the shiny plaque factor
i often wonder about the possibility of self-education... as an alternative to formal education, that is. what exactly is the reason that i put myself through all the hassle to go to school in an educational system that i have no particular reverence for?
to a large extent, my interest in formal schooling persists because of three reasons:
a. social life
b. recognition of my skills [a.k.a. the "point to the shiny plaque on the wall" factor]
c. discipline
the first aspect, "social life", is relatively self-explanatory. the emphasis here is on meeting people in a similar stage of their lives who are interested in learning things. more importantly, people who have similar interests to myself. looking around a noisy bar a couple of nights ago, there were very few people that i actually wanted to approach just on the basis of their looks. and of course, the ones i did want to approach were mostly cute female-types... sexual attraction not being a particularly reliable indicator of what goes on inside the dome area. besides, purely social gatherings aren't exactly conducive to stimulating conversations -- even less so when alcohol is involved. everyone is too busy trying to look like they're having a "good time" to think about anything even marginally outside of their intellectual comfort zone. i dig that, but i'd rather spend most of my time feeling as if i'm doing something interesting. that may be why bars bore me. if you can't even dance and the music has no flavor, small talk gets old real fast. i'd much rather go to an art class and chat with a person who isn't afraid to ask for an explanation when i mumble something about the vanishing point on a drawing and they don't quite get it. i've found that friendships tend to last longer when the two people start out with a shared curiosity.
and then there's the shiny plaque factor.
as much as i try to find ways around it, most people in a profession don't care a whole lot about the smart, "self-educated" ones. just like getting props on the street for your car or your freestyling skills or whatever, people in most professions will want to see credentials when evaluating someone. it is the easiest pseudo-objective way of determining just how rigorous a person's education was, and also of what their potential influence among their peers may be. it may be as tasteless as staring at a woman's breasts while having a conversation to determine her worth as a person, but credentials are an unfortunate part of the professional ass-sniffing process. even computer programmers, who ideally exist in a meritocracy were skills equals success, are often judged to a large extent by their school background. particularly in a competitive economic environment where getting a job isn't so easy as walking in and running off a list of the programming languages that you "know".
a possibly relevant memory:
as i walked in to the school gymnasium for an evening work out after class one day, i saw a meeting of the new "judo club" that had sprung up at the beginning of the semester. i was a surprised at the rowdy atmosphere and lack of order among the twenty-some people in attendance, as they were practicing a hip throw in a relatively haphazard manner. the people who weren't practicing were standing around talking to each other casually, as if the class was a social event. i asked the teacher about it, and about his background as a martial artist. he told me that he wasn't affiliated with any school at present, and that he had been kicked out of tournaments for using excessive force. i suppose that was his way of asserting his toughness. from my own tournament experiences, there are rules set in place so that people don't hurt each other too badly -- it helps to focus the competitors on the technique and form that is unique to their style of martial art. so for example, if a judo man pokes another judo man in the eye when they're supposed to be attempting throws and takedowns, the whole purpose of the exercise is lost.
during the course of our conversation, i mentioned the word "discipline". he immediately reacted as if i'd shoved pepper up his nose and snorted that discipline is what someone forces on you. i disagreed and said that discipline is an essential aspect of martial arts training in order to keep aggression at a minimum. the debate became a bit heated, but nothing really came of it. now, though, i see that discipline can be oppressive, but on some level is indispensible for individual growth. having said that, i realize now that my academic interests are so wide and varied that if i tried to study on my own, my pace would be relatively slow compared to an intensive semester's work on a single subject [or three or four subjects]. one reason for this is not that i lack the motivation to study, but something that could benefit from a physical metaphor: the longer the interval between sets of an exercise, the less benefit is derived due to lack of cumulative muscle strain. doing one set of fifteen push-ups in the morning and another at night won't strain the muscles nearly as much as doing two sets in less than a minute. similarly, if i were to try to study seven subjects a day, it would take me much longer to achieve the same competence in any one of them than it would if i only studied two or three a day. the problem with that fact, of course, is that it reveals a certain amount of limitation in what one can learn. maybe effective study strategies would help to overcome those limitations.
that actually may be worth looking into; i would like to continue my own extra-curricular studies when i get back to school in the fall and still have a little time to party.
and then there's work and all that responsibility-type stuff too...
