The Domain of Steven

Microsoft came to campus some time ago for a recruiting drive. I knew that my odds were low but I wanted the experience, and no matter what the odds are, there is still a chance. Talking to the recruiter went very smoothly; I liked talking to him and he liked talking to me. He made notes on my resume before dropping it in and I walked away happy.

The actual first-round interview was not so smooth. It was not so much an interview as an interrogation. To be fair, the interviewer single-handedly had to deal with two dozen people over the course of two days, and as I was the penultimate, I was going to get the short end of the cordiality stick. I tried to establish a casual talking environment, picked up on every cue that was dropped in order to promote talking and build a rapport, but he was not interested in a rapport. He was there to weed out candidates and that is exactly what he did.

I felt confident that I did well where it counted, but it was not enough. I was not invited to a second-round interview, the multi-day affair where Microsoft flies you over to Washington and pays for everything so that they can subject you to a day-long interview gauntlet.

However, I am completely fine with not moving onto the second round. And that is because I already have plans.

The plans looked a bit like this, hastily scribbled onto a piece of paper with an old Spanish homework. They was spurred into being by Chris, and dreamed up and laid out during one of my classes. It was the roadmap to an essay that, with Shelly’s help, won me a scholarship.

My benefactor was a UK-based software testing company that was moving into Burlington, Massachusetts. They recently started a program that offered scholarships to BU computer science students, the winners receiving a lump sum as well as an internship.

The money was definitely enticing, but the internship was the much more valuable prize. Being very young and having so little experience, I would cherish any opportunity to build up my resume and gain momentum. The internship was originally scheduled to be in Burlington. Its actual status was up in the air for a few months until I was notified that no, there was in fact no place for me at their Burlington office, but they would remain true to their word and offer me an internship.

In England.

Exeter, England to be more specific. For two months I am going to be staying at the University of Exeter and working for a company generous enough to provide me this opportunity. I’ll have two months to see whether the sky looks any different in Europe than it does in America and whether cars driving on the wrong side will faze me. Two months to collect as much foreign currency as I can, since it seems to be the most popular souvenir requested so far. Two months of a five-hour time difference from my friends. Two months alone being somewhere I never thought I would be compelled to be by myself.

But for you, my readers, it will be two months of posts and pictures, of pining and preaching. And for me, at the very least, two months of preparing for off-campus life next school year.

I will admit that this is the first time my ass has been sore. Still, going 8-2 against the other fencing students was worth it.

Also, thankfully, rock climbing only seems to destroywork out my forearms and hands, leaving the glutes and lower free for fencing to mangle.

I went into this semester resolved to take a gym class of some sort. Not because there was some requirement, not to get extra credits, but just because the opportunity was there.

I had always had an interest in fencing, but never joined the fencing club that started up the end of my last year of high school. Maybe I liked the idea of poking someone with a blade, or I thought that fencers just looked really cool.

I’m taking fencing this term as an hourly class twice a week for one credit over at FitRec, and it’s definitely as cool I imagined it. I enjoy the mind games that you have to play with your opponent to psych him out, to make him miscalculate, to make him become overconfident and set himself up for disappointment. I like the rising tension during the approach, and how time slows down as your mind speeds up during an attack. You’re always thinking, always alert, judging your opponent’s distance and reach in comparison to your own.

Which, I will admit, is usually an unfair balance for me. I’m rather short, and with short height comes short legs and short limbs. Compared to taller guys, I have little in the way of reach, and can cover less distance when retreating, advancing, or lunging.

Reach matters quite a bit in our first exercise. Before we’re allowed to hold a blade one class from now, we’re practicing everything else: footwork, right of way, and tactics. Instead of using a blade, we’re using a glove. This is saber fencing, which normally allows any kind of hit above the waist. For this exercise, we loosely wield a glove and have to try to hit each other in the chest or back.

To exemplify right of way, a fencing concept in which an attacker’s hit has scoring priority over a defender’s hit, we take turns attacking and defending. The attacker is allowed an advance and a lunge, during which the defender can make up to two retreats. Once the advance and lunge are taken, the roles are switched.

There is no blocking allowed, and actions can be of any length, so you do not have to take a full advance or a full retreat. This turns the exercise into one primarily about tactics and distance. The two fencers start out a good distance from each other, and advance closer while taking their turns. The object is to get your opponent to misjudge the distance at which he can hit you, so that he lunges and barely misses as you are retreating, ending up right next to you. Once that happens, he’s practically giving you the point, since you are now on the attack and can easily hit him.

In practice it rarely works out that way for me. Being rather short, I have a rather significant disadvantage in terms of reach and movement in this exercise. Since the attacker is only allowed a single advance, with their lunge not advancing them very far (only extending their reach), a defender with two retreats should actually be able to increase the distance between himself and the attacker, resulting in fencers drifting apart from each other if they take full retreats.

