Words You May Recognize

I've had a lot of opportunity to think about plagiarism lately. San Jose State University has had a rash of cheating and problems on that front in the last semester. In retaliation, a large portion of the student body has been forced to take this plagiarism tutorial and quiz online.

Now my corrections professor is taking this whole thing very seriously, as she is also the 100W (Senior Writing) professor. So, as part of her class, the students not only had to take the quiz, but also had to write a one-page paper on "what plagiarism means to me". The other day, she handed me the paper back. She gave me a "redo".

This was a strange thing to me. (Mostly because I'm not use to getting anything less than glowing praise from this woman.) Apparently, My paper did not seem to be "enough in my own words". At least, just the first paragraph, where we were supposed to define plagiarism. I have until Wednesday to fix it.

But this brings a question to my mind...Is it really possible to write something truly and completely original? Is there anything left to say that has not been said many times before? I don't think this applies to all circumstances. Original events can provoke original thought. But when addressing a common issue, can one really bring anything new to the table?

How many ways can one define plagiarism that no one else has already thought of? In the fiction novel Lost in a Good Book, author Jasper Fforde jokes that there has not been an original storyline since the days of the Bronte sisters. Everything since then has been a recycling of an old formula. I'm inclined to agree with that line of thinking.

How many times have you said something you found particularly profound and insightful, and entirely off the cuff, only to have a companion respond, "Where have I heard that before?" It happens to me quite frequently. Really undermines my confidence in my own eloquence.

And so i've come to the conclusion that unique statements are a truly rare event in our time. Unless something entirely new comes along, there is nothing new to say. Only ways to say it that we hope no one recognizes. Besides, i think if one did manage to say something truly unique, it would be claimed and copied so quickly, we'd end up forgetting the true source anyway.

Don't take this as advocating plagiarism in any way. It's not. I've just come to the sad realization that so many times i thought i had a great insight, i was probably just subconsciously regurgitating an old idea from a fellow windbag. Sigh....

I’ll just take the sand garden, thanks….

So this guy once told me that Zen Buddhism involves contemplating on unanswerable questions, and achieving peace and enlightenment in recognizing that not all things can be answered. Something about admitting powerlessness and finding freedom through it or something. But this is also the same guy that thought that unibrows were masculine and sexy, and women would flock to him if he grew one. Obviously not a critical observer of life, and certainly not someone I should be taking life advice from.

Because seriously, who thinks unanswerable questions are peaceful or enlightening? Aren’t they exactly the opposite? I want to know the answers to everything. You know that question in the “If…” game; If you could have any superhero power you wanted, what would it be? I would want to be omniscient; know all the answers, all the secrets, everything. (Everyone tells me this is a horrible wish, but I don’t care. And besides, that’s not the point of this topic.) I hate not knowing things.

Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize my life is doomed to be filled with perpetual mysteries. Three specific episodes of my life spring to mind: the Cypress ghost, the Wang Chung record, and the secret admirer.

1. Who was the Cypress ghost? Back during my freshman year at Humboldt State, my housemates in the Cypress dorm decided to have a séance. (On a tangent, my room number was 4420….Cool no? K, tangent off.) They asked me to join in on it, which was a mistake as I am the biggest skeptic of that kind of stuff. Plus I have a rather wicked sense of humor. These roommates were pretty gullible, so I decided to have a little fun with them. I put on this show of pretending to be possessed, started crying and shaking, whole deal. The gang completely freaked out, and decided to stop the séance because they seriously thought they had invited some evil spirit to be hosted in my body. The next morning, my roommate and I woke up and went into the kitchen/dining room, where we had held the séance the night before, and found all the furniture placed upside down and the candles and stuff placed in a pentagram shape. My roommate freaked, and woke up the rest of the house, who all blamed me for it. At that point they had figured out my trick from the previous night and were none too happy about it. But the thing was, I didn’t pull this little prank. I wish I had though, because it was total genius. I suspicion that it was the brother of one of the girls, but he never admitted to it. My roommate was the only person who believed it wasn’t me. But that’s because she was convinced it was a ghost, and actually hired a medium to perform a spirit-exorcising rite before she would ever use the kitchen again.

