Leaves were twirling in their branches, dancing in their private veridian prom at the cusp of autumn. Some were already strewn about in a hypnotic whirlwind, yet others were lying about, oblivious to the surrounding atmospheric disturbances. As if obeying some ancient command, the winds ceased, no doubt intimating something from far off. Nature has a way of stopping you where you are, and it is only her calm, soothing gaze that demands your whole perceptive being to bend in a certain direction.

I wish computer programs could feel pain, so that I can thrust this cursed tablet pen through Photoshop's bloated, ugly heart and let it die a slow, painful digital death, spilling virtual memory from the gaping hole in its chest while attempting to hang on to its scratch disk for dear life. Then I will bite its tooltip-laden fingers until it finally loses its grip and crumples to the floor. Then I will take that disk and smash it over its deformed head until I can no longer lift my arms, surrounded in a pool of 16.7 million colors. And it will be beautiful.

So, how was your day?

Perhaps I've bitten off a bit more than I could chew, trying to balance work-study in a country where I have a hard enough time ordering lunch or getting across the city, but there is no other way for me to finance my music, education, and extravagant lifestyle. Damn you, ID! Damn it all to hell!

At least it beats working at Starbucks all summer.

So instead of throwing my computer to the floor and going Office-Space on it with my roommate's bo staff (located conveniently within reach). I'm going to take a deep breath, make some tea, put on some John Lee Hooker, and pick my classes for next semester.

I wonder what ****** is doing right now.

When I worked at a graphic design firm during high school, I often worked with a MICA grad named David* on advertising projects. He had everything you expected from an art school student: perfectionistic streak regarding art, excellent musical tastes, tattoos and piercings up the hizzay, and an animalistic passion that fueled everything he did.

David played "right-hand man" to our resident advertising director, which means that in addition to working with the director to supervise projects and write proposals, he had to be the director's bitch and do stuff like reply to company emails, file paperwork, and get the director lunch on busy days.

The advertising director, like most creative directors, was an eccentric. He had talent, with a proven track record and a cutting-edge sense of style, but if he were any more anal-retentive he would never have seen a toilet in his lifetime.

One of the things that the director often asked David to do was to make him coffee. A seemingly simple task under ordinary circumstances, but this situation was anything but ordinary.

Every time David brought him his coffee, the director would pull out a pantone coated colors chart and match the color of the coffee to a specific shade of brown. If it was too dark or too bright, he would throw a hissy fit and start yelling at David about how he expected to survive in the graphic design world when he couldn't even distinguish between different shades of brown.

David would come out fuming, and then begrudgingly make another cup of coffee, which usually was good enough for the director to drink.

But one day, for whatever reason, the director would just not accept any of the cups of coffee. It was like trying to deal with a color-sensitive Goldilocks, and David spent a good hour or so walking between the work room and the coffee machine, brows furrowed and fists clenched.

Finally, while overhearing another one of the director's diatribes toward David, it was interrupted by a yell from the direction of the work room. Five seconds later, I saw the director run out holding his nose, with blood running down his arms, staining his pristine khaki-colored D&Gs with slender streaks of red.

Then David strolled out of the work room, stretched, chuckled, and said to me, "He's in for some real trouble now. Look, his blood didn't match the red I had specified on the pantone chart."

For some reason, David didn't come back the next day, but when I saw the employee self-evaluation on his desk dated the day before, under job satisfaction, "10" was circled in bright red ink with a smilie face written in.

For the first time in about three years, I felt something with the fingertips of my left hand.

Wow. I really need to find a guitar.

http://www.google.com/
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://*.wikipedia.org/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
http://www.latimes.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/
http://*.blogspot.com/
http://www.technorati.com/
http://www.sourceforge.org/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://*.mit.edu/
...And a whole mess of Christian information sites.

I still haven't decided whether I like this or not. On one hand, I can't keep up on news back in the U.S., get significant research in programming done, or tell people how "oh man, I was totally smashed last night" with pictures to prove it. On the other hand, I haven't been this productive and focused on anything in quite some time.

There's just something about the way that Beijingers talk that makes what they say stick in your head. They may be talking a mile-a-minute, but those phrases just have a way of lodging in your brain and coming up at random times. I can't count the times I've heard "xiangjiao, xiangjiao, liang kuair, liang kuair" in my head, but it's enough to make me go bananas, or at least make go buy one (for only liang kuair, of course).

Based on horribly inaccurate anecdotal evidence, it seems that of all of the different accents that Chinese speakers have, foreigners seem to pick up jing qiang, the Beijing accent, the fastest. I have yet to hear a laowai speak in the vaguely Japanese-sounding Shanghaiese, or the southern dialects riddled with "si bu si"s, but almost every foreigner that I have met in and out of China at least has traces of a Beijing accent.

