Friday, May 30, 2003

Julie and a Meatball Sub

Yesterday I didn’t get a thought up because I managed break my computer, so I spent most of the time installing and reinstalling stuff while I was at work. Lots of fun, believe me……ok, so I lied, big deal. At least it kept me busy and gave me the opportunity to chill to my mp3 player while I worked.

After work is when the actual part of my day starts. I pretty much just consider work a part of my day that I give up and then once it’s over I can start my usual routine. So yesterday after work I got together with Julie to have dinner. We perused the mall’s food court and finally decided to go with subway. I really wanted to get some Manchu Wok, but they don’t take credit cards and I didn’t have any cash. I don’t understand why they’re the only food place in the mall that doesn’t take credit card. I would eat there every time I was in the mall if they did, but since they don’t I usually eat somewhere else.

We had a nice time just relaxing and talking. It was really good to actually have something to do in that couple of hours I always have between finishing work and going to improv on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Usually I’d just work late or hang out by the studio academy and read or sleep while I waited for practice to start, but yesterday was different! Yay!

Improv practice went ok, but we were missing some people so it seemed like an incomplete practice. Afterwards, I headed home so I could get a little bit of time in playing Baldur’s Gate with Ryan. I really do love being able to play a role playing game with two players. I think he might have withdrawal from it this weekend as I will be gone. Yep, that’s right, I’m not going to be home as I’ll be taking off for St. Cloud after work today. It’ll be the only chance for us to hang out for almost a month since both of us have things going on for the next three weekends. Anyhow, I will update you all when I get back.

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Just Cut My Damn Hair

I have figured out what one of the most awkward situations in life is—paying for a hair cut at Great Clips (or, I suppose, any equivalent hair cutting place). Don’t think it’s awkward? Don’t have hair? Well, in either case, I’m going to let you into my world for a brief time so that you can experience this odd sensation of awkwardness.

After I got done with work yesterday I was supposed to go have supper with Julie, but the fates conspired against us and we didn’t end up getting together. First, I only had her cell number and she didn’t have her cell. I left her a message on her cell from my work phone. Why from my work phone and not from my cell? The reason for that would be that I had put my cell in the charger backwards the night before so instead of getting charged it had all the juice in it sucked out, so much so that it wouldn’t even turn on…until later at improv when I was demonstrating how it wouldn’t turn on. It then decided to turn on, but only for a moment before turning itself back off.

Anyhow, I couldn’t get a hold of Julie and she had no way of contacting me in Rochester when my cell was broken so I took the free time to get my hair cut. It was getting pretty shaggy and I was tired of wearing a mini-mop on my head so I had the hair cut lady (I don’t know what you really call them, stylists maybe? But they’re not styling my hair, they’re cutting it. Eh, whatev) take off a good amount of hair. It looked good and I was quite satisfied so it came time to pay.

I was at the register and the lady who cut my hair told me it would be $13 for the cut. That’s always been pretty expensive in my book for about 5 minutes of work (I don’t get my hair cut very complicated so it goes pretty quick). I give her my credit card and she asks me, “So that’ll only be $13 on your card?” Well, yes, of course, because that’s how much it costs. As I told her yes, she gave me a weird scowl like I was some type of thief or villain.

She handed me back my card and had me sign the receipt, but all the time glaring at me. Ahh, I know why she was looking at me so funny for now—she wanted me to tip her. Well, this may sound pretty callous, but she doesn’t need a tip from me. She’s getting paid by the hour and even if it is only $5 an hour or something small like that, I’m not taking up hardly any of her time—10 minutes tops, and what she is doing is quite easy. No shampooing, no conditioning, no coloring, no perming, no nothing except going over my head with a scissors and razor quickly. Call me a dick, but I can’t justify paying more than $13 for that. Why should she expect a tip? When I fix a computer at the prep school, they don’t tip me. When I update the web pages at Kingland, they don’t tip me. Why should it be any different for hair stylists (or waiters/waitresses, for that matter, but I’m getting off topic)? I don’t think she was going to convince me to tip her by glaring at me anyways. Oh well, I got my hair cut and was out of there in 15 minutes, so I was happy.

Yesterday I also picked up Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance for Xbox. It’s been a while since I’ve played a good role playing game and this one promised to be fun since you could play it with two players simultaneously. I got home after improv practice and fired it up. My brother, Ryan, and I decided we’re going to play through the entire game together. Really, I think all future role playing games should include this option because it’s so much more fun to play with someone else than by yourself. I know you’re going to tell me to go play some game like Everquest where there’s tons of people, but I don’t want to pay monthly fees or dedicate that much time to playing.

Anyhow, as we started one of the first characters you talk to is a barmaid who is half dressed and honestly has to have some of the most monstrous boobs ever seen in a video game. Not only are they huge, though, but they have realistic jiggling. I am pretty sure they put just as much development time into creating the physics of her boobs as they did implementing the new 3rd edition AD&D rules. I found it comical and unneeded at the same time. Really, is there any need for a gigantic breasted woman in a fantasy role playing game? I hope the rest of the game has less to do with boob physics and more to do with story and action.