2. Who wanted me to “Wang Chung tonight”? About a year ago, I was cleaning my room and about to do the monthly flip of my mattress. (Yes, I do this monthly. It’s a really nice bed and I want it to stay that way. And yes, if this makes me an anal retentive nerd, so be it.) When I lifted up the mattress, there, lying in stark contrast to the white boxspring was a black 45 of Wang Chung’s single “Everybody Have Fun Tonight”. I was struck speechless. I did not own it and I’d never seen it anywhere before. After some of my confusion wore off, I called everyone I knew that was weird enough to do something like that, and had access to my house in the last month, but no one fessed up. Oddly, as my friend and I were in front of my house discussing the strangeness of it all, my neighbor across the street started singing the song randomly (he did not know about the whole thing). I ended up giving the record to him, figuring it was a sign. But I still don’t know who slipped it in my bed.

3. Who is my secret admirer? The final mystery. A recent one as well; it just happened this last Saturday, February 12th. Someone sent flowers and a teddy bear to my work signed ‘from a secret admirer’. I had no clue who could have sent it. I called the florist who delivered the gift, but they wouldn’t tell me who it was from. So it’s been a week now, and no one has come forward, and all my leads have proven wrong. I’m starting to think I’ll never know. This sucks, because I was hoping it would be some really hot man who would take me out on a decent date for once. (The last real date I remember was back in July, and after dinner, the guy got a call from his ex and proceeded to talk to her for the next hour instead of going to a movie like we had planned. He was shocked to discover this annoyed me.) However, with my luck, I figure it would be someone really loathsome and old enough to have spawned me. Sigh…..

So no more goddamn mysteries, okay? I’ve filled my lifetime quota, I’ve admitted I’m powerless, and I'm not any closer to reaching nirvana. So if anyone knows any useful information leading to the discovery of the truth to any of the above stories, please tell me.

An Introduction to Me ... Be Afraid!

Hmm.... so i was motivated to do this by my friend Mandi and her buddy Liliana. They have a blog that i thought was pretty cool. You can see it at http://helloonewman.blogspot.com/. Check it out. Then they can owe me one for pimping them out on my site.

So I was inspired by the letter "A" when starting this blog. I know, its kinda Sesame Street. You can see it in my URL. The word "agrypnia" means sleeplessness or insomnia, which I suffer from greatly. I originally wanted to use the word "amaranth", which is an imaginary flower that never wilts or fades. Apparently it was taken. I think I should check it out and see the cool person who is using my word. I just thought it was an awesome concept. Its just like life; everything in your imagination is bright and everlasting, but in reality, it eventually droops and molds, and gets a wierd funky smell that takes forever to go away. (As an aside, I love fresh cut flowers, but i can never bear to get rid of them, so they end up living in my room until they get so gross they've got to be removed by a HazMat team. )

Anyway.... so why the inspiration for "A" words, you ask? (Or not, but I choose to answer anyway.) Well, in my dealings with people recently, okay, to be fair, i mean men, i've realized that almost all can be summed up in one word that usually begins with an "A". Funny that its the same word for all of them, and if you haven't guessed it, i'd tell you what it is, but its probably not repeatable here. Bored contemplation in class today led me to try to discover other "A" words to add to my arsenal, to try to increase my creativity with some original insults. I chose the letter "A" not so much for the original word, but more because it was at the start of the dictionary and made things a little simpler.

Haven't found too many original insults just yet, i'm still working on it, but I found some other cool useless words. The kind its fun to know but you can't use in regular conversation unless you want to sound like some pretentious jerk that would even get rejected by his own hand for being such a putz.

Well, if I haven't scared you away by now, i'll have to try harder next time. Although i'm not sure it matters what I say, as i've heard from Mandi that the genius of these blogs is often largely ignored. Oh well, the greatest artists are always celebrated posthumously, so i'm sure once I kick it, my insanity will be celebrated. Till then, i'll keep ranting and living dangerously.
-Adios (another "A" word)