Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Scary Stuff

No, not Halloween.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016748&l=915e9&id=1036380627

Luckily no one was inside when it went down, but jeez.

Also, I have confirmed my ride to Southern VA where I will be GOTVing for Obama for the final 4 days of the election. Woot!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Finding That Balance

I was going to make a Grease joke in the title but couldn't really figure out how to make "loving feeling" fit in. Oh well. Moving on...

College is all about finding balances. Study or sleep? Go to class or not? Party or stay in? Join that extracurricular activity or save your time? Support what you believe or support what is easy? Go with the flow or make the flow go with you? Smile at the weird girl or walk right by? Enjoy it or not?

As of today, I have been here for two months. I've got a pretty regular schedule worked out and feel like I have a pretty balanced life here. It's weird, I sometimes feel more at home here than I ever did over the previous four years at MV.

I am actually enjoying almost all of my classes here. My freshman-only hardcore lit class sucks, but even in there I can't help but be ensconced by how into it the professor is. My upper-level political science course is probably the most interesting topic on my schedule, which makes me feel better about wanting to become a poli sci major. The articles we are reading are fascinating in both their conclusions and their gaps in logic. To be noticing flaws in the logic of long-tenured oft-published professors is fun to say the least.

The friend group I am a part of is comfortable, if unfortunately smaller than it used to be. Making a completely new set of friends has taught me something about myself. If I decide I like someone, I can ignore a whole lot of annoying traits that they may have. If I decide that I don't like someone, every little annoying trait bugs the hell out of me and I can't stand to be near them. Probably not the greatest thing in the world when the initial question of to like or not to like is normally mentally answered within ten seconds of meeting someone. (Note to Paulina: You may remember a similar comment in our favorite blog a long while ago, hopefully the comparisons end there.)

Friends are important, and so are classes and parties, but I don't think either of them are as important as your answer to the last of my questions posed above. What, did you think they were ALL rhetorical? If you make a conscious decision to enjoy something, you almost definitely will. This may be a little late for everyone else already in college, but maybe some youngin's are feeling Vaguely Cynical too. Decide to enjoy college before you get there. Decide to make an effort to make it be fun. If you do decide this, you will have the time of your life.

Don't be one of those people longing for their high school days for the rest of their lives. MV was an amazing place for my mind and I to develop together, but it wasn't THAT great, peoples.

My last tidbit of possibly unwanted advice is to find a good way to clear your head. For me, it's running and showering. Discover something that works well for you and use it to focus. It will be a help. And to continue my tradition of somewhat gross pictures, below is one I took with my cell phone after getting up off the ground next to the Washington Monument tonight (in the middle of my jogging).

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Go Vote

If any of you aren't registered to vote, there is still a little bit of time left to do it. Do it.

And then there is that matter of what/who to vote for. My quick picks:
Pres - Obama
1A - Yes
2 - Yes
3 - No
4 - No
5 - Yes
6 - No
7 - No
8 - No
9 - No
10 - No
11 - No
12 - No

Not sure how much convincing you may need to go for Obama. If anyone has doubts, voice them in the comments so I can see what they are, please. The props are a bit more complicated. I am a pretty liberal guy but also don't enjoy saddling future residents of CA with too much debt through bond measures. Props 4 and 8 are the really important ones to vote down.

Now that that is all out of the way, we can get back to some fun.

Living in DC is fun. It certainly isn't normal, but it's pretty great. A small group of us went to a specialty ice cream place that is at least a mile from campus. We took the metro to it, but decided to walk back to work off the frustration of it being closed when we got there. We weren't completely certain where exactly we were, but figured out our general location and took off in one direction.

After walking for a while and not seeing anything we recognized, we were getting a little bit discouraged. Just as we were about to pull out the trusty iPhone map, we figured out where we were. We were standing in front of the Treasury and could see the White House. D'oh!

The last 5 blocks of our walk were not completely uneventful though. On the other side of the White House, in front of the OEOB there was a big tourist group of middle school girls. One of them is talking to another pretty loudly (in that screechy tween voice) about how she really likes tie-dye shirts. Danielle, who was having a pretty bad night, decides to yell back about her love of middle schoolers. At this point we are about 100 feet away and closing in on the group. They all look up at us and the girl who had been talking just has a stunned look on her face. Danielle then cheers up for some reason and promises the girl a tie-dye shirt.

