so early
why am i awake?

austin, jess, and tao. check out their posts. all good, and all somewhat related.

always seeking, vs always vigilant? they're complementary, just like austin said. or meant to say, rather. you can't be one or the other. if you're always seeking, you're never going to find it. it could pass right by you while you're rushing blindly forward. and always vigilant, you might see so many opportunities and never take them.

options? i agree with jess. you have to say fuck it. i hate when a group of people gets together and cannot make up its collective, sheep mind. all of these intelligent people afraid to take responsibility, take a chance, and possibly take the blame if something goes wrong. many times i get fed up and choose for the group, without any more information or credibility to choose than anyone else. it works out; i end up getting my way.

austin is right about not always being able to recognize the best choice without testing out the choices, the act of which is a choice in and of itself. but what can you do? do it! fucking roll the dice! call the raise, see the flop. go all in. you have to. otherwise, why are you alive?

i don't really know what to say about tao's post. it's good. i see a lot of what he's saying. i like the deepening of the lost cities analogy a lot. i'm paralyzed by many of the same doubts. word.


i don't sound halfway as intelligent as i'd like to. der...

jess, the english language sucks. i hate all the little grammatical rules that only serve to make it a bitch language to learn. i don't know how it stacks up against other languages. but there's a reason there are so many words that mean happy, or so many words that mean snide, or so many words to describe the expression on someone's face when you give her a bouquet of daisies. you're right, generalizations work. and are easier to understand. but you can't capture the depth of human experience and emotion with basics. how can you describe how breathtakingly, heartstoppingly, unbelievably beautiful the girl you're in love with is if the only word you can use is "pretty?" are human beings basic? are we basic? we are. i am. but we're also so much more. i am.


and when she says she wants somebody else
i hope you know
she doesn't mean you
and when she breaks down and makes a sound
you'll never hear her
the way that i do
and when she says she wants someone to love
i hope you know
she doesn't mean you

i'm sorry about the confusedness of vanhouten. i thought about saying no spaces, but that would've made it too easy! for those of you who guessed ralph wiggum (wiggam?), i would like to be him, but i'm pretty sure the pure patheticity of my life matches milhouse much better.

more lyrical fun
i don't wanna be an old man anymore
it's been a year or two since i was out on the floor
shakin' booty makin' sweet love all the night
it's time i got back to the good life

She clings to me like cellophane
Fake plastic submarine
Slowly driving me insane
But now that's over

So what if the sex was great
Just a temporary escape
Another thing I grew to hate
But now that's over

Why
Why you always kick me when I'm high
Knock me down til we see eye to eye
Figured her out I know she
May not be Miss Right she'll do right now

she'll do right now

I used to hang on every word
Each lie was more absurd
Kept me so insecure
But now that's over

She taught me how to trust
And to believe in us
And then she taught me how to cuss....That bitch!
It's over

i like this song. i'm not posting it because it has anything to do with anyone i know. no sarcasm, i swear.

my love, my love
we'll beat back the pain we've found

freak out!!!

long absence. sorry. i have much to blog. i don't think i'll do most of it. what's on my mind right now:

i'm freaking out now. i got my LSAT score back on sunday (which was 22 days, you late LSAC bastards). i got a 172. 172!!! i am so happy with it. i was scoring 175 on practices, but at that level, you can't complain. it's 99%. sure, some people scored higher than me, but not many.

this is great. this is also horrible. i didn't have to think about things before. i could wait until after i got my LSAT score back. now i've got it back. now i have to think. now what do i do? with my life? with my intelligence, with my education, with my abilities? with my interests (haha, as if this one matters)?

there's new pressure. law school was a possibility, not a definite. if i did well on the LSATs, i would apply, otherwise, why bother? shit. i did well. now i have to apply. and i can't do it halfassed. i need to really write out these apps. i need to put time into my personal statement. i need to talk to my professors, and somehow wrangle favorable recs out of them. i need to get off my fucking ass this semester, because it matters again, and even though i don't care, my future cares for me. my responsibility to my parents, who gave me all my intelligence (fuck nurture. it's all genetics), to my brother, who isn't as smart as me but wants me to succeed more than i do, and to myself. even though i don't care - and it's not a pretense, i really don't. don't worry, it makes sense to me - i know that however many years from now, i'll be glad i worked, or i'll hate myself because i didn't. i don't know.

college was a definite. of course i had to go to college. that's a sure bet. it's safe, there's no other move to make. the best way i can think of to describe it is when i play lost cities with tao. no one else will understand this, but: it's like playing the next highest card on your venture. it's an assured correct move, and it buys you time while you draw another card. you can't go wrong playing a 3 after a 2, and you get to draw another card after playing the 3, and you can assess your options again with this new card in your hand.

law school is not a 3. it's a 5, or a 6. i could be skipping cards. i could lose points on this. what if i draw the 4 right afterwards and it was a mistake to play that 6? how can i know?

