Lets see if I remember how to do this...

Sup everyone. It has been a very long time since I put anything new into this. Seeing as how this particular weekend is kinda light I figured I would put a few of my thoughts down just so that I don't have to think on them any longer.

So recently I began working at the Technique, the student newspaper at Tech. Its cool and I like the people, but for an extracurricular activity it is really sucking my time dry. I mean I like working there (in fact as soon as I get the paperwork done....which will be soon....I'll be getting paid), but in addition to my work its sometimes really overwhelming.

I've been trying my hardest to get into research here but its been taking much longer than I thought it would. I mean the people who are looking for undergrads for their labs seem to like me, but because their grad students don't need anymore people they have no space for me at this time. Its quite annoying and incredibly frustrating since there's alot of really cool research going on that I'm not apart of and am desperately trying to participate in.

Class work this semester seems to be falling back into my usual routine of a bad round of first test grades with good homework grades. Which of course means I need to do harder on the next few rounds of exams before finals roll around.

Finally, the last issue that I wanted to talk about was transplantation. I'm not talking about organ transplants, or moving a plant from one pot to another. I'm talking about moving a person from one place to another. Specifically myself.
Ever since I arrived at Tech I have been alienated from familiarity. I try to put on a strong face and pretend that its just my imagination. But when I'm alone the thought resurfaces making me feel like a stranger in my own life. At the end of this semester it would have been 2 years since I arrived at Tech. That probably means that I shouldn't be feeling this way.
I've tried to figure out why this is happening, but I have no concrete answers. Logically that scares me. Though I have a few guesses, but they all seem to stem from reasons that I've talked about before. Like my love life, my social life in general, and my academic life.
Whats even more strange is this strange aggressiveness that I seemed to have developed. I can't quite explain it, but it seems directed at my parents more than anything else. For example when my dad calls me its always really aggravating. It might be the nature of his phone calls which more often than not fall into three distinct categories: the "How was your day? / What are you doing?" call or the "I need you to run this errand..." or the "What grade did you get on your ____ test?" call. Let me describe those in a bit more detail so that you can understand why I'm annoyed and eventually aggressive:

"How was your day? / What are you doing?"

I think every kid has this call with their parents. I mean its a universal topic of conversation. Everyone uses this as the opening topic. I guess I find it annoying when my parents ask it because I usually have nothing to tell them, and the fact that I have to take time away from whatever it is that I'm doing at the moment only helps to make it more annoying. It becomes a major source of irritation when my parents call and then call the next day asking me what I'm up to. Its as though they expected something catastrophic/amazing to have happened in the last 24 hours. Its not like I'm Jack Bauer or a nuke fell on Atlanta. Atlanta, from my standpoint is just as boring as Chicago was when I went to school there. And there is a reason for that....its called school. I'm not supposed to be facing constant excitement or danger at every turn. I just pray that my day begins and ends smoothly with as few ups and downs as possible. Lately I haven't had things be that convenient, but even so they don't even warrant merit in a phone conversation with my parents.

"I need you to run this errand..."

This one is irritating since it makes me have to take time out from my daily routine so that I can solve some problem my father is having with something down here. Now sometimes its just a simple visit some office and pick-up deal. Other times its a please check your mail kinda deal. Sometimes though its a drive 2 miles, wait an hour, only to be told you don't have the right material and come back later repeating the first 2 steps again kinda deal. I could understand taking care of an errand if your parents are around, but when they aren't its like being told to do something by Casper. I mean sure hes a ghost, but as a ghost he's intangible and therefore is unable to physically push you do something. In the same way my parents believe they can physically get me to just drop everything I'm doing and take care of some business for them. Its like every matter is an urgent life-or-death situation that requires Dr. House and his crack team of specialists to solve while a time bomb lies ticking in my head. In addition, its a huge waste of gas money.

"What grade did you get on your ____ test?"