Tuesday, May 27, 2003

Memorial Day Weekend

The Memorial Weekend of 2003 is now over and past. I hope you all enjoyed your weekend as I did. I was graced by a visit from Kristin as she stayed the weekend at my place. I’m still having a hard time adjusting to only being able to talk to her via phone or IM or email instead of getting to see her pretty much whenever I would want as I did up at college. It’s kind of that way with a lot of people. I don’t really get to see that many people now during summer with my job for 8 hours a day and then improv three days a week at night. This leaves me with only Monday nights, Wednesday nights, and the weekends open. Usually during those times I just want to sit back and relax with a good book or just hang out with my family.

Speaking of family, at the cemetery after our memorial day service I got to talking with my grandpa Bill about politics again. He doesn’t think that I appreciate the military and all of the people who died for our country because I am constantly criticizing our country. The fact of the matter is, I wholeheartedly respect all of our fallen brethren because they have fought for the freedom we have now, however, I will never actually fight for this country myself. Why? There are a few reasons.

First, I would not fight for the United States right now because I detest our foreign policy. Our war with Iraq, our involvement with Israel, our blatant disdain for the UN, and many other questionable actions by our nation have made me lose faith in our foreign policy. We are sticking our noses where they don’t belong and are acting in a way that I only envisioned a playground bully acting. If things aren’t how we like them, then we’re going to go make them how we want them. I’m not saying we should back out of all of our foreign affairs, but we really need to take stock about what we are doing and what our true motivations are.

Second, I would likely fight for the United States in a war if it wasn’t 2003. If it was 1943, I would probably not have as much of a problem being drafted because back then we were fighting the good fight. Now we are fighting the “good” fight. It’s not really the good fight anymore as it is more the “good for the US” fight. We try to make our actions look altruistic, but it is so hard for our true motives to not show through when you actually look at the news from a source outside of CNN and other US sources. They sanitize the world’s views about us so that we don’t feel bad about how we act, which is a shame, but it is not unexpected.

Lastly, I am a pacifist at heart. I really don’t believe in the concept of violence being used as a problem solving technique. Needless to say, though, I have tried violence as a problem solver with my brothers, but beyond that I don’t think it should be used. It only creates more strife instead of solving conflicts. Sure, a lot of times people won’t listen to what you have to say, but that doesn’t mean that a violent recourse is the only way to then get heard. Maybe we just need to be a little more persuasive in our negations in life. Even if that does not work, I still don’t think that violence is really a good way to solve problems.

Friday, May 23, 2003

Let's Start the Revoking!

To follow up a little on yesterday’s thought, here is another article about the recent turning over of Iraq to the US and UK. I really don’t think that this is going to be a good situation for the US. If anything, I can see this brewing more trouble for us than help it will provide for the Iraqi people. Giving the US and UK complete control over the reshaping of Iraq is like giving me control of a comic book shop for a year. Sure, I’m going to want to make sure the comic shop does ok, but I’m sure as hell going to make sure I get my fair share of comics for free, or of little charge. Basically, Iraq is going to be a US territory (not literally, but in spirit) for the next year or more in which time we decide what happens in that country. Honestly, I think that is way too much responsibility for the US to handle.

Anyhow, I’m just fed up with our foreign policy at the moment……ok, I’ve never liked our foreign policy, but anyways. So as I was coming to work this morning I was confronted by the epitome of human stupidity. Well, maybe not the epitome, but it was pretty close. I was driving to work on highway 14 and I was getting close to Kasson. I was going to pass a semi when the truck right behind the semi pulled out in front of my to pass. I slowed way down to the speed of the truck (about 66 on a 65 mph highway). This usually pisses me off enough, getting cut off like that, but wait, it gets better.

The semi in the left lane couldn’t have been going any slower than 65 mph and the truck that was passing it was cruising along at a whopping 66 mph so you can only imagine how slow this passing process was taking. Finally, as the truck was inching in front of the semi, it decided to match speed with the semi for a good, long mile. I’m not kidding, it just kept pace with the semi right at it’s nose so I couldn’t get around and the truck couldn’t merge to the right. I was about ready to just ram the truck off of the road.

The truck, by an act of God, finally got ahead of the semi after about 4 miles and merges to the left. YES!!! Finally, I can start driving again so I speed back up to 74 (always drive no more than 9 mph over the speed limit and most cops won’t take notice). I noticed, as I was booking along, that the truck I just passed was now keeping pace with me. What the hell?!?!? I just spent 5 minutes waiting behind him passing a semi at no more than 66 mph and now he just wants to cruise along with me at 74 mph. Honestly, I think I must have been in Bizzaro World again.

Just as a side note, the driver was a very old man which only goes to prove that people over the age of 60 should never, ever, in any given circumstance, ever drive a vehicle on a major highway. As a side note, most women shouldn’t drive either because I think every stupid driver that I have come across is either A) an elderly person B) a woman or C) some dumb college aged kid trying to get himself killed via caricide. Well, that’s just my opinion, so don’t take it too seriously.

Well, only about two hours of work left and then it’s a three day weekend! It should be a nice relaxing time as Kristin is coming down to visit Saturday and Sunday. I’m looking forward to it. Until the next entry—don’t eat the purple berries, they’ll make your liver explode.