This is not so in my case; in fact, the taller people in the class can actually still hit me even if I make two full retreats, and I’m hard-pressed to hit them if they take two or even one full retreat.

I therefore have to be sneaky to win. I have to take my attack immediately after they finish theirs, to get them off-balance and to get them to make mistakes. I have to keep our distances under my control.

I want them to back off more than they should thinking that I’ll advance, putting him out of reach. I want them to not advance as far as they should to hit me, thinking that I’ll retreat.

Feinting to achieve those results is difficult, to say the least. It’s absolutely thrilling and absolutely tiring. You’re moving all the time, and if you’re not moving, all your muscles are tensed, and if your muscles aren’t tensed, you’re probably going to lose the point. After a dozen bouts, you’re caught up in a exhausted but focused trance where you forget about the half dozen matches around you and only see your opponent. All you see are his movements, his reactions, his responses to you toying with him and his frenzied attempts to try and outmaneuver you.

And just like that, it’s over. The world rushes back to me and I’m smiling, being a good sport and laughing with my opponent about how he just barely caught me. We walk back to our sides of the room, take a slow breath, turn around, assume a ready stance, and the world slowly dissolves once more as we begin our approaches.

I’m not sure how I’ll do with a blade in my hand, but I can’t wait to find out.

Unconsciously giving a Southern drawl to a West Indies plantation owner during a play reading in Writing 150 was totally unexpected but surprisingly fun once I realized what I was doing.

The good part about college? You can literally have no homework due for two weeks.

The bad part about college? All four of your classes have large homeworks due that day, two weeks from now. It’s awfully hard to not start assignments the day before, but I’ll find a way.

Rising Stuyvesant sophmores used to be required to take Drafting 1, and were then required to take either Drafting 2/Honors Drafting or Introduction to Computer Science.

For once in my life, I went past the call of duty by not only taking Honors Drafting, but Intro to Compsci at the same time. To top it off, I took an optional compsci course at the same time, and followed both drafting and compsci course paths to full completion in later years. AP Compsci, both of the senior-level compsci courses, Technical Drawing, and Architecture were what padded out my remaining years at Stuy. Choosing to do the extra work and stick it out with both course paths turned out to be one of the smartest things I’ve ever done, because despite my major being computer science, I was totally prepared for both of my internships, especially my current one at JDP Mechanical.

Transitioning from CADKEY to AutoCAD was easier than I expected. I was already familiar with how CAD drawings are handled and manipulated, so all it took was a little experimentation and direction to find out which command I needed to enter to do what I wanted. CAD work is actually quite fun, and while I’m very efficient, I’m still amazed at how fast my dad can mold his drawings to what he sees in his mind.

Unfortunately, drafting is only half the battle, and the lower-paying half at that. The reason my father gets paid the big bucks (big = only slightly more) is because he is able to solve problems. The primary problem is that New York City is brimming with people, Manhattan in particular, and every cubic foot of space is precious. Given the choice between making the machine room comfortably big and squeezing out a couple extra hundred thousand dollars isn’t really a choice at all. Landlords will always choose to make the extra money and hope that their AC and heating units will fit in the little niche carved out in the basement. And therefore, landlords will always need companies like the one my father works for. He coordinates with all the other contractors, trying to make sure that his water pipes can fit alongside the gnarled masses of the electrician’s cables and the plumber’s sewage lines, while making sure he isn’t getting in the way of the gigantic ducts strewn across the ceiling.

My father is paid well because it is difficult to compensate for human error while minimizing costs and working on a deadline. It’s a difficult job that requires an intimate knowledge of the industry and its conventions. From a purely practical standpoint, it’s the best career for me to jump into. It is such a niche field that experienced, dedicated workers are far and few, which means companies are more willing to train and cultivate workers. I already have a great foundation of CAD knowledge, and I found that my mind easily warped to decipher schematics and reconstruct them in my mind. To top it off, I have one of the best draftsmen in the industry as a personal mentor.

But the best worker and father I’ve known also gave me one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard: “Do something you love, because if you like it, you won’t mind putting in the hours to become great at it.” It summarizes very well the key to his success, but it also summarizes why I’m so hesitant to take up what would otherwise be a great opportunity. I know I could be good at it, but I don’t know if I would be willing to put in the effort to become great. I remember happily spending hours coding up my first programming project, making a freakish monstrosity easily two or three times the size of everyone else’s projects. At least a third had been handwritten during my free time between classes and on the train, without ever wondering or worrying about the amount of time I was putting into the project. Programming was fun, and still is. Debugging is frustrating but ultimately rewarding. Difficulties are exciting challenges, not hinderances.