7.26.2002
7.26.2002
7.26.2002
college expulsion
after a little verbal jousting with the fire-breathing amazon woman behind the desk at the student services department, i managed to get an appointment with a counselor to plead my case. in his office, the bespactacled little man looks at me, looks at the computer screen that shows my academic record, and wonders how i could have been expelled over 0.010 of a grade point. we go back into the student services office and find that the letter confirming my readmission to the school was sitting on a desk next to a stack of papers -- somehow, no one had bothered to mail it out to me for the past two weeks.
i smile lightly. it doesn't matter; i'm back in school. now it's just a matter of finding a job so that i can afford classes in the fall. if things go right, i'll at least have an interview by the end of next week. fingers are crossed...
one thing at a time.
there is an inevitable trade-off, of course: in case i actually was expelled, i was kinda hyped on the idea of getting this few-hundred-dollar custom-designed tattoo that i've been fiending for. i was considering taking an acting class too; after all, traditional college isn't the only kind of school, and there are tons of acting schools in the city. but now maybe i can take a [much cheaper] class while in college. and once find a source of sustainable cash flow, everything will be much closer to my grasp. we shall see.
every now and then, i can't help but think of the fact that it is possible to live very small, but if you've got the means, it is very easy to get sucked into the endless troubles of living large and endless wants.
motion: usher . you don't have to call
after a little verbal jousting with the fire-breathing amazon woman behind the desk at the student services department, i managed to get an appointment with a counselor to plead my case. in his office, the bespactacled little man looks at me, looks at the computer screen that shows my academic record, and wonders how i could have been expelled over 0.010 of a grade point. we go back into the student services office and find that the letter confirming my readmission to the school was sitting on a desk next to a stack of papers -- somehow, no one had bothered to mail it out to me for the past two weeks.
i smile lightly. it doesn't matter; i'm back in school. now it's just a matter of finding a job so that i can afford classes in the fall. if things go right, i'll at least have an interview by the end of next week. fingers are crossed...
one thing at a time.
there is an inevitable trade-off, of course: in case i actually was expelled, i was kinda hyped on the idea of getting this few-hundred-dollar custom-designed tattoo that i've been fiending for. i was considering taking an acting class too; after all, traditional college isn't the only kind of school, and there are tons of acting schools in the city. but now maybe i can take a [much cheaper] class while in college. and once find a source of sustainable cash flow, everything will be much closer to my grasp. we shall see.
every now and then, i can't help but think of the fact that it is possible to live very small, but if you've got the means, it is very easy to get sucked into the endless troubles of living large and endless wants.
motion: usher . you don't have to call
7/26/2002 08:11:00 PM
saru . redesign
having read about the separation of content and presentation, i went into the redesign knowing that relatively little of what i was about to do would conform to the rules. the closest i came to separation of content and style was writing a single css class that controls the orange [#EFA700] color of all of the tables on the page. pretty much all of the text presentation is controlled via css, but the layout is still a rat's nest of tables. i started learning xhtml [if you know html, xhtml takes about five minutes to learn] a little while ago too, but then perl took control of my brainstem and that was the end of that.
having read about the separation of content and presentation, i went into the redesign knowing that relatively little of what i was about to do would conform to the rules. the closest i came to separation of content and style was writing a single css class that controls the orange [#EFA700] color of all of the tables on the page. pretty much all of the text presentation is controlled via css, but the layout is still a rat's nest of tables. i started learning xhtml [if you know html, xhtml takes about five minutes to learn] a little while ago too, but then perl took control of my brainstem and that was the end of that.
