I wrote this freshman year knowing that I would miss it. But I really had no idea how much I would miss it. I wouldn't change anything I wrote and sadly I predicted the future too well. I should have fought more. . .
From March 2008
The time has struck me with inspiration to write. Write at least something whether or not it is any good or not. I have a paper I need to write. Bryan is just jumping up and down and people are talking but i can't hear what they are saying and now landon is looking over the arm chair to peer into the computer screen to read what im writing and making a weird face. . .
anywho, the lobby is indeed a place of magical experience. and i don't use the phrase magical to try to implement some kind of corny meaning that is greater than to just say that there is something disney-like about the place. I mean it is a microcosm of a realistic utopia. A myriad of people of very different backgrounds, diverse experiences, and many different personalities converging on this strange road. Indeed we were all once strangers to each other.
It is not the place. But it is not the people. It is both, and it is a specific combination of the pair. For many people walk along this path, but few will actually return, and even fewer return with intention to stay. With this too comes desertion. But not in a negative sense. Simply another form of adaptation perhaps. Some people hike a path and can't decide the best place for camp. Some people blaze their own new way. Some just go along this path without reason but feel a calling. Just as i have written this without any real intention and now it has mutated and formed itself with these trail metaphors and adapted into a work of writing with at least some existential purpose.
The lobby has had ups and downs and even a few around the corners. I feel currently that is in a slump, most would agree. Who can explain all the reasons why; i am sure we could all agree there are many. But every member bring something here every time they enter. Sometimes the burdens they bear have unhappy properties. Sometimes they joy they bring radiates for everyone. No one can be blamed for this but certainly, there is an innate happiness that everyone here can share.
The biggest thing now, is simply the memories that have been built. And there are still memories being constructed now. For me, personally, the lobby will forever remain a kind of state of being. In my mind for the rest of my life, whether or not it is an entirely accurate representation, it shall be the apex and shining example of my college life. Everything will be related back to this moment. But the lobby can never be recreated. It will never be the same. It cannot be replicated or duplicated. It cannot be sustained with intention or unnatural motives. I have observed the fascinating aspects of this amazing embodiment. Now i feel we are on the downhill of the curve. Time is moving quickly. The days are full blurrs and the nights are practically non existent.
Everyone, please start moving towards your departing gates and be sure to have your passes and tickets ready. Pretty soon, everyone will have to leave the lobby and board the entrance gate. I shall write once more when it is really time to leave. For good. Remember this exact moment. This split second in time in which dawning realization slaps you in the face. No, not that split second. This one. The one you wish wasn't over in four weeks. The one you wish taking for granted while you have a regret that time has passed. Remember this second. The second you leave. Maybe it will be may 1st, perhaps may 2nd, or even may 3rd. But you will have all of your things packed. And you will walk past the lobby and something will feel different. Maybe better, maybe worse. But a rift will be made. And this rift will widen throughout the summer. Some may never return. Some have already left. One will be the very last to leave. But for everyone you will think back to the moment in which you read this and had a memory so good you were tempted to smile. It is this split second you must always remember, forever. It will be gone soon, its flying away with you.
Tempus fugit. Optimus dies. Prima fugit.
Your Hero
- Fife
- You should find an "existential" reason to read this blog. Let it be whatever you want it to be. But I promise that you will not find that my facade is constructed by a socialite engineer, but a real person; a person who's life you can relate to your own.
09 December 2009
06 December 2009
Self Imposed Indignities (but not really)
First off, you need to watch this music video Days Go By.
Over a month ago, I received an assignment for a group project. It wasn't really that big of a deal or that imposing of a project, but still more than a month was given to fulfill the requirements. So, it's two people plus myself in this lab group. One week goes by, then another, then another, and finally one more week. My group and I find ourselves within four days of when this project is due. Finally on Wednesday, just two days before the presentation was due, I emailed my professor inquiring about getting into the lab to perform the experiment. He emailed me back explaining that there was in a class in the lab until 6:20 and that if I came by then, that the T.A. would leave the door open for me after class. So I showered and headed over there around 6:00 to make it there by 6:15. As I approached the door, my lab instructor walked out and looked at me with incredulous eyes, "I almost left without you" in a deep African accent (I realize that African is not a language but I'm too ignorant to know which country he is actually from. . .). Without correcting him by citing the email he sent me which very clearly and explicitly stated 6:20pm, I nodded and apologized.
"Now, what is it that you need to do?" he inquired.
"Oh, well we need to perform our experiment" I excitedly answered.
"Wait, you still need to perform the experiment?"
"Oh. . .yea, well we have not had a chance. I mean, we have had plenty of chances but my group and I have yet to actually execute our intended experiment"
"Do you know how long it has been since I had assigned this project?"
"Errrm, yes I do."
"It has been one month!" he staggered with frustration.
