steam punk?

i was unaware that this was in any way a recognized genre, but a friend of mine lent it to me and noted that it was set in a steam punk universe. i admitted that this meant nothing to me, and the best explanation i could get was well, it is like cyber-punk, but with everything powered by steam. after a bit more description, i remembered watching steam boy, a good film by whoever did spirited away (an even better movie). basically, the idea is to imagine a world where requisite progress has taken place over the last couple hundred years, except electricity has not been harnessed. anyway, the book is called perdido street station, by some jackass who thought it would be cool to call himself china mieville (the first e has an accent over it). the picture inside the jacket does a lot to support the jackass epithet, and the guy who is lending me the book said he would not have purchased it had he seen the dude's photo. it isn't exactly judging a book by its cover, i guess. regardless, i am reading it, and after a slow start things have gotten more interesting. the guy kind of writes like a would-be intellectual who is constantly consulting a thesaurus (and now he is already repeating his obscure words, seventy-odd pages in). the story is gradually becoming more compelling though. if it winds up being really good or really bad i'll let you know. if it turns out to be mediocre, then probably i will not write about it.
i went to a talk at school today. a talk given by an alum who succeeded in his dream of being a sports agent. the vast majority of sports agents are lawyers; most sports require you to be a member of the bar to act as an agent for players in the big league (aka the only way to make money at it). i don't really think i would be a good sports agent, or that i would even want to be one, but i was really curious about what he had to say. the point for me was not that he was a sports agent, so i was pleased that the nuts and bolts of his job didn't dominate what he had to say, although that was sort of interesting too. he mentioned that his job requires him to know a little about a lot of law specialties: people get married and divorce, some 6'6" 330 lb. men want to design home products, sometimes a sense of entitlement leads to crime. the speaker himself was along the lines i imagined. kind of a chach, friendly personality, easy laugh, given to cliches, perhaps not the most successful student of all time. but he was articulate, so much so that he got me to understand why i had shown up, beyond mere curiosity. he was doing something he really wanted to do, and his law degree made it possible, and he does not sit behind a desk at some big firm writing memos and kissing partners' asses. he also brought my problem into sharp relief, even though i think i may have understood it on occasion. he was clear, if you want to have a non-traditional career related to law, you can have it. but you need a vision. you have to know what you want. when you know what you want, you can focus on bringing it about. every effort towards bringing about the exact thing you desire is either a step to making it happen directly or a lesson in how to actually get closer to making it manifest. i know it sounds kind of cheesy and motivational, and he admitted as much, but i really believe it. when a person knows what they want and makes that wish known, the desire is infinitely more likely to be realized. my problem is simply that i do not know what i want. and i knew that going into law school. i should have been able to see that going to professional school knowing only that i did not want to use it for the ends most people would not be real conducive to figuring it out. the experience is different from undergraduate in a lot of ways, but profoundly so in that you really need to know what you want to do when you show up; you can't figure it out in the process, because the process must be guided by that desire. the whole thing is only one year less than undergraduate work, but damned if you don't need to be way more on top of the ball from the get go. on the other hand, i guess i should cut myself some slack. i thought i knew what i wanted when i showed up, and it just didn't take long for me to realize that what i thought i wanted was either not what i thought it was or was simply an untenable desire. on further consideration, maybe those desires aren't entirely untenable, but perhaps i just don't want them bad enough to make them possible. that, and some of my research indicates that a couple of my interests are exclusively served by going to one of the magic fourteen schools at the top of the heap for no other reason than they have been around long enough to build a reputation and draw fat funding. i guess what i'm trying to say is that i have to make a serious decision, and that is probably my least favorite thing to do in the whole world.
aside from all that, my loans have finally gone through. i was pretty excited. i went home from school and got right down to work. thought maybe i'd go to the bar or something. around an hour ago, when i was wrapping things up, i was hit with the sudden realization that today was not just the day that major league pitchers and catchers report. no, school had mercifully failed to beat me over the head with the fact that today is a day of significance in this country. i might have seen things in passing, but my brain was certainly not preoccupied. before i called anyone, though (for the best, i guess), i realized that everyone i would have called is probably busy. i am left feeling more frustrated than lonely. it reminds me of remembering the liquor store (even when not state run) is closed from christmas eve through the 26th after it is too late. the good news is that i can still get booze today, so i am probably going to crack a (shitty) beer (i was going to ask someone who is undoubtedly otherwise occupied to drive to the beer distributor - i ain't carrying a case anywhere anymore tonight) and read this weird book and play some records. things could always be much, much worse. i could be a homeless. and still have to be a law student.
man, one more thing though. here is how today fucked me over again this year. the other night i actually poked around on facebook, mostly out of boredom, partly to look for somebody. i was overwhelmed by the percentage of profile pictures that were either wedding photos or pics of their newborns. a couple were just pictures of the girl's hand with a rock on the right finger. this could be skewed by my background, but still. anyway, i wanted to go on and on about it the next time i posted here. but now i feel like if i do that today, it just seems like i'm bitter and alone, which isn't the case; people identifying themselves in that way bothers me every day of the year. damn you, culture! i guess this self-conscious tirade is amounting to something just as bad. well, whatever. i'm not going to worry about it.
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