Thursday, May 22, 2003

Iraq? You Mean US, Jr.?

While at work, I’ve ran across a couple of very interesting news articles. Besides being interesting, I see them as being a sign of a very dangerous future for the US. Before I go any further, the articles you should read are here and here.

According to these two articles, the US & UK will now be in charge of Iraq. We will be the ones in charge of the reconstruction and of their oil exportations. Iraq is a gold-mine of oil that is waiting to be tapped. The Iraqi oil processing facilities may not be in the greatest of shape, but I am sure that this will be one of the first things that the US addresses as it is rebuilding Iraq. Combine this with the fact that our main reason for going into Iraq (the finding and eliminating of weapons of mass destruction) has turned out to have been a wild goose chase, and we have some cause for concern.

We entered into Iraq because we thought that they possessed weapons of mass destruction and because we thought that they were connected to the terrorist organizations that were responsible for attacking our country in September of 2001. As one of the articles notes, we were not very sure about the connections being there, but we went forward anyhow. We also have not found any weapons like we said were there. These two facts raise many questions in my mind, as they should in the minds of any decent American.

Since we didn’t find what we were looking for, and our motivations for our actions were clearly misguided, shouldn’t we gracefully and apologetically leave? I would think that to be a logical course of action. We could even assist in the rebuilding of Iraq, but instead we are taking over the country with the UK for an indefinite amount of time (they will review how well we are handling Iraq in one year’s time). As I have said before, we are merely turning Iraq into our pawn. We need to start looking for our news from other sources than CNN and MSNBC, which are based in the US, because they skew the news to make it not so hard to swallow and to make it more pro-US. Read the BBC or any other country’s news and see how the US is viewed.

Okay, my political ranting is over. I’m just really questioning of the US’s motives for many of their actions. Anyhow, yesterday I started watching Children of Dune. This is the sequel to Dune that was show on the sci-fi channel a year or two ago. I was a big fan of the original and I missed this one’s run on television so yesterday I picked up the DVD. I’ve watched the first part of the three and so far I am not disappointed. It really makes me anxious to read the books, but before I get to them I have some other books on my to read list.

Tuesday, May 20, 2003

And It's Over

Happy birthday Randy! I hope that today was a great day for you. Everyone who wants, please wish him a happy birthday……even though if you’re reading this, it was probably yesterday. I wish today would have been my birthday, which is an odd thought in the first place (since I hate birthdays), but mainly I just feel that way because today was just so blah and yuck.

Today was one of those days where you wake up (or get woken up) and you just know that for whatever reason, the next 24 hours are just not going to go your way. That is probably one of the oddest feelings to have. Nothing has happened yet, you have the entire day ahead of you to make yours, and you are newly refreshed, yet you just know none of that matters and the rest of your day is slowly being flushed down the pooper.

It wasn’t waking up that was too bad, although I did get woken up a tad bit early by my dad. His intentions were good. It wasn’t work because there was nothing out of the ordinary there. I did spend most of the day working out one small javascript error, however. I even put in an extra hour today because I wanted to finish up my web pages. It wasn’t my little nap I took before improv practice. I don’t think it was practice or the ride home either. I think it was just an aura of evil surrounding me throughout the day.

Ehh, I’m not really up to writing more today. I’m sorry, but this short thought will be the cap on a completely forgettable day. The end.

Monday, May 19, 2003

Settling Back In

My first day of work for the summer is now in the past. This year’s first day was a lot different than last year’s. First, I didn’t have to go through all of the orientation that I did last year which was nice. I always feel more comfortable entering an environment where I have at least a little semblance of knowledge of how things operate. Second, I actually had work to get going on right away today as opposed to last year where it took a week or two before there was much for the interns to do.

It is a little weird being the only intern in the Rochester office, however, as it makes me feel really young. Of course everyone that is there is very welcoming and, in fact, it was nice to see a lot of the people there again, but just knowing that you are the lone intern is a little daunting. I feel like I have some high expectations to live up to since interning is basically a testing period. I really think I’d like to work for Kingland after December when I’m done with school, so because of that I feel like I have to show them a lot so that they will want to take me on as a part of their team. I’ve already admitted that I don’t know some of the tools that I will be working with, which can sometimes put you off on the wrong foot, but I believe that being completely honest about my skills would be better than getting some assignment that I was completely incapable of completing. Right now I’m doing work with Photoshop and HTML, both of which I have a decent understanding, but when I have to start with ASP and javascripting, I might have a few more problems.

I was also let known today that I have made it back into Strike Team Improv. It’s such a relief to know as I was actually a little worried about making it in this summer. It’ll be great to be working with everyone again and doing shows. Our first will be on the first Friday in June. Everyone mark your calendar! We have our first practice tomorrow, so this will be the first chance that I will have to see our new team fully assembled. With improv now added to my list of things that I’m doing this summer (besides working at Kingland and at home) I’m sure I’ll never have a free moment to get bored.

