Fiddle-faddle

You know what I just did? I just finished the closest thing to a tactical masterpiece that I will ever accomplish. Not that that's particularly close, mind--my tactical mind is one of my weak points--but it was exciting. Exciting except for the part where it meant I sat here for two hours while I coordinated the movements of my little units, with an emphasis on flanking the other guy over and over and over again. Sure, it was pretty engaging, but it also ate up a couple of hours, and I'm supposed to be contemplating signing a lease on an apartment that I will probably visit again tomorrow afternoon. Argh.

I hate when my timing is off and I screw myself. In the booty.

By the way, I failed to properly sacrifice swearing for Lent. I visited John on Friday and said lots of bad words. I also visited John yesterday and said more bad words. I think I might try to pretend the whole thing was supposed to start today. Just so that Jesus will still love me.

Go Go Power Rangers!

Eric's post reminded me that Lent has begun. My friend David from my globalization class asked me if I wanted to give up something with him, and I decided that I might as well for kicks. Just now I was meditating on what I could possibly give up that would help to better me while not being difficult. The answer came to me suddenly: swearing! Beginning tomorrow at 5PM central time, I will refrain from using the following words: fuck, shit, cunt, dick, cock, bitch, ass, tits, and all other words which contain profane uses of any or all of those eight words. Yes, all; I will no longer be able to say fuckasscuntbitchcocktittyassdick. An exception can be made to referring specifically to donkies and male roosters, but there will be very little leeway provided. Limited use of bastard will be permitted based on clearly legitimate situations and to enable me to take it to another level when I denounce someone--which is what a lot of swearing is supposed to be for in the first place. And of course I will allow myself continued and unlimited use of the word damn because otherwise I will definitely say darn or dag-nab or something ridiculous that I will ultimately grow to hate myself for. The rules have been set forth. I hope to God that I don't regret this.

Every time I hear The Shins, my little heart goes pitter-patter and I get twitterpated

On Monday and Wednesday afternoons we have our discussion section for differential equations. On Monday I left right after the TA explained that we'd get our midterms back on Wednesday, and today I left immediately after mine was finally returned. It was another nice day, so I went ahead and took my sweet time as I flipped through the test. The thing is, I already knew my grade (57/60, if you care not to scroll down), and how that was the highest possible score I could get since I simply wrote "I haven't a clue" as my answer for a 3-point problem. Obviously that meant there was no reason for me to look at all of it.

Except for ego. Sometimes I hate to admit that. Not because I'm necessarily ashamed of having a rather large one, but because my love of it means I have something in common with Ayn Rand. Blegh. To this day it frightens me that Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard both have scholarships available in their names, and that I had at one point or another considered applying for them.

It was so satisfying to just stare at my work. Sometimes I do that with what I write too, but I feel like that has a more universal cathartic effect than staring at well-executed mathematics. Then again, it might just be the extension of the same feeling into another language. All I know is that once I'd finished looking through my exam, I started over. That's the power of ego.

I also sat for two examinations today, as mentioned described below. After talking with my friend David when I ran into him, my recently re-read differential equations exam in hand, I learned that one of the answers I was so confident about on my globalization test was at least partly wrong. That was deflating and demoralizing. Suddenly lots of things that I don't even remember must, by necessity be called into doubt. I'm just grateful that I have mad test-taking skills; I can't imagine how much more pronounced every miniature bout of sort-of anxiety would be if I weren't a battle-hardened veteran of the test.

The discrete math exam went splendidly, though. I am hoping for and expecting a 105. And whether or not my ego is dominant when I get it back, I'm going to read over it thrice just to keep up appearances. And then I'll blog about it and radiate in my own self-admiration.

In all honesty, though, it is a frightening thing sometimes to be good at taking tests. Not for the insufferable reason that my own talent is astounding, but because sometimes you worry about what you really know. Sometimes it's impossible to fake knowledge, and sometimes it's impossible to fake a significant amount. I don't care to consider what these things might be, but I'm sure they exist and that I've experienced them to some extent. But to BS was high school's great secret--at least that was the popular thing to say. I know that I tried my best to be genuine in tests, but I had no qualms about pulling out the old can of obfuscating shit if I thought it would help. Even when you don't need that can, though, sometimes you just learn things for the test. What do I really remember? Especially in economics. I'm retaking a microeconomics class right now because of UT's rules, and its content is very similar to the one I took at GW, but I cannot get by in that class if I just coast on old knowledge. That is an unfortunate and unpleasant and terrifying reality. I have the skill-sets to teach; skill-sets to learn economics at least intuitively; do I have what it takes to learn economics and then teach it? I didn't have much work to do at HCC when I tutored there this fall, and I spent much more time than I wanted to referring back to the book and being unsure.

