My Introversion

I typically go by Karlo, seeing as that’s my name.
Quite frankly, if you actually knew me, it’d never be the same.
My paradigms, visions, memories give shape to my progressing form.
Not yet fully developed; like the calm before the storm.

My opinions, views, and beliefs run deep, even oceans now seem shallow.
A quality world so intricate and firm, one might even consider it hallowed.
I’ll not thrust my beliefs upon you; such arrogance, my hatred burns.
But respect and tact should be common sense, through experience, I’ve learned.

I’d even create a great facade to maintain this subtle rapport.
I’d falsify my ability to rhyme in quatrains, perhaps, I’m not quite sure.
But with merely shallow simulacra, my persona can’t be defined.
No labels, archetypes, or characterizations could it ever be assigned.

Let no words gain such power to create a visage of my ever yearning spirit.
Such imperfection shan’t be perceived, let alone words ever coming near it.
Perhaps I’m over reaching the boundaries of my literary scope.
But hopefully I’ve explained, as plain as I am, that words are beautiful, I hope.

Unless you’ve met me, our only tie is pixels upon a screen.
With words, I hope I’ve shown you the “me” no one’s ever truly seen.
But even if my convoluted thoughts confused you more than intended.
The message is clear, no person is one colour, but a variety of them blended.

So with a parting note, I’ll say again, I’m Karlo, yeah, that’s my name.
Now you’ve had a glimpse of my true nature, will you still look at me the same?

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A bit of a compulsory, but very lame poem by me in attempt to explain (in a very roundabout way) that even though I can be similar to other people you’ve talked to, I’d still never be the same as that person. Also, I can’t say this from a professional standpoint, but I typically classify myself as an introvert though I exhibit features in opposition more often than not (which is very typical I might add).

The title was actually supposed to be a pun for “My Introduction,” seeing as how I’ve never properly written an introduction about myself on his blog, but I couldn’t really find a more fitting title that combined the words “introduction” and “introversion” correctly, seeing as that’s what I was trying to express. I kept it as is, and besides, it’s not much of an introduction anyway.

Searching for the one…

Though I’ve not blatantly expressed it on this particular blog, I am what some may call a tech junky, or at least leading up to one. I wouldn’t really consider my level of knowledge involving electronics to be very superior, but I would like to think that it was at least above the average civilian’s.

Anyway.

About a week and a half ago, I began talking to a very good friend of mine again. She had moved a state away so the frequency of our conversations was hindered to horrid, and obviously, our main method of communication has been limited to online chats and/or the occasional text message (we work weird shifts, so immediate responses are somewhat rare). Of course, we got onto the topic of school starting up again, and though we had a perfectly normal conversation about our own academic paths, we got off to a slight tangent about laptops when I remembered that she had the misfortune of having her laptop stolen a couple of months further back. She began telling me about how she had saved up quite a bit of money and was now looking for one, and it was becoming a priority for her to get one because school was starting up again.

I jokingly mentioned that perhaps I should just sell her my own. Mind you, though it was in a playful manner, it would not have been completely out there for me considering I have two laptops (three, if you count the one just collecting dust, though still functional) and one desktop, though I only use one for school, a small 11.6 inch one that’s rather light on the specs themselves, but also lightweight, perfect for lugging around on a college campus.

Funny thing was, even though she knew that I meant it in such a manner, she was not opposed to the idea, which sort of surprised me. In fact, it flattered me, and even more so when she mentioned that because she knew I took pristine care of my electronics, she would rather purchase one from me than from some random seller on eBay. Lo and behold, I gave her the price I was looking for, and she agreed, the final price being well below her budget.

But the thing is, I only agreed to this because I was getting ready to upgrade. That laptop that I was getting ready to sell to her, though being my dream laptop at the time, was getting rather dated for me. Quite honestly, I’m not too big on having the latest and greatest specs (nor do I really have the monetary power to acquire them), but I find that if a laptop can’t even play Netflix videos without heating up and lagging a bit, it’s a bit weak for me.

So before I packaged the laptop up for shipping (mind you, I had to factory reset it as well as install the proper Microsoft Office software for her to use beforehand), I literally spent four days scouring and constantly refreshing eBay pages for the perfect ultrabook. For those not really into the lingo, ultrabooks are those ultra thin, portable laptops, such as thee Macbook Air.