This has to be the question I hate the most out of all three. Its actually difficult for me to write about without pounding my fists into my keyboard or bashing my head through my monitor. In high school I didn't much care for it when my parents took an active interest in my academic affairs. Though in high school my parents possessed enough knowledge to help me with homework if I asked them. However, I'm so far into my major now that that no longer is applicable. They have such high expectations for me and are grossly disappointed when I don't live up to them. The worst part is that no matter how hard I try they continue to believe that my grades equal my fault. All I can do is my best. I'll admit that my best is not good enough alot of times, but I'm definitely better than an average student. Lets take a typical situation where this call comes into play and upsets me. Lets say its the beginning of the semester and I got a bad grade on the first test in a class that has 3 exams. My father begins by going into a sanctimonious and overstated speech about how I always do poorly and when is it going to stop etc. To which I reply that this is how stuff usually goes and that I'll do better. However, despite this my father will talk, and talk and get more upset for about an hour or more. Honestly I can't stand it and it drives me nuts. At this point I wish they would just stop caring. The grades I get are the grades that I get, and there is nothing I can do to change it. I study hard for all my tests, I spend alot of nights sleepless and for what? To get yelled at for getting a B on a test or a B for a final grade. Its beyond annoying and it makes me downright homicidal. Its especially bad when my father refuses to understand that our classes are graded on curves which means that all hope is not lost. Anyway to get away from having to write anymore on this (since its starting to make my fingers cringe) lets just say that this is the worst possible conversation I have with my parents and is probably the main seed for all of the aggressiveness that I harbor towards them.

Anyway, hopefully that satisfied the 3 people that read this blog. I'm tired and I'm having lunch with someone tomorrow so I'll write something more later on.

Quick Post

Hey Everyone,
It has been a while since I put anything into this blog, but I've been running around so much that I haven't had alot of time to sit down and really think up some stuff that would be worth really talking about. Though I have some stuff that I've been mulling over it will be a bit of time before I really finish making it blog worthy. Anyway I just wanted to let you guys that read this know that yes, something new will be arriving soon.

Vi

Its Been Awhile

So its been a long time since I posted anything, but its been hard to put into words some of the feelings I've had about current events. I guess I should start by congratulating the Democrats on their sweeping victory in both houses of Congress. However, I would like to make sure that all the liberals that happen to be reading this don't start to believe all their own hype. That they should keep things in the proper perspective. I don't think that it needs to be said that fear mongering and outright scandals got us to where we are right now. Oh wait...I guess I did just say that....

So next Friday (November 17) marks the release date for the Playstation 3. My roommate, Joe, is already scheming as to how to get his hands on multiple consoles. His plan is to then sell them on ebay where they are currently going for upwards of $1000 (though since the console hasn't officially come out yet the consoles being sold are pre-ordered consoles which are actually going for over $2000). I would try to help him out with this scheme if I could, but sadly I have a quiz at 10 AM that day, so there is no way that I can stand in line at some Wal-Mart trying to get a hold of one. Anyway thats all thats been going on lately, I'll post something more substantial later.

Lou Dobbs has Tunnel Vision

Sup everyone? Hope that everyone is doing alright. My workload lately has been kinda hellish. Its really not letting me update this as much as I could be. However, its Thursday and I had a brief moment of reprieve with which to address at least one of the issues that makes me just want to lay my head down to stop the madness.

So a lot of you are aware of who Lou Dobbs is and can probably guess in what direction this post is going to be heading, but for those of you that don't here's the 411. Lou Dobbs is a CNN news anchor that is the host of "Lou Dobbs Tonight". He's an incredibly vocal pundit on the subjects of border security, illegal immigration, and the problems facing the American middle class. Unlike most news anchors who tend to shield their opinions in favor of journalistic integrity Lou makes no secret of what his stance is and even extols his beliefs at great length to the viewers of his show. He recently wrote a book entitled War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back. Recently I had taken an interest in his constant chant of "reform, overhaul, restart" but after a while I began to ask questions. And when I ask questions more often than not certain parties are not accustomed to providing the complete truth that I'm seeking.