That’s the attitude my dad wants me to have, because while he would love for me to follow in his footsteps, he wants me to be happy most of all. My job is going to be somewhere I spend 8+ hours a day, so given the chance, I ought to spend all that time doing something I love. I want to keep being able to say that I love my life and have never regretted the choices I’ve made.

So I’m going to go for it. I’m not going to settle; I’m going to keep dreaming and desiring, so that one day I’ll be able to do. If I fail, it is not going to be for lack of dedication. But if I succeed, it will be.

Instead of writing what I would like to think about, perhaps I’ll write about what I am thinking about. Which, in fact, is nothing. Nothing at all. I’m feeling more listless now than I have all summer. My mind doesn’t think of quips, it doesn’t think of comforting words, it doesn’t think of conversation…it just doesn’t think. It doesn’t process information. It forces laughs when they’re prompted, it forces eye contact when it’s prompted.

And yet I’m not sure what triggered it. My first day at work was spent being excited, nervous, and cheery. I talked to each and every customer with my usual gusto, left work happy, and met up with friends. And sometime between shopping with them at Bed Bath & Beyond and getting home, a part of me just stopped trying.

Perhaps I’m just tired. I dealt with a lot of people today, and had to wrack my brain for solutions to their questions. I know that I have a low quota for social activity, and I often appreciate alone time after going out with friends. But this isn’t quite a need for alone time, because not even watching TV or checking my RSS feeds provided me with any satisfaction.

I originally attributed it to loneliness. Playing with Bunnie vividly reminded me of the lack of physical contact in my everyday life. As strange as it sounds, I had never missed it before she entered my life. I had appreciated it but never felt a desire for it. She was the one who showed me what I was missing, showed me of the power she held over me. I know that simply by hugging me tightly and not letting go, she could make me forget about my deepest and most entrenched worries. Strange and unnatural for someone who relies so heavily on reason.

But now, there’s no one to go to. This is one of those rare occasions where I actually don’t know the answer to my own question. Perhaps there is an answer out there, but honestly, I don’t even know if there’s a question anymore. And there’s no one to notice that I’m not there asking or answering. The freshmen here are looking for the easygoing friends that they can become lifelong buddies with. My sophmore friends are in their own little worlds, and I suppose I’m in one of my own. The difference is…I’m not so sure I want to be in it by myself. I may have people here with me, but I certainly don’t feel like it. I feel too awkward to call attention to myself, feel embarassed when I do get attention, and yet complain that I don’t get attention?

Maybe I’m not lonely. Maybe I’m just regretting.

Getting out of school a month before your brother does and three weeks before your summer classes start leaves you with a lot of free time. I tried new games and tossed them away, tried old games and tossed them away, used Flash to make text glint, started reading military science fiction again, and visited some friends while not visiting other friends. My chronic ennui reappeared on cue, as did its periodic remission. I’m not as productive as I could be, but the pace of summer gives me a wide berth to be lazy.

My summer classes are only a few hours every day, and are just enough to keep moss from growing on me. The teacher was literally hired the day before class started, and didn’t have a syllabus for a week. He writes tests that have confusing wording and answers that are identical in everything but syntax. He sometimes teaches us incorrect material and refuses to correct himself. In fact, the only thing he is good at is avoiding our questions, especially during tests. I do not think Hunter will depose him, simply because they have no one else. Based on the uproar we received when we went over the test, I’m pretty sure that we’ll get passing grades just to shut us up. Once the term is over, Hunter can put this embarassing course behind them and we can put our liberal arts requirements behind us.

My social needs are pretty slim, so I’ve been very content this summer. I:

• saw Curse of the Golden Flower with no sound while loitering in CompUSA and then again at an outdoor screening
• tasted appropriately expensive samples of restaurants on 46th street at The Taste of Times Square
• made my practically annual trip to the Museum of Natural History
• learned Mahjong and Cranium
• had my first sleepover, and found that I could not masturbate as fast as girls who have had boyfriends
• chilled out to watch Stargate for several hours while eating questionable beef but tasty shrimp noodles and pork
• proudly walked into the Jacob Javits center as president of Steven’s Selective Services in order to snag freebies
• slept through most of the July 4th fireworks
• became left-handed

In terms of actual productivity? I’ve set up another photo album, one I think is far sexier than Coppermine and reminds me of a certain mp3 player brand. It doesn’t let me categorize, label, or search very well, but it’s simple to view and easy to add and link to. Tip: once you click an image to view a larger version, you can press your keyboard’s arrow keys to scroll through the rest, as well as use your mouse to drag it around the screen. Sexy and easy? Oh my.

I’ve got several great games lined up, but there will be more posts when I find myself on the wrong end of a rifle too many times. For now, look at the glorious pictures of my freshman year. (Too many to bother linking, but I’ll do that in the future whenever I make a new album.)

I’ve been an idiot for the past semester and a half, but I’m coming back to BU with a fresh batch of resolve.

