Bring on the Night
Ahoy there! In case you're wondering, the title of this entry is a song by The Police, whose box set I have recently acquired. I like them a lot. It's relaxing to listen to them, and even works as homework music.
My family came west this Saturday, arriving at about noon. We went to Bertucci's (good), but I forgot to steal lots of rolls—or any, for that matter—for my future meals (bad). They did bring cake up with them, though (good), even though they brought the entire family (bittersweet). I'm so happy to have seen my puppy again. We went to see the last quarter of the game, in which we creamed the opposition, and then we played frisbee and soccer and football sort of at the same time, and we ran around with Mosley too. I wish I was allowed to keep him here, but it's against the rules to have a pet other than fish (which aren't really pets), and my family wouldn't let me anyways. They also left a frisbee with me (good). That should solve our problem, since Tom left his in the Bowl during the mud fight.
I could extend this one sentence into a paragraph, but instead I'll just refer you to my post on another blog, which was dedicated to the event which I would like to describe. I did not mention that the problem disappeared by late afternoon, and the elevator was just not working completely until the next day.
Oh, speaking of Friday, assuming you followed the aforementioned link, I had my conference the day before with my English Writing professor. I'm not sure exactly what to call her. I don't think she's married, so I guess Ms. Dickinson would work, but should I prefix her last name with Professor instead? She's really young, too, so she might prefer that we call her Amy. I'll stick with the first one, if I ever need to address her. I've always had trouble remembering names, so I've acquired a skill for speaking to people and getting their attention without actually using their names, without copping out Brian Regan style. He's going to be in Rhode Island this coming Saturday, but I can't go see him. Oh well. Anyways, during the conference, I confirmed that she actually does think I'm a good writer, and is not just the standard encouraging teacher who tells every one of her students this. Now, I've never considered myself to be a particularly good writer; I've just noticed that most people are just really fucking awful writers. Most of the kids in my class are in the writing learning group, meaning they all live together and write and stuff, although I'm not sure if there's anything except living together in the program; however, while they obviously enjoy writing, the only one I've read who can write well is full of himself, and the one I read that was slightly more than decent is Chinese. Why can't Americans compete with Chinese at their own language? Damn you, bipartisan system! If we could get a party in there that actually knew what the school system was like (all the politicians in both parties are dirty, filthy, stinking rich, and went to expensive boarding schools since Kindergarten), we could actually educate some of these kids. They're bright, but they're not educated. I'm so glad I went to St. John's and had Mr. Klein and Mr. Porter as English teachers. If many of my teachers leave the school, I'll stop recommending it to people, because most of my experience there was with the Honors level teachers, and I had a good experience. Wow, what a tangent. My current English professor likes my writing, and she's recommending books to me, personally. She has seen The Corporation, too, which is surprising: I thought Brother Reg invented the movie or something. I'm glad I ripped it; I want Jeb to watch it. I think I might read Ender's Game for real now, since Scott so strongly recommended it, and reading in parallel with my English teacher can't be a bad thing. I just need to get my ass into town sometime after Tuesday (curséd Dean's Book course) to get it from the public library. I really love that class; English is never my favorite, but it is, because we're writing, and if I start reading real books again (damnit I miss books!) it'll be a full English course, and completely fun. I enjoy writing for this class, not only because it's fun to write about what we're writing about, but also because I'm sort of writing for my teacher. It's interesting, having a definite audience. Unfortunately, the indefinite audience (the class and whoever they distribute the first magazine of essays to) prevented me from writing the first one the way I wanted it to. I sort of showed how being a hacker describes the way I think and the way I approach things. I wanted to write about how the death of my mom and the suicide of a close friend and the general patterns of death affected me, because that's what really shapes me. I mean, hacking and problem solving and mathematics (also known as "Truth") are a part of me, but they don't shape me. I'm sort of a multi-leveled person, like an onion or an ogre (Shrek), I think. I mean, the fact that I'm a Christian isn't something that affects me like the fact that I'm a student. Let me try an analogy with computers. Christianity is like my hardware. It's the way I work. Mathematics is the architecture of my processor. Hacking is the operating system. Everything else is an application or service. Each one affects the others, and there is an order of preference, but going to Church is still a program. You know, this is an incredibly long tangent of an entry. I intended to say something completely different at the beginning. I don't mind talking about this, though. Writing is fun. It's five minutes past the second hour of today, and this is exactly what I want to be doing. I need to revise my latest paper soon, or at least read the suggested rearranging from a classmate (poor guy; at least I broke up the one-paragraph beast into three or four smaller beasts—we traded essays on Friday and cut them up and reorganized them and shit, which was interesting because I wrote my essay in sort of a flow, even though it was summary too, not just response to an essay in our anthology).