A lot of parties are calling Lou Dobbs a racist. That his focus on Mexican immigrants is not without a racial slant. As much as I would love to see the fallout for CNN if it proved to be true that they were employing a racist and the utter chaos that it would cause, I'm pretty certain that this claim is far fetched. However, this claim is not without its merits. Lou Dobbs is too focused on Mexico as the source of our immigration problem. Now this would not be wrong since there are a lot of statistics to support claims that Mexico is the number 1 source of illegal immigrants into this country. However, Lou is calling for comprehensive immigration reform. Comprehensive immigration reform is not something that should focus myopically on Mexico alone.

The last time I checked our country had 4 sides. North, south east, and west. Now Dobbs is concentrating on our land border with Mexico to the south. However, he is forgetting the hundreds if not thousands of illegal immigrants that are arriving from Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, or Jamaica along the rest of our southern border. Perhaps we should also remind Dobbs that the Pacific Ocean is being crossed by hundreds, if not thousands of illegal Chinese and Japanese immigrants into California. Looking north I almost don't have to say anything about Canada, but I will for the sake of thoroughness. Illegal immigrants pour over the Canadian border into New York, Washington, Maine, and Michigan just to name a few. Finally lets not forget the Atlantic Ocean which is illegally jumped by many western Europeans all the time using false travel visas. Look, if we as a country are going to come up with a comprehensive plan to combat illegal immigration we should concentrate on all illegal immigrants and not just the largest percentage of them.

A lot of people also say that illegal immigration is not a violation of the founding principles of this country. They argue that immigrants are doing a lot for this country and should be given amnesty. Personally, if we want to grant amnesty to an immigrant it should be done at a US embassy that resides in their country of origin. Then after they are given amnesty they should be allowed into the country. Plus its not as though combating illegal immigration is a bad thing. In fact if we do combat it and manage to control it then we can quell the amount of illicit drugs and firearms that enter this country. We could also prevent potential terrorists from entering this country and trying to do something akin to September 11th.

Frankly all the problems that our country faces are making my head spin thinking about it. I can't even imagine why we as a people let it get this bad. Its like one unwashed spoon, turned into a spoon and a cup, then a spoon, a cup, and a plate. So on until we had a sink piled to the ceiling with dirty dishes and all kinds of mold. Lou Dobbs maybe right about the problems that we face and that they can be fixed, but lets remember that we need to see the whole problem before we can figure out how to divide it and conquer it.

Busting Out the Soapbox

Throughout the years wise men have always said that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. For many people this saying is no truer than for the subject of dating. People within active and serious relationships sometimes contend that living the life of someone that has found the right person is not all its cracked up to be. They always say that you miss the single life.

Before I go any further let me regale you with the details of my situation. My birthday was September 5 and I am currently 22 years old. As much as it hurts me to say this I have never once had a serious girlfriend or even gone out on so much as one date (...And no Prom does not count. Especially since my date asked me out and though we had a good time we went as friends and nothing more). I've racked my brain throughout my life trying to figure out why I'm not a desirable single man. My first thought was that I was an uncouth, socially inept, and rather not so dashing kid. However, for that to be entirely true I would also have to have absolutely no friends, and I probably would have gone postal a long time ago. My appearance though was something that I couldn't explain away so easily. I mean fashion has never really been a big part of my life. I'll be the first to agree that in a truly professional situation you have to look the look, walk the walk, and talk the talk, but frankly I never saw the point in spending inordinate amounts of cash on shirts that you are paying more for the logo rather than the material used. Basically, my romantic life became a school yard game of freeze tag which is best described my friend Aashay Desai's post entitled "Playground Antics". Here is the specific excerpt to which I am referring:

I find myself a nice target and begin to move...slowly at first, but then I pick up the pace. However, once I'm discovered, my target turns around and puts up their hand.