why am i going to law school? it's more borrowed time. some more energy for my legs to burn while i tread water. my brother said i'd do well on the LSAT, which is very important to admission. i did well on the LSAT. calvin's dad is an intellectual property lawyer. ip law is only open to those with engineering degrees, eliminating much competition. law is a prestigious, well-paying career. i don't want to work as an engineer. i don't understand circuits, and i certainly don't like them. what else can i do, get a real job and a real life? become a real adult?

my (cynical) reasoning is this: everyone hates their job. if i can find a tolerable one, that's pretty good.

austin vehemently disagrees with me on this point. he loves his classes. his research, his work. he's applying to graduate school because he wants to learn more. i say he's lucky. not many people are gifted with so many interests, not to mention the natural talents and abilities to pursue and make a career out of them. i don't think i am. what do i do for fun? i read books. i don't want to write, and i don't think i could if i wanted to. i play video games. i can't code. i know, i've tried. playtester isn't exactly financial security. i make fun of people. how could that possibly be a job? i play frisbee. if i was good enough to play past college in the first place, it's not even a career.

i had a long talk with my friend Ariel about this. he helped a LOT. whew. thanks buddy. his story: he's my year, from the same town of Longmeadow. went to embry riddle aeronautical university, graduated a year early, decided he does not want to be a pilot. he's been killing time, exploring possibilities while staying at home with his parents and working water-treading jobs. a host at bertucci's, a repo phone guy for honda. he almost went through with joining the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) and the US Airforce before changing his mind for various (good) reasons. he just quit at honda and is leaving on thursday for New Hampshire to intern for the Howard Dean presidential campaign for three months.

i feel like he's a peek into our future, since he's our year but he graduated early. he's got good perspective on all of this. i don't feel like going into our conversation, but he was able to sort a lot of things out for me.

it's kind of disappointing... afterwards i was trying to explain to kelsey what this feeling is in my gut, and why it's there. i hope it's because she can't understand, and not because she doesn't care, but she completely did not get it.

this whole thing made me miss makiko so much. i wonder if she felt this same fear, and how she dealt with it. it also reminded me to write her about visiting in the winter, which should be awesome.

wow. i think i got most of it out now. the feeling in the pit of my stomach is still there. but i know what it is, and why it's there. more or less... maybe i can start on this data structures assignment due in 9 hours.

coming soon
catherine's embarassing story
atlantic city
umass

shit, i had a good one i didn't want to forget. i forgot it. i can't believe i forgot it. the ones up there don't even matter, it was this one i wanted! son of a

it's not a tumor
in an ah-nold voice.

for months now, it feels like, i've occasionally felt behind and below my left ear, due to an itch, and i always, ALWAYS, have a bug bite there. what the fuck? i don't ever have one on the right. is there a super juicy vein right there? i've never felt that spot and not felt a bug bite, for as far back as i can remember (maybe since the start of this semester). i'm kind of pissed off about this. maybe i have lower behind the ear cancer. i sleep on my side, and i always thought either one, but maybe i always roll over onto my right side and so only my left underbehind juicy ear vein is exposed. fucking mosquitoes. god sucks for creating them. that's fucking right. why not create a species that eats fucking dandelions or some shit to fill that spot in the ecosystem/food chain. stupid idiot moron god. you piece of shit.

i rule
for skipping all 5 of my classes. the 4th and 5th were a double class of applied math, but still. i was planning on going to asian civ, because it's the first class of the second half on the middle east, taught by a new teacher and everything. but i got up to my room a little before 2:40 and mary had IMed me saying something like, judging by your blog i guess we're not walking to class. hope your exams are going well. seeya. just that was enough to bother me. and then i checked her profile and saw an excerpt from that tonic song

you wanted more
more than i could give
more than i could offer
for a life that i can't live

that was also up on her profile after we stopped in sophomore year. and it disturbed me even more. i doubt it's there because of me, but still. i just wish she'd be consistent.

i know you're still reading this, even though i don't want you to. but i guess i can't really stop you, eh, mary?

i had more to post, but i don't feel like it anymore. later.

sorry i didn't go to lion's head. i'm feeling sick and tired, and just thinking of wings makes me nauseous since that saturday with the all you can eat and drink. plus, i'd rather not see mary anywhere, since that just kills any semblance of good mood i'm in. same reason i didn't go to homecoming, really.

wow, i played terribly at practice tonight! everyone did, though. and i guess i played well before the actual swilly scrimmage.