I actually had to switch my target and range a couple of times because I was being too optimistic, and not realistic enough. I mean, come on, I was looking at a laptop originally selling for $1650, and trying to find a used one in decent cosmetic and functional condition for around the $300 range. Talk about trying to find a deal. Not to mention, I was being extremely picky (and time for me to go into my geek mode for one second). The list below shows only a couple of my prerequisites for the laptop I wanted to buy. Well, at least after I got a bit more desperate (the list was much more intricate at the beginning).

1. 11”-14” screen size only, anything bigger or smaller was a waste.
2. Solid State or Solid State Hybrid drive, no more traditional hard drives.
   (Though really, ultrabooks are usually all SSD because of how thin they are)
3. At least 128gb of hard drive space, and at least 4gb of RAM.
4. Core i3, i5, or i7 processors specifically, at least 1.5 GHz clock speed, dual core.
5. Weigh less than 3.5 lbs.
6. The chassis around the keyboard (and palm rest) had to be coloured black.
7. The outer casing colour had to be neutral/sleek. (No pink, orange, or neon green…)
8. Responsive, one button touchpad with multifinger mouse gestures.
9. If the laptop had Windows 8/8.1 installed, it had to be a touchscreen.
10. Priced at no more than $400, shipping included.

Quite frankly, the first 9 criteria listed, though some just being picky, were quite easy to fulfill. It wasn’t until we got to my pitiful budget that things started to get rough.

At first, I was looking at the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus, which is a damn sexy lookin’ piece of machinery. The wedged design that is most apparent when viewing it from its side is probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, and it just works for this laptop, but of course, trying to find it for less than a fourth of its price, even through bidding, was hard to find (even with its older, Windows 7 models).

Next, I dropped my standards a bit (gee, this sounds like I’m some cocky, arrogant jock rating women as they pass me by). I began looking at the Dell XPS 13. Not as posh of a design, but still quite professional looking. And. I knew for a fact that by design, Dell had received great reviews for having the most comfortable keyboards to type on. I know, I know, right now, you’re probably like, “What the hell Karlo, just get a damn laptop and be done with it!” Yeah, well, you’d be surprised just how much of these subtle issues people have with electronics are taken into account when creating these things. For example, how all of the iPhones up to date still only have that narrow-width screen because it was designed so that your thumb can reach all the way across and so you wouldn’t have to have to use your other hand while operating it.

Anyway, that one didn’t last too long either, because though I thought it was a really nice machine, it original price was still well over $1000 (I think it was around $1300-1400, but I’m not too sure), even with the older models, and so, finding it at around $400 was pushing it.

Finally, I began looking at the older Lenovo Ideapad Yoga models. Yes, the Yoga, and not the Yoga 2 (which, obviously, the 2 means a newer, more updated model).

I was actually surprised as to why I never even looked at the Lenovos themselves in the first place. Honestly, I’d always had this sort of respect for Lenovo products. Though they tended to have a more square design (meaning, with slightly more angular corners and more shaped like perfect boxes), because of this, they tend to be much more durable, which they have a history for being reliable. Afterall, they were IBM. Perhaps it was because they tended to be sold at a higher price given the specs of each individual machine, but at the same time, I always looked at the most current, advertised models, and never the older ones that still worked perfectly fine.

So skipping forward a bit, I finally did manage to buy a laptop, though more by sheer luck than anything. I found this one listing for a price listed at much more than my budget, but I put in an offer for literally $50 less than that list price. (It must have seemed like a random price to the seller, but with the calculated shipping from eBay, it turned out to be $400 even). They miraculously agreed to the absurd price drop, but perhaps it was due to the fact that they were a new user trying to build up their positive rating (the user had absolutely no ratings whatsoever, not even as a buyer).

The laptop model I got was the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 11S (the S matters, because the 11 by itself is a much weaker model, but looks identical on the outside, and you have to read the specs to know which is which). At first, I wasn’t really into the whole 360 degree rotating of the screen, but I’ve found it nice every once in a while, though I don’t think I’d find myself using it all too much.

And finally, here’s how my desktop looked like a mere three hours since the laptop itself arrived on my doorstep.

Perhaps I just got a bit obsessive with personalising it with school that it’s completely ready for all the note-taking and email receiving as well as all the document editing that needs to be done for my classes. Now perhaps I can utilise this preparedness for some actual productivity. You know, like making sure all the work gets in on time, making sure the material is learnt properly, etc.

And perhaps I should actually sleep at past 2:00 am in the morning rather than typing out pointless, ridiculously lengthy blog posts.