(Even though I spent a little too long dallying with the last bit of the title.)

From Always Excel: Campus Markers and the Purpose of Boston University

As students at Boston University, we are expected to learn many things before we enter that right of passage called graduation… Mathematics may be used to rob a bank; chemistry used to kill; penmanship may be used to forge a check; psychology may be used to cheat one’s fellows.

Dear Mr. Fruit Basket,

I know you have a great reputation as a matchmaker, but all the fruit you’ve given me has been mediocre. I’ve gotten bored with the fat red apples you keep showing me. They may be sweet and nice, but I need some zest in my life.

That’s when you brought that Cripps Pink apple to my door. His slim, toned body and crisp, tangy demeanor are what I’ve been looking for all my life. Set us up on another date.

I wish that in the stupor after waking up, and during the onset of painful homework, I would finally learn and move on.

I am a persuasive French wino that can stun people with insults and convince policemen that he and his party were in fact not responsible for the mutilated bodies tossed out of a window into an alley. All with the flick of a d20.

The BU Role-Playing Society is one of the three clubs I’ve joined. Right now the only campaign I’m dedicated to is a post-WWII spy adventure set in Vietnam. There are lots of other games in many different non-D&D settings, but my schedule often conflicts and I honestly don’t have the time anymore. That said, it’s a fun and often hilarious way to spend a weekly evening.

Wizards is a community service group that teaches science experiments to kids from kindergarten all the way to early high school. A friend in my computer science class invited me over to a meeting one day, and I figured that it was a weekly two hour committment that might be reminiscent to the fun time I had volunteering with 1st graders at P.S. 89 right next to Stuyvesant. I noted this on my app, and lo and behold, I got one of the spots in the group that works with kindergarteners and 1st graders . We’re driven by van to the Young Achievers school, what seems to be one of many Boston pilot public schools for new learning strategies. The distinction wasn’t exactly evident though, as it reminded me a lot of P.S. 89 despite it being a regular public school. Not that it mattered, because the school was charming and the kids were cute and wonderful. The kindergarteners have their current curriculum based around butterflies, so our activity focused on symmetry using butterflies as examples. Few children remembered the word when the day was done, but all of them had fun seeing their folded paper cutouts become butterflies. The colored versions were all pinned up on the window afterwards.

The BU Massively-Multiplayer Online Gaming Society is a club that a couple friends and I founded after seeing interest on the BU Livejournal group. We rotate through new MMOs every two weeks or so, playing games like Gunbound, Rakion, Albatross18, and Ragnarok Online. We’re all encouraged to play games on our own and stick with ones that we like, but we often meet up with other MMOGS members so that there’s a sense of familiarity when in unfamiliar territory. After each game’s rotation is finished, we each write a review and give it a grade, both of which are posted on our soon-to-be-created forum. We’re hoping to have generated enough of a track record to warrant attention from non-MMOGS members, perhaps non-BU members, and hopefully game developers looking for effective beta testers. The pinnacle of success for the MMOGS would be either getting access to a highly anticipated game in closed beta testing or getting enough funding to provide paid accounts to some of the newer, hotter games on the market. As it stands, we’re just a bunch of college gamers. But next semester, we’ll be gamers with university funding for snacks.

I am vice-president of the MMOGS. The president, secretary, and treasurer are all juniors, which means that in all likelihood I’m going to be inheriting the club after two years. Oh man it’s like Excalibur all over again. Luckily the club’s survival doesn’t depend on my (lack of) gaming skill, but rather my enthusiasm, which I have plenty of. For now I’ll just chip in where I can and learn a few things along the way. And have fun with ultra-high angle shots on a mammoth while I’m at it.

The desk lamp that casts shadows across the room can still wash away my worries and make my room feel like home. I love being in a school with such animate people in abundance, but it’s still nice to be alone with your thoughts. As I look at my desk and see the free pens stolen from Splash and Collegefest, the post-its hanging off the side of my monitor, homemade Japanese flashcards lying next to new ones waiting to be filled, and my keyboard hanging off the table while being supported by an open drawer so that I can have room to put my books, I’m amazed at the extent to which I’ve settled down. In fact, the only thing that shocks me more is the realization that I’m not homesick, but happy and content.

Now if only this cough would go away and I could finally get the hang of Japanese and calculus, everything would be peachy keen.

I’d love some cheap Chinatown food, too.

People who make dorm fire alarms should consider branching out into the alarm clock industry. That shit would not stop.

I plan to major in Computer Science with a possible minor in Psychology. I have dropped Spanish and will be studying Japanese.

I elected to follow the Divisional Studies track rather than the Core Curriculum track. With DS, all of BU’s introductory courses (Psych 101, Bio 101, etc) are put into one of four categories: Math and Compsci, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities. I must take two classes in every field that is not where my major resides. Even if I decide to switch majors, thus requiring me to take two classes in Math and Compsci, I will have covered my Divisional Studies requirements for it anyway by the end of my first term.