I was also graced this evening by a call from Kristin. We had to tell each other about our first days of work, of course. We probably could have talked all night long, but I had a lot of cleaning in the living room to get finished and some other cleaning to do before we have Ryan’s confirmation next week. I always hate telling people that I have to go when I’m talking to them on the phone because I don’t know if they actually believe me that I have stuff to do or if they think I’m just making up an excuse to hang up. Since they can’t actually see you, you have to rely on what they say and trust it completely. Because of this I usually try to never get offended if someone has to abruptly leave while talking on the phone. I’m sure I do that often enough and I hope that everyone I talk to will take me at my word. I’ve never been a phone fan in the first place. Anyhow, if you are ever talking to me on the phone and I have to go for something and it sounds lame, I’m sorry, but I probably actually have to do it.

Sunday, May 18, 2003

STI Tryouts

So I’m back from St. Cloud now. I got back yesterday night after a fun couple of days up north. The highlight of my trip up to St. Cloud was a visit to the Como Zoo in St. Paul. I had never been there so I was anxious to see what it was like. Kristin had been there many times before and was looking forward to going back and visiting her friends, the wolves. I got a few good pictures that I’ll get up soon. I really enjoyed watching the monkeys, gorillas, and tigers. They have one pair of cute little monkeys that have gigantic fu manchu moustaches. Their entire body is black but their moustache is white. It is so cute because they look like little old men. It was too dark in their area to get a picture which is too bad because they were so cute.

The rest of my time in St. Cloud I spent hanging out with Kristin before I had to come back home and our summer time apart would start. It’ll be weird not seeing each other like every day or every other day. I’m sure we’ll be fine as we are both going to be very busy with things. She’s got two jobs she’s working and she’s also going to try and start up with karate again. I’ll be working for Kingland Systems again. In fact, my first day of work it tomorrow. I still don’t think it’s sunk in quite yet that the school year is over and summer is here. Sure, the weather is sweltering and the farm is very active, but it just feels like spring break all over again. I’ll probably start to feel the onset of summer vacation as this week of works goes on.

I’m somewhat anxious to start because I have been told I’ll be doing some document writing and some work on the company website. I am afraid that some of the web work might be over my head. They use ASP pages and SQL, neither of which I have ever worked with. I actually have never even had a database course in college so I never got to touch on them. I hope it’s not too hard, or too much all at once. It’ll be nice to learn some new stuff, but not if it’s all just thrown at me at one time without and learning time. I guess we’ll see how it goes this week as I get re-accommodated to work.

Today I had try-outs for Strike Team Improv at the Studio Academy in Rochester. It was a little weird trying out again as no one was grandfathered into the group. Only Karl and Ryan are guaranteed spots since they founded the group. I find it weird that no one is grandfathered in. We all put our time in last year, were good enough when we tried out then, and have experience with each other so I thought it odd that old members could possibly get left by the wayside. I really enjoyed the group that we had last year and it would be a shame if we all didn’t get to work together again this summer. I’m hoping that everyone gets back in, but I’ll have to wait until tomorrow when they tell us who is actually in. I didn’t feel too strong about my performance today, which has me a little worried, but I’ll keep my hopes high. I only hope that they aren’t dashed.

Well, I’m going to go catch the season finales of both The Simpsons and Malcom in the Middle. I’m hoping that this episode of The Simpsons is good because for most of this season the episodes have just been terrible. I don’t know if the writers are just running out of ideas or if what they think is funny isn’t to me or what, but this season has sucked. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Well, tomorrow it’s back to work for the summer. Let’s hope that it goes well.

Friday, May 16, 2003

So I Graduated

I know, I know, it’s been a long time since I’ve last updated this site. Please do forgive me, though, as I have been quite busy. First I had graduation, then I moved home, then I had to unpack, and now I’m trying to make room for all of my stuff before I go up to St. Cloud for a couple of days (so there won’t be a new thought again for a little while—sorry). It’s been a busy few days, but it has been a lot of fun too.

Sunday was my graduation ceremonies at SJU. My family, along with Kristin and Sheryl were all there for the day. We had a nice luncheon at the Old Gym before the actual ceremonies. The school only gave each student four tickets to go to the luncheon so I would have had to have left someone home, but as luck would have it, my roommate Chen gave me another ticket so that Kristin could come with me. I’ll miss that guy next year.

After the luncheon, we went off to the actual graduation ceremonies. Getting ready for the ceremony was not quite as easy as you would have thought. We had capes to wear around our gowns, but no one could figure out how in the heck they were supposed to work. You had to flip them around and twist them and then pull them sideways after square-knotting the edges……well, maybe not that hard, but it sure was more complicated than it needed to be. The actual ceremony took over two hours to complete, and they didn’t even start handing out our degrees until over an hour into the service. For the first hour, there were a bunch of awards given out to special people in the church that had done something cool or whatever in the last year. I don’t know why they did this during our graduation ceremony since it really didn’t have anything to do with us graduating, but whatever. The rest of the day was spent cleaning up my room, packing my junk into our vehicles, and then going out to supper for Mother’s Day.

Monday morning I came home from St. Cloud and started to unpack a lot of my junk, and when I say unpack I really meant I brought the stuff in the house and let it sit. These last few days I’ve actually been putting stuff away in random intervals while at the same time spending time with Kristin since she’s been down visiting. We’ll be taking off today for St. Cloud since she has to work on Sunday and I have improv tryouts then also back here in Rochester.