Even for a man with such an overwhelming ego, this knowledge is humbling. Sometimes I have to remind myself of these things to stop my confidence from turning too much into arrogance. Truth be told, though, that terrifying reality deflates my ego a great deal more than anything can ever inflate it. I love my ego, and I love your ego. I would sooner let him run wild than destroy him, and I will always err toward the former if I can. As unbearable as that may sometimes make me, it always means I am me. Being secure in that reality helps me deal with the terrifying ones.

Hazirlan, Keciler!

I have two tests today; one in Globalization, the other in Discrete Math. I have these classes back-to-back, and it is the rare occasion when I will make it to math before the professor starts lecturing. Mmmmmmm, delicious walking.

But I am certainly much more worried about the content of these tests. Experience and logic dictate that the Globalization test will be exceptionally easy given how frightening the professor has been trying to make it sound. Lack of familiarity with some of the material, meanwhile, leads me to have nagging doubts about my ability to cut it. There is about a 50% chance that I will do well because the test is easy, 35% that I will do well because my test-taking skills will pick out everything that is needed, 13% that my test-taking skills won't be that awesome, and 2% that something catastrophic will happen.

In these days, where I like to think of all probabilities in terms of poker, that 2% represents the need to fulfill an inside straight flush on the river. That doesn't help me envision the actual probability, but it does make me morbidly fearful of the sort of abject pain you feel when you are greeted by that 3 of hearts showing up and giving your brain-dead opponent lots of money. Thankfully that's about the extent of my anxiety. And it's clearly not very much. Notice how I have this test in a couple of hours but I'm talking to my peeps? Damn straight, bitches.

Pf? Why not just F?

At George Washington, we didn't have very many hawkers. Maybe some environmentalists with their dark blue windbreakers or some other political activists, but no one home-grown. The contrast at UT can be pretty sharp, at least if you're in the right spot. In the courtyard west of the main building and in front of the Academic Center and Student Union, there is often a gathering of assorted groups during the schooldays. Many of them, especially the one-shot wonders, have something they want to give to you or something they want you to sign up for. So they hawk. Sometimes it's kind of humorous ("Hey, do you want to play dodgeball?"), sometimes it's rather serious ("Would you like a free cookie to fight cancer?") and sometimes it's extremely annoying ("Burn Orange? Burn Orange? Burn Orange? Burn Orange?" like the fucking birds that squwak outside my window at home). As is sometimes necessary, I accepted some of the stuff that was easy to take--a card for an upcoming talent show, the Texas Travesty, the cancer cookie. I figure it makes the hawkers feel loved.

I also saw a little table with "fair trade chocolate" on it. It made me kind of shudder. It was good though, like pinching the economist part of me to make sure it's still awake.

Oh, and on that statistics exam that I blogged about recently, I lost exactly one point to put me at 14/15. So that was three in a row. But I can exalt that I managed to break the trend in my differential equations class, where I pulled out 57/60. I don't know if putting a halt to that pattern is good in and of itself, but that's okay; it was the #2 score in the class. Shazam!

Sadly, I seem to be operating at a lower level of performance today. Even aside from this entry, which feels more like it's forcing events than letting them flow, I was a clumsy and awkward mess in economics this morning when I volunteered several bits of speech while oblivious to key bits of information, like the fact that we did have a utility function and that he did put parentheses there. Towards the end of the class I became preoccupied with not seeming like a jackhole, and this naturally just made things worse. It's like my intelligence has suddenly diminished. I just hope that it wears off soon.

Well Look at Us

Mm mm mm. Not blogging begets more of the same; but any git could say that, and you folks aren't here to read the rantings and musings of just any git. I would like to exhort my comrades in the personal-journal blogosphere to join me in de-assing our seats and getting back into the fun times.

This is the first day all semester that I've had an opportunity to wear one of my superfun, supercool, superawesome shirts outside. The weather has once again become temperate and beautiful, and before I came up to the Life Science Library which often broadcasts my signal, even the great unnatural Cantay sat down to observe what a nice day can do to UT's campus. Of course I only sat for two minutes, but I sat all the same, munching my delicious $0.99 faux-chicken nuggets. I thought back to an article I read yesterday (yes, in The Economist) about how the conservation movement in America was in dire straits as a result of kids these days being grown on indoor and/or urban pleasures rather than those that can be experienced in the great outdoors. Apparently environmentalists and sportsmen are banding together in an unholy alliance to try to get kids, especially non-white kids, interested in world beyond the XBox 360 and Main Street. As a small corollary, I wonder just how well Sony and its massively powerful PS3 are doing; without having read anything, I get the impression that it's not doing too terribly well, especially compared to the debut of the Wii. Nice work, Nintendo. But getting back to the world outside of climate-control, it was very satisfying to see a mostly-clear sky through the leaves of the various trees around West Campus. I didn't realize just how sunshiny the day was until I walked inside UT's main building, which had never seemed more poorly lit in that kind of satisfying, sun-blinded way.