I’ll reserve my opinion on how good my schedule is until a few weeks after school starts, when the fatigue starts setting in. We aren’t allowed to take more than four courses the first term (and never more than six) so I’ll use this term to determine next term’s courseload.

MA127 – This is the calculus class for those who have already taken calculus in high school. It condenses two terms of material into a single term. I already took calculus in Stuyvesant, so I shouldn’t have to struggle too much with learning, just remembering. Getting a 720 on the Math SAT II exempted me from BU’s math requirement, and as a compsci major I don’t need to take any math courses to fill the DS requirements, but many of the mandatory compsci classes require calc, so I might as well take it while it’s still fresh and get it over with.

CS112 (C++) – I’m skipping CS111 (which was easy to do, considering my AP score and my programming experience) and heading onto CS112, with a focus on C++ since I’m much weaker in it than Java. I’ve already set up my laptop with Ubuntu and installed emacs and gcc (and the JDE since I do prefer Java), so I should be able to program without constantly being confused by a GUI compiler like Eclipse. Old habits die hard; I instinctively type gcc -Wall after Ctrl-X-C. I’ll have to pick up a good book to help me out; I was able to do so well in AP Compsci because the Java textbook was very good, and helped me understand concepts and syntax that I didn’t pick up while sleeping. Any recommendations?

WR100 – I did not qualify for WR150 (so I don’t get to skip a class!) but English classes have never been a problem for me aside from procrastinating on papers, so I’m not worried. There were many different types of writing classes, from scifi to children’s books to Asian literature, but since I did want to experiment with the field of pscyhology, I took the class that was focused on readings in psychology and psychoanalysis. I plan to have the same class synergy when I fill another DS requirement by taking an Anthropology course focusing on the study and evolution of human behavior.

LJ101 – I’ve gotten past the notion of becoming fluent enough to read manga and understand anime. After all, I’ve spent god knows how many years studying Spanish, and I can just barely read the signs in the subway (much less understand soap operas!). Hopefully a little of my otaku enthusiasm will still be present, so that I have motivation for learning a complex language while coping with a new environment.

You know that Boston University students are a little weird when you find one describing to two small Asian boys how unprotected sex feels infinitely better than that with a condom.

Things actually went pretty well considering that I’m probably going to never see most of the people again. It’s something that I found hard to accept in Stuyvesant until I realized that I knew plenty of people by face but not name or action, and I had never seen our valedictorian before. I had to go through realizations like this for every school change. They have all been marked by a noticeable increase in population: 7 kids a grade to 50 to 800 to 3000. And let’s not forget the college population of all the neighboring campuses, boosting that 3000 quite a bit.

Perhaps other people realized this as well, because everyone was extremely social. Not just “say hi to your roommate” social, but “say hi to the person sitting next to you” social, and even “say hi to the person sitting two seats away from you after a minute of silence” social. Except for alone time here and there once a planned activity was over, we were kept in groups according to what school we were in (Arts & Sciences, Engineering, Fine Arts, Management, etc.) so there was at least some regularity in who we were seeing every day. In addition to those cool people, I actually saw and hung out with people that I knew. There was a multi-activity excursion for people who arrived a day early (like myself), and I found myself sitting only a few seats and a row away from Courtney! as well as more seats away from Shelly and Dimitri (sp?). Very hawt coincidences.

The actual orientation was from Thursday to Friday, but since I wasn’t keen on waking up at 3 in order to get there on time Thursday, I opted to move in a day early. Out of 600-700 kids at orientation, around 200 usually arrive early. We were roomed up with the person next to us in line, and I got put on the second floor of Rich Hall, which wasn’t all that great to be honest. No AC, a curtain and a pole for a closet, bugs in the shower, etc. In its defense, all the rooms already had MicroFridges for us to keep stuff in, and unlike every other room I heard about, ours was actually cool at night. It was even a little cold on Thursday morning because it rained.

The first day was rather nonchalant except for meeting those three familiar faces. The second day had plenty of things lined up, most of which weren’t exactly interesting. There were a whole lot of talks from the faculty and the student advisors, which had a habit of putting me to sleep as the day went on. I eventually pulled through, and was rewarded at the end of the day with a “free” shirt (we had to pay for Orientation, after all), kareoke, a comedy show, music bingo, and Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero. Unfortunately the wireless DDR pads were very unresponsive, and Shelly and I were craptacular at Guitar Hero, but it was still a nice way to end the day.