I’ve had a real fun few days with Kristin down visiting. We’ve managed to be pretty lazy (besides the time we used unpacking my stuff). We’ve done a lot of reading—her with the Cheshuli (sp) chronicles and me with my comic books. I’ve recently gotten back into reading comic books hardcore. It might just be a phase I’m going through, or it might just be that I finally have access to them again since I’m at home. I’ve recently been reading Ghost Rider and Excalibur, which have both been really good reads. Ghost Rider has always been a little weak, though, since he seems to be indestructible and no matter what happens he can come back to life, but he is cool since he always manages to kick a lot of ass and in style.

Saturday, May 10, 2003

A Fake Goodbye Session

So last night was the last Friday here for the senior classes of SJU and CSB. Today the Bennies graduate and tomorrow my fellow Johnnies, along with myself, will be walking through the Abbey for our graduation ceremony. It all seems so weird and surreal—like it really isn’t happening……but it is.

Last night we had the senior dis-orientation at the Lighthouse Ballroom here in St. Joseph. All of the seniors gather there to say their last goodbyes, socialize, dance, and most importantly—get really drunk. I did a good amount of the first two, but left the last two untouched. This was the last time I’d probably see a bunch of these people so why would I want to spend that time I’m with them drunk as a skunk? I’d rather be wholly alert and focused so that everyone I talk to knows that talking to them is important to me. Eh, I’ve learned over the last four years that my views usually aren’t shared by the majority of these two campuses.

I really thought that after last night, knowing I wouldn’t see many of the people I talked with again, that I would have some really deep thoughts to write today. Instead, I’m left a blank. It almost feels like this is fake, at least for me. Since I’ll be back next semester I really don’t feel the urgency of entering the real world and leaving the confines of college life. What is even more weird is that last year felt more like my senior year of college because everyone that I had hung out with most of my first 3 years of college graduated last year. I lost the majority of the people I hang out with. The rest of the people I hang out with this year and last year are a year or two younger than me. I never really bonded with many of the people that are my year which I think also attributes to me not feeling very emotional about this turning point in all of our lives.

The few people that I do want to keep in touch with I haven’t really said good-bye to because I know where they all will be and, for the most part, I’ll still be able to visit them and hang out with them. Maybe the whole transition from college to real world will hit home around December when my actual graduation will be approaching. Honestly, though, I don’t want to enter the real world. Working doesn’t appeal to me at all when I can continue to learn more and more in school. It’s actually my goal to eventually attend graduate school for philosophy as I would really like to further my education in that direction. Being a professor of philosophy someday wouldn’t be that bad—I think I’d actually like it. The only problem I could foresee with that plan of action would be my lack of patience when trying to show/teach people things. Maybe as I get older I’ll become more patient.

Well, today I have two banquets to go to, one for all the science majors and one for the philosophy majors. I think I’ll just make a quick stop at the science banquet as I really don’t have that many computer science people I know that I want to talk with. The philosophy banquet should be a little better. It’ll be nice to talk with the faculty before I have more classes with them next year. It won’t be so much of a “thanks, prof—you were great” thing for me as it will be more of a “so what’re we covering next year in business ethics” kind of thing. Well, whatever. You probably won’t be treated to any new thoughts until probably Tuesday as I’ll be busy graduating and then my computer will be in transit home. Until then, keep it real.

A Fake Goodbye Session

So last night was the last Friday here for the senior classes of SJU and CSB. Today the Bennies graduate and tomorrow my fellow Johnnies, along with myself, will be walking through the Abbey for our graduation ceremony. It all seems so weird and surreal—like it really isn’t happening……but it is.

Last night we had the senior dis-orientation at the Lighthouse Ballroom here in St. Joseph. All of the seniors gather there to say their last goodbyes, socialize, dance, and most importantly—get really drunk. I did a good amount of the first two, but left the last two untouched. This was the last time I’d probably see a bunch of these people so why would I want to spend that time I’m with them drunk as a skunk? I’d rather be wholly alert and focused so that everyone I talk to knows that talking to them is important to me. Eh, I’ve learned over the last four years that my views usually aren’t shared by the majority of these two campuses.

I really thought that after last night, knowing I wouldn’t see many of the people I talked with again, that I would have some really deep thoughts to write today. Instead, I’m left a blank. It almost feels like this is fake, at least for me. Since I’ll be back next semester I really don’t feel the urgency of entering the real world and leaving the confines of college life. What is even more weird is that last year felt more like my senior year of college because everyone that I had hung out with most of my first 3 years of college graduated last year. I lost the majority of the people I hang out with. The rest of the people I hang out with this year and last year are a year or two younger than me. I never really bonded with many of the people that are my year which I think also attributes to me not feeling very emotional about this turning point in all of our lives.

