Copyright Bureaucracy

by skyrien

Oct 22 – Well, I had a lot of fun today–being dragged down to the guidance office to have a chat about a “big problem.” Apparently, I’ve been pushing through the limits of several copyright and trademark laws with the material on my site and the Scholastic Bowl website which I administer. Don’t know what illegal things that your friendly friend Xander could have done? Well let’s start with using the “Huskie™” symbol. Yes, these “wonderful” artists have copyrighted the Husky™ symbol and our principal (I’m not sure if I’m allowed to use his name) wants to STRICTLY control its usage. I thought that fair use laws would cover me using the images, especially since I’m a student at North (is that trademarked too?)–AND since it’s the district is a public facility–thus, being in the public domain, but as our librarian said I’d better “err on the side of caution.” The real problem she continued is that one parent out there that somehow accidentally stumbles across Angelex, and somehow gets into his/her head that my site, is the school site. And also seeing the “demonic” nature of my site (refering to the angel and the dragon on the top left and right), be shocked, and slap a lawsuit on the district for condoning it. HAH! That would be classic! I maintained my posture as she spoke, (it’s good to be mature when talking business) but inside, I was cracking up at the idea. What kind of parent would do that?

If any of you people reading this are parents, and somehow are offended because this pertains to you–please go to disney.com or some other mind friendly site, where you can continue to be ignorant sheep. When you’re on MY site–I say MINE because this is MY personal site, governed by the First Amendment and the will of my mind–you will see what I put up. Angelex (in spite of its original intentions) does not exist to make you happy, to represent District 203, OR to teach your kids demonology. If you don’t like what I have to say–go away! But if I were you, I’d at least be a little more thick-skinned about it.

I’m not saying this to spite the district, but to the sad idea that there ARE people out there willing to go to those crazy lengths to earn a quick buck–because that’s ALL that there is to gain from it. You people are all intelligent, educated, aware adults (at least mentally), and you people know better than to be personally offended when a teen puts up his ideas. I don’t intend to insult anyone, I’m just saying–wake up! This world is NOT just your ideal world, and there are people out there–real people, with real ideas. If you haven’t got that yet, you might want to get your head out of the clouds, and take a close look at the gritty (figuratively) halls of our school. That’s all I have to say.

Oh, and let me make this clear (see? I’m always thinking of the slower people out there who just can’t seem to infer things on their own)–this site is in no way affiliated with Naperville North High School, Naperville Community School District 203, nor do I represent the whole of either. But I AM a student at NNHS, and I do represent myself, a piece of NNHS. This is a fact, but it WON’T keep me from expressing myself as who I am. I may just be one student out of 3000+, but I’m one with the will and means to voice out what I want to say. I’d love to say that my words speak for everyone when I say my opinions, or even when I write what I think is true, but I am just my own person, as is everyone else. (wow, that sentence had 5 “I”‘s in it) Honestly speaking though–I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So yes, to all you kids out there. If you guys don’t want to bother with the system, and swim around in the safe little kiddy swimming pen that we’re put in–then like our librarian said, “err on the side of caution.” But if you’re like me… and can’t stand being anyone but yourself… give yourself a pat on the back for your audacity and be proud–but be smart too–when you’re out there in the open water, you’re swimming with the sharks. Don’t worry though–we’re ahead of the game. This truth is going to be a part of life for the majority of our existence, might as well get used to it. Know your rights, but know your limits.

Lata!

Homecoming 2003: Part 2

by skyrien

[UPDATED 10/19 2:25 AM] – All right, I can say now with conviction that NNHS has the cheapest (in a bad way) Homecomings ever! Not only is there no elaboration of the theme (beyond flimsy the freshmen and key club creations), there are no safe storage places, no projector showing cool stuff (WWS had a decent one), cheap decorations, crappy ventilation, and OVERPRICED tickets. Big time overpriced ($30 at North vs. $20 almost everywhere else). WWS had all the things I listed… including amazing decorations–relatively, and then towards the end of the dance, there was a special song dedicated to seniors for their last homecoming where they all gathered in a circle facing inwards. It was really cool, even though I wasn’t part of the class, I could see that this was one of those special moments when all experiences, the good and the bad, are treasured experiences, the class that grew up together now in their last few months. I am a definite sucker for these “last time” things–last first day, last dance, last winter break…etc–I just like to see these things accentuated officially like this. And then all the decorations came down–I mean literally. Oh AND they had the national anthem as their benediction song, it sounded really good and I thought that was awesome.

I remember what happened at the end of our dance… after the last dance (which btw was still awesome), the music stopped, the lights turned on, and then everyone just walked out. So meaningless as if… it was nothing. If Naperville North had what WWS had at the end… I would have seriously been in a jovial ecstasy.

That said… the atmosphere of the NNHS homecoming was far more engaging that at WWS–at South, a lot of people just stood around, moseying, standing, chatting in little groups, and otherwise not dancing. Maybe the music wasn’t loud enough, but you could always hear the constant buzz of chatter (except when one of the massively catchy songs are on–i.e. Get Low)–got kind of annoying, but it was okay, made everything seem to be in the background, so that self-conscious us could do whatever we wanted. At one point, I grabbed a huge cluster of balloons and I tried to dance with them sandwiched between me and Tiff–didn’t work too well, so I just threw it into the crowd–they loved it and it bounced around above everyone’s heads for the remainder of the dance! Oh and the balloons were the COOLEST that I’ve ever seen at a dance. Too many variations to explain, they were just awesome, and fit very well into the theme “We’re in Heaven”–with the theme song being “Heaven” (yes the one sung by DJ Sammy). Oh but the DJ wasn’t that great–the song selection was… kind of out there, and the speakers were wimpy. A lot of the songs had a heavy beat, virtually all of them were technoized–and being an all-white school, no one had glow sticks, and those that did had NO idea what to do with them. If only I had the raving skills… I would have SO liked to show them how it’s done–set the image of Asians right. Which brings me to another topic–Asians in WWS.