Strangely enough, it seems that the Southerners in my foreign language program are particularly adept at affecting a Beijing accent. While most of the students in the class are still struggling to properly dip, dive, and roll the second and third tones and make the distinction between "qu" and "chu"; "shu" and "xu"; and "lu" and "lü," phrases like "hao wanr" (fun) and "ni zai nar" (where are you?) sound to come out so naturally in the laconic southern drawl. It's almost like God gave Southerners a latent talent to quickly adapt to jing qiang. Sense of humor, indeed.

"It's easy, man!" a Mississippi-born friend would often say, "Just pretend you're a pirate! Yarrrr. Narrrr. Guarrr...."

There's no question that learning Chinese, the characters in particular, can be frustrating. Even if you manage to keep the few dozen characters you learn in a day to nail the quiz, storing the information permanently takes work. It's depressing to think of how many times I've stared blankly at a character that I recall with as much clarity as an elementary school classmate, vaguely familiar, but nonetheless, long-forgotten.

But as with many things in life, there is a reward around the corner. There aren't many things better than realizing that the incoherent babble around you is actually intelligible? That flicker of understanding is enough to propel you further in your studies. Now we're talking.

There are muscleheads even in Beijing. The guy next to me is benching--after some rough calculations in my head--about 250 pounds. His veins are circling around his pillar-like arms like a dozen blue snakes. But he ends up finishing his final set, and sits upright to rest.

What drives all of these tank-topped brothers, strutting around and staring at themselves in the mirror, to endure so much pain? Why do they keeping coming back to the same sweat-stinking basement, the same old machines, only to watch their muscles grow?

It's around 9:30pm and too late to be at a gym, but that's the way I like it. Less tanktops, less grunting, and less posturing in front of the rare young ladies that just happened to traipse in. I stare at myself in the mirror, and recall the image that I saw as the small, awkward, insecure kid who just moved in from god-knows-where. To be honest, I've always thought I needed more character, more of a spine, to deal with the things that life throws my way. Even the most accurate mirror is far from an accurate reflection. I wish I could see how other people see me, not how I see myself.

I run through the same set of exercises that I did back when I started my routine. Rotator cuffs, shoulder punches, press-ups, etcetera, moving from the back to front and back, finishing with the wrists and joints.

I'm done with my upper body and head to the treadmill. I feel like crap, but I need to run. I remind myself of how much I hate the forced sedentary lifestyle of academia. How anyone can manage to work an office job is beyond me. Every hour, I am fidgeting about, taking off my shoes, putting them back on, fiddling with the various stress-relievers on my desk, sharpening my pencils to an equal length, tapping out a rhythm on my desk, walking to the bathroom to pee and wash my face in cold water--anything to move. America has all of these fad diets and fitness routines, but for what? Isn't it pretty obvious why we are all out of shape? Our bodies weren't made to sit for 10 hours a day and point and click.

Running three miles on a treadmill won't make you fit, unless it's on an incline. That's one thing I learned back in September from Coach Pete. Belt speed to 10. Incline to 10. 40 second sprints. 20 second breaks. If I can run through a dozen, I'll be a better man for it, as will my heart.

The girl next to me is pretty hot in that unconventional way and is seemingly oblivious to my not-so-subtle ogling. There is a pair of white earphones dangling from her jaw. I swear Apple would take over the world if they could only get off their ivory tower. It would awesome if life had a soundtrack, but would that mean everything would have to travel to a hip-hop beat? Can life move you the way your iPod can?

On my third sprint, I feel the time slowing down. I immediately think of the theory of relativity like your garden variety New England pseudointellectual jackass. Nevertheless, it's mind-blowing in that first-viewing-of-the-Matrix sort of way. When you stand still, you move slower through time, and when you move faster through space, time slows down. Maybe that's why these 40 seconds seem like an eternity.

It's sad that not even a top-notch education can keep me from making horrible sports cliches about life. Who the hell started this crap? Can every situation in life be whittled down to a pathetic platitude about physical exertion? I hate myself for not being able to break the chains of cliches. They defined me before I even knew what they were. If I was more intelligent or creative, maybe I would something original to say, rather than my all-purpose one-word Valley-cultivated response to everything. Whatever.

Resting between the fifth and the sixth, I can hear nothing but my heart beating in my head and my shortness of breath. I started running after Deca, sometimes fail to remember that I am far from an athlete, much less a competitive one. Whatever, push. I can feel the pain in my chest within the first ten seconds. I feel a little light-headed, but that hasn't stopped me before...

The world starts to waver and fade in and out. I catch a glimpse of the World Cup on the mini-TV, but I can't tell what the score is, or what sound is coming out. It's all just a rainbow swirl of colors. Somewhere, I lost count, and somewhere later on, I lose my balance and the world flips around. I remember the first time I did sprints in the crew gym and fell off the treadmill, to everyone's amusement.

I can't believe it. I feel like I'm skirting the edge. Here? Thousands of miles from home? On an inclined treadmill? Dammit. What is everyone going to think?

I'm 18 years old, in the best shape of my life in a long time, and I've done this exercise maybe a hundred times before. What the hell is going on? Why can't I breathe? Something's not right.