Note: The wallpaper used in the screenshot was not created or edited by me whatsoever. I take no credit for it and all rights go to the original creator.

Re-piqued Interest, Lexicon

Admittedly, I would have probably been the first to admit that perhaps this online journal of mine was abandoned ages ago, yet for some reason, here I am, writing another post. You know, those rare, once in a blue moon posts that just happen to find themselves on here from time to time. In all honesty though, it’s more than likely that not many people will be reading this, but there’s this certain solace I find when writing as if I were talking to some unknown audience, just to have them listen (or in this case, read) without receiving an immediate response, whether it have been positive or negative.

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that this was my form of venting, though I’m not even sure that would be the word to describe what I’m doing.

I digress.

As you can see (yes you, the random person I’m talking to who magically stumbled upon my page) I’ve finally managed to make my page look a little bit more formal. Frankly, I find it a bit overkill for a blog, but there’s just something about minimalistic/gradient-flowing/shaded designs that I find appealing. However, I will admit that I had turned lazy. Originally, my plan had been to reopen my long, dormant Photoshop and design my own layout, and then look up the countless tutorials to study the HTML/XML codes for blogger templates to fit my own needs, but lo and behold, it took up way too much time and effort for me to do so. I did in fact make a header image…a rather generic one that would be deemed more appropriate for some Photoshop resource site, but I never actually finished it. So that’s less than 50% of the work right there (I never even bothered to look at the coding for all the widgets involved and such).

And then life took most of my time again. I didn’t go on vacation this summer, opting to temporarily work full-time hours at my current job (yes, I have one of those now) to earn a little more spending cash in the case that I feel that I want (read: need) to spend it relentlessly when school starts up again. Now, a mere week before classes commence and that I’m finalising my off days with a more appropriate end note, I decided that it would be interesting to see what I’d written on here before.

Surprisingly though, I’m quite impressed with what I’d written before. Though this seems daft to mention, rereading my other posts, I can’t help but think that they’re just so…me.

Of course, I wrote them, so why wouldn’t they be, right?

But I can see the evolution of my own mannerisms and persona through the words alone. I was foolish back then (hell, I still am right now), but I’ve grown somewhat. It seemed as though I was creating a facade that I was this supposedly intellectual individual with highly admirable viewpoints on certain issues, not hesitating to back them up whatsoever. The truth is, it was honestly just me trying to find some subject to write about that would supposedly get others to talk to me, as minimal as those exchanges of words may have been. I used the internet as a cloak, a veil, and my own words as a weapon, to where I expressed an idea in such a manner that unless one honestly thought and pondered on it for more than a moment, they couldn’t help but automatically assume that this person had as least some brains within them.

What I mean to say is that I’m constantly in the stage of epiphany, even when it comes to my own identity. And all this discovery coming from rereading those words that came from myself a few months ago? Words are more powerful than I ever dreamed.

One of the posts (here) I reread was a ramble of me switching subjects almost every other paragraph, talking about friendship, language, self-expression, as well as an array of a few other subjects. It even started out with, what I thought was cool at the time, a lame intro sentence: “And as the threshold between yesterday and today is surpassed, here I am, once again, wondering what this next set of twenty-four hours will have to offer me.”

Sometimes, when you’re trying to sound more eloquent, you seem to completely disregard your own personal literary limits, and your words just sound stupid, but you don’t realise until much, much later. In this case, it’s taken me two and a half years to do so.

My point with that post is that (and I’m totally not stealing this from James Joyce or anything) it was definitely some rudimentary form of stream of consciousness writing from moi, and I didn’t even know what that was at the time. As primitive as it was, there was a certain flow to the words that only I seemed to familiarise with because they originally came from me, but how did I even see it?

And that’s when it finally came to me.

It didn’t matter that my writing was (and probably always will be) a bit random and childish at the time. Personal psychology makes up for it, we always try to make sense of something when it seems as though we can connect to it somehow, and how did I connect?

With words, and nothing but.

So that’s my final note, as well as my explanation as to why I finally changed the title of this blog. Before, I tried to make the title sound cool by adding some weird tagline that alluded to my username (or the one associated with this blog, at least: DarkHybridx). Aesthesia was a form of feeling, sensual, and sometimes eliciting certain emotions, and I tried to get that across.

Now, I’m reverting to the most primitive form of expression there is, disregarding the type of synaptic feedback that aesthetics give.

The words, and only the words themselves. Because as long as there are words, there is essence.