One thing so very frustrating about not writing often is that your brain becomes backlogged with ideas. Everyone knows this, and I'm sure everyone attributes non-desire to write at least partially to that. Ze Frank once compared ideas that were never executed to a sort of brain crack: ideas which people nourish for so long that the perfection of the idea itself and the likely imperfection that will mar it in application lead to the thing never being carried out, since the idea itself seems more comforting than its ugly real-world side. And your brain likes it, but it causes degeneration. Like crack. I get it, and I've succumbed to it, but what about in writing? Ideas that pile one on top of another, so that whether they're creative or contemplative or just plain undefined, the sheer volume to be addressed is too daunting for a mere mortal to take on. But I guess that applies to everything, and not simply writing.

I don't even know if I actually have a lot on my mind. Part of the problem with this public blog is that there are inevitably things we don't want to share with everyone--sometimes anyone. I could easily create a private adjunct to this for myself, but my poor ego would start wondering why I'm doing something that won't inflate him. That I'll have to figure out for myself, but sometimes talking at a wall or a tiny audience can help the mind sort through some things.

Right now I think I need to at once be more alone and more social. Like all those times in high school when I just sat in my room and did my own little thing, interacting with my family and everyone else as little as possible until one of my friends called me and provided some plan for hanging out. Sometimes I'd still want to be alone, but more often than not I'd realize that I was craving friendship right then and leap into action. I wish I had friends that would do that for me here. That last sentence was an example of something, you see, that would be much more appropriate for a private blog. Since, you know, I actually know people here and they could conceivably read this and feel guilted into doing something and create a whole awkward slough of bullshit. I absolutely do not want that. But I won't delete it. Because just typing it was liberating, but if I want to let at least a little weight off my heart I need to be able to read it again.

On another note, I think my tendency to hermitize myself has probably created some amount of resentment towards me within my family. At least for my mother. I know she's said as much on at least one occasion. I wonder if it makes it any better or worse that they probably could have mitigated the effect by offering to do interesting things with me from time to time. I also wonder if that last sentence is actually true.

And I do believe that's quite enough gut-spilling for right now. I have class in twenty minutes, so I think I'll just vegetate a touch and read The Economist's blogs, where the new trend in the comments is to criticize the blogger and complain that he has a leftist bias and/or hearken back to the Good Old Days, when The Economist was known for quality work. My audience may be teeny-tiny and quiet, but at least you guys are regular sweethearts.

Also, thank you very much for writing me, Cathy. I do so like correspondence. I hope you're less familiar with the taste of your own snot by now, and much, much luck with the colleges.

Why, Oh Why?

I got a 24 on my microeconomics exam. Granted, it's out of 25, but I'm disappointed that I managed to lose a point somewhere. I don't even know where, except that it was a multiple-choice question. Earlier I got 4/5 questions right in a pop quiz in my Globalization class. And now, in about fifty minutes, I'll be taking an exam in statistics. I'll probably get exactly one point off there too. But I should get to studying. I just wanted to say hello and throw in the following gratuitous mention of my level of fatigue: I'm tired.

Continuing the Trend...

Of mentioning music that Eric mentions, Danielle sent me Wincing the Night Away, among other things, and it has just now arrived. I've also just now started listening to it, and because it's usually not best to say much an album before you've listened to it all, I'll hold my commentary back. But The Shins turn me on; oh, they turn me on so hard. You know who else turns me on so hard? Danielle. Thank you, Danielle; I'd jump you wherever you currently are but for the intervening miles.

The unfortunate side-effect of receiving The Shins, however, is slicing your middle finger on the scissors you're using to open the package. It's not a bad cut, but bad enough to require a jury-rigged bandage which makes typing an absolute chore.

My family is supposed to be coming up today to visit me and our family friends in Austin. They were supposed to call when they left and they were supposed to arrive in the late afternoon. No telephone call yet. Bah.

I feel good though. And despite all the usual senses of angst that hang around Valentine's Day, I think this one will go rather smoothly. Now to vegetate and listen to my perhaps-favorite band.

Of Montreal!

Shit, I don't own any of their music, nor have I heard any song of theirs other than So Begins Our Alabee, but these guys rock. Seriously. Just so catchy, so fun, yet he's singing that he won't be their little friendly abject failure.