"Time out!"

The sacred rule of Time Out cannot be violated on any playground. I have no choice but to freeze in my tracks and let my target do whatever it is they need to do. Unfortunately, in my case, they decide to go back into the school building.

So there I stand patiently, unsure if they'll be back to finish the game or not. I look around me and see that my team has made a few more catches but at the same time, the runners have filled home base (and many of them have left the game entirely to go play elsewhere). I glance around the vast field and breathe a heavy sigh while I enjoy the breeze in my hair and the smell of the freshly cut grass.

This "time out" problem doesn't just happen today, however. It's been happening for as long as I can remember, ever since I've been playing this game. Sometimes it's sunny, sometimes it's cloudy...and sometimes it even rains.

Today while I stood there, I wondered if I'll ever get to tag someone and see the rest of my team celebrate with me.

When I saw that I immediately thought "Thats me!!" Hearing this come from Aashay also was a huge deal. For those of you reading this you know what I'm talking about, but for those of you that don't Aashay ain't exactly the sort of the guy that should be single (sorry Aashay, but its true. You just are one of those irresistible bachelors).

By now no doubt many of you are wondering where the hell this is going. Well I did eventually figure out what my problem is. Its not looks, its not the clothes I wear, its not where I come from or even my funny name. Its my personality. I am too nice. Yes I did just say that, I am too nice to the girls that I want to pursue relationships with. From a very young age I was always taught to be a gentlemen to girls and to treat them with the utmost respect. However, that mentality gets you nothing as a high school and college student. Now I know that many of you are thinking "But women love men that are sweet!" Yes and you just made my point. Women love men that are sweet, but girls of a high school or college age do not. Girls want thrills, excitement and someone that will show them the time of their lives. They don't want the guy to actually care about them. It just makes things much more difficult for both parties. What really irritates me about the whole situation is that girls will pretend like they do want a nice guy. Specifically I'm talking about "Ode to the Nice Guys".

"Ode the Nice Guys" was originally written by Fu-zu Jen for the Wharton Undergraduate Journal (now called First Call). Many of you can probably remember an AIM profile or a conversation where this managed to sneak itself in. For those of you that don't know this "treatise" on how nice guys are essential was raised as the banner of every guy that fit its rather broad description. In response to this rather frustrating article I have my own ode to share. Its short so bare with me:

Ode to the Bad Guys
Girls are always saying that they want a sweet, sensitive guy that can sweep them off their feet. However, it isn't the knight in shining armor that manages to achieve this feat. It is you guys out there that many nice guys would call "assholes" or "dicks" that manage to go the distance. It is you guys that truly recognize the inherent fact of human biology that allows you to be successful:

Chicks fuck dicks

This genius and bold observation allows you to succeed where nice guys cannot.
So here is to you, the bad guys, for your super human ability to show contempt and coldness, and yet manage to get the girl. Your ability to manipulate even the most intelligent of girls to your own personal ends. And finally, your strength of character in being just nice enough to keep them coming back for more.

In closing many of you are probably saying "Wow Vi, it seems like you have it all figured out. So if this is the case, how come you're still single?" There are two main reasons that answer that question. I know the solution to my problem, but I just cannot bring myself to do it. I just cannot and will not treat someone that I care about enough to want to date or be more intimate with in such a fashion. The second reason is the root of the first. I, unlike bad guys, possess one thing that sets me apart. I have to be true to my personal character which no woman or girl will be able to change because it is core of who I am. At that core also lies my conscience, and it isn't ready to give in so easily without a fight.

Cranked to OT 9!!!

