertation, walked to Tgf to have a haircut.I went and wrote my name on the list.Crap, there were 5 people ahead of me who had booked a hair cut slot. Then one of the barbers walked up to me and said that I am next.I asked him, but i was the last name.Apparently 3 people who had booked did not show up and other 2 had requested special stylists.Perfect.Had a haircut.Went to Its a grind, celebrated with a white choco moca and then walked back. Now the time was 3:30.I had a bath and by 4 I was back in ,you guessed right, on the futon. I was lying on the futon.Ate lunch doing so.Then alternated between sleeping,reading BOC and some research stuff.
Around 6 I decided to watch a movie.I had finished BOC by then.Luckily i had the two dvds within hands reach and I could insert the DVD into the DVD player without getting out of my Futon.I watched Internal Affairs 2. Watched that while preparing my prob stats review session lecture.Then around 8 got out of the futon, responded to some mails went to quiznos,bought dinner and got back into my futon by 8:30.Enroute to my futon,I picked up "A long way gone" by Ishmael Beah which was in my bedroom.Ate dinner sitting on my futon,watched internal affairs 3 and did some light research work.By light research work i mean reading papers in bursts, with an average rate of 4 paragraphs an hour and some random thinking.After finishing Infernal Affairs 3, I came with some examples for my prob stats class. Around 11 I started reading A long way gone.Finished 2 chapters and then began contemplating about war while watching frasier.Basically in the first 2 chapters this is what happens. A 10 year old kid in sierra leone.Him and his friends do the things normal children their age do.PLay, Listen to music.they get infatuated with rap and decide to walk to a nearby town to participate in a talent search competition.The two ins 16 miles away.They decide to walk the previous day.Have a stop at their grandma's village.Then reach the town by night time.Stay at their friends place.Next day in the morning,their friend comes running back from school his face ashen.His message, school is closed,rebels have attached his grandma's and parents village and wiped them out.he then describes how he walks back to grandma's village sees corpses everywhere, people wailing walks back to town.This is where I stopped. I then started contemplating,I have read a lot of war stories, watched a lot of war movies, why has this affected me. reason number 1:this book is a true story of a 10 year old kid whose life gets turned upside down within a matter of days.reason number 2: the language used is brilliant, simple, straightforward english.It is the exact language which i have seen my labmates use to describe their weekends. No dramatization, nothing. Ishmael describes it in as normal a way as possible. and thats what affected me the most.
I then start thinking about a conversation I had with my dad when I was in my seventh grade.He started explaining to me what a bad thing war is. He explained to me imagine we are living in a city in a war zone.Imagine the tension whenever there is an air raid.He went on to explain how the economy wud be affected.All shops would close down.Businesses would close down.People would become unemployed.People would move out of the place and maybe live in refugee camps.things we took for granted coffee at a nearby coffeeeshop, would no longer be available.I was playing this conversation through my head. It was 12:30 and i remembered two quotes by hemingway on war:
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
with that in mind I decided to get out of my futon, walked to my bedroom and went to sleep.
All the matches I wanted to see on Saturday were coming on FSC.Yeeeaaah.Woke up at 8. Started watching the chelsea spurs game
on my laptop sleeping on my bed.Chelsea won 1-0.Exactly the result I wanted.Next Liverpool reading game.Liverpool won 2-1.Perfect.Exactly the result I wanted.Around the same time Arsenal Westham match was going on.West Ham won the game.Perfect result again.Then around 10:30 I moved into the living room and started watching the Manu Portsmouth match on TV.I was lying on the futon,covered with my comforter watching a high class attacking soccer match.Cud this day get any better.Yes it could, Portsmouth won the match which was as u guessed,exactly the result I wanted.
Match ended around 1.Slept in my futon for around an hour.I then walked to my laptop in my bedroom.responded to a couple of emails and then took some research papers/Vonnegut's breakfast of champions and climbed back into my futon.When I climbed back in m futon,I remembered where I had saved one dissertation which one my labmates might find useful for a presentation.But during that thought process, I had comfortably settled into the futon and i was unwilling to climb out and respond.I was anyway planning to have a haircut in an hour.I will go to my bedroom enroute and then respond to that email.
So comfortable settled in my futon, I did light research work and alternated it with breakfast of champions.Around 2:45 I got up again, responded to that email with the location of the dissertation, walked to Tgf to have a haircut.I went and wrote my name on the list.Crap, there were 5 people ahead of me who had booked a hair cut slot. Then one of the barbers walked up to me and said that I am next.I asked him, but i was the last name.Apparently 3 people who had booked did not show up and other 2 had requested special stylists.Perfect.Had a haircut.Went to Its a grind, celebrated with a white choco moca and then walked back. Now the time was 3:30.I had a bath and by 4 I was back in ,you guessed right, on the futon. I was lying on the futon.Ate lunch doing so.Then alternated between sleeping,reading BOC and some research stuff.
Around 6 I decided to watch a movie.I had finished BOC by then.Luckily i had the two dvds within hands reach and I could insert the DVD into the DVD player without getting out of my Futon.I watched Internal Affairs 2. Watched that while preparing my prob stats review session lecture.Then around 8 got out of the futon, responded to some mails went to quiznos,bought dinner and got back into my futon by 8:30.Enroute to my futon,I picked up "A long way gone" by Ishmael Beah which was in my bedroom.Ate dinner sitting on my futon,watched internal affairs 3 and did some light research work.By light research work i mean reading papers in bursts, with an average rate of 4 paragraphs an hour and some random thinking.After finishing Infernal Affairs 3, I came with some examples for my prob stats class. Around 11 I started reading A long way gone.Finished 2 chapters and then began contemplating about war while watching frasier.Basically in the first 2 chapters this is what happens. A 10 year old kid in sierra leone.Him and his friends do the things normal children their age do.PLay, Listen to music.they get infatuated with rap and decide to walk to a nearby town to participate in a talent search competition.The two ins 16 miles away.They decide to walk the previous day.Have a stop at their grandma's village.Then reach the town by night time.Stay at their friends place.Next day in the morning,their friend comes running back from school his face ashen.His message, school is closed,rebels have attached his grandma's and parents village and wiped them out.he then describes how he walks back to grandma's village sees corpses everywhere, people wailing walks back to town.This is where I stopped. I then started contemplating,I have read a lot of war stories, watched a lot of war movies, why has this affected me. reason number 1:this book is a true story of a 10 year old kid whose life gets turned upside down within a matter of days.reason number 2: the language used is brilliant, simple, straightforward english.It is the exact language which i have seen my labmates use to describe their weekends. No dramatization, nothing. Ishmael describes it in as normal a way as possible. and thats what affected me the most.
I then start thinking about a conversation I had with my dad when I was in my seventh grade.He started explaining to me what a bad thing war is. He explained to me imagine we are living in a city in a war zone.Imagine the tension whenever there is an air raid.He went on to explain how the economy wud be affected.All shops would close down.Businesses would close down.People would become unemployed.People would move out of the place and maybe live in refugee camps.things we took for granted coffee at a nearby coffeeeshop, would no longer be available.I was playing this conversation through my head. It was 12:30 and i remembered two quotes by hemingway on war:
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
with that in mind I decided to get out of my futon, walked to my bedroom and went to sleep.
posted by Figaro at 9:51 PM
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