Riveting

Why is it that books always become more exciting with about 50 pages left? I'm not talking only about novels here either. How can a non-fiction book or how-to guide so consistently make you want to rush through the last 50 pages and finish it? Is it just the desire to be done? Is it a mental reaction to feeling only that many pages in your right hand left to read? Is it conditioned into everyone (or just me?) from reading novels that have a reason to be exciting during this part?

Massages are great. This has always been my opinion, probably moreso than most of you losers who only think that you like massages. I have, however, never had a professional one, only fake ones by friends and family. That has changed. My back had been sore all week and I got around to looking up reviews of local places on Yelp and it turns out there is a great place a couple blocks away, so I decided to go for it. Half hour appointment. The guy, who was unique(!) but good at his job, ended up working on me for over an hour and then trying to give me more of a discount. Basically amazing. When I am old and not poor, this is so a luxury I am going to take advantage of.

I want to try acupuncture sometime too. Just not at a sketchy place. Not sure if non-sketch places exist. Plus how much does it cost? One of you must know/have a family member who does it for a living. Haha. Not you Natalie.

C thinks my fashion tips to her are amusing and that I should put them up here. They're so obviously correct I don't know if I should bother with typing them up.

My American Idol predictions hit a bump this week with only 2/3 correct. Underestimated America's musical taste in not voting for joke guy whose name I can't remember.

Quickies:
School: Midterms last week. Midterms next week. Meh. I was annoyed with my A- in comparative politics. Should have just taken that AP test and seen if I could pass it. Bleh. Geology sucks. My professor has this verbal tic where she ends most sentences by almost-yelling "OKAY?" History also sucks.

Work: Has its ups and downs. With the stimulus done and a little bit less legislative craziness, we are having to send out a ton of letters, responding to all the comments about the stimulus (and random abortion crap). So some days it's basically dealing with letters all day, and that blows a little. Other days it's very interesting and I have a variety of tasks thrown at me and get to wander around the Capital grounds and get myself lost and found and such. Plus I got a new boss two weeks ago and he is starting to utilize me more since I actually know what I am doing (most days).

Baseball: Definitely want to do more umpiring this season, and have to figure out how to work that out along with a work schedule. It's exciting to see the umpire message boards start to come alive as the season starts. Always a fun time of the year. Also have to decide if I want to teach again this year for a week over the summer. Once again with possible job conflicts...

Love: Who the **** knows?

Books: [May as well finish where I started for some cyclical good karma or whatever.] Finished Telling Lies today, which was a pretty interesting exploration of approaches to discovering lies. Very technical and odd in some parts. Written by the guy who inspired the new tv show Lie to Me.

Stuck in a rut

Ugh. Just not feeling it right now. Not at all. My entire body is achy, I've been bored all night, and I really need to fix this and make sure it won't be a pattern. Shift back to week-1 Nate, not present-day Nate. If this becomes a pattern then I'm pretty much screwed for a good long while. Damn.

Not Spellchecked

Okay, so I haven't written a real blog post in almost a month, but since you are probably just finishing up that one, I figure I am not too terrible. Yes, I did steal this form of joke straight from anything talking about Benjamin Button. Which I still haven't seen because the world hatesloves me.

I think it's fair to say a lot has been going on since then. It might be monotonous, but its a lot in terms of sheer tonnage. Work has been going well. I have gotten to the point where I know what to do with almost anything that is sent along to me, which cuts down on having to ask questions and is a nice feeling. Still some random things I don't know though. Getting lost in the basement of the Capitol is always good for a few minutes of fun before running into a police officer who knows the magical way out.

Last week was a big week. With all the stimulus action happening, it was not exactly a breeze, but still quite a bit of fun. Always more enjoyable to work when you feel needed. Thriving under pressure is always what I have felt I do best.

School is... school. None of my classes are very interesting. The one upper-level course I am taking along with my slew of requirement-satisfiers blows chunky vomit. It's sad too, since Race and Politics in the US is a very interesting topic, especially right now. Professor just can't get it together and actually teach anything. Seems to be geared more toward history majors who want to sit around and ruminate on the finer points of the irony of the fall of the first reconstruction being paired with the increase in competence of pre-elected black officials. Sounds like a barn-burner, eh?

I have been reading quite a bit in free time, trying to power through books on my book list. Feel free to check it out over on the right. After Team of Rivals took me forever and a half to finish, it's nice to speed through some books on other topics. I'm also finally getting back to my high-school norm of reading at least two books for pleasure at any one time in addition to my assigned reading. Yes, it is extremely nerdy. Yes, it is very fun. Yes, this is a large part of how I know so much random crap. For all you comm and psych majors, I highly recommend the Luntz book on the 2nd list, Words That Work. It's written from a right-wing perspective, but contains plenty of fascinating evidence of how our minds interpret different phrases.

I've been trying to break out of some of my wholesome dorkiness, partly through music. The famed Music Thread is providing a lot of listening for me lately, and I have been trying to listen to everything that comes across it at least once. I am not quite succeeding in full, but am doing a lot better than I ever did before, so I'm happy. Plus today I got hooked on some old Michael Jackson stuff for some reason. Caused nostalgia about the 2001 Anniversary concert for him and that led to reminiscing about 6th grade and the ridiculousness that was that year (hi Kathy, hehe). Plus downloaded some MJ for fun listening.