7.22.2002
7.22.2002
7.22.2002
dinner with[out] the parents
sitting. two fans pointing toward the table noisily shush each other, indifferently pushing hot air and white noise through their dull, spinning blades. the tabletop is a formulaic circle, four sides, each of which is occupied by a chair. three of the chairs bear the weight of human gravity. they sigh in resignation at the customary strain, but resist the inexorable force that implores them to crumble through the floor and into the center of the earth.
one human sits across from the empty side of the table. quickly bored, he conjures up the image of a human vertebral column perched on the seat in front of him in profile, counting the curves in the spine. one... two... three... four... but where is the atlanto-occipital joint? how does it balance the skull on top of the spine?
suddenly a laugh stifles its way across the table. not actually having imagined the lipless skull whose occipital bone would rest on the atlas [the first vertebral bone], he knows it could not have come from the skeletal apparition that he has visualized in front of him. it was he who laughed. five minutes have passed; half of the dry piece of chicken, as well as a fair amount of the rice and vegetables on his plate have been eaten. an autonomous process, independent of his consciousness.
no words. silence descends again; the fans create further eddy currents in the thick humidity of the evening.
he stands and hobbles away from the stupefying model of polite civility. a sprained ankle is the last thing on his mind.
audio: atari teenage riot . destroy 2000 years of culture
sitting. two fans pointing toward the table noisily shush each other, indifferently pushing hot air and white noise through their dull, spinning blades. the tabletop is a formulaic circle, four sides, each of which is occupied by a chair. three of the chairs bear the weight of human gravity. they sigh in resignation at the customary strain, but resist the inexorable force that implores them to crumble through the floor and into the center of the earth.
one human sits across from the empty side of the table. quickly bored, he conjures up the image of a human vertebral column perched on the seat in front of him in profile, counting the curves in the spine. one... two... three... four... but where is the atlanto-occipital joint? how does it balance the skull on top of the spine?
suddenly a laugh stifles its way across the table. not actually having imagined the lipless skull whose occipital bone would rest on the atlas [the first vertebral bone], he knows it could not have come from the skeletal apparition that he has visualized in front of him. it was he who laughed. five minutes have passed; half of the dry piece of chicken, as well as a fair amount of the rice and vegetables on his plate have been eaten. an autonomous process, independent of his consciousness.
no words. silence descends again; the fans create further eddy currents in the thick humidity of the evening.
he stands and hobbles away from the stupefying model of polite civility. a sprained ankle is the last thing on his mind.
audio: atari teenage riot . destroy 2000 years of culture
7/22/2002 12:33:00 AM
7.17.2002
7.17.2002
7.17.2002
we are not sick men
(but where does that leave us?)
the young chinese man swaggers to the door of the dojo, looking with disdain at the tangled mass of no less than twenty judo players in various states of pain and disbelief, sprawled out on the floor of the practice area. some have swollen feet and ankles, others nurse more serious injuries incurred from the concussive impact of a blunt-edged weapon against human flesh. those who experienced hand-to-hand combat against the chinese fighter are either unconscious or otherwise incapacitated.
the head teacher of the dojo belongs to the latter category; having received a righteous thrashing, he lies in a heap of disjointed unpleasant sensations and the distinct inability to focus his eyes properly. the fuzzy in-and-out blur is only exacerbated by his attempts to clear his mind by shaking his head from side to side. his two senior students were the first to rise to the challenge of fighting the chinese interloper -- they lie trembling in defeat near the door, pride shattered, clutching at wounds as if shot by guns. the sensei looks up from his vantage on the floor, seeing the young chinese from a low angle. the young man has a sign in his hands. it is an attractive, well-designed sign, encased in glass and expertly framed. the sign reads "sick men of asia".
glass crashes against the sheetrock wall, exposing the immaculate brushwork laid upon the page. the young man, fury still at the surface, tears the sheet out of the frame and rips it in half. he gestures to the two senior judo students, who stand with much effort and approach their adversary, wearing the forlorn, beaten attitude of children who have been disciplined with excessive violence. the chinese man balls up one of the halves of the page, grabs the nearest judo disciple by his lapels, and crudely shoves the crumpled page into his mouth. "Eat," he says, handing the other half of the sign to the other man. Rather than risk further suffering at the hands of the wrathful pugilist, he obediently balls up the page and imitates his compatriot. still held up by his lapels, the first man is having his throat scratched and gouged by the paper being shoved down, inch by excruciating inch.
"this time, you're eating paper," seethes the chinese gung-fu man. "the next time, it's gonna be glass."
