When I showed the Vineyards to Alck, mere months ago, he asked me when I had started it.
"January 1st."
"You started it on the first day of 2003? Why, some particular reason? 'New beginning', anything like that?"
"I started it on January 1st so I would not have to be bothered by remembering when its anniversary was."
"A perfectly practical and logical reason! I am proud of you."
"And I wanted it to be a Capricorn, too."
One year today. Of course, I started it on the late hours of January 1st, 2003, so technically it still has nearly a day to be one year old. But if I chose January 1st so I did not have to remember the day, I certainly will not bother remembering the hour.
In these Vineyards I recorded many things from 2003, but some important facts I simply wrote nothing about - or nothing specific, at least.
The first half of 2003 could have been filled with comments regarding the problem with a certain teacher in school. In fact, she threatened to sue me and some other students. Later she threatened to sue the other teachers. This cost me an entire semester - I failed both classes she gave, of course, and while it is the only red mark on my school history, I am not ashamed of it. And she was the final straw that led me to answer "Some people just deserve to die." in a certain question in the famous Dante's Inferno Test - and that is what probably had me sent to the Seventh Circle of Hell the last few times I took it. I was so happy in the Sixth...
There was a funny fact about this most unpleasant situation, at least. E-mail that I receive from teachers go into a specific folder with the teacher's name; her folder I named "Blob", due to her similarity with the main character of a movie of same name. Later I heard other students refering to her as "the Blob". It was very interesting to know I was not the only one to notice it.
In the first half I also had to do a most memorable research for school. In a rather unique situation, only myself and ruby took that class - all the other students fled cowardly from it, choosing another teacher for it. Little did we know that the class required a terribly big project to be concluded before the last class - a project that is not supposed to be carried out by less than four people. The teacher was very wary of it, and had little intention of letting us do it ourselves - we wanted little contact with all those freshmen from Marketing who had their own cliques formed. So we convinced her we could do it, basing our affirmations on our experience with that which became known in late 2002 as "Stoneheck".
As a group of seven, we came up with the idea of "Stonehenge British Rock", a site dedicated to reviewing British bands and singers. I remember at the time I created my own "pink frog"; maybe I will tell the story someday. The problem arised when the idea had to become reality: five members of the group fled to another group, who had an idea also created by me (but for which I got no credit; thanks, guys, for abandoning us, then taking my idea). So, only myself and ruby were left to put Stonehenge together - and it did indeed feel like we had to pile the actual rocks to get it done. We despaired, we worked into many nights, we begged people to write reviews for us, we made PowerPoint presentations that put many Flash movies to shame, we patched the backup html like there was no tomorrow so it would work should the main thing (not under our control) fail (and it did - our backup worked flawlessly). We were all alone, overburdened, but we did it.
Using that as basis, we got ourselves the first and last chance that teacher ever gave for two people to take a full research project by themselves. But we were smart: we picked a theme we could research easily. Manga. "The influence of Japanese comics in the habits of Brazilian youth", because everything made in USP needs a pompous title. Using solidified methods of meta-research and sample/universe extrapolation, as well as looking into very obscure books and academical works, we managed to put together a bibliography of about ten books, a research done with fifty people (all declared otakus), a final report of about thirty pages, and a very cute PowerPoint presentation with seventeen pictures taken from volumes one and two of the Chobits manga. Everyone was impressed. We still laugh about it.
Those two things were the greatest events of the first half of 2003, and I mentioned neither here. So for the second half I decided to at least give hints of such big things, even if not say them directly. The idea of making a polemical blog had completely gone down the drain anyway.
School had never been as busy as it was this second semester of 2003, but the only big thing I did was the book, which I did mention here. It is set in motion; perhaps it can be published in 2004. Everything else about school was extremely time consuming and mind draining, but unworthy of mention.
Still, this second half saw me doing actual work. Writer and proofreader for an advertising agency, as I said here. I got the job because of a beer. On my first day there, one guy left; on the second day, I noticed the phone listings on each of the desks had far more names than I had seen people in there; on the third day, I learned no one had been paid for two months. Second week, two more people left. Sixth week, three people were fired. On the eighth week, very happy that I never concluded the formalities (never signed the contract) and therefore was not an employee, I warned the boss that I had to leave because school was being very pressing at the end of the semester, and I could not just sit there playing Solitaire and reading King of Fighters and Evangelion fanfics all afternoon until someone needed something written. Two weeks later, three less people in there, I apologized, wished them luck, and left.
While it is true that working for free was not very pleasant, I was mainly annoyed at not having anything to do for many days, and then having to write Christmas cards for another number of days as if Christmas was two hours ahead. No one deserves to write the generic "Best wishes of prosperity and peace" text found in Christmas cards. Well, maybe some deserve - but not me. Anyone who writes "The Blue Flower and the Purple Butterfly" deserves a lot more than that.
But my little excuse was not entire untrue - school had become extremely pressing those last months of the semester. But on top of that, my afternoons were taken by something far more pleasant than Solitaire and Christmas cards. I tried my best not to mention it here, I tried very hard not to let it influence my writing, but I failed on both accounts. It was actually rather easy to spot - even one who never spoke to me would notice it by reading the archives from the beginning. I noticed that myself, yet I dared not say it; I decided to wait for a special event. I suppose the anniversary of the Vineyards are good enough an event.
To finally make the obvious a fact: as I had given so many mornings and nights in semesters past, I wanted to give those afternoons to ruby. ruby, without a capital R, just to make my dear friend Donnie laugh - the irony of life is surpassed by no writer. The same ruby from early March, 2001, that made me first think of the phrase "Beautiful eyes..." the moment I saw her, and has it echo in my mind each time I see again those blue spheres that cursed me. Patience I had. I would lie if I said I simply waited - it is proven right here that I did not - but my hope never faded, and though I at times walked other fields, I always came back. Until, after a great turmoil, my waiting proved to have been worth it - ruby became my girlfriend.
But although I would love to make a post solely about that fact, and go on to mention the other ironies involved, especially those relating to movies we saw together, this is the anniversary post, and I would have to get rid of all the mentions of everything else, and change the opening quote... So a post specific to this end will have to wait. My apologies.
Well. The Vineyards are one year old. As with nearly everyone who starts a blog - or a Journal -, I did not expect it to last more than six months - and it nearly did end a number of times, after three weeks, two months, five months... But I picked January 1st so I would not have to remember its anniversary - I guess I did expect it to last at the very least one year, or I would have just picked any other day. Here is to it, then, the first year of the Vineyards, filled with many dead power supplies, yet lacking so many things - some of which I now include. One year. Time to prepare the soil for the next season. I wonder what the bottles of Lorneau 2004 will taste like...