UMass this weekend should be awesome. i like going home, provided there are people my age to hang around. minigolf? bowling? cruising for 13 year old sluts at the mall? strip club? this is gonna be great.

my feet smell SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bad.

cait, don't worry, i'll get you some other practice.

sad

warning: you might not want to read this if you haven't seen kill bill yet.

i got the kill bill VCDs and a program to play them on my computer from Raj tonight. watched it again. i read more of the winter king through the first half, i mostly wanted to see the showdown at the house of blue leaves again. everyone really needs to see this movie. i think it's really good. i feel like people who disliked it didn't quite grasp the feeling underlying the whole piece. if you've already seen it, ask me and i'll send you the VCDs. but if you haven't yet, you ought to see it in the theater your first time. it's not the same on one's computer with the little "property of miramax" across the top.

after reading aintitcool's review of the movie, my opinion of it changed a lot. i think my mind is too malleable... i remember liking the matrix: reloaded a lot (besides a few rants), then reading a review and realizing how much it blew in various ways.

anyways, the movie is so _sad_. the bride (i hear her name is beatrix kiddo, which explains why o-ren and she both say "silly rabbit, trix are for kid") is out for revenge. they never explain why, but her family, of sorts, betray her and her husband-to-be shoots her in the head, while she is pregnant with their child.

i almost felt like crying with her when she first wakes up and wails for a few solid minutes. that was some pretty good acting. i wonder what she could possibly have thought of to summon that sort of emotion? and the review points out moments in the movie, like when o-ren apologizes to bea for ridiculing her, and when bea slumps on the bench after winning the duel. that doesn't seem like victory. she's going around slaughtering her former companions and paying them back for what they did to her, but how can that bring back the pain she's felt, or the child she lost, or the 4 years gone forever and the awful things that happened to her while she was in a coma? when they're all dead, she won't have anything to live for.

i don't know why this affects me so much. it's weird. i really needed to see those certain scenes again after reading that review. at the risk of sounding like a moron, this movie just backs up what batman always said... revenge is empty. what's the point?

at the same time, i definitely know how it is to feel pain, and to need to pay back the person who hurt you, a thousand times over. goddamn. fucking. bitch.

one for three, completed the set, blew off 250, sixteen candles, molson canadian

so we go to loew's lincoln sq. at 68. this was inherently a risky move, but neither amc 25 at times sq. or loews 34 had both lost in translation and school of rock. unfortunately, we rolled the dice and lost. lost in translation was in the downstairs theater, so we could not get into the school of rock afterwards.

instead we went to barnes and noble, where i bought books 1 and 2 of the warlord chronicles, " a fantastic revision of the standard Arthurian legend." i borrowed them from steiner a few years ago. i'd bought book 3 off the sidewalk for $4 on my way to royal kebab and curry 2 weeks ago, and wanted to reread the series. they were damn expensive though... $14 and $15. jeez.

came back here, read for a while, didn't feel like going to the concert, and then went over to mara's. hamilton deli closes the grill 10 minutes before 9 pm, the fuckers. so we ordered tomo, which was really good, and way more food than i needed. watched sixteen candles with mara because she'd never seen it. it was kind of weird, because i remember watching it with mary at the beginning of junior year. that was when we hadn't talked to each other at all over the summer, and then i found out she did still want to be my friend. halfway through the movie she turned to me and hugged me, not even watching the rest of the movie. that has to be one of the only times she ever showed caring.

anyways, the movie was hilarious, as always. mara was all right. kidding! she's always a good time. heh, that sounds dirty. i came back here around 11:30 because some people wanted to hang out, and where else can we hang out but party central?

tao, sai, austin, dave, jess, and ben came. we played some up and down the river, and some speed quarters, and then we added some rules to quarters. which worked out really well. i like it. i left 2 messages on corey's voicemail but didn't get him, sadly.

i was again impressed by austin's ability to bring the party singlehandedly when he wants to. maybe that's why he doesn't do it so often... i think this is the first time since the summer that he got drunk. he booted pretty good, maybe more than once. but really, it was basically me, austin, ben and tao playing quarters, drinking heavily, and screaming along to songs and pissing off my suitemates. so great.

LiT SoR KB

i'm going to 3 movies today. lost in translation, school of rock, and kill bill. i'm listening to the soundtrack for kb right now, it's incredible. almost better than the movie.

i was going to go to the game originally. it sounds like fun. and raj's frat, psi u, will have 2 kegs in the back of a van in the parking lot, and i am welcome to it. but, i decided against it. as i told austin, seeing mary there screaming like a hick and having a good time in general would just kill any good mood i'd be in. ah well. movies are good too.

and i don't really want to see wyclef in concert. so whatever.

hopefully i'll get to spend time with mara tonight after i get back, or after she gets back from the ambush clinic in s brooklyn. i admire her for going by herself when no one else wants to go.

i'm still sitting here in my underwear, and i have to meet at 114 and bway in 15 minutes. crap.

do people want me to comment on their comments? and if so, in blog or haloscan? i noticed long threads in other blogs' comments, but that seems kinda strange to me.