Apparently these guys have been around since 1997. I have lots of musical catching-up to do. ):

Bleep.

Two days ago the weather was lovely. Today it is slated to be twenty degrees colder and much drearier. In about thirty minutes from the dispatch of these words, I have to take the free-response part of an economics exam. I kicked the first half's ass up and down the weird scantron that we were using. Unfortunately, I finished up at about the same time as the fellow who inspired me to write my post about jackholes, and he joined up with me as we walked out of class. He doesn't seem like too terrible a fellow, really; just annoying in his speech and mannerisms. But that reminds me of this fellow in my Globalization class.

In a class of maybe 100 students, the professor knows this kid's name. The first time she called him by name, I was hit with a deep pang of regret for our poor instructor. This guy really did seem to be a true and proper jackhole. He always wanted to share something--more than even the other jackhole-types in that class--and it was never very insightful. Plus, he has tried to strike up conversations with myself and David, the fellow I sit next to (who lives at Pearl Street as well). Neither one of us wants to talk to him. Ever. But he still does it. David usually shoots him down, but I can never do that sort of thing to pathetic wretches, much as I want to. So it's awkward and unpleasant and I wish that that kid would just shut up. And it really pisses me off that he'll probably be getting three points added to his final grade for participating in class discussions, as per the syllabus. What absurdity.

I've noticed, though, that I seem to be a bit more of an asshole now that I'm here. I don't participate in any class discussions except for the rare comment or two, which leaves me lots of time to think about what douchebags everyone else must be. I'm pretty sure that's a bad thing. Granted, I don't actively think any of this except in the cases of truly egregious douchebaggery, but I worry that I am becoming a smug son of a bitch, and I wonder what exactly has allowed for this to happen. I miss the happy-go-lucky, in-your-face Cantay who was the intelligent class clown, but I bet I could coax him out again, and I bet I could coax out the latent cool-personas of the others in my classes who just need an opportunity to break free. Maybe I should raise my hand in Globalization even if I don't have something cutting to say about anti-free-trade policies--I think I need to, since David, as cool as he may be, probably disagrees with me on most issues. Maybe I should speak up more in microeconomics even though I've already taken the equivalent at GW. Whatever I do, I had better do something, just because I feel like I may be settling into a bad equilibrium. And as every economist knows, bad equilibria are hell.

Now it is time for that test. Or at least some cereal so that I don't have any rumblies in my tumbly. I wish you well, fair viewers.

But Damian, would you really call a teacher's work flexible or relatively low-stress? I would contend that curricula leave little room for flexibility and that teaching is perhaps one of the most high-stress jobs to be had. And the fact that teacher's wages have remained unchanged despite the increase in demand for their labor seems to indicate more of a market failure than market-clearing. Then again, I couldn't find the article that you mentioned in your blog because WSJ is evil. But it sure is good to see you here, welcome to the show.

And hasta la byebye.

If Only it Were True

I remember now that I just had a dream. A dream which, among many other somewhat exciting and interesting things, including a little aside where I found a button inside my refrigerator that said something along the lines of "activate freezer". I remember in the dream that I was very upset, because if I had only known that my freezer was not nearly cold enough to freeze things before my icecream turned to goo, I could have searched for this button back when it was still mostly-constituted.

I am so extremely tempted to open my fridge and see if such a button might actually exist, but I know that all I will find is frustration and an upsetting feeling that my subconscious duped me. So I'd rather dupe myself and let doubt remain. Until the next time I open my fridge.

(EDIT: I have to reopen this and repost the link I posted before about the horrifically funny thing. I think it's too awful not to see, so you can see it here. Choose a method of viewing the video (Windows Media lets you actually see exactly where you are) and fastforward to about 5:40 in the movie. Wait a few seconds, and you'll see what I'm talking about. Maybe you'll laugh in horror too.)

(EDIT #2: Oh dashitall. For some reason I can't get it to go to the proper chapter. Just scroll down to Chapter 12 for the appropriate video. Stupid link.)

Damn it

I'm kind of tired and I have a test tomorrow, but that's not why this post's title contains a mild expletive. No, the reason for that is my having attended a 1.25 hour seminar on reading faster. That's right. I went to one of those.

As soon as I walked in, I realized that everything I ever thought about these sorts of classes and their more evil cousins, the business seminars, was true. It was creepy. Even though there was nothing particularly culty about learning to read faster, it felt like a really creepy cult. It was slightly run-down and the person doing the talking was a small woman wearing a suit-thing whose arms were too big for her very skinny wrists. Her voice was very nasally. Much like a witch's voice. Apparently she was a neuropsychologist, and what she said was simple and made sense. The unfortunate thing is that if you want to actually learn how to read faster, you'd need to fork over $279 and twelve hours of your life. That just didn't sound fun.