----
the bass pours out of the speakers, thumping me in the back, full surround-sound separating each aspect of the sensory assault in painstaking detail. the ford contour, lowered as far as humanly possible [and then a little farther], eases over the speed bump as we exit the apartment complex. the engine growls deeply as he guns it at the stoplight. the experience is completely different from feeling the sound at a club or otherwise large space where the sound waves can blend and coalesce before reaching your ears; at this moment i can hear the treble and bass as two completely unrelated entities, connected only by the coincidental sharing of a beat in time. momentarily forgetful, i pull down the sun visor to look at myself in the mirror only to see a small television screen instead. i chuckle inaudibly as tires grip street and the engine finds satisfaction on the open road ahead.
we've known each other since childhood, and although our paths diverged throughout much of high school, circumstances have brought us back together. he was always into cars, and developed his interest into a burgeoning career much like i did with computers. he works full days now, plans to open a mobile electronics shop of his own. it's odd, how our lives run parallel -- as i write this i realize that i am in the process of working out an internet programming venture with a friend of mine from college. i suppose that great fetishists think alike, regardless of the particular desire ;)
although hooked-up cars may be good for the ego, they aren't easy on the waistline -- in his words, my friend has "the body of a forty-year old" although he is only a year older than me. he wants to get back in shape and i have become his nutrition advisor-slash-trainer. i can't help but wonder, though, comparing our two lifestyles... who truly gains? i never had the money to buy a car; either i could get there on foot, skates or catch a train [into the city, usually]. or i could ride with a friend. the result is that i had to stay in shape. it became a way of life.
it often seems that when a person buys his/her first car, the ratrace truly begins. suddenly, you don't walk to the grocery store to buy a carton of milk; you drive. you don't walk the fifteen minutes to school; you take the car. go for a walk? nope. go for a spin. so the convenience lifestyle begins, and everything else is a chore. ironically, those same chores are often the ones that will keep the mind and body strong. if you can take a quick drive to the movies, why listen to the old man at the pharmacy recounting the times of his youth while using your imagination to fill in the blanks?
the car as a status symbol was always funny to me; i can appreciate a beautiful machine, similar to a person's taste in clothes -- most of the time, i probably wouldn't do it that way. what left the deepest impression was not whether my friend's car was cool or not, but the fact that there is an entire macho culture surrounding cars. to me, it feels like a bunch of artificial bullshit, kind of like comparing your manhood through the number of modifications on your ride. that kind of thought process has seeped into my friend's mindset and now i realize that nagging feeling was an indicator of something larger. as much as i want to like him, to have the old days of that skater crew back, it's gone. his attitudes have hardened; he knows "who" he is. and he doesn't realize that ninety percent of it is an ethno-cultural stereotype because it's such a comfortable hole to sit in.
it makes me wonder where exactly i sit in this whole game. it seems obvious; you are what you do. but what if the things that you do are often typical of disparate profiles and stereotypes? for the most part, my different groups of friends don't know about each other; more importantly, they wouldn't have anything to do with each other. punks, ravers, yuppies and older professional-types generally don't see themselves as having much in common. but then, i always find myself bumping up against my own closed-mindedness and egotistical narcissism.
everyone i meet seems to stop at a certain point and put up signposts of "us" versus "them". the reality of social boundaries is so strange... i can't seem to grasp it for long enough to form an understanding of what motivates people to become willingly labelled and categorized. now i remember what was most difficult about racism when i was younger: it was not being ostracized for what people assumed that i was, but rather, seeing "my" people act like those same stereotypes and not even knowing it. it is quite a painful continual realization for me that people are just people, and there is no "us" just as there is no "them".
so what does that make me, i wonder?
i can't help feeling a tinge of sorrow as i laugh at that question, and i can't quite grasp why i feel either emotion. or why i feel them both at the same time.
motion: bruce lee . chinese connection
(but where does that leave us?)
the young chinese man swaggers to the door of the dojo, looking with disdain at the tangled mass of no less than twenty judo players in various states of pain and disbelief, sprawled out on the floor of the practice area. some have swollen feet and ankles, others nurse more serious injuries incurred from the concussive impact of a blunt-edged weapon against human flesh. those who experienced hand-to-hand combat against the chinese fighter are either unconscious or otherwise incapacitated.