it's 2:39 in the am. this is about the time where i realize i can't sleep, and stay up late thinking. i don't like thinking. it's more trouble than it's worth. and i never dwell on good things. so, i'm going to read the cat who walks through walls until i can fall asleep. i really need to find a good video game, or fantasy series again. eternal darkness is all right, as is final fantasy tactics, but neither one has that, can't eat, can't sleep, can't think about anything else but reading/playing feel to it. i miss that. oh, to be young again.

all my material

all jokes originate from me. irrelevant of time, that is. i'm serious. i don't know how it happens. some examples:

at the rutgers tournament, i kept calling my guy "#fat" all the time. cuz he was fat. it was funny. mary kept calling her chick "fat whore."

when watching gremlins, i went upstairs for a little bit. when i came back down, all the little bastards were kickin' it in the town bar. i remarked, you know, if it weren't for that killing problem, they'd be pretty awesome to party with. and while i was upstairs, don had said something like, if they weren't homicidal killers, then they'd be cool to hang out with. i'm paraphrasing here, but you get the idea.

this week, the onion has as one of the little picture blurbs in the sideline "Arnold elected first horseman of the apocalypse." I've been saying that for days now.

and this is an old example, but i wore the salmon shirt years before ross did it on friends. and my colorblind, loser friends all claimed it was pink.

i have more evidence, but i can't remember it.

god is stealing all my jokes.

TWO DOLLARS! wait, i mean months. two months.

you know what's funny? i've never dated, or gone out with, or whatever you call it, a girl for longer than two months. i've been in weird, painful things for much, much longer (i'm talking about high school, not college). i'm pretty sure something is wrong with me. but i did go out with this girl from my hometown in the summer between sophomore and junior year, when i was working at home. she was one year younger, a friend of a friend, went to smith, HATED all the nasty lesbos there, really into jd salinger and photography, and she liked me a lot more than i liked her. heh, all my friends thought she was prettier than mary. clearly, i had the upper hand in that relationship. when i broke up with her (as soon as we both went back to college, i was willing to give it a shot, but then she went INSANE), we were pretty much exactly at two months. the amusing part is she read that as a commitment problem on my part. even though it wasn't by my choice with any other girl. but i guess she didn't know that. why did i break up with her? she was pretty, she had a nice body, and she was smart (but not as smart as me, which is important). wasn't nailing her worth a few phone calls and the occasional visit to northampton? wait, no, it definitely wasn't.

austin's post and that commitment theory brought that to mind. go read austin's post. god damn, i hate sex and the city.

too much

to blog.
drinking.

ok, let's see...

austin, jess, and makiko all have real good blog entries. actual thought provoking stuff. tao also has a real good enty, i'm going to paste the part i like in here (sorry if i'm stealing your content, tao). austin's is too long to steal the good stuff. jess, interesting stuff, although i don't know why you can't just email the damn girl. weirdo. makiko, you're like that ugly kid in class. i had an analogy to make, originally. but i'm just going to leave it at you being ugly.

here's tao:

Now I'm in the CLIC lab... again. Got most of my programming for OS out of the way. It's 99% done, just needs documentation and a going over to make sure I didn't misread the assignment. There are always two fairly cute girls in the lab. They're interesting for a few reasons. (1) Neither is Asian. (2) They're attractive, yet they're majoring in CS. (3) One of them speaks Chinese, probably better than I do (see #1). So, yeah, they scare me.

Whenever I'm in here, there's always at least one person hunched over, asleep at his keyboard. That's so depressing, I think I'm going to cry.


added austin to links again. fixed krischelle's link. you know it took me 3 days to figure out who the hell "milked" was when she commented on my blog? weird. taking off pardo's, cuz it's dead.

christian commented on my blog. i like it. one of my shouldas from freshman year is joining the frisbee team. it sounds like it was a hell of a time. and whenever i do hang out with christian, he's an awesome fella. so i added him over on the left. sorry i haven't made it to any of your shows. i'll make it before i graduate.

uh, party last night was awesome. party of 7 people. rock. i'll explain later.

columbia 250 is this weekend. who wants a party on friday or saturday? give me some feedback, and maybe i'll have another one.

who is mena

data structures at 11am. open book, open notes.
south asian civ at 2:40pm.

i need to start studying. running out of time...

i think i started this with something worthwhile to say. i don't remember anymore.

oh, one thing. checking out blogs from links on one's friends' blogs is kind of weird. seeing what these people write, and sometimes the intensely personal and vulnerable things that are put out there... i feel like such a voyeur. but this is the internet! they're linked to, so they must be ok with strangers possibly finding their journals and looking through them. i know tao, while not exactly keeping it secret, did not tell many people about his blog at first.

myself, i feel strange about, not strangers reading it, but people i don't really know. i don't mind the idea of people i've never met knowing about my day to day goings on, or the intense anguish i go through at times. that's fine. but the thought of a freshman on the frisbee team having this idea of me, and then going to my blog, and probably seeing something completely different, kind of weirds me out. and for the people i know well, there are some i wish i could block out of here. i don't want some people to have this window into my head, or my life, when i don't think they deserve it.