"Yeah, it has. I am kind of the most practiced procrastinator that I know," I tried to offer happily.
He was not amused or impressed. He put his hands on his hips and started walked towards his office, which is located in the lab room. As he passed between myself and a desk, I shuffled backwards to allow for a larger opening. I removed my jacked, left arm first, as I walked toward my normal desk located near the back of the room. I put my bag down on the table silently,and pulled the chair out as I repositioned my jacket on it.
He walked out of his office and stared at me from across the room. "So, I give you one month to complete this project with your group and you wait until now to perform the experiment? What experiment are you going to perform?"
"Ahuh, well, ummm, mainly what I had in mind was an experiment similar to the one we did in class with the fermentation and the CO2 and yeah. . ." I trailed off rummaging through my papers hoping that he would just answer or walk away. But instead he just looked at me, silently. I countered his silence attack with more paper rummaging. I'm so unorganized I didn't even have to fake looking for the correct page, as it was legitimately taking me the entire time to find the page I was looking for. The silent stayed, filling the room like the fermenting yeast I wanted to experiment with. Finally, after about 400,000 years of unsettling trepidation in which my instructor stared at me silently standing hands on his hips like a greek statue the silence was broken. I could hear the crimping of his leather jacket and he moved his hands across his torso into a folding position across his chest. He stood straighter, another 400,000 years of silence passed but this time he was in a modern superstar pose.
Finally, "What were you going to do when you came here?"
I shook my head slightly looking down at the papers scattered across the table in a semicircle. Then I raised my head and made eye contact with him for a brief moment only to break it and instinctively look at the blank chalkboard for the answers I knew I wouldn't find. I looked back down at all the white rectangles. He wanted something from me and I wouldn't give it to him. He wanted me to redeem myself slightly with a justified and complete answer.
In this moment, the gears didn't turn, no switches flipped, and no lights shined through my thick skull. The words on the pages were just inconsistently dotted black lines, cryptic and illegible. I began to float as sweat started flowing out of my pores and my hair stood straight up. All the energy left my body and was converted to bioelectricity to power the light in the room, which became intensely brighter. I opened my mouth to allow for the flow of bullshit to easily pour as it normally does. But, instead I found only my breath, and the lucid transparency that came out with it. In slow motion, I stuttered for a second. "I think we were going to test for the fermentation of various foods."
"Yes, I understood that, but what were you actually going to do, this is your experiment, explain it to me," in a demanding manner.
"Well, we were going to use food extract I suppose, like rice for example, and then yeast something or other as the substrate. Then conduct the same experiment with several other items in order to scale the relativity of the various foods." I sounded rediculous and I knew it. He knew it too. He kept his arms folded but widened his stance to look at the group. He smiled and then laughed to himself a bit out loud. Then raised his head and straightened his stance a little. "What do you need from me?" His tone was almost patronizing.
"Ummm, let me think real quick," which was a total bluff, I couldn't think anything in that moment, I could only feel. What I felt was despair and comedy. I almost laughed out loud. I was not laughing with him, however. He was laughing because he took his job and position seriously. As if he, on his high horse (or high chair for class really) was in such a position to dictate to me some aspect of my life for a few hours. As if he thought he had power over me in some way because I should feel subjected to perform in some way because of him since he held my grade in hand. And as if I should take it seriously because the performance I gave in his class and at this moment somehow were connected to my own future. I should have been the one laughing. . .
He failed to perceive the key variable in this equation.
(the amount of care I have) + (the amount of time I have) = (how well I convince people of the bullshit I formulate) And so, in this particular situation the key variable was this: I didn't give a fuck and the amount of care I had was zero. If my instructor had taken the time to perform his job seriously and actually get to know his students, his students would have reciprocated that respect and if they too cared, would have taken it upon themselves to show some consideration in return. So if anyone should have been laughing, it should have been me. I was going to B.S. this project regardless of the time frame. Everyone else did the same, just a few weeks or days earlier. In not caring I had nothing to lose and he didn't hold any power over me no matter how pathetic I seemed to him.
"Yeah, well I'm very hungry and I have not eaten, what do you need from me?"
"I guess we'll just take the biueret reagent. . ."
"Okay, good luck then," as he briskly walked out away from me.
Over a month ago, I received an assignment for a group project. It wasn't really that big of a deal or that imposing of a project, but still more than a month was given to fulfill the requirements. So, it's two people plus myself in this lab group. One week goes by, then another, then another, and finally one more week. My group and I find ourselves within four days of when this project is due. Finally on Wednesday, just two days before the presentation was due, I emailed my professor inquiring about getting into the lab to perform the experiment. He emailed me back explaining that there was in a class in the lab until 6:20 and that if I came by then, that the T.A. would leave the door open for me after class. So I showered and headed over there around 6:00 to make it there by 6:15. As I approached the door, my lab instructor walked out and looked at me with incredulous eyes, "I almost left without you" in a deep African accent (I realize that African is not a language but I'm too ignorant to know which country he is actually from. . .). Without correcting him by citing the email he sent me which very clearly and explicitly stated 6:20pm, I nodded and apologized.