the head teacher of the dojo belongs to the latter category; having received a righteous thrashing, he lies in a heap of disjointed unpleasant sensations and the distinct inability to focus his eyes properly. the fuzzy in-and-out blur is only exacerbated by his attempts to clear his mind by shaking his head from side to side. his two senior students were the first to rise to the challenge of fighting the chinese interloper -- they lie trembling in defeat near the door, pride shattered, clutching at wounds as if shot by guns. the sensei looks up from his vantage on the floor, seeing the young chinese from a low angle. the young man has a sign in his hands. it is an attractive, well-designed sign, encased in glass and expertly framed. the sign reads "sick men of asia".
glass crashes against the sheetrock wall, exposing the immaculate brushwork laid upon the page. the young man, fury still at the surface, tears the sheet out of the frame and rips it in half. he gestures to the two senior judo students, who stand with much effort and approach their adversary, wearing the forlorn, beaten attitude of children who have been disciplined with excessive violence. the chinese man balls up one of the halves of the page, grabs the nearest judo disciple by his lapels, and crudely shoves the crumpled page into his mouth. "Eat," he says, handing the other half of the sign to the other man. Rather than risk further suffering at the hands of the wrathful pugilist, he obediently balls up the page and imitates his compatriot. still held up by his lapels, the first man is having his throat scratched and gouged by the paper being shoved down, inch by excruciating inch.
"this time, you're eating paper," seethes the chinese gung-fu man. "the next time, it's gonna be glass."
----
the bass pours out of the speakers, thumping me in the back, full surround-sound separating each aspect of the sensory assault in painstaking detail. the ford contour, lowered as far as humanly possible [and then a little farther], eases over the speed bump as we exit the apartment complex. the engine growls deeply as he guns it at the stoplight. the experience is completely different from feeling the sound at a club or otherwise large space where the sound waves can blend and coalesce before reaching your ears; at this moment i can hear the treble and bass as two completely unrelated entities, connected only by the coincidental sharing of a beat in time. momentarily forgetful, i pull down the sun visor to look at myself in the mirror only to see a small television screen instead. i chuckle inaudibly as tires grip street and the engine finds satisfaction on the open road ahead.
we've known each other since childhood, and although our paths diverged throughout much of high school, circumstances have brought us back together. he was always into cars, and developed his interest into a burgeoning career much like i did with computers. he works full days now, plans to open a mobile electronics shop of his own. it's odd, how our lives run parallel -- as i write this i realize that i am in the process of working out an internet programming venture with a friend of mine from college. i suppose that great fetishists think alike, regardless of the particular desire ;)
although hooked-up cars may be good for the ego, they aren't easy on the waistline -- in his words, my friend has "the body of a forty-year old" although he is only a year older than me. he wants to get back in shape and i have become his nutrition advisor-slash-trainer. i can't help but wonder, though, comparing our two lifestyles... who truly gains? i never had the money to buy a car; either i could get there on foot, skates or catch a train [into the city, usually]. or i could ride with a friend. the result is that i had to stay in shape. it became a way of life.
it often seems that when a person buys his/her first car, the ratrace truly begins. suddenly, you don't walk to the grocery store to buy a carton of milk; you drive. you don't walk the fifteen minutes to school; you take the car. go for a walk? nope. go for a spin. so the convenience lifestyle begins, and everything else is a chore. ironically, those same chores are often the ones that will keep the mind and body strong. if you can take a quick drive to the movies, why listen to the old man at the pharmacy recounting the times of his youth while using your imagination to fill in the blanks?
the car as a status symbol was always funny to me; i can appreciate a beautiful machine, similar to a person's taste in clothes -- most of the time, i probably wouldn't do it that way. what left the deepest impression was not whether my friend's car was cool or not, but the fact that there is an entire macho culture surrounding cars. to me, it feels like a bunch of artificial bullshit, kind of like comparing your manhood through the number of modifications on your ride. that kind of thought process has seeped into my friend's mindset and now i realize that nagging feeling was an indicator of something larger. as much as i want to like him, to have the old days of that skater crew back, it's gone. his attitudes have hardened; he knows "who" he is. and he doesn't realize that ninety percent of it is an ethno-cultural stereotype because it's such a comfortable hole to sit in.
it makes me wonder where exactly i sit in this whole game. it seems obvious; you are what you do. but what if the things that you do are often typical of disparate profiles and stereotypes? for the most part, my different groups of friends don't know about each other; more importantly, they wouldn't have anything to do with each other. punks, ravers, yuppies and older professional-types generally don't see themselves as having much in common. but then, i always find myself bumping up against my own closed-mindedness and egotistical narcissism.