someone send me something to listen to so i can stop repeating dashboard. good god.

where's that title from?

it's 11am now. still not at work. dammit.

simplify

my life

things that make me happy

good friends
frisbee
video games
buying dvds
ogling hot girls without doing anything about it
playing dungeons and dragons

things that make me unhappy

bad friends
school work
work work
getting a job or going to law school
selfish thoughtless uncaring lying bitches
poker, lately
being lonely

let's see... frisbee i'm doing. friends i'm trying to spend time with. video games i need to get back into. i think i'm getting old. but i miss the golden days of the 4 player n64 games: smash brothers, mario party, mario tennis, goldeneye. nothing like that on gamecube really. melee isn't as good as smash n64. maybe i should buy the gamecube mario party. buying dvds i have kept up with impressively, but it's not a good habit, truth be told. and i'm going to give up on the ladies. i think i'll be fine just staring at the hot ones without trying to make anything of it. dungeons and dragons, i'm seriously giving thought to trying to start again. but time... don't know where i'll find the time.

bad friends aren't really a part of my life. this includes most of the crowd from freshman year. but they can all eat it. schoolwork i've eliminated from my life as much as i possibly can. i'm rather proud of that. work work really isn't too bad, and i could use the money. i'm going to set my alarm tonight for the first time this semester, so i can wake up and get into work at 9am. we'll see if i do. job or law school is unavoidable. such is life. as for the bitch... i'll get it eventually. poker recently has been ludicrous. i'm going to stop playing for a while. and being lonely... not much i can do about that, besides spend time with my friends, and try to be content when i'm by myself.

that's my life, split into the good and bad. i wish it was easy as making a list and crossing out the items that one does not need. but why can't it be that easy? i just need more self control. as far as people go, it's great how i can summarize who i'd like in my life and who i wouldn't. all i have to do is look at my buddy list.

you know what movie i've always wanted to see (who am i talking to?)? what dreams may come. it has robin williams in it. i've heard it's a horrible movie, but the one commercial i saw for it had this amazing scenery - i think - and the title sounds so cool. something about him trying to find his deceased wife in his dreams, or other worlds?? i don't know.

eliza dushku is so hot. can't wait for tru calling. and for the new guy to drop in price on dvd.
jessica alba is so hot. can't wait for honey.

i was looking over my post and realized i didn't put my family on the good list. that's sad. i think maybe it should be there in its own right, but at the same time i'm not sure if i'd only be putting it down because i feel like i have to. i love my mom, despite her being insane sometimes. and i love my brother, despite him being a fuckup sometimes. and i love my dad, despite not ever really having one. whew. i should call home.

title

a few things

1) frisbee's the only thing keeping me going. i'm so glad i'm decent at it now, otherwise i don't know what i'd have to look forward to.

2) too many midterms coming up. suck.

3) dashboard confessional is incredibly depressing. and wimpy. why am i listening to it?

4) i remember having lots more thoughts swimming around. what happened to them?

1a) practice tonight was good. lots of rookies, but that always gives me a chance to do more. i find myself waiting too much when it's all vets. i played well, not counting flapjacking 2 perfectly fine passes to me (one in the endzone from mark, one from salty), and turfing an easy break mark backhand to mark in the endzone. i beat harvard john in some of the sprints, too.

hurt

i know i'm a good person. i try really hard to be one on the whole. i'm not talking about working at soup kitchens, or tutoring underprivileged children. i'm not trying to be that good... but to my friends, to the people i care about, i think that i am, overall, a pretty decent person.

it's too bad that caring about someone makes you so vulnerable. and especially the other way around. it's scary, that the more someone cares about you, the easier it is to hurt them.

maybe it would be better to just be empty inside. if i didn't care about anyone, then they wouldn't care about me. and then i wouldn't hurt anymore, and i wouldn't have to worry about hurting anyone else.

if i pretend for long enough, will it eventually become the truth?

i want to put my thoughts out here. it helps me, i think. but i'm not giving a name, or names. so please don't ask. please don't even try to guess it yourself. i want you to read this, and tell me what you think, but you don't need to know if i'm talking about any people in particular to do that.

private journal... i should just create a blog and not make it readable.

by the way, kill bill was awesome. can't wait for volume 2.

party

suite ec h103e finally threw a proper party! i would say it was a success, despite some fucking ASSHOLE strangers who came by and set off our chemical fire extinguisher. more details later, but for now, thanks to:

garrett, for giving me money without being asked. and then going on a beer run. and buying snacks out of his own pocket.
stu and amanda, for giving me money without being asked. did i forget anyone?
garrett, casey (goose), and ani (who bitched a lot about it) for going on a beer run to the now open 24 hrs appletree.
everyone who gave me money for the beer run when i went around asking.
catherine, sai, and kelsey, sasha, and anyone i forgot for helping me clean up the mess last night.