The primary goals of orientation are to have us take our writing assessment and to have us register for our fall classes. The writing assessment was 50 minutes long, and damn it was a boring 50 minutes. We either got a page from Toqueville’s Democracy in America or Machiavelli’s The Prince. I unfortunately got Toqueville. I didn’t know shit about politics, much less the history of it, but I do know how to attack a person’s writing style and integrity. I think I did a pretty damn good job, but I only got a 3 out of 4 or 5. Not quite enough for me to skip a writing class.

Every BU student at orientation clocked in a lot of supervised hours planning and registering for their classes. First we had two 3-hour sessions with our student advisor, where they went over the required courses, how we might want to go about them, and how the registration process worked. Once we had planned a schedule, we were taken to our temporary faculty advisor to have our course list evaluated and improved. Mine was a nice Asian compsci professor who was brimming with excitement about his subject (which is a good thing!). He probably thought more highly of me than I deserve, considering I just barely got through System Level/Graphics and slept through AP Compsci (but still got a 5 on the AB version!), but he did recommend a good teacher, which I took note of when we were shuffled onto the next stage of the process.

Even though we had planned our schedules with our student advisors, we now had another chance to do so, this time with our faculty advisor’s suggestions in mind. There were no real changes in mind, just in the type of programming language (using C++ instead of Java), so it wasn’t as stressful for me as it was for the people whose faculty advisor completely reworked their schedule.

Once we got these new schedules approved, we were then directed to the final stage, where they sat us down in front of a computer with an access code to unlock registration for us. It wasn’t a random lottery like it was in Stuyvesant; we simply punched in what class and section, and then that was that, we were a part of the class. We were required to put down alternate classes in case one was full by the time we got to the computer, but thankfully I just managed to squeeze into the compsci class.

After that…we were pretty much done. The best speeches had already been made, and the only reason I didn’t fall asleep (I hope) during the closing ceremonies was because there was an awesome piece of chocolate on every seat! I wasn’t really in the mood, but I stole some for Shelly. After that, we went our separate ways and I linked up with my family. We set up a Bank of America banking/checking account, and I finally got a credit card! It’s a joint account, so the bill gets sent to my parents. Which, you know, is good, so that I don’t have to worry as much about spending (yea, like I can really spend that much when I can’t help but research every alternative). But it also means I’ll have to stick to free porn.

-Random subway rider detailing the importance of beer and bathrooms

Boston University Orientation from Wednesday to Friday. Forbidden to bring my laptop (and I should try to explore, anyway…) so I’m going to be listening to my recently rediscovered iPod Nano (its case made my parents unknowingly displace it, but also made it easier to find), occasionally asking my brother if I can play Brain Age on his Nintendo DS while we’re on the 4-5 hour bus ride, plan my schedule, and maybe knock another chapter off of The Unix Programming Environment.

Fourth of July fireworks were pretty cool. I’ll be back on Friday with more.

Written in the space of several hours the night before its graciously extended due date for Mr. Bonsignore’s Science Fiction & Fantasy Writing final paper. Emo? Perhaps. But it was an emo that let me pass the course..
Read more…

Rejected: Columbia College, Johns Hopkins University.
Accepted: SUNY Binghamton, Boston University.
Waiting on (but is more or less in the bag): Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

I’ve said that I would be happy no matter where I got into, and that statement has held true. Unless RPI is willing to give me a full scholarship and a pet bunny, I will most likely attend Boston University. So I’ll be seeing Kate among other *ahem* people.

I still consider RPI a very good school, but I’m just not sure whether I’d like its strong science/engineering focus. I still plan to major in computer science, and I do love computers, but I’m not always sure I have the skills to pursue it as a career. I’ll definitely want to try other courses in college like psychology and maybe economics. RPI may be able to provide a better focus on computer science, but there’s still some part of me that hesitates, and I’d rather keep my options open.

I really doubt I’ll be talking much more about college now that this has been settled. The only things left to do are try to increase the drop in the bucket that is my financial aid package, and get a laptop. I’m looking for long battery life and feather-light, since I like dependability and I’m a weakling. The ThinkPad X60 seems great then, and at a decent price for an ultraportable if I only upgrade the RAM and battery off of the base package. It may look generic, but if anything, it’ll just make it a less tempting target to steal.

But I’m still bringing my desktop computer. A growing boy needs his games.

*insert vow made under the influence of repeated late-night frustrated desperation*

Everything I hear about MIT brims with coolness. Uberness, even. Running around in the middle of the night trying to avoid campus police, climbing on top of the dome, putting a car on top of the dome, creating ingenius works of technical brilliance, dressing up the school in homage to the video games of old…it’s almost like the school is too crazy to be real. MIT seems like this mystical place where the best of the best go, and do things that are talked about forever.