The video camera wielding parents are all giving us pretty weird looks, which only get weirder when I noticed that Scott was himself wearing tie-dye. We started trying to get him to take it off and give it to the girl, but he refused. Sadness! The giggles of delighted middle school girls can really be nostalgic. Plus the awkward and uncomfortable parents completing the scene!

I also went to listen to Donna Brazile speak and got to meet her afterward. She was pretty hilarious and just exudes intelligence. I've always enjoyed her commentary on CNN, but she is definitely better in person.

And tonight I went to listen to Beth Leonard talk about her life and the career path toward becoming a campaign manager (Meher: the Man behind the politician). She ran Iowa for Kerry in the primary and Ohio in the general in 2004, and ran New Hampshire for Edwards in the primary this year. Pretty accomplished for her age, and a GW alum. Her biggest point was that people who want to run campaigns should get the heck out of DC for a little while and return to real America. Interesting... might not be a 'return' for me having grown up in Cupertino...

And don't worry, I've been having plenty of traditional college fun as well. My very chill House Proctor (our version of RA) can attest to that. Hah.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Dorm Kitchens are Useful

I'm not really sure how it turned out this way, but I am one of-if not the-most kitchen capable people out of my friends here. Kind of way wacky, but okay. It's quite a bit of fun to make good things without any measuring devices besides your eye!

Tonight we made out second round of chocolate sunflower kernel clusters. When we first made them, almost two weeks ago, we were fading fast and couldn't believe how amazing they were. I'm pretty sure I have never had so much fun eating and accidentally smearing chocolate all over my face. This time, although we failed at finding nonpareil sprinkles to put on top, we did manage to improve them. Instead of the three/four bite monsters or yore, we decided on very small bite-size treats. This is both nicer to eat and has a little bit silkier chocolate to seed ratio. Very nice.

We also made jello. I won't go into foodgasmic detail on that because it is both boring and untested, since it is still setting in the refrigerator.

In other, and probably more important, news, I decided to come home for Thanksgiving! My class schedule ends up working out quite nicely for a long break at home, so I will be relaxing for over a week in Cupertino. And definitely seeing you guys plenty. RITE?

A couple of friends here (Amanda and Danielle for those who are creepy enough to know names of GW folk already) have their boyfriends visiting this weekend. It's pretty interesting to meet people that you have already heard a lot about and compare their reality to their descriptions. Very mentally entertaining! But, surprisingly, I haven't found people from this category that I dislike yet. Still time!

And, just to make this a true college blog post, a rant:
No one cares that you can think of a special case that is counter to a general social science rule. We know there are Republicans in California and Democrats in Alabama. We are not stupid. We talk in generalities and statistics because if we wanted to account for every single opinion we would all kill ourselves. So when you think about raising your hand and pointing out the oh-so-fatal flaw in the argument because you know of a Congressman who once acted counter to the theory, don't. Shut the fuck up. Always.

There we go.

Monday, October 6, 2008

New Blog

Mondays do wonders for my to-do list. Not having any classes, combined with normally having quite a bit of work due Tuesday to procrastinate on leave me with plenty of time to check stuff off. Today was one of those days, and I had quite a bit of fun replying to letters and birthday cards that I had received. I also came to the realization that the Thank You notes I once so despised are now enjoyable chores that force me to communicate with people I like!

I'll submit to the peer pressure and start a blog on here and try to follow everyone else's a bit closer. If we all do it are we still losers?

I continue to enjoy myself out here in DC. GW's campus feels surprisingly much like a college campus, which is a pleasant surprise. I probably feel safer than I should being in the middle of the city, but at least I am a guy and have less to worry about.

It has been entertaining to watch my new friends here notice the same interesting and funny traits/flaws. They have picked up on my laugh and 10-year-old looks so far. Wonder what will be next. It's also fun to figure out which Cupertino friend they are most like.

Lavish me with comments and I will do the same to you, hah.