everyone i meet seems to stop at a certain point and put up signposts of "us" versus "them". the reality of social boundaries is so strange... i can't seem to grasp it for long enough to form an understanding of what motivates people to become willingly labelled and categorized. now i remember what was most difficult about racism when i was younger: it was not being ostracized for what people assumed that i was, but rather, seeing "my" people act like those same stereotypes and not even knowing it. it is quite a painful continual realization for me that people are just people, and there is no "us" just as there is no "them".
so what does that make me, i wonder?
i can't help feeling a tinge of sorrow as i laugh at that question, and i can't quite grasp why i feel either emotion. or why i feel them both at the same time.
motion: bruce lee . chinese connection
7/17/2002 05:35:00 AM
7.08.2002
7.08.2002
7.08.2002
 | |
but the chain of events is wrong. i've been readjusting my sleep schedule now that my most recent spate of programming madness is past; still not sleeping yet, instead casting restless mental images on the ceiling as i lie in bed. i wake up around nine, send a couple of resumes to non-profit organizations [that whole "career change" thing is kicking in], meditate until my legs fall off and go take a shower. the lavatory is a bit grimy so i spontaneously bust out the Ajax and scrub the tiled walls and porcelain interior before jumping in under the manufactured gush of showerhead raindrops.
after a quick breakfast, i get to work planning what promises to be a very productive day, teaching kickboxing to a girl that i met in theatre class last semester in exchange for ASL lessons; also, helping a friend of mine get in shape before going to the military. i have to catch a train into the city to appeal the bogus explusion from college as well. i am a master of palm pilot graffiti -- the stylus, with a mind of its own, finishes the task of plotting today's small steps toward world domination smoothly.
in the meantime before i leave for the train station, i pick up one of my last mechanical pencils and open the anatomy book where a small pad holds the page. no, no good; i remember from last semester, the jedi master/art professor admonished us that some people make a career out of erasing. i pick up a pen instead and get started. the mistakes made are glaring and informative; page after page of the human skull ingrain themselves into the motor neurons guiding my hand.
i don't know what happens, but suddenly frustrated, i put the pen down and crank up the volume of the choons in the headphones. i lie back from sitting crosslegged in half-lotus position on the floor, and i gaze up at the ceiling. i haven't been able to find a job, and even if i manage to get permission to go back to school in september, i very likely won't be able to afford it. i have no cash flow; not enough to party [i'm restricted to free parties, barbeques, and bar-hopping if there's no cover (since i don't drink, but my friends do)], to buy clothes, not even enough to buy marginally healthy food.
the skull isn't coming out right on the paper; i tear out a sheet and throw it at the generic "forest green"-colored trash can in the corner of the room behind my bed. the gnawing of discouragement scratches softly at the backs of my eyes. but it's the same kind of discouragement that comes with learning a new programming language; i felt this way when starting to practice capoeira and being clumsy all over again after four+ years of practicing another martial art. swallow the desire to denigrate the confusion; explore the confusion instead -- own it, be with it as if it weren't even there. i don't give up; instead, breaking down the components into geometric subfigures, i re-apportion the aspects of the head into a simplified, digestible form. after a few tries, something happens: a crisp, "anatomically correct" skull emerges on the page, grinning in that beautifully stupid way. i look in the mirror and for a moment, i have x-ray vision -- underneath skin, muscle and tendon, my skull grins back at me. i touch my face and find tactile confirmation of my own physique. hehe... i have a skull! and it grins all day! i wonder if it knows something that i don't.
my concentration has thrown me off schedule; i'm an hour-and-a-half behind. having unintentionally skipped lunch as well, i have to leave before eating to catch the train into the city. today is the last day to fill out the "appeal of dismissal" form and hand it in to the eternally cranky-assed beyotch in student services.
as i expected, she catches an attitude and i don't bother to respond negatively... i understand that being under pressure from drooling undergraduates all day must suck royally. i fill out the form and head back out to boonie-land [where i live, outside the city]. my timetable is screwed so i miss the appointment with my friend to work out, and i am so malnourished because of skipping lunch that i drag my ass back to the apartment and pass out. the martial arts school will not be pleased; i was supposed to help cover for one of the instructors who couldn't make it in today, but i wouldn't have been much help in my sorry state.
and now? wondering about money troubles and the fact that i'm stuck eating cold-cuts and leftovers until i can find a job that pays. but then, if life were easier, i think i'd be bored to tears. and if it were busier, i wouldn't have as much time to draw.
audio: ananda project . falling for you
oh, and p.s. >> .... bars suck.
parties? good. clubs? sometimes. lounges? every now and then. bars? suck.