The few people that I do want to keep in touch with I haven’t really said good-bye to because I know where they all will be and, for the most part, I’ll still be able to visit them and hang out with them. Maybe the whole transition from college to real world will hit home around December when my actual graduation will be approaching. Honestly, though, I don’t want to enter the real world. Working doesn’t appeal to me at all when I can continue to learn more and more in school. It’s actually my goal to eventually attend graduate school for philosophy as I would really like to further my education in that direction. Being a professor of philosophy someday wouldn’t be that bad—I think I’d actually like it. The only problem I could foresee with that plan of action would be my lack of patience when trying to show/teach people things. Maybe as I get older I’ll become more patient.

Well, today I have two banquets to go to, one for all the science majors and one for the philosophy majors. I think I’ll just make a quick stop at the science banquet as I really don’t have that many computer science people I know that I want to talk with. The philosophy banquet should be a little better. It’ll be nice to talk with the faculty before I have more classes with them next year. It won’t be so much of a “thanks, prof—you were great” thing for me as it will be more of a “so what’re we covering next year in business ethics” kind of thing. Well, whatever. You probably won’t be treated to any new thoughts until probably Tuesday as I’ll be busy graduating and then my computer will be in transit home. Until then, keep it real.

Friday, May 09, 2003

A History Making Night for the Minnesota Wild

The Minnesota Wild have made the history books in only their first appearance to the playoffs. This is quite an accomplishment in my book. We now hold the distinction of being the only team to come back from being down 3 games to 1 and winning the series 4 games to 3 twice. More often than not, when a team gets down 3-1 they tend to roll over and die because winning 3 games in a row somehow seems insurmountable. I give a lot of credit to our young team for having the composure to come back and prove that if you have the heart to do something, and you really believe you want it, you can do it. Now we have to turn our eyes towards their series against the Devil’s team….err…..I mean, Disney’s team—The Mighty Ducks. As sweet as it would be for the Wild to come back from another 3-1 deficit, I would rather see them send the Ducks home in 4 or 5 games so that I don’t get so nerve-wracked watching the games.

Most of yesterday was spent packing up all of my junk so that it is ready to go when my parents get here this weekend. I’ve managed to fill four big Rubbermaid tubs with my stuff and surprisingly, that is most of my junk (barring clothes and electronics). I’m not going to be taking down my computer, stereo, or Xbox until the last moment possible (probably Monday morning). Those three things have become essential since I have finished up my finals and it’s been raining outside. I’ve got to have something to do besides sit in my bed and read, even though I usually don’t have a problem just doing that.

I also finished my final morality paper, which focused mostly on Kant’s deontology and feminist/care ethics. If you are curious about it and would like to read it, just let me know and I’ll post it. I had wanted to get this paper done last weekend, but I just couldn’t keep focus on what I was writing and whenever I’d sit down to work on it everything I wrote was meandering and pointless. I guess I was in a writing slump, which happens occasionally (and is usually the reason a day will go by without a new thought). It’s actually a little weird not having some assignment or paper hanging over my head. I’m not used to this lack of pressure. I suppose it’ll pick back up in a week when I start working at Kingland again. I’m interested to see what I’m actually going to be doing this year.

I have been doing some web work for them from school for the last month or so (nothing substantial, however) and I think I will continue on doing most of their web maintenance and authoring along with learning how to write active server pages and work with SQL. I’m interested in doing that, but I am more so interested in the writing tasks that I might possibly be doing. My boss alluded to me doing some technical writing this summer for him. This would be perfect for me as I don’t mind writing at all—I actually have learned to really like it from all of my philosophy work and the countless pages of text I’ve typed in for my daily thoughts.

I often wonder how long I will keep this site going and how long I will keep writing. I haven’t tired of doing it yet, although I often question why I do it because I’m not even sure if many people read it. I figured that if a good amount of people actually read then I’d have more posts on the message board, but most of what’s been posted there is from me and a close group of friends. Maybe everyone that comes here is shy, but what does that say about my writing if I attract all of the shy readers? Hmm……I really do wonder what that would say about the content of this site. I guess that’s why I’m a nerd & philosopher and not a psychologist.

Well, I’m going to try and find some stuff to do here at work for the next hour and a half since I don’t have any homework to do and that’s what I usually end up doing while I’m here every morning. I’ll probably whip out a book to read for a while. Oh yeah, just in case you care, I’ve finally finished The Speluncean Explorers by Peter Suber and I’m now in the middle of The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe. I’ll let you know if it’s any good when I finish it.

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

Don't Let Them Lock Up SJU

I have an important matter to speak about that pertains to the students of SJU and CSB. It has recently come to the students’ attention here at St. John’s that they will be putting keycard locks on the freshman dorms over the summer, essentially making it like St. Ben’s—a prison. St. John’s has always prided itself on being an open community and this would simply destroy the aura of community and trust that permeates this campus. I was not happy when they had keycard locks installed on the new apartment buildings, Placid and Maur, two years ago, but there was no real choice to be made in that matter as they were simply constructed into the buildings when they were built.

I don’t think that the administration understands that the reason that no one ever goes over to St. Ben’s is that it is like a prison over there, especially before this year when Johnnies were finally given limited, unescorted access to the dorms. Before this year the only way you could get into the CSB dorms was by calling someone that you knew to come let you in and then having them escort you to their room or the person’s room that you were going to see.