Its no secret that the Church of Scientology often has been at odds with any website that has offered opinions that have slammed or belittled the utter quackery that is Scientology. For those of you that don't know, Scientology is a school of thought that was founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. I use the phrase 'school of thought' loosely here since Scientologists don't consider themselves to be a religion. However, they do have an organization known as the Church of Scientology. The basic doctrine is that each and every one of us is, for lack of a better term, infected with thousands if not millions of alien souls called Thetans. These Thetans are the souls of aliens that were killed by the evil galatic warlord Xenu.
At this point I'm going to give some pause and let you all laugh you asses off. Ok you finished? Good. Now comes the punchline. Yes, this is an actual religion. I'll give you some more time...
Ever since South Park did their episode which bashed scientology (which I mentioned in an earlier post) my interest in the religion pretty much ended there. That is until I checked my logs about a week ago and found this little gem:

If you click on the picture you can see an enlargement. This is a screen shot from my website logging program provided by Statcounter. It basically says that the Church of Scientology visited my page. Now considering that we live in an age of domestic spying and an overactive NSA this did not really surprise me. However, what did surprise me was the referring link. Apparently my blog was searched for using a pretty common search engine for blogs. So I decided to trace their route and found that my page is definately not the first page to pop up in the search results (in point of fact I'm not sure what result this is, but its a ways away from the front). So I have decided that if the Church of Scientology wants to investigate the net for traces of possible slander and libel then let my blog be the first to give it to them.

Our first step is to attract all the Scientologist bots to the site, to do that we liberally sprinkle some key search terms around the site:

L. Ron Hubbard
Scientology
Tom Cruise
South Park
John Travolta
Thetan
E Meter

And now the fun part. Making fun of scientology. So I'll start things off by first saying that Scientology is an outright farce. Like the southern faith healers of long ago this is nothing more than a desperate pyramid scheme that is a ploy for people's money. Tom Cruise believes that he can use his operating thetan to fly. That sounds great Tom, but I don't think that people believe you. So I propose the following: Get a camera crew together (which should be ridiculously easy for you, Tommy Boy), climb to the tallest building you can find, jump off, and fly. If you manage to fly I will convert immediately. In the meantime I invite all of my readers (my logs have been getting a few hits every day so I don't know how many of you are there) to post comments. It doesn't matter if you have a blogger account or not as all commenting is open to the public. Load the comments up with whatever you want to say about how stupid Scientology is and lets just hope that that surfing bot comes back to flag it.

Fuzzy Logic

Lately everything has just been going wrong it seems. Usually when I get this feeling I can pin down why everything is going wrong. Perhaps in this case the reason I'm at a loss to explain it is that it is an amalgamation of various causes. Its just that for the last week I've been getting more and more depressed. I guess there are a few school related causes of this depressive state both during that last week and coming up soon. However, I don't think that its that. Perhaps its the amount of fast food I've got in my diet lately coupled with my utter lack of exercise. I don't know whether any of these are contributing factors.

My guess though is that it feels like my life is going no where. I know that I've come to school to learn so that after I get done and get my degree I can either get a great job or go back to professional school. I guess it happens to everyone when they have a long stretch of nothing to do. Lately I've been rather light on work, mostly as a result of being pretty on top of everything. So, consequently, I've had alot of down time. It just that as I sit here right now people are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan....whether they deserve to or not. A doctor rushes to make a patient comfortable as they slowly succumb to AIDS. I mean North Korea tested a nuke for fuck's sake. All the while I sit here. My legs are moving, my arms are pumping, my heart is racing and my brain and body feel like they've done a 10 round prize fight, and for what? Only to get an A on a test. A test full of facts that for the most part will not allow me to really succeed in every day life. A test that is design to make me think in a way that is different. Sure thats important. However, it makes me feel helpless to counter the problems of the everyday world around me. Here I am an engineer with the ability to move mountains (given a lever large enough and a fulcrum upon which to place it) and yet I still don't according this to institution or any institution for that matter posesss the adequate knowledge to join the "Real World."

I'm not sure that this rant has any real direction. I'm sorta free associating my typing right now. Just letting all kinds of feelings just run rampant onto the web. Its sweet cuz its like screaming into a vacuum. Just taking in my words and swirling them to oblivion.