Here's a short break to the tangent, before I forget completely the most important even of today: I went back to bed a little bit before 16h00, intending to take a little nap. I awoke once at 19h45, promptly returned to sleep, and woke up again two hours later when my roommate returned from his weekend trip to see his girlfriend. After sleeping for nearly six hours after being awake for less than six, I am in no mood for sleep. I'm going to be up all night, probably, which means I'll be completely incapacitated when it comes to Engineering, but since Calc is only twelve hours after my arising, I should be fine. English will be at about the end of my waking day. I need to avoid naps, though, so I can return to a normal schedule. I should also do my Dean's Book research. Damn that course. I don't want to do the work for it. In fact, as soon as that's over, after this week, I'm pretty much going to be one of the happiest people on campus. It's not that I don't like the class, because my teacher is nice (she let me change my presentation date very late to avoid an unexpected conflict with a Physics exam) and good looking, and I met a girl in that class who is becoming a friend (an English major, I believe, but she takes German too, which I wish I could take to maintain my skills, and she's pretty, and likes Alfred Hitchcock movies). The work is a bitch, though. Luckily, I have an extra week after this Tuesday to do the paper.
My break from the primary tangent became another rabbit trail; this problem with focus is what keeps me from doing shitloads of research work like I have to do for Dean's Book. It's almost not worth being in the Honors college here.
I wonder, if anyone actually does read this, if they'll read the whole post. If they do read it, why? How could this possibly be of interest to anyone? I'm posting this on the Internet, and yet my audience is still more or less the null set. I guess I don't just keep a journal on my computer or in a notebook because I need to know that my thoughts are potentially being exposed. I always hope that a few people I know are reading it (specific people), and I always half hope that a complete stranger is reading it. I want to share my ideas with the world. Unfortunately, a complete stranger would be completely bored by most, if not all, of this blog, because a lot of it is direct personal experience, and not philosophical discussion. Most of my friends would be bored by most, if not all, of it, and a few of them would probably be bored by about half. I guess I write it to organize my thoughts. I don't really think much just inside my head, other than thinking about math problems. Usually I have a bunch of vague and random ideas floating around in there, and by talking or writing I sort them out. Those modes of communication are like vehicles; talking is like a small fishing boat and writing is like a supertanker. Both provide lots of room to fish ideas out of the water and sort them on a dry surface.
I really miss Rach right now. I also miss the Quiznos Qrew (the mathletes). This Thanksgiving, we're going to meet at Quiznos in Danvers, and Alex is going to teach me multivariable calculus. I need to find a good book on it so I can keep up my desire to learn. I also need to finish Dean's Book so I never have to worry about it again, and then I'll have lots of free time to play more video games. Actually, if I stopped playing Counter-Strike: Source altogether, I'd have boatloads of time to do useful things. Primarily, though, I miss Rach, and I wish she'd come out and visit very soon, instead of just soon.
Peace and conflict, in and out; whatever blows up your skirt (thanks, Ryan).
My family came west this Saturday, arriving at about noon. We went to Bertucci's (good), but I forgot to steal lots of rolls—or any, for that matter—for my future meals (bad). They did bring cake up with them, though (good), even though they brought the entire family (bittersweet). I'm so happy to have seen my puppy again. We went to see the last quarter of the game, in which we creamed the opposition, and then we played frisbee and soccer and football sort of at the same time, and we ran around with Mosley too. I wish I was allowed to keep him here, but it's against the rules to have a pet other than fish (which aren't really pets), and my family wouldn't let me anyways. They also left a frisbee with me (good). That should solve our problem, since Tom left his in the Bowl during the mud fight.
I could extend this one sentence into a paragraph, but instead I'll just refer you to my post on another blog, which was dedicated to the event which I would like to describe. I did not mention that the problem disappeared by late afternoon, and the elevator was just not working completely until the next day.
Oh, speaking of Friday, assuming you followed the aforementioned link, I had my conference the day before with my English Writing professor. I'm not sure exactly what to call her. I don't think she's married, so I guess Ms. Dickinson would work, but should I prefix her last name with Professor instead? She's really young, too, so she might prefer that we call her Amy. I'll stick with the first one, if I ever need to address her. I've always had trouble remembering names, so I've acquired a skill for speaking to people and getting their attention without actually using their names, without copping out Brian Regan style. He's going to be in Rhode Island this coming Saturday, but I can't go see him. Oh well. Anyways, during the conference, I confirmed that she actually does think I'm a good writer, and is not just the standard encouraging teacher who tells every one of her students this. Now, I've never considered myself to be a particularly good writer; I've just noticed that most people are just really fucking awful writers. Most of the kids in my class are in the writing learning group, meaning they all live together and write and stuff, although I'm not sure if there's anything except living together in the program; however, while they obviously enjoy writing, the only one I've read who can write well is full of himself, and the one I read that was slightly more than decent is Chinese. Why can't Americans compete with Chinese at their own language? Damn you, bipartisan system! If we could get a party in there that actually knew what the school system was like (all the politicians in both parties are dirty, filthy, stinking rich, and went to expensive boarding schools since Kindergarten), we could actually educate some of these kids. They're bright, but they're not educated. I'm so glad I went to St. John's and had Mr. Klein and Mr. Porter