This created many problems. First, if the person you were going to visit was down the hall or in the bathroom or not in their room at the moment, they wouldn’t be able to get you since they wouldn’t be there to answer the phone. You would then have to bother someone else in the building (assuming you knew someone else—I didn’t know many people at CSB before last year) to come let you in. The second problem was if the person you were coming to visit was on the phone. You would then simply be redirected to their answering machine. They were there; they just had no way of knowing you were because they were using the phone. You’d have to wait in the lounge or again call someone else to let you in.

This year Johnnies have been granted access to the dorms during the day, which is nice, but it still does not alleviate the prison feel of the campus. I still rarely go visit people at CSB because when I usually would want to say hi to someone will be on the weekend nights or at night during the week, which is exactly when our cards still won’t let us in. We have to go back to the calling method described above and deal with the problems it entails.

Do we want this here on the SJU campus? I somehow don’t believe so. I know the vast majority of the students are against it, but I really think that this does not matter to the administration. They have a consistent record of not giving a crap about what the students of our campus actually think. Look back at the J-term debacle. I don’t want to reopen old wounds, but in that case over 90% of the student body wanted to keep it (and many of the professors were also strongly in favor of it), yet the administration axed it without a second thought. Sure, there were other reasons going into removing J-term besides spiting the students, but it would have been nice to give the students a voice to actually be heard instead of pretending that they listen to the Senate.

The administration wants to make it seem like they care by pretending to listen, while the entire time that the Senate is talking, the administration are sitting by nodding politely and letting the words flow fluidly in one of their ears and right out the other. I think it is very, very sad that the majority of our student body doesn’t know that every day we are collectively being raped by our administration while they smile and say they are doing the student body a service. I often feel dirty knowing that by the time I am out of here I will have dumped $90,000 or so into their coffers.

I must again return to talking about locking up St. John’s lest I go on another tangent. By installing locks, the administration will be ruining an atmosphere that has been built up through many years of Johnnies living in the Benedictine tradition. One of the Benedictine values is community, which the administration is ignoring. Please let us continue in the tradition that sets this campus apart from so many others. I urge everyone to email Jason Laker about the potential locking up of St. John’s so that we can avoid this atrocity. Don’t treat us as children or as prisoners because we are neither. Let us keep our freedom.

Monday, May 05, 2003

Only One More

I have seen the best movie of 2003 so far and it is X2: X-Men United. You are all required to get up off of your chair, get in whatever vehicle you own, go to your local theater, and see this movie. Honestly, it’s that frickin’ rad. Ok enough shameless promotion for this movie.

I am now only one paper away from being done with all of my work for this year. I finished my other paper last night and will be handing it in today. This paper was for my Ethics and Law senior seminar class. As you probably know, this is the class that I’m always complaining about because no one wants to learn. I’m glad that it is finally over, but I would love to further explore the topics that we covered.

The final book that we read for that class was The Speluncean Explorers by Peter Suber. We were only required to read the first five opinions in the book, but I am so engrossed by it that I am in the process of reading the last nine opinions (which I will hopefully have finished by tomorrow or the day after). Our final paper consisted of our taking on the role of the final, decisive Justice in the case and write a judicial opinion. It was fun to finally break out of the mold of writing research, summation, and reflection papers. If anyone has read the book, let me know. If you haven’t read it and are interested in law in the least, I would highly recommend it.

What I am left with for the rest of the semester is writing my final Morality paper. I am somewhat indecisive as to what I want to write it about, but I do know that I want to get it done soon (hopefully today or tomorrow) so that I can have the rest of the week off to relax before graduation. This paper is supposed to be a reflective paper that incorporates our understanding of the moral theories that we have studied in the second half of the semester, which sounds easy enough, but it really isn’t for me. Reflective papers are not hard for me to write, per se, but they pose a problem in that I am often overly cynical about most things and by giving me free range to express myself, I think I will have a hard time restraining my tendencies to try to rip and tear the theories apart. Many of the theories we studied these last couple months are theories that I have found large flaws with, namely care ethics, feminist ethics, and virtue ethics. If it were a research or comparative paper that would be easy enough, but here we are supposed to “reflect” upon our moral thoughts while discussing these theories. Ugh…we’ll see how it goes, I guess.

Today I also have commencement practice. They say it will take about two hours for a run through. Yuck. I don’t want to waste two hours of my life going through a retarded run through. Just tell us where we need to be, what our order is, and let us walk through once just so we know what to do. I’m sure they’ll make this run through extra stupid or have us do it over and over again to make sure we don’t screw up. It’s so interesting to see the graduation coordinators treating 22 year old college graduates like they’re toddlers. Give us some more credit. I’ll probably just stick my mp3 player in my pocket so that I’ll have something to do if it gets too ridiculous.

Friday, May 02, 2003

Where Did They Go?

Yes, yes, yes, today is the day. Today all of my superhero longings that I have been going through for the last couple of weeks can finally be brought to realization. At exactly 4:30 pm this afternoon I will be attending the showing of X2: X-Men United. If only I could find that time machine I threw out to speed up the day. Everything I’ve read says that this movie is going to be great and I want to believe every word.