"Now, what is it that you need to do?" he inquired.
"Oh, well we need to perform our experiment" I excitedly answered.
"Wait, you still need to perform the experiment?"
"Oh. . .yea, well we have not had a chance. I mean, we have had plenty of chances but my group and I have yet to actually execute our intended experiment"
"Do you know how long it has been since I had assigned this project?"
"Errrm, yes I do."
"It has been one month!" he staggered with frustration.
"Yeah, it has. I am kind of the most practiced procrastinator that I know," I tried to offer happily.
He was not amused or impressed. He put his hands on his hips and started walked towards his office, which is located in the lab room. As he passed between myself and a desk, I shuffled backwards to allow for a larger opening. I removed my jacked, left arm first, as I walked toward my normal desk located near the back of the room. I put my bag down on the table silently,and pulled the chair out as I repositioned my jacket on it.
He walked out of his office and stared at me from across the room. "So, I give you one month to complete this project with your group and you wait until now to perform the experiment? What experiment are you going to perform?"
"Ahuh, well, ummm, mainly what I had in mind was an experiment similar to the one we did in class with the fermentation and the CO2 and yeah. . ." I trailed off rummaging through my papers hoping that he would just answer or walk away. But instead he just looked at me, silently. I countered his silence attack with more paper rummaging. I'm so unorganized I didn't even have to fake looking for the correct page, as it was legitimately taking me the entire time to find the page I was looking for. The silent stayed, filling the room like the fermenting yeast I wanted to experiment with. Finally, after about 400,000 years of unsettling trepidation in which my instructor stared at me silently standing hands on his hips like a greek statue the silence was broken. I could hear the crimping of his leather jacket and he moved his hands across his torso into a folding position across his chest. He stood straighter, another 400,000 years of silence passed but this time he was in a modern superstar pose.
Finally, "What were you going to do when you came here?"
I shook my head slightly looking down at the papers scattered across the table in a semicircle. Then I raised my head and made eye contact with him for a brief moment only to break it and instinctively look at the blank chalkboard for the answers I knew I wouldn't find. I looked back down at all the white rectangles. He wanted something from me and I wouldn't give it to him. He wanted me to redeem myself slightly with a justified and complete answer.
In this moment, the gears didn't turn, no switches flipped, and no lights shined through my thick skull. The words on the pages were just inconsistently dotted black lines, cryptic and illegible. I began to float as sweat started flowing out of my pores and my hair stood straight up. All the energy left my body and was converted to bioelectricity to power the light in the room, which became intensely brighter. I opened my mouth to allow for the flow of bullshit to easily pour as it normally does. But, instead I found only my breath, and the lucid transparency that came out with it. In slow motion, I stuttered for a second. "I think we were going to test for the fermentation of various foods."
"Yes, I understood that, but what were you actually going to do, this is your experiment, explain it to me," in a demanding manner.
"Well, we were going to use food extract I suppose, like rice for example, and then yeast something or other as the substrate. Then conduct the same experiment with several other items in order to scale the relativity of the various foods." I sounded rediculous and I knew it. He knew it too. He kept his arms folded but widened his stance to look at the group. He smiled and then laughed to himself a bit out loud. Then raised his head and straightened his stance a little. "What do you need from me?" His tone was almost patronizing.
"Ummm, let me think real quick," which was a total bluff, I couldn't think anything in that moment, I could only feel. What I felt was despair and comedy. I almost laughed out loud. I was not laughing with him, however. He was laughing because he took his job and position seriously. As if he, on his high horse (or high chair for class really) was in such a position to dictate to me some aspect of my life for a few hours. As if he thought he had power over me in some way because I should feel subjected to perform in some way because of him since he held my grade in hand. And as if I should take it seriously because the performance I gave in his class and at this moment somehow were connected to my own future. I should have been the one laughing. . .
He failed to perceive the key variable in this equation.
(the amount of care I have) + (the amount of time I have) = (how well I convince people of the bullshit I formulate) And so, in this particular situation the key variable was this: I didn't give a fuck and the amount of care I had was zero. If my instructor had taken the time to perform his job seriously and actually get to know his students, his students would have reciprocated that respect and if they too cared, would have taken it upon themselves to show some consideration in return. So if anyone should have been laughing, it should have been me. I was going to B.S. this project regardless of the time frame. Everyone else did the same, just a few weeks or days earlier. In not caring I had nothing to lose and he didn't hold any power over me no matter how pathetic I seemed to him.
"Yeah, well I'm very hungry and I have not eaten, what do you need from me?"
"I guess we'll just take the biueret reagent. . ."
"Okay, good luck then," as he briskly walked out away from me.
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