It hits me so suddenly. My legs crumpled under me like styrofoam cups and in a moment, I've flown off the treadmill. I hear a mumbling and an unintelligible moan, before I realize that I am hearing myself. I grope for reality, balance, and order, but end up merely around in a black abyss. I feel my head hit something. Hard.

I think of God. In the past, during my worst bouts of sickness--90-day recovery from a self-destructive lifestyle, horrible stomach flu in the summer before high school, first week of practice for cross country--I would pray to God that I would do anything he said if he would just make it stop. I promise, God. I'll do anything. Anything you say. Just make this go away. In this state of mind, I am perfectly calm. I know with more than complete certainty that my time is over. I have never been truly scared of hell, but found the idea of dead and having no sensation--feeling nothing--as utterly horrible. And yet here I am, in a state between consciousness and unconsciousness, resigned to the next stage.

I think of the stories that my dad told me about my grandfather, about how he died so young; old teachers saying I had so much potential; my mom crying; my dad losing it when he finds out what happened; my little brother struggling to find the words to answer the inevitable question "what happened to Brian?"; never saying "I love you" to a girl and truly meaning it. Thinking ahead, I feel more sorry for my friends than I do for myself. But at least they have a little bit more time. Right now I long for time and time alone.

Tell me, have you ever died in your own dream?

Dear Attention Span,

Hey, hey! Look at me! I'll try to make this quick. I wasn't going to bring it up, because you always seem so happy trying new things, but now it's just getting ridiculous. While your interests might pop out of thin air, money doesn't. I can't afford this shit. If you want to play drums, awesome, but play them more than three times. It's like you even forgot they were there. And why did you spring for an guitar? You just got tired of playing bass? That's not working for me. Here's the thing: I'm sorry to be the one telling you this, but you're not musically talented, and by "musically talented" I mean "capable of producing sounds that your dormmates can tolerate for more than fifteen seconds." I don't know, maybe if you stuck with one of them you wouldn't be so mediocre at all of them.

Yo! No, I don't know what the hell is going on outside. Focus! Throw all that junk from home away. What are you going to do, play with your yo-yo when there's a pickup game going on? The only time you touched those things is when you moved in. Get rid of that crap, and you'll notice that your "shoebox of a room" is actually quite spacious.

Back in day--damn it, quit playing that damn shark typing game! you're never going to beat my score--back in the day, it made sense to do stuff like this, but we're in college now. It's time that we don't take the calligraphy set and never learn how to properly write anything. And maybe you should try and listen to all of those language tapes before you buy another one, not just the first one. No, I'm not going to buy you Esperanto, at least not until you learn Spanish. Why do you even need to learn that? You're going to China in month. Get your act together.

Hello! Yeah, maybe you should try doing something more substantial with your time. Instead of just joining all these clubs--put that down! I'm trying to talk to you!--instead of just joining all these clubs, why don't you try and pick one or two and get really good at it? I'm sure the newspaper would really appreciate you not submitting rushed articles every week. So what if everybody else does it? You could also try and finish one of those web projects that you have going. Don't complain that you don't have anybody to do it with. The people who started Tripod, AOL, the server wing of A9 and the dozen other startups in-town didn't seem to have any problem with it. Speaking of school, why don't you try and focus more on your classes? Maybe if you tried actually studying for your finals now, instead of looking up old buddies on Facebook to see where they ended up for college, you'd have a better GPA. Having good grades will make a lot of things easier later. No, I didn't know that Patty ended up at Oberlin. Maybe she got in instead of you because, I don't know, she actually practiced playing piano in high school, instead of mucking around with burnouts and starting half-assed rock bands. No, I still think you suck. Even that show at the B.B. King Blues Club.

And look, maybe this is none of my business, you can live your life as you like, but why don't you call people back? I heard that noise too, and I still don't know what's going outside. Why am I supposed to know? I'm here trying to tell you something. Hey! You go out with someone once or twice and then just stop calling them. That's fucked up. It takes two weeks for you to get bored with someone. Remember that girl at the New Pornographers show? Damn, man, I know a ton of people who would love to go out with somebody like her. She was smart, funny, and fearless. But you just played a couple rounds of phone tag and that's it. You don't make an effort. Why do you think you're alone? Oh, yeah, it's "by choice." Pathetic. Turn off your Weezer playlist and get off your ass.

Goddammit! Stop looking up stuff on the Internet. Nobody emailed you in the last 5 minutes, all right? No, I didn't know that that the average yearly rainfall in Astoria is 69.60 inches. No, we're not moving there. I didn't like that album, either. You've never owned an umbrella. No, that wasn't yours, you borrowed that from Cindy, remember? I suppose we would probably grow out our hair if we moved there. Maybe we do need a trim, though...Dammit! Listen to me!

Yeah, I know those crosswords are hard. I never finish them, either. Yeah, Sudoku too. Ah! You're doing it again, Short Attention Span. Call me when you find some focus. I'm going to check out what's going on outside.

Love,
Brian

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad."

- Neal Stephenson