all of my suite, for cleaning up today and for paying for the party and for being cool in general. penny didn't contribute any money, but she was a good sport about the party besides that.

i know i say only pussies count, but i'm doing it anyways. we went through 11 6s of natty ice and light (natty lice), 4 12s of yuengling lager and black&tan, the 30 buds that the rookies brought back from appletree, the 3 magic hat #9s from my personal collection, 2 miller lites, an 18 of coors light that don's friends brought, and a medley of bud, bud light, coors light, and nattys leftover from the last party. close to 200! that's almost a keg and a third.

i'll finish later. too much posting.

london

being home saturday during the nice would've sucked, because i wanted to go to the second day of rutgers, but it was good because i got to spend it with london. we met on the steps and ate some frozen yogurt, then walked around the street fair on broadway. i kept asking her if i should buy these terrible items as birthday gifts for people, and i think she thought i was being serious. i did buy 3 finger puppets from a stand, a cow, a green man with orange overalls (don't ask), and a squirrel. rubes really liked the squirrel, so that's good. i still need to get him a proper present. and i bought a little rattle bear for sara. then we came back here, and she tried to do some of her reading for her baroque art class. she kept asking me to put on a movie, and she actually requested one of the b movie softcore porns i got from deepdiscountdvd. so i put in midnight tease (which i hadn't seen before; it's on the same disc as midnight tease 2, an altogether quality film), and she read her book at a speed of about 10 pages an hour. maybe half an hour through, the girls were disappointingly not hot, so we changed it to the yankees red sox game, which the yankees won. it was 4-3, pretty close. london went home around 7:30 or so to get ready for her coyote ugly urban cowboy theta party.

thanks for spending yesterday with me, london! i had a really good time.

rutgers

friday night. we played towson, bucknell, and george washington. won our first, lost the other two. interestingly, i played extremely shitty against towson and played well in the other two. actually, i turned it around halfway through the second game, more like. i was really mad at myself at first... i had no energy, i dropped so many passes, and one time while throwing zone and i was in the cup, i just got broken repeatedly. it was terrible. all those passes i dropped were not good, but very catchable. i was so pissed off after that first game, but i brought it back up against bucknell and had some really good points. and it gave me some real intensity, which i think i spread around the team.

it feels so good to cut in, dump it, go back for another dump, and break your mark to swing it over. at least, i think i did that one point. and i caught an incredibly sweet hammer from mike liu for a goal. against gw, i was covering this fat guy who always played handler and stayed back for the dump. the poor guy could not get open, he tried going past me, he tried going back, it was great. i got our team fired up when we were too chill, too. brian white is lots of fun to watch sometimes.

sadly, i got back home, i went to sleep, and when mike woke me up at 8am to get on the bus, i had to stay home to do my data structures homework. i used both late days on this last one, meaning i'm out of excuses. the best - or worst part - is that the coding took maybe 2 hours, and the commenting maybe a half. it was so easy... but i really couldn't make myself work on it while i still had late days. no more of that from now on.

career fair

i went in with my suit, my timberland message bag, a clipboard full of resumes, and a lot of reservations. it was all right, though. i talked to an IP law firm, a different law consulting group sort of thing, the CIA, NSA, the federal energy regulatory commission, and maybe some others. the fair itself isn't that important, most of the groups explained that hiring is done by someone else and though they do take resumes, one still has to submit a resume online via the official process. it's good to see who's interested in columbia grads, though. i didn't get a lot of free stuff, because i wanted to actually talk to the groups... freshman year i went in with a sweatshirt and grabbed a whole bunch of logoed junk. i did make out with a CIA flashlight, pen, and pin, though.

we'll see. i guess i should apply to law school too. so it goes.

here i am, at work again. it's 1pm. 4 hours after i would ideally arrive. that's all right. so i woke up around 10:30am. talked to jess, who actually got his program to work correctly this time. did nothing about that. couldn't find my resume (did a search for "resume" on my HD and get the templates), worried a little, then did a search for "eric chang" and found it right in the my documents folder. need to update it. now. before the career fair ends. at 4.

it's a miracle they haven't fired me at the CFR office yet. i could definitely put in 15 hours a week, easy. 9-1 monday, 9-1 wednesday, 9-5 with 1 hour lunch on friday. i could even put in 9-3 MWs. but i usually don't get here til noon. just because. and then i don't do any work. i do this, or i fool around on the internet. i don't know. i wonder if i have any good references at all. i should try to work on that. and recommendations. prof. kinget would be great, but he might be a little peeved about this lab report that wacek and i owe him.

i should make a to do list. i do that every so often. but i think it would just horrify me if i looked at a complete list right now. so i won't.

time to do my timesheet. what did i put in, 5 hours this week? that much, even? pathetic.

