Archive for November, 2004

Yes, it’s that time of year again! For most of America, we are all gathering around our dinner tables with our families and digging into a fat turkey as we fill ourselves with good times, laughter, warmth, and calories. I read that the average American consumes over 2,000 calories at one sitting during their thanksgiving meal. At any rate, I hope you had a great thanksgiving. I guess I’m writing about the topic a day too late, but it’s interesting to mention nonetheless. I’m sure you’re absolutely dying to ask, “Scott where have you been?” Well, I’ve been out of town with family for the last few days. Today I return to you with just enough time to read some emails, glance over a few other blogs, and even add a little to my own. So with no further adieu, I’ll begin tonight’s blog entry by addressing a topic which will be of great importance in my near future.

Scott might not be living alone? Yes, it could be true; my personal-level social abilities may be put to the test. Perhaps my patience will be strained to the breaking point, or maybe, by chance, the situation will improve me as a person. Nonetheless, I’m sure you’re asking why I’m bringing this up. Allow me to explain. I’m at a two year college right now and will be transferring to another college for the rest of premed after this upcoming semester. Most of the colleges I’m considering are out of state and very small. In most of these cases, I’d be living in the on-campus dormitories. Tonight I filled out a slip for the optional selection criteria that will determine who will become my apartment mates. I have always lived my life in relative privacy. I may ‘mingle’ (for lack of a better word) with people outside of my house, but rarely do people ever come into my room (by my will, at least). My room is where I go to get away from everything and work alone. It’s just always been this way for me. If I were living in an apartment on-campus with strangers, I’m unsure how I’d feel about it. The layout of the apartments is in a way that there is one living area with four individual rooms with closable doors. While the door would be the only object giving me a light sense of seclusion, I think it would be just enough to mentally and physically separate myself from the world to where I can feel normal. I wouldn’t be living with anyone in my actual room; therefore I cannot use the term roommate. I will refer to these hypothetical individuals as my apartment mates. While I generally dislike the idea, I know that it will probably end up working for the best. With that being said, and assuming that I end up living in a place with a other people, the selection of these people could make an incredibly large difference in what I do at college, the grades I make, where I go, who I meet, what I do, how I think, and could (on a super-extrapolated scale) eventually change the course of the rest of my life. So, this is a fairly large decision in my mind. Unfortunately I don’t know anyone going to any of these colleges and I won’t be able to pick these people. Tonight I filled-out a card of information about myself to allow me to be matched with other people of common interests. I had a really interesting time thinking of things to write. While I wanted to be honest, I also wanted to accentuate the qualities that would emphasize the type of people I wanted to be matched with. I don’t remember all of the questions, but I remember saying I went to bed early and woke up early and kept my room extremely clean. One question asked me to describe (with adjectives) qualities to describe the type of person I would want to live with. I listed studious, mature, serious, and responsible. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. Oh! The rooms; get a load of this.

Okay, I don’t mind living cramped; it’s wasted space that drives me nuts. Check out the picture here. On the top is the floor plan of the general apartment. It’s not overly spacious, but it’s not that bad. It’s of decent size with a kitchen, four rooms, bathroom, a living area etc. Now let’s pick a random room that I might be living in, let’s say 4. We’ll zoom in a little. Ahh! There we go. Feast your eyes on the bottom image. Notice the swinging door in the corner, the chest of drawers on the top, the desk on the right, and the bed on the bottom. See where the circled number 4 is? That would be my desk chair. Now, let’s think about this. What is by far the largest object in the room? Notice it’s the same object covering almost half of my floor and consuming more than half of the open area; the bed. Without question, without a doubt, what is the single object that consumes the most space? The bed. What is the object that, if removed, would most drastically give the room the more space? The bed. Now, what is the one object in this room that I wouldn’t be using? The bed. Crap! I’ve been sleeping on the floor for a long time! Actually I just did a quick search back in my blog and found that the oldest article I wrote mentioning how I sleep on the floor was written on Oct 18, 2003. That’s over a year ago. I’ve been sleeping on my hardwood floor for over a year now! Happy birthday to my pillow! Yay! Okay, where was I? (notice the intricate manifestation maturity that I described myself by earlier) Oh yes, of course. The bed. I’m getting ripped! I really don’t know what to do here. I tried to find pictures of the bed in these apartments but what pictures I found showed a large wooden bed stand thing and it looked like it was assembled in the room. It might be a challenge to get it out of there. Then again, where would I put it? I somehow doubt any of the other three guys would want it. On second thought, a room entirely covered in beds might be somewhat desirable, but I digress. Pre-furnishing will become my pitfall. Let’s say that, for whatever reasons, I just bite the bullet and leave the bed in there. I can sleep on the floor. So, where do I sleep? The length of the bed is approximately the length of my body. Do you see that much floor space anywhere in that room? No. I don’t even have enough room to sleep on the floor! Do you realize how pathetic I’m sounding? All I need is a floor, and I can’t even find that. How will I survive!? Okay, moving on.