Perhaps it’s (counterintuitively) because I’ve heard such great things about it that I could never bring myself to even apply there. It’s like I’m not sure if I’d be the person I envision MIT students to be. I don’t know if I’m smart enough, resourceful enough, creative enough, motivated enough - heck, I don’t even know if I’m weird enough! Stories tell of MIT students creating programs in their spare time that I’ve relied for years, yet even when prompted I couldn’t create a program I’d use once a month. It may be that I can’t do it, but I think it’s more that I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to create something amazing, or to explore the intricacies of something we take for granted. That’s not my bag of fun. Mine usually comes in annoyingly Starforce-protected form.

I suppose it’s best summarized by my vocal explanation to my mother as to why I might be hesitant to apply to an extremely techy school like RPI, “I’m like ‘Hey, compsci is pretty cool,’ while people at RPI are like ‘OMG COMPSCI RULEZZZZ!’” I don’t think I could ever make the change that characterizes those students, and I’d be alienated. I’d be the kid that didn’t do anything crazy; he just passed his classes, hung out with friends, and played lots of games.

Yet when I read it, I don’t feel that there’s anything wrong with that life. In fact it sounds great. I love friends, I love games, and I even love classes on occasion. I could live that life for four years in any other college and I wouldn’t mind. I could live a 9 to 5 life for the rest of my life, with random socializing and games to mix it up, and I wouldn’t mind. It’s only when I see people doing so much more with their lives that I start to get envious. I’d love to be them, but I don’t want to be them enough to do anything about it. Is it possible to be content yet left wanting? Can I really be content when I feel inferior?

This jealousy is going to drive me crazy one of these days.

V. Au: But when I let the parent sleep, the child does work. However I need the parent to die. What is my problem?
—–
J. Lin: As long as a woman has a baby, she has no real reason to create literature.

I knew that the letter from Carnegie Mellon was way too thin to be an acceptance letter. Makes sense; what more do you need to reject someone than to flick the rapier and go into Prep C? It irks me that I have to write at least three more essays (probably more in the range of four to six). I’m lazy and it takes a while for me to actually start writing, so I may cut down my list of schools. I’m definitely applying to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and I’ve already applied to SUNY Binghamton. Possibly applying to Boston University. They’re reach/safety schools. The real variability comes from the other schools, which happen to be brand name. I’m picking and choosing from Cornell, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins. Well, mainly just Columbia and Johns Hopkins, but Cornell is still in the running.

However, if I couldn’t get into Carnegie Mellon Compsci, what chance do I have to get admitted to Ivy League schools? I’d still like to dream, which is why I’m applying to at least one, but I’d rather not waste my time on fruitless dreams (eh, tim?). So I figure I’ll get the RPI/BU(?) essays done first, and then write as many dream essays and applications as time allows. Which will, in all likelihood, be only one.

I’m taking the rejection fine. I know things will turn out for the best. I just wish I didn’t have to do more work .

Edit: Okay, did my research and finalized the list. I’m applying to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Boston University, SUNY Binghamton, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins. I’ll only have to write a short essay for BU and write an optional (hah, yea right) essay for Johns Hopkins. We’ll see what happens with those.

Actually, no pictures, just a post. As good as the pictures are, I’m afraid to touch my Coppermine photo gallery. There’s no real organization system; half of it’s organized one way, half another. Even the more organized half isn’t really organized efficiently. I may just end up reinstalling it and leaving the current gallery as some antique.

Things are more settled on the college front. I’ve applied Early Decision to Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science. It’s very selective, having the lowest acceptance rate of all the schools within Carnegie Mellon, so it’s more or less a crapshoot whether I can get in or not. On one hand, my grades aren’t that great, my SAT scores could be better, I could be more involved, and I could have taken more challenging classes. But on the other hand, as I said in my interview, I’m different than all the other math/compsci kids because I can write and I can speak. That part of the interview went fine, though right now I’m a bit worried at the note the interviewer hastily jotted down right after I said that. The interviewer was a very nice guy, and I felt comfortable with him. I was also at ease with most of his questions; I was fortunate and wasn’t asked about politics, global affairs, or all that other stuff I know nothing of. The only questions that slipped me up were intentionally lubricated: two good things and one bad thing my friends would say about me, and why I didn’t like Carnegie Mellon. Tricky tricky.

The essays were done in typical Steven style. That is to say, it’s a wonder I maintained sentient thought so late without caffeine. I finished the draft of my first essay around 3 in the morning to meet a self-imposed deadline (more like a parent-imposed deadline) and did the final draft days later. I finished the draft of my final essay around 1 in the morning the day of, and finished the final copy around 3 in the morning that same day. Good thing that the Intel research project students were pulling all-nighters that day, and one happened to be my regular reviewer . Thanks again, Caroline.