as English teachers. If many of my teachers leave the school, I'll stop recommending it to people, because most of my experience there was with the Honors level teachers, and I had a good experience. Wow, what a tangent. My current English professor likes my writing, and she's recommending books to me, personally. She has seen The Corporation, too, which is surprising: I thought Brother Reg invented the movie or something. I'm glad I ripped it; I want Jeb to watch it. I think I might read Ender's Game for real now, since Scott so strongly recommended it, and reading in parallel with my English teacher can't be a bad thing. I just need to get my ass into town sometime after Tuesday (curséd Dean's Book course) to get it from the public library. I really love that class; English is never my favorite, but it is, because we're writing, and if I start reading real books again (damnit I miss books!) it'll be a full English course, and completely fun. I enjoy writing for this class, not only because it's fun to write about what we're writing about, but also because I'm sort of writing for my teacher. It's interesting, having a definite audience. Unfortunately, the indefinite audience (the class and whoever they distribute the first magazine of essays to) prevented me from writing the first one the way I wanted it to. I sort of showed how being a hacker describes the way I think and the way I approach things. I wanted to write about how the death of my mom and the suicide of a close friend and the general patterns of death affected me, because that's what really shapes me. I mean, hacking and problem solving and mathematics (also known as "Truth") are a part of me, but they don't shape me. I'm sort of a multi-leveled person, like an onion or an ogre (Shrek), I think. I mean, the fact that I'm a Christian isn't something that affects me like the fact that I'm a student. Let me try an analogy with computers. Christianity is like my hardware. It's the way I work. Mathematics is the architecture of my processor. Hacking is the operating system. Everything else is an application or service. Each one affects the others, and there is an order of preference, but going to Church is still a program. You know, this is an incredibly long tangent of an entry. I intended to say something completely different at the beginning. I don't mind talking about this, though. Writing is fun. It's five minutes past the second hour of today, and this is exactly what I want to be doing. I need to revise my latest paper soon, or at least read the suggested rearranging from a classmate (poor guy; at least I broke up the one-paragraph beast into three or four smaller beasts—we traded essays on Friday and cut them up and reorganized them and shit, which was interesting because I wrote my essay in sort of a flow, even though it was summary too, not just response to an essay in our anthology).
Here's a short break to the tangent, before I forget completely the most important even of today: I went back to bed a little bit before 16h00, intending to take a little nap. I awoke once at 19h45, promptly returned to sleep, and woke up again two hours later when my roommate returned from his weekend trip to see his girlfriend. After sleeping for nearly six hours after being awake for less than six, I am in no mood for sleep. I'm going to be up all night, probably, which means I'll be completely incapacitated when it comes to Engineering, but since Calc is only twelve hours after my arising, I should be fine. English will be at about the end of my waking day. I need to avoid naps, though, so I can return to a normal schedule. I should also do my Dean's Book research. Damn that course. I don't want to do the work for it. In fact, as soon as that's over, after this week, I'm pretty much going to be one of the happiest people on campus. It's not that I don't like the class, because my teacher is nice (she let me change my presentation date very late to avoid an unexpected conflict with a Physics exam) and good looking, and I met a girl in that class who is becoming a friend (an English major, I believe, but she takes German too, which I wish I could take to maintain my skills, and she's pretty, and likes Alfred Hitchcock movies). The work is a bitch, though. Luckily, I have an extra week after this Tuesday to do the paper.
My break from the primary tangent became another rabbit trail; this problem with focus is what keeps me from doing shitloads of research work like I have to do for Dean's Book. It's almost not worth being in the Honors college here.
I wonder, if anyone actually does read this, if they'll read the whole post. If they do read it, why? How could this possibly be of interest to anyone? I'm posting this on the Internet, and yet my audience is still more or less the null set. I guess I don't just keep a journal on my computer or in a notebook because I need to know that my thoughts are potentially being exposed. I always hope that a few people I know are reading it (specific people), and I always half hope that a complete stranger is reading it. I want to share my ideas with the world. Unfortunately, a complete stranger would be completely bored by most, if not all, of this blog, because a lot of it is direct personal experience, and not philosophical discussion. Most of my friends would be bored by most, if not all, of it, and a few of them would probably be bored by about half. I guess I write it to organize my thoughts. I don't really think much just inside my head, other than thinking about math problems. Usually I have a bunch of vague and random ideas floating around in there, and by talking or writing I sort them out. Those modes of communication are like vehicles; talking is like a small fishing boat and writing is like a supertanker. Both provide lots of room to fish ideas out of the water and sort them on a dry surface.
I really miss Rach right now. I also miss the Quiznos Qrew (the mathletes). This Thanksgiving, we're going to meet at Quiznos in Danvers, and Alex is going to teach me multivariable calculus. I need to find a good book on it so I can keep up my desire to learn. I also need to finish Dean's Book so I never have to worry about it again, and then I'll have lots of free time to play more video games. Actually, if I stopped playing Counter-Strike: Source altogether, I'd have boatloads of time to do useful things. Primarily, though, I miss Rach, and I wish she'd come out and visit very soon, instead of just soon.
Peace and conflict, in and out; whatever blows up your skirt (thanks, Ryan).
posted by Andrew Hills at 1:32 AM
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