musings of a neurotic mind

an ordinary saturday, nothing exciting happened and i am actually glad about that. re-installed Delta Force Black Hawk Down since i did not finish playing it in summer due to the lack of time or motivation. the games does not have a mind-blowing graphics engine like Far Cry oder Max Payne 2 but i guess it does the job and it’s ok. what’s really great about it is that they designed it closely to the movie; even the soundtrack is very similar! the atmosphere of the game is really riveting and damn real! it is however pretty short. oh well, the add-on will be out soon…

i’m gonna change my life. yes, indeed. i am going to base any upcoming decision partly on what i feel instead of what my mind tells me. otherwise i’ll never end up doing something i actually can live with and be (at least to some degree) happy about it. i need to become sure about my future, what i really want to do - apart from ending up unemployed. do i really want to teach at university? i don’t know. do i have a shot at it? maybe, but i am not sure. so what do i want? first off, get this friggin’ PhD and then? get a job that does not involve traveling around the world (i hate that!) but gives me some kind of feeling that i am doing something useful…

well, i know i should focus on more important things than upcoming first person shooters but i coudn’t resist to give FarCry a try. it’s amazing! this game kicks ass, looks like 2004 is really going to be a hot year as far as FPS go… HL2, Doom 3, and even Breed is supposed to hit the market. there are enjoyable and funny things in life after all…

last night i had the first real nightmare in years. that really amazes me. so is the effect of the SSRI finally wearing off, leaving my brain alone to sort out its conflicts. the strange thing is that there was nothing really scary about the “nightmare”, it wasn’t even a bad dream… i can’t remember it clearly now but it dealt with spydaddy smuggling out two pieces of whatever from wherever and he is running down a staircase and supposedly i am spydaddy and trying to awake from that dream… you know this strange feeling when you are aware that it is only a dream and try to awake… i was screaming in the dream and obviously in real life as well…

life’s unfair, yes, i know and i do not want to complain about it. today was a really dull sunday. i am supposed to get some work done which i actually accomplished to some extend. and oh yes, had trouble sleeping last night. too many things were running through my head, again.

so what’s on my mind recently? to be honest, not much. yeah i know, i really should start thinking about the class i’m going to teach in march and stuff. instead i’m playing America’s Army and watching Alias. it seems like life is moving in circles now - one being my thesis and the other my class. but still, it’s hard to focus and get to work. next week will be better. or at least i hope so.

i never believed it, but there is a life after Prozac (or SSRI generally). the only thing that troubles me still a bit is my poor impulse controll, but i guess i’ll get this managed as well. what surprises me is the incredible amount of emotions i am able to experience again. for example, i was watching the Alias episode 2×11 - A Higher Echelon and Will Tippin is finally accepted to work for the CIA and Vaughn says, “Welcome to the CIA” and i almost burst to tears. strange, how such an ordinary situation can trigger such strong emotions. but it’s good to feel again.

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it’s a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
Before the second you turn back
Oh no, be strong
Walk on
Walk on
What you got, they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on
Walk on
Stay safe tonight
(U2 - Walk On)

so i finally try to catch up watching Alias. season 3 is in full swing and i am still stuck somewhere at the beginning of season 2. just watched episode 2×08 - Passage (1). oh boy, this show really kicks ass. now we have spyfamily going to track down some missing nukes. and Sark is really cute (no kidding!) although he is such a nasty character and essentially the bad guy.

i rarely burst into tears when watching a movie or reading a book. the only movie that makes me cry is Apollo 13 (weird, i know). at the end when the space capsule re-enters the atmosphere with Annie Lennox’s amazing vocal performance… hard to keep a dry eye. now i am reading Chris Kraft’s “Flight - My Life in Mission Control” and guess what happened after i read the chapter on Apollo 8’s first translunar flight? bonus, i could not hide my tears. the time of the “space race” was really exciting, i mean, what are the great adventures today? getting to mars? come on, we’ll never get a human being to mars with the current technology. it’s impossible. granted, those guys in the 1960s thought the same about the moon, but a trip to the moon takes only 3 days… and i read recently, that a mars mission would be deadly to its crew because of the high amount of radiation it would be exposed to…