The essays themselves turned out alright. They were both initially kinda sketchy and not very interesting, but I managed to transform them into something half decent. I didn’t say anything that could not happen, but I took creative liberties. I like to think of them not as falsehoods, but as embellishments. I didn’t want to go through the trouble of explaining what BS was (it amazes me how many people didn’t know how to play BS…and am I the only one who knows Chinese BS?), so I just said that I helped design a poker game. Same principles. And while I don’t eat food most people would consider repulsive, I eat sushi, which my girlfriend won’t touch. See? I wasn’t lying in the essay! *inserts a $20 bill into the slot and leaves the pay-per-confession booth*

So to sum up the dreadful business of college, I’m applying to Carnegie Mellon but probably won’t get in. I feel like I will, but it’s not like I took a toke of melange or anything. If I get rejected, you should all apply to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and SUNY Binghamton! Because you’re all cool people, and I’m going to be lonely. Yet chances are you’re all going to higher places: one’s going to NYU, another to Harvard, another to MIT…another’s already in MIT…damn you smart people. Damn you loveable smart people.

AP English Teacher on the Iliad:
“Achilles is a man with an MBA in manslaughter.”

Me on the Iliad:
SarcasticSteven: zeus was hatin on the trojans
SarcasticSteven: and hera’s like “oh no, don’t be hurtin mah homeboys”
SarcasticSteven: so she gets a plan to subdue zeus
SarcasticSteven: and she’s like “i want your cock”
SarcasticSteven and he’s like “damn! none of my other bitches be that horny!”

SarcasticSteven: like this one trojan was like “your moms are whores!”
SarcasticSteven: and so this achaean was like “don’t be sayin nothin about my momma!”
SarcasticSteven: and he thrusts a spear through the guy’s eye, coming out of his skull the other side
SarcasticSteven: then he beheads him and holds the head up high, with the spear still in it
SarcasticSteven: and he’s like “tell his dad that his son’s a pussy! achaeans represent!”
SarcasticSteven: and the trojans bounce

So as you can see, AP English is just fine. I get to sleep when the teacher isn’t breaking English teacher norms, and the Iliad is chock full of random people being randomly killed in grotesque ways. I hear Canterbury Tales is a lot racier, but the Iliad is still good stuff.

I snooped around and found layouts to give the site and the photo gallery graphical overhauls. I felt it was due for a change after nearly two months of inactivity. I’ve been primarily neglecting it because there have been a lot of things hanging over my head, and I play games to get away from that. And it just so happens that I like games that pull me in, so I’ve been spending a lot of time gaming and not a lot of time thinking.

Stay tuned; the next post will have pictures.

Period listings taken from my Sconex profile.

PERIOD 1: Pre-porn warmup (Mr. Quagmire)
Giggity.

PERIOD 2: Architecture (Mr. Rothenberg)
Rothenberg is one of the craziest teachers ever, but that’s why we love him. Tons of corny jokes, random references, and random tangents make me stay awake during his lessons. Not to mention I’m considering architecture as a minor/hobby, so the lessons themselves hold interest for me.

PERIOD 3: Architecture (Mr. Rothenberg)
Stuyvesant mandates a type of class called a “10 Tech” during your senior year. These are in the same suit as the 5 Tech classes required in junior year (photography, advanced CAD, robotics, etc) but take up two periods a day instead of one. I don’t mind, and in fact I like it, especially because I do well in the class and since the teacher is writing a recommendation for me, I want to shine as much as possible.

PERIOD 4: Electronics (Dr. Majewski)
This is the slacker 10 Tech for the nonartistic. The artistic slackers take Acrylic Painting, the nonartistic slackers take Electronics. Hence Acrylic Painting is mostly girls, and Electronics is mostly guys. But despite exams only being 5% of the grade and being guaranteed a 99 if I simply showed up to class, I’m actually interested in Electronics. Especially because we’re using this cool electronics kit, and I love to play around with stuff.

PERIOD 5: Lunch (Mr. Thepersonthatmakesmylunch)
I’m so alooooooone. Except for you, Joanna. And Kimberly and Paul, but I don’t even know if they go to lunch.

PERIOD 6: Ap english literature (Mr. Gern)
I’m going to sleep. But I’m going to sleep with friends. Wait, that doesn’t sound right…

PERIOD 7: System level programming (Mr. Zamansky)
Everyone loves Zamansky. I think I will too. The computer room we’re in got a major overhaul, so it’s on par with the computers we were using for AP Computer Science. Which is to say, not as good as the ones we’d play Quake III Arena on, but better than the ones that ran DOS.

PERIOD 8: Calculus applications (Ms. Rubin)
For what I thought would be a class full of jocks, I’m on comfortable terms with more people in this class than any other. And the teacher seems nice as far as math teachers go, so I think it won’t be that bad.

PERIOD 9: American government (Ms. Feldman)
I have the opposite feeling about this class. She seems evil. I want Plafker back.

PERIOD 10: Post-porn wrapup (Mr. Quagmire)
Giggity.