Finding independence and responsibility in relaxation. These days at school, I’ve been incredibly worked. I’m not necessarily stressed, I’m just always working. A few days two weeks ago I spent a little bit of time (usually no more than thirty minutes) peacefully resting alone in the library with headphones on. While it’s somewhat relaxing in the cafeteria talking with my classmates, the simple silence seems to help me a lot. I’ve noticed that my temperament changes after a small break in the afternoon. I’m also more focused and feel more refreshed afterwards. One day I decided to try seeing what would happen if I purposefully rested in the library for half an hour during lunch time. I politely said to the people at my table that I had to go to the library; I just didn’t specifically mention what I was going to be doing. After walking in, sitting down, and sliding a pair of neck-style headphones on, I was completely relaxed. It was beautiful! Perhaps with this time I can work on developing a more personable personality! I decided that I needed to make a habit of spending time relaxing, but I never got around to doing it again. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to have the time to try it again and see how it works. I just realized how incredibly boring this must be to read. I’m sorry.

What a boring blog tonight! I’m sorry folks. I’m just going to stop right now. I actually did have some good stuff to write, but I don’t feel like it now. I’m too tired and have a lot of schoolwork to do (having just come back from out of town). Hopefully I’ll be able to write a real blog tomorrow! I think tonight’s must be nothing short of unbearably boring. The topics I’d like to write about in my next post are going to be fun to read! So, with my apologies, I’m cutting this blog short.