I have this theory. We're all a lot more nerdy than we let on (or think we let on, at least). I feel like the internet has created a generaiton of people with asocial habits that they hide from their social life at all costs. Or at least partially. Okay maybe this isn't a theory but just a random thought that is terribly developed.

Also that a de-friend button should exist in real life and act instantaneously. Would be amazing.

I have been failing pretty consistently at getting an adequate amount of sleep. Although really all its done to me now is shift how much sleep I need downward. I can easily survive a day on six hours now, and sleep in less on weekends even after long nights. Which is why I can be writing this after midnight, without having showered yet, when I have work tomorrow morning. Irresponsible!

I'm very excited for Spring Break. Even though I won't get to spend much time with most of you losers who all have vacation the week after me. At least I will get to chill extensively with some people. Hmph!

Some housekeeping:
Safe: Danny, Alexis, Michael
Barely out: Ricky, noop, Tatiana

If you're not Taylor Swift, don't try to sing her songs. Miley Cyrus, Stevie Wright, and anyone else, this is for you.

Read This

Read the whole thing, it's fascinating. One key passage:

China is a prime example of where these trends are coming together. It has more Internet users than any other country, at nearly 300 million, and more than 600 million mobile users — 600 million! Twenty-five years ago, Apple launched the Mac as "the computer for the rest of us." Today, the computer for the rest of us is a phone.

This means that every fellow citizen of the world will have in his or her pocket the ability to access the world's information. As this happens, search will remain the killer application. For most people, it is the reason they access the Internet: to find answers and solve real problems.

Our ongoing challenge is to create the perfect search engine, and it's a really hard problem. To do a perfect job, you need to understand all the world's information, and the meaning of every query. With all that understanding, you then have to produce the perfect answer instantly. Today, many queries remain very difficult to answer properly. Too often, we force users to correct our mistakes, making them refine their searches, trying new queries until they get what they need. Meanwhile, our understanding of the interplay between high-quality content, search algorithms, and personal information is just beginning.

Why should a user have to ask us a question to get the information she needs? With her permission, why don't we surf the web on her behalf, and present interesting and relevant information to her as we come across it

Dreaming of a white... Holocaust Memorial Day?

A nice view out my window this morning. I think we ended up getting a little over an inch, but it's not like I am good at knowing how much snow there has been!



The alternate campus a few miles away where I have stats this semester was pretty pretty:

Quotatious

stop sending happy emoticons about a shell of a life
-S

A little sassy don't you think?

A New Era

So minus the shitty update of Sunday evening, I haven't updated this thing since I got settled in back at school for semester #2. Like I mentioned before, it really is a little weird to be back. I still can't quite put my finger on it but my relationships with some people here have definitely altered. Wonder if it's because of not caring about each other over break. Doesn't really matter what it is.

Forgive me if I sound a little emo right now. I haven't quite ridded myself of everything I was exposed to at a PostSecret event I attended tonight. Frank Warren, the creator of it, came here on his tour of college campuses to give his presentation and hold a bit of open discussion. First things first, his voice is creepily annoying. It's sort of a cross between kindergarten teacher and psychiatrist with extra fake happiness inserted in there somehow. Now okay, whatever, doesn't really matter, but it combined with his permanent smile made me think he was faking all emotion and really some depressed dude. Kind of threw me off the whole time. The discussion time was different than I thought it would be. I guess I should have expected a self-selected audience of 1,500 to include those willing to share dark secrets, but it still seems weird.

It might just be me, but hear me out on this. Writing/drawing/arting the fact that you almost killed yourself onto an anonymous postcard for the world to see as a vehicle of expression makes sense. You release it and it's out there but still your secret in all practical ways. Standing up in a theater of 1,500 peers and half-sobbing through a story about almost killing yourself makes a lot less sense. Yes, you get it out there, but it's no more effective than just telling people you see on the street or in class or whatever. Loses a lot of its luster for me. I'm sure it helps people somehow, but it also seems to be a huge attention-grabbing thing. But then again that's the main reason behind most half-assed suicide attempts anyway.

Warren also repeatedly extolled the virtues of a toll-free suicide hotline (1-800-SUICIDE) and how it has saved tons of lives. Sounds like a good idea and there is no reason to be against it, but the political scientist inside of me questions his data. How many people who decide to call in to a hotline like that actually want to kill themselves? Not very many. People who call in want to be talked out of it and will take any excuse to get out of it. Where do you think all the "I was going to kill myself but the cashier smiled at me so I didn't" stories come from? People who actually want to die just do it, they don't make calls and talk about it in filled theaters.