Plus, I'd thought maybe I'd be able to get the job done on my own with what we did in those 1.25 hours.

And then, just now, when I was reading an article on procrastination, I realized the awful truth that I was reading in precisely the same manner as before. Damn it.

And now I'm working through some problems for microeconomics so that I can ace the test. I'm pretty confident that I'm totally where it's at, but I'd rather not go in cocky and embarrass myself. Besides, I have a weird relationship with economic theory. I totally get it when I'm reading or hearing about it; then, when I'm supposed to justify it or explain it later, I get all confused. Not on a test though; I kick ass at the tests. Still it's kind of scary, since I want to make a career out of justifying and explaining this stuff.

Presently I will return to studying. But I bet you didn't know that presently means soon, as opposed to right now. Fascinating, eh?

It's lovely outside; the temperature is perfect, the sun is shining his shine but not glaring his glare, the wind is only slightly too strong to be called a breeze. Even I was impressed--and I'm never as impressed by weather as most people. Everyone I know seems to enjoy doing things outside when the weather is nice, but the most I'll usually do specifically because of the weather is meander around for fifteen or twenty minutes. It's not much but it's something, and making that jump from nothing to something is much more important than making the jump from something to one hundred or one thousand somethings. So I'm quite content with that something. And I rather like being contented for short periods of time.

While I was meandering I saw Taleen. She went to high school with me, and was one of two Armenians I knew. I'm pretty sure she didn't recognize me so I grinned broadly as I do when I find something funny but others probably cannot or will not. In return, she gave me an awkward smiling grimace. I think I remember reading in the Daily Texan, in an article on Hrant Dink (the murdered Armenian-Turkish journalist), that Taleen headed some sort of Armenian organization, and that they joined in with some Turkish organization to condemn the killing or mourn Dink or something. Which is really cool. Considering the history between Turks and Armenians (and all former pieces of the Ottoman Empire), it seems really important and nifty to see them getting together. And considering the general wrath that the Turkish and Armenian diasporas have for each other, it's even more important and nifty.

I remember I only met Taleen in our junior year, when she asked me in our history class if I'd heard of the Armenian Genocide. I hadn't. She then went on to explain that the day that Armenians commemorated it was coming up and that it was important that I knew about it. I can't remember the substance of all she said, but I do remember how piercingly awkward it was to suddenly learn that your people have been accused of genocide against another, and to have that information relayed to you by a descendent of the victims. To this day I don't know what to believe; ethnic cleansing and pogroms were very common back in the old days wherever you went, and it's difficult to imagine that there was a one-sided conspiracy to destroy the Armenian people when neither side was particularly strong, both sides were responsible for grave atrocities and the stronger side was fighting the losing end of a war. Chances are that Armenians got the shorter end of the stick (they certainly did when it came time for them to get territory later on). It might constitute genocide. It definitely means the issue should be redressed. But it never excuses that visceral hatred that some Armenians feel for us. Onward with the important and nifty expressions of unity wherever unity can be found. We've been on opposite sides for too long.

Bonjourno, Principesa!

And welcome to Hasta la Byebye.

This past Superbowl weekend I was at our family friends' house and I bought a sweater.

Much more tragically, my refrigerator is evil. When I came back to my partially red room on Sunday evening, I found my milk frozen solid. My icecream was gooey at best. At least the applesauce made it through without a hitch; sometimes I wish the whole world could be as reliable as applesauce.

Also, Joe Biden is not the dick that the media seems to enjoy portraying him as. Just wanted to throw that out there. Sure, he's from Delaware and therefore a schmuck, but he's not a dick. Now Barbara Boxer. She's a dick. As is Chuck Schumer. And Rick Santorum. Biden, though--Biden's just unfortunate because he's from Delaware.

That will probably do it for now. I feel like there's so much more I should say to you folks, but I think it might be best if I saved it for a time when I'm more composed and less cranky. Hasta la byebye, mis hijitos.

Not any time to blog now, but I burst out in horrified laughter when I watched a video on PBS. To see what I'm talking about, go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/story/ch_menu.html and scroll down to Chapter 12: The Specter of Stagflation. Open the video by some means or another, and if you want you can watch the whole thing. If you don't really care about stagflation, though, you can fast-forward to about 5/6 of the way through the movie. Immediately before the horrorifying comedy, you'll hear something about ranchers stopping sending cattle to market. And then boom.

Enjoy!

(This is why the world needs economists--to stop such horrors.)