I‘ve found out that Asians just seem to have a bad social image. They are either known as study slaves, or just… the pathetic underclass–either way, heavily stereotyped and unbalanced. Even worse, the Asians there seemed very condescending of their Asian-ness, this one girl even went so far as to say that she would never date an Asian guy, because “all Asian guys were retards”. The root of this problem is the lack of Asians at WWS. There just aren’t enough to make an wide identity for themselves, so they become unbalanced in personality, and end up doing a lot of injustice to their race by creating stereotypes. The Asians seemed to be polarized to one of two extremes–the ‘traitor of race’ type, who may go as far as to berate Asians to fit in with the dominating white majority, and the ‘freak’ types, those that just act really weird, probably stemming from a need to express themselves; both of which corroborates the stereotypes of conformity and/or inferiority. Not their fault… but still a huge minus to the image of Asians. At least I can still be myself and know that my identity is secure. Sometimes we don’t realize how being Asian at NNHS shapes who we become–I would probably be a totally different person if my high school career was at WWS. Few things match up to a diverse student population in creating well-balanced kids.

To sum everything up… it was great, and if I could somehow swap all the people, and the DJ, our NNHS HC would have been so much better! I didn’t get any pictures… really really disappointed about that. Still, a great end to the Homecomings of 2003–well worth it all.

Existing with Reason

by skyrien

Oct 18 11:18 AM-

You know what? I’m tired of searching for purpose in life. What is my purpose–I’ve asked myself so many times that the question itself has lost meaning, all I can give are rhetorical answers, that sound intellectual at best. Freshman year, we did this self-exploration survey, and one of the questions asked “what do you live for?” — and I answered “I live to find something to live for.” That was probably the
best answer I could have put down at the time. I needed a passion to live for and the search itself became my passion–my quest for purpose.

[For some reason, my thoughts just aren’t being written down too well right now. That flow that I had during essay writing is just gone now. Maybe its the morning… maybe its the intimidation I’m getting from reading too many good Xanga entries–I’m too far in the game to be worried about something like this… every writer goes through this phase at some point or another. That’s my biggest obstacle as a writer–the “trying too hard to write WELL.” Ironically, when I’m trying to write well, I can’t seem to do it. My voice gets lost in the sentences and by the time I’m done, its just the words that are speaking. I can’t write right now… but I know that it’s precisely what I need to do.]

And I’m not talking about humanity’s purpose. Anyone can come up with an answer abstract enough or rhetorical enough. “We exist to serve God”; okay, well that’s not what I’m asking. That answer doesn’t satisfy me. Am I not satisfied with the purpose of my life as a Christian? “To serve God?” You’d think that as a Christian, that should be enough of an answer for me, but it does little to sooth my cravings. Can’t I just resign to the idea that we exist just to exist, and the best we can make is to be happy? But no, I can’t accept that. Living to be happy, that hedonistic attitude is the most simplest of purposes. There’s nothing wrong with happiness–what bothers me about living, seeking happiness is that it can come out of anywhere, even lies, and that happiness… I can live without. Of course you can be “happy” not knowing why you’re happy, but then how do you know that there really is something to be happy for?

Another answer that I was thinking of putting down was “to be happy.” Too many people crave the ignorant bliss that we had as children. Well, not me–I was a little different. I’m not sure if I ever had such ignorant happiness. Even in kindergarten, when teachers somehow took that innocuous question (“Why?”) as a sign of insubordination (I learned that word in kindergarten). “It just is.” Well, no it ISN’T. Nothing that we as people do just IS. Maybe I can be satisfied with that answer if the question is about a rock on the ground, but we all know that it came from somewhere else. Hypocritical school system–they say they want to produce critical thinkers and yet from the start they try to brainwash us into just accepting things as they are.

It’s the same with people. I always try to see people taking the “why” behind what my friends (and enemies–and everyone in between) do. But I don’t do it consciously. I’m not a psychoanalyst, who’s learned the theories of brain chemistry–my understanding comes from past experience, and a little bit of guesswork. But my school of knowledge says, “If something feels right, it probably is.”

Inside I know that I am far more happy as the person I am now… well, at least as the thinker I am now. I’ve experienced ignorant happiness, it’s the happy you get when what you see/know pleases you. You never know though. Happiness is all in our minds–it could be real, but it could just as easily be a lie, an illusion, or a dream. Some people can lie to themselves and be content–some people don’t think they do, but that’s the whole idea. I’ve been in there. I let reality float over me like like clouds in the sky, occasionally leaving their mark on the ground but never truly in contact with solid substance. Not so anymore. And I can confidently say that such a low standard of happiness doesn’t do it for me. As cliched
as this may sound, I’m always in search for truth–and this involves coming to terms with reality. Not just seeing what I want to see, but seeing as many facets of existence, and understanding that there are things that we don’t know. I believe that there is an ultimate happiness to be found in complete understanding–and even if the end result isn’t happiness, I’d rather understand with satisfaction than be
happy with ignorance. So here I am now… and what is my purpose?

I end up on another search. Get back to ya when I find it! So here’s my morning routine completed… my feet are cooooldd!!!