rutgers! i hope coach gives me some playing time. i got so much better this year. but it only really shows around the rookies. around the vets, i do an all right job. i don't drop, and i don't throw away, and i make cuts, but nothing spectacular. i think i'm all around solid, but that doesn't offer much over the other guys. we'll see.

heh, i'm dressed up in a suit and tie and all that jazz. it's funny. i hate dressing up, mostly because it's impossible to find clothes that fit me. i stole one of my brother's suits from home, because he's an idiot about spending money and spent maybe $400 or $700 (can't remember which) to get this one tailored to him. my shirt is also nice, but not custom made, so it's a bit long (can't see it under the pants) and i have to double back the cuffs. but it's a little strange, the jacket is a little tight around. my brother is much skinnier than me. the pants are fine, though.

neil said i look like a hitman (i've got my hair in a ponytail). i can live with that. pooja started grinning when she saw me. she said i look cute, i protested that i was trying to look joblike, and she said it's cute because i normally don't look businesslike but now i do. good save.

thanks for breakfast, pooja! you're the bestest.

i was trying to explain to her how since i had 3 things to do, i didn't want to get started on any one, because it seems unfair to the others. by her logic, i would never get anything done, then. pshaw... but i am at work, and i'm going to update my resume here, so in a way, i'm only leaving out data structures. nevermind that i'm not actually doing work.

i'll stop rambling now. stupid resume. i hate it.

it's 5:31 am, friday morning. still haven't done the data structures. i'll probably just use my last late day so i can get them out of the way. the retarded thing is that my friday is completely full. i should go to work from 9-4, and we leave for the tournament at 4:30. plus, the career fair is today from 10-4, and i should go there. but i haven't updated my resume since before the summer. i hate this.

i shouldn't even be awake now. but they turned on the goddamn heat and now it's always too hot in my room. so i keep the window open. but the assfuck asians across the courtyard are playing a drinking game, and that woke me up, and i can't fall back asleep.

i was really happy earlier in the year. now i'm all messed up again. working on it, though. thanks mara.

a few people have asked me, so... i never actually told mary the really, really important thing that i wanted to tell her. she'd rather move far away than have to "talk" about anything, and it's easier to just not talk to her at all than try to be friends with her, so yeah. oh well. mary, stop reading my blog.

came back from practice last night. did neither my signals pset or my data structures homework. i did eat 2 beef patties and drink a magic hat #9 at hogan, where we watched atlantis. cool movie. very pretty.

it's too hot in here. with the heat on, it's definitely too hot. i have my window open and that doesn't help... it just makes my room too noisy. damn heat. or cold. i'm not sure which.

i've done a decent amount of work here in the office. maybe 30-45 minutes worth. considering i only got here an hour ago, that is pretty good percentage wise. so i thought i'd average it out with a break.

still no aim here. my cunix account is too filled with junk and old email that i can't quite bring myself to delete. and since i have no admin privileges and the only way i can think of to get around it is to upload the already installed aim from my pc to my cunix and then directly onto this computer, i had to do it in 2 parts. so half of the program is on here now, hopefully by wednesday i'll be up and running. i thought about getting deadaim for the transparency effect, but who really cares. enough to get me in trouble, anyways.

the LSATs - looooooooong, detailed, involved post. only read after 3am in the morning.

we didn't get to longmeadow til 1am in the morning. this would be considered bad by many people. but it wasn't so terrible. first of all, i could have slept on the car ride, but i didn't feel like it. considering i hadn't gone to bed til 4am the previous night, i don't think i would've slept more if i'd arrived at home a few hours earlier. it's just the relaxing time i missed, but it turned out not to be important.

i woke up around 6:45, showered, had some breakfast (really just heated up spaghetti from last night's dinner that we missed), and left with raj for WNEC around 7am. we knew we didn't have to leave that early but since we were up we figured might as well. the admission ticket said report by 8:30, the info sheet advised us to be there by 8, and we actually got there at 7:20. ridiculous. so we sat in the car for a while, making fun of everyone else sitting in their cars with their coffee. then we went to dunkin donuts to get coffee.

i've never liked coffee. so bitter. but i got a medium hazelnut with extra cream and sugar, and it was actually pretty good. i was pleasantly surprised. raj got the breakfast sandwich combo. they mistakenly charged us for only raj's meal, and left out my coffee. score.

drive back to WNEC (the dunkin donuts is about a block away), wait in the lobby for a while. go upstairs and wait for a while. have a somewhat amusing conversation with the other people sitting at our table: a 50ish man with an accent and an acerbic manner, a 25ish married fella, and an anarchic girl probably just out of college. raj and i are in the same room (banik and chang), and our line to get thumbprinted and stuff is no wait (score again). we go in and sit down at the places already demarcated (is that the correct usage of the word?) by little signs with our names on them.