7/08/2002 11:12:00 PM
7.01.2002
7.01.2002
7.01.2002
0.01
i am going to be expelled from school.
this is a cosmic joke.
why? -> i blew school off for the first half of the spring semester, busy working on other projects [girls, martial arts, writing code, sleep]. when i received the "academic probation" notice in the mail, i thought about it, and decided to devote a little more time to my classwork.
surprise, surprise -- i ended up with a 3.o GPA for the semester. my highest grade? art [drawing (a-)]. i missed about five class sessions on that one, plus multiple lateness. i've always drawn, though. from scribbling out graff on the desks and lockers in high school to rendering imitations of anime characters, the pencil [and more recently charcoal, pen and ink, but not so much painting] has always been a source of fascination for me. which reminds me, i've got to get out a bit later today; i need a new pad to replace the old ones that i've, um, donated to the public ["lost" is such a pessimistic word].
;)
anyway, even though i got a three-oh for the semester, my overall GPA is stil 1.990 -- the fall semester was a little rough. it was tougher than i thought it would be to go from profit motive [corporate lifestyle] to appeasing some academic dickhead [collegiate lifestyle]... it's funny, i went from being on equal footing with older colleagues all the way back to being "young man", "son", etc. the problem is that when professors see that i'm somewhat intelligent, they start expecting me to outperform everyone else... in other words, i'm held to high standards in subjects that i don't care too much about, and suddenly work output that is a little bit above average gets me a "B" instead of an "A". i think that in some cases, hiding intelligence is as important a skill as using it.
insert irony here:
i needed 0.01 grade points to hit the minimum GPA level.
point-oh-fucking-one points.
next step: appeal the dismissal. i wonder if i can be accused of "fraternizing with the faculty" or something bizarre like that.
i think i'm prepared for pretty much anything.
audio: tweet . call me
why? -> i blew school off for the first half of the spring semester, busy working on other projects [girls, martial arts, writing code, sleep]. when i received the "academic probation" notice in the mail, i thought about it, and decided to devote a little more time to my classwork.
surprise, surprise -- i ended up with a 3.o GPA for the semester. my highest grade? art [drawing (a-)]. i missed about five class sessions on that one, plus multiple lateness. i've always drawn, though. from scribbling out graff on the desks and lockers in high school to rendering imitations of anime characters, the pencil [and more recently charcoal, pen and ink, but not so much painting] has always been a source of fascination for me. which reminds me, i've got to get out a bit later today; i need a new pad to replace the old ones that i've, um, donated to the public ["lost" is such a pessimistic word].
;)
anyway, even though i got a three-oh for the semester, my overall GPA is stil 1.990 -- the fall semester was a little rough. it was tougher than i thought it would be to go from profit motive [corporate lifestyle] to appeasing some academic dickhead [collegiate lifestyle]... it's funny, i went from being on equal footing with older colleagues all the way back to being "young man", "son", etc. the problem is that when professors see that i'm somewhat intelligent, they start expecting me to outperform everyone else... in other words, i'm held to high standards in subjects that i don't care too much about, and suddenly work output that is a little bit above average gets me a "B" instead of an "A". i think that in some cases, hiding intelligence is as important a skill as using it.
insert irony here:
| - my GPA | -> 1.990 | |
| - minimum cumulative GPA for retention at school [for students with 25 credits and over] | -> 2.0 |
i needed 0.01 grade points to hit the minimum GPA level.
point-oh-fucking-one points.
next step: appeal the dismissal. i wonder if i can be accused of "fraternizing with the faculty" or something bizarre like that.
i think i'm prepared for pretty much anything.
audio: tweet . call me
7/01/2002 05:02:00 PM
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