I was reading some background on the movie and a couple of things really surprised me. First, the running time is 134 minutes which is way longer than the 90 minutes the first one ran. I’m sure they did this to fit in all the new characters. Nightcrawler takes on a main role while it is also listed that the likes of Kitty Pryde, Gambit, Jubilee, and Colossus will also be appearing (no doubt in small supporting roles). I really hope that they stay true to the comic, though, as they’ve already introduced way too many continuity conflicts in the first one. Basically the timeline is all messed up. Rogue the same basic age as Iceman? Iceman’s been around since the beginning run of X-Men while Rogue has just come into the fold in the last 10-12 years or so of the X-Men. Oh well, I shouldn’t let my dorkiness get in the way of enjoying the movie.

Yesterday was the last day of all of my classes. They’re all over now. This semester is basically done (except for those couple of papers I have to finish before finals week). Graduation will be upon me faster than I can imagine. It seems like it wasn’t even that long ago that I was graduating from high school. That was a weird enough experience in itself. Looking back, I now notice that after that graduation ceremony I have hardly kept in touch with anyone from my high school class. I’ve managed to just let them go, which is such an odd notion.

Where is everyone from high school? What are they doing? Do I really even care? Well, I think I care a little bit at least. Most of the people from my class I really couldn’t care less. A good majority of the people from my high school are good for nothing sacks of crap that are merely wasting the air of this planet. I have a hard time believing that many of the people I graduated with will ever do anything with their lives. I may be sounding excessively harsh on my high school classmates, but they were excessively harsh on me during high school.

Most of my middle and high school career I was fodder for their jokes. I was their fall back for when they couldn’t think of anything else to do. I was never truly popular with the masses, only with my group. Since I never drank or did drugs I was never good enough to hang out with the “cool” kids. They also dished out the insults for not giving into their peer pressure. High school kids are cruel, yes, but people do survive. I did and I’m not looking back. Maybe they have grown up and are much more mature now, but that doesn’t change the fact that most of them I will remember as stabbing me in the back and poking fun at me in the front. I don’t think my 5-year class reunion could come too soon. I want to see where most of my class is. I can already guess that a bunch of them are pregnant and battling alcoholism, but that’s just conjecture.

Hmm…wow, I guess I had a little built up frustration there. Sorry. I think most of it stems from one of my friends here at college acting like a high schooler and trying to be like one of those “cool” kids by picking on the “uncool” kids (which I am proud to be one of, don’t you forget). It is all just unnecessary posing and posturing. What is really the point of being obnoxious and mean to people? Actually, what I really want to know is why you would treat your friends in that way. I guess some people just have a hard time growing up. I’ll just keep hope alive that people will eventually grow up, but realistically I know that they won’t all grow up.

Thursday, May 01, 2003

My College Attitude

Today is my last day of classes. I’m done with all of them after today. It’s just hitting me now that another year of school is drawing to a close and after next semester my college career will be completely finished. Cue panic attack. I panic not because I have a lot to finish this next week, but because I only have another week here. For some, a week may seem like it is utterly too long because they just want to be done or to be out of here, but I truly enjoy my time here.

I’ve noticed that most of my fellow seniors have fallen into their senior slide—not going to class, blowing off assignments, and not giving a crap about learning during this, their last semester. It is interesting to me that I have not fallen into that mind-set. Instead, I have actually become more of an attentive and dedicated student this semester. I’m routinely disappointed in the attitudes of most of my classmates in my senior seminar class because they simply don’t care about anything.

Here’s an average class: Only about ¾ of the class shows up on any given day—sometimes more, but more often less. We have been discussing moral philosophy and law, both controversial topics, but they never seem to illicit conversation or discussion from the class. The majority of the people stare blankly at our professor while I try to stimulate discussion. Many times there will be a 2-3 minute lull of nothing before either I propose a question or our professor starts talking about something else that would possibly spark conversation. Doesn’t anyone care?

I guess it is just so sad to see all of these people not care about learning at all. I guess maybe I’m just too much of a nerd or something. Half of the time the people that do come into class are still suffering from hangovers that they got from the night before. Am I really missing out on that much by not going out and getting plowed at the bars every other night? Maybe that’s an essential part of college I’m missing, but I really have a hard time convincing myself of that, especially with all of the bad things that have happened to one of my roommates and his friends at the bars. I’m still amazed that they still keep going back. They’ve had one of their friends severely beaten up and almost every weekend the group that goes out has a big fight and someone hates someone else because of how they acted at the bar. It seems like such an exercise in stupidity, but maybe I’m missing something.

I guess I just don’t know what to think, but I had better start thinking about logic soon as I have a test this afternoon. Predicate logic—should be fun. It’s not that it is that hard, I’m just always afraid I’ll mix up some of the exceptions that we have to remember. “Always existentially instantiate before you universally instantiate or else you won’t be able to universally generalize following arguments” and “DeMorgan’s Laws are an equivalence rule that can be applied to portions of a statement, while contraposition is an implicational rule that must be applied to an entire atomic statement” are a couple of the things that I have to always remember, along with others. It’s not really as hard as I make it out to sound, but I just want to make sure I know everything. I suppose I should go look that stuff over now.