I do respect the one brave guy who stood up and defended suicide as a courageous move. Not something to be supported necessarily but also not something to be labeled as illogical behavior. My argument against suicide is that it doesn't really get me anything. Either there is an afterlife and I just spiked any chance at heaven I ever had by committing the ultimate sin of ending myself, or there isn't and I am just over now. I guess being over could have its advantages when looked at from the depths of depression, but it's just so un-American to not think you have another shot. Unless doctors have given you a death sentence or something similar. Then sell your house and have fun traveling until it gets too painful.

It does scare me how many people I have known in my life have contemplated or tried to kill themselves though. It's nice that they are all failures.

I'm also not sure I understand the current obsession society has with letting go of secrets. Secrets aren't unhealthy. It's how you know you have a grasp on life. Every time Warren referred to the "inner darkness" (his kindergarten-esque euphemism for suicidal thoughts) and how sharing releases it I wanted to ask why we want our outer world to be more dark. Also the bullshit that is him referring to stories from his past that he has told thousands across the country as secrets. No dude, those are shitty anecdotes you use to help sell books, not secrets. Also constantly calling himself an artist. Sure dude, in the broadest sense you are, but have a slice of humble pie once in a while.

He was like a motivational speaker but instead of motivating one from being average to being great, he was attempting to move people from being terrible to acceptable. Not exactly inspirational.

I end this way-too-long section with two poems from Amiri Baraka:

Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus...

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there...
Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands

Monday in B-Flat

I can pray
all day
& God
wont come.

But if I call
911
The Devil
Be here

in a minute!

---

Inauguration day was ridiculous. Make sure that some time in your life you make an effort to get out to an event with a gargantuan crowd. Simply having 1.8 million other people alongside you creates incredibly energy. Standing around in the cold for a few hours to see 20 minutes of an acceptably good speech (more on that in a bit) isn't the most fun thing in the world, but being there for history really is great. I can't wait to tell my kids (and grandkids) that I was there.

We went around 8 am and got up to the third jumbotron back in the non-ticketed area, which was close enough for a pretty good view of the capitol, even if we couldn't really see any of the people upon it. The screen worked pretty well for that. I can't believe they screwed up the oath. Only in real life.

My two favorite moments from the speech:
1) "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers."
For what I think has been pointed out as the first time in a major presidential speech, atheists are included. I also love the fact that he didn't use a bible at his second swearing in. Go go Obama!
2) "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."
I think this is the line that is going to resonate from this speech throughout his term and maybe history. It so perfectly encapsulates his world view as being more than black and white.

As I mentioned above, I didn't think it was the greatest thing he's ever done, but it fit the moment well. A speech full of lofty rhetoric would not have suited a moment where he was calling on the country to come together not to succeed but to not fail (kind of like an appropriate application of Warren's fucked logic, in a way).

I put this list together for S, but thought some of you might be interested. The biggest speeches of Obama's career in chronological order:

2002 Anti-War
2004 Keynote
Announcement
JJ Dinner +
Iowa ++
Race
St. Paul +++
DNC
Election Night
Inauguration

For anyone wondering, no we are not a "post-racial" nation. We're improving little bit by little bit, but we have a long way to go.

---

My internship and classes have both been progressing without too much of an issue. My internship feels shorter than it is, which is very nice. I was worried going in that the end of every day would be constant staring at the clock mentally ready to leave. You know, the state I am in by the end of my packed Tuesday and Thursday schedules (8 am to 6 pm with a lunch break may not have been the best of ideas...).

With the internship, it's certainly not that I am getting to work on especially cool tasks, but more that I am understanding more every day of simply how the office works and how the Congressman's life is run. Pretty interesting stuff. Plus I get to go to plenty of cool places. Not every job lets you get lost for a while in the basement of the U.S. Capitol building while looking for a House committee room. I might be crazy to be doing this, but I think it may just pay off in the long run.

My most interesting class this semester is my history course, covering "Race and Politics in the U.S. since 1945." We began with discussion of Obama and have now reversed course to cover Reconstruction. It can be a bit intimidating to be a white freshman in a class full of upperclassmen with a heavy sprinkling of African ancestry. Somewhat surprisingly enough, the most heated of dialogues have been between the black students and the students who happen to be black. They all need to read some Ta-Nehisi Coates and reflect. The biggest barrier for me in the class seems to be the touchy-feely approach of the professor. I am much more into the cynical motives behind the political actions than whether or not Lincoln actually cared about black people.

Shoes.com is amazing. At least so far. Free shipping and free returns for a year means shoe shopping is now a lot easier for me. Nothing like ordering five times as many pairs of shoes as I ever intended on keeping to make sure I got the right size and color. I like my new kicks. (Meher or Neri or somebody, come check that sentence to make sure I used my slang right!!!)

I need to get ahead on school stuff this weekend to keep from drowning in it (a 4-day weekend full of inaugural celebration didn't exactly lend itself to doing extra work). More than that I need to have random conversations with some of you I haven't talked to in a while. Don't fail me.

Next time I will try to not wait so long and hopefully stop myself from going on for six pages when I should be going to sleep instead. Oh well.

P.S. I had decided I felt defrauded by Warren before I went to PostSecret and saw the perfect postcard waiting there to express my feelings about it. He did admit to putting a secret of his own in each of his books... maybe he does it on the site too.