blah blah blah, procedure, fill out stuff, blah blah. our test is held up for maybe 20 minutes by a man on the verge of tears because the proctor won't allow his timer (it was a beast of a watch with multiple functions, but i doubt it a) made noise, or b) contained the answers to the exam). he eventually is allowed to move to a seat facing the clock (which is actually a big deal, seating charts are supposed to be prepared ahead of time and not changed). i almost got in trouble for going to the bathroom without asking permission first. luckily, they decided that i should still be allowed to take the test.

we prob. didn't start til 9:45 or so.

the test is already infinitely better than the one i took in june.
1) one of the proctors was a cute girl. too bad she goes to wnec and is therefore a moron.
2) they had our seating figured out and clearly marked. last time the proctor seated us individually, which took forever.
3) they understood that we had to fill out our information _before_ beginning the exam. and that all the preliminary stuff did _NOT_ come out of our time for section 1. oh my god, that stupid whore in june was so awful.

first section - arguments. easy. finished with over 5 minutes left, and didn't guess on a single one.

second - games. easy! so easy. finished with over 5 minutes left, and didn't guess on a single one.

third - games! 2 games means one is an experimental. this is the best possible scenario for me, since i actually enjoy the games and don't feel drained after doing a section (as opposed to reading comp. good lord). unfortunately, this section is ASS HARD.

6 garments - linen, polyester, rayon, silk, wool, and one other material on six hangers in a closet. i guessed on one.
4 songs - fucking gay sounding songs like rhino rock - played in a certain order on 4 different instruments - drums flute guitar harmonica. i guessed on 2 here.
7 assholes that served on either the finance board or the incentives board. these sons of bitches raped me. guessed on two.
8 motherfuckers sitting around a circular table. the best part is that during the drive to longmeadow, raj mentioned the circular table game from his book. apparently it had not shown up for 5 years but conceivably could come back. good god, this one was ridiculous. i guessed on 3 out of the 6 questions for this game. fucking how many people minimum could sit between manuel and ingrid? hell if i know.

after this section was the break, where raj and i concurred on the ass-hardedness of that last games section. and where we both learned that the other games sections we took were different, thus they were experimental, and therefore worthless.

section four - arguments again. not too bad. finished with 5 minutes left, went back and figured out 3 or 4 questions from the previous section.

section five - reading comp. pretty straightforward. nothing like the jumble of piss and shit that i had to deal with in june. plus i had 2 reading comp sections in june, and they were both shittier than a mexican outhouse. five minutes left, time enough to go back and figure out all the remaining questions but one from section 3.

writing sample - some shit about hosting a conference in either a big city or a remote hotel resort. whatever. i BSed the whole thing.

we left the building around 1:50, after getting to WNEC around 7:20. only 6.5 hours of my life wasted.

so i feel like i did pretty well overall. who knows. for all i know, everyone on average did much much better than in june. so even if i got a good raw score, the percentage might not be as good. and i'll never know how i did in june. but fuck that. i'll be happy if i beat josh. (he's a friend from home. got a 169 or 98%. i'm much smarter than him)

back to work?

i missed a few birthdays. happy birthday to

don - wednesday

mara - friday

krischelle - saturday

penny - yesterday (sunday)

sadly, i got only one free dinner out of all these birthdays. guess who's getting a present?

so many good things.

freddy vs. jason movie poster for $1

sunday dinner buffet at royal kebab and curry (indian) at 103rd and broadway for $10.50

a nice, almost perfect edition of Excalibur, by bernard cornwall, from some guy on the sidewalk for $4

LSATs are over, and i'm sure i did well

if only any interaction i had with mary didn't completely fall apart every time, i'd be set.

for the excruciatingly painful chronicle of the LSATs and the difficulties involved in getting to them, check out raj's blog.

every time i try to be close to her, she keeps me farther away. and another piece of me dies. i'm just going to tell her everything. the complete truth, and see how she takes it. if she never wants to talk to me again, that's fine.

i'm back in my dorm room. i just took the LSATs again this morning, back home at Western New England College. i feel good! more on this later.

finished paper at 2:36 pm. printed it out, stapled it, was out the door by 2:39. class is at 2:40. i rock.

i didn't go into work this morning. i attempted both problem sets (applied math + signals and systems 2) in the afternoon and made very little progress. steiner jess and i did finish our lab in one hour out of the 2.5 hour period, which was good. skipped practice tonight. i went to dinner at cara mia with don and friends and his mother, for his birthday. really really good. i got the farfalle with salmon. they weren't kidding when they said they were bow ties, as scott said, one could literally wear one with a tux. minus the sauce, preferably.

i worked some more on math with catherine when i got home. basically i did one problem, and i'm going to copy answers from the back, or guess, or leave them blank. i gave up on signals after staring at it for 15 minutes and not getting anywhere new. and now i have to pick a paper topic. for south asian civ. 7 pages, double spaced.

that's why i'm updating my blog. after having read everyone else's blogs. 13 hours 40 minutes til this sucker is due. sometimes i wish i had the balls to throw myself out a window.