No. Bad. Writing. –Scott

Okay, no introduction tonight guys. I’m in a raw blogging mood. I’ve had a really bad week… I might write about it later, but for now I just want to forget about it and start talking about something completely unrelated to school. How about girls? Hmm, I haven’t talked about those in a while [rolls eyes in sarcasm]. Actually something came-up a few days ago that really made me think and I figure now would be a good time to address it. I was talking with an old friend over the internet and she asked me about my dating situation these days. I lightheartedly replied “what dating situation.” (notice punctuation) She laughed, paused, and then made a little comment that caught me completely off-guard. It went somewhere along the lines of “Scott, you would totally freak out with a girl beside you anyway.” Realizing how much that line frustrated, bothered, and purely annoyed me, I frantically began to type “no, I would be just fine-” … but I had a really hard time pressing the send button. I mean, what am I saying here? This is crazy, but what if what this girl is saying is actually right? I decided not to send my defensive comment and simply inquired more. “Okay, I have to ask you; what did you mean by that? I don’t care what you say, just be honest.” I paused, looking blankly at the screen, counting the seconds until she would respond. The more I thought about her comment, the more it scared me. My right eye began to twitch. I looked at my watch. “Reply”, I willed at the screen. Reply… Reply… Rep- She replied. “I know you well Scott. I knew you even before you got into computers, and I was there for you when you gave them all away. We used to talk so much, and I’ve read every blog you’ve written in the last three years.” … I had to hand it to her at this point. She knows a lot about me. We talked all the time, but never became particularly close. I think that this small distance between us allows us to be so honest with each other. Realistically, even though we rarely talk these days, she is probably one of the people on the planet that knows me the best … “It’s just that, you know how you get. I don’t want to make you feel bad, but we both know how you get all edgy and nervous around other people; especially girls. I can see you working hard in school, and I can even picture you making good friends, but one thing I can not see you with any time soon is a girlfriend; you’re just too wrapped-up in everything else!” Hold on, let met get the door. Oh wait, that was my jaw dropping off my skull and clanking on the floor. I tried to reply but no words came from my fingers. I- I was stunned. This couldn’t possibly… could it? I gave up trying to write and simply stared at the screen. Unconvinced (or possibly in denial) I pressed “Oh come on! What do you think would happen?” Bad move Scott. Whenever I do things I wish I hadn’t, I repeat the phrase “bad move” over and over in my mind. I think this phrase repeated three or four hundred thousand times before she replied. “I can picture you perfectly with a girlfriend right now, but I don’t think it’d be a good thing. If I tell you what I’m picturing, can you promise not to get mad at me for being honest?” Having heard that line countless times before, I agreed. “I could totally picture you with an Asian girl slightly shorter than you clinging onto you in public and you absolutely freaking out.” I laughed… looked blankly at the screen… and started laughing again. How preposterous. Right? I… I… Err… Touché.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way I think I’ll give you all the quick week rundown since I’ve last blogged. I’ve had a really rough, stressful, and unbelievably disappointing week this week. Two exams were planned on Thursday and one on Friday. The Thursday tests were for Calculus II and Physics I. The Friday test was for Chemistry II. I wasn’t worried much about the Chemistry test. I had nothing going on Thursday night and would be able to study for it without a problem. Plus, Friday morning I could get to school early enough that I’d have a good few hours to study before the test at nine am. Well, I’d be using a little bit of time before the test for something else… but I might talk about that later if I get the chance. It was something I hoped to mention last week too but never go to. Anyway, I knew I’d be fine for my Chemistry II test. I felt good about both my Calculus II and Physics I exams. However, about a day before my Calculus II test I sat down and started to do some homework problems. “Eek”, I thought to myself, “these aren’t working-out too nicely”. I continued to work on math, and work more, and work more, and realized that it was about time to panic. The test was the next day, and I was really bad off. And, worse yet, Physics had a test two hours after the math test ended. I understood the Physics pretty well though, so I could cram for it the day of. I needed to do my math then. Well, to make a long story short, I did math deep into the night. I went to bed incredibly late and woke up very early. I had almost no sleep under my belt when I went to school early in the morning and began studying with a friend a few hours before the test. Hour after hour passed-by. Time seemed to be racing toward me. Finally, it was time to take my math test. I had studied for it all last night and all this morning. I was ready! I hadn’t studied Physics though… but no sweat, there’s still time. I went to class only to find out… the test was cancelled. I was relieved, but, what a waste. I mean, seriously, I was in really bad shape. I was falling asleep while sitting in my chair. What was worse was, Physics was right around the corner. I met with my Physics study group and we began starting to go over some of the example problems. That’s when I realized how deep I was in over my head. I could barely do any of them. About an hour into the cramming with an hour left on the clock, I knew it was hopeless. It just wasn’t working. So, I collected my homework that was due that day and started talking toward my professor’s office. I felt bad. I can only imagine that I looked pretty badly too. Luckily, he was in his office. I handed him my homework and, almost as an afterthought, casually said “… and I won’t be coming to class today.” He looked up at me with the look that implied “you know there’s a test today, don’t you?” I continued “… I’ve been having a really hard time with these chapters and I know that if I take this test it will be the one I end up dropping anyway, so, I think I’d be better of spending this time trying to go over the material.” I don’t remember what happened after that; I think that all of my stress and exhaustion was instantly lifted and sucked into a supermassive black hold two hundred million light-years away. I believe he said something along the lines of “well I appreciate your honesty” but maybe that’s just my mind feeding me comfort. He seemed to understand though, and I’m glad everything went well. It’s a good thing he had that lowest-test-score-drop policy. Marena, the girl in my physics group, did essentially the same thing I did except she didn’t directly speak with the professor; she just didn’t show up. Sergio (the guy in my physics group) took the test. The homework I turned in that day was complete except for one chapter that only had three problems in it. I was going to get marked-off a few points if that chapter’s homework was turned in late, so I decided to do my best to finish it that day. Mind you, I’m still completely exhausted. I was planning to go home and get to sleep after this test, so I geared my whole day to crashing at 4pm. Now, it’s 4pm and I’m planning on doing homework? I was a zombie, but I eventually got it done (with a lot of help from Marena). I spoke with Sergio on the phone that night and asked how the test went. He said there were about nine questions. I had to release a little nervous laugh of relief when I heard him say “I think I got some of them right.” It was a hard test for the three of us, probably because we studied (or didn’t study) together. I have an A in this class right now, so I’m not worried about getting a B in it… but this test situation was a little bit of a scare. Hopefully it’ll be good motivation to work a few weeks ahead so I don’t get behind even if multiple tests stack up like this again. I got back home fairly late Thursday night and went straight to bed. I woke up really early again so I would have time to study for my Chemistry test. Well, it turns out that it was registration day. I ended up spending half my time preparing, double checking, and registering my classes for the next semester. It really ate into my study time, and I don’t think I did too well on that Chemistry test. It’s just… been a really bad week -_-

For “not having any time”, you sure do spend a lot of time doing stupid little things! Yeah, I know; I guess I’m just weird that way. I don’t exactly know why I’m writing this paragraph, but I think it’ll prove to be interesting nonetheless. In Physics class we have to turn in lab write-ups for all of the labs we do. They’re usually two or three pages and most everyone slacks off pretty badly on these things and still get good grades. I always give Marena a hard time because she likes to write hers in pen but messes up a lot and ends up using half a gallon of white-out on her sheets. Sergio’s funny because he essentially paraphrases the lab assignment sheet. I, recently, for some unknown reason, have become obsessed with making pretty-looking computer-printed lab write-ups to turn in. For example, this last lab was one about Hooke’s Law and simple harmonic motion using a spring and various masses to determine the relationship between the weight and the period of oscillation. It was a pretty easy lab, but to make the write-up better I decided to draw a diagram. Most people who put pictures in their labs do it by pencil-sketching the apparatus used in the experiment. One guy even carries a camera into the physics lab and takes pictures of the devices. But, then there’s Scott – the ex-computer-geek who tries to be better than everyone else at things that are unimportant but seriously has work issues when it comes to things that are important. The image to the right is the one from this week’s lab project. I did it with the vector drawing systems in microsoft word; nothing special there. I also creatively sparkled the lab paper with equations neatly written in MathType. Aren’t I special? Aren’t I stupid? Oh yeah! As if that’s not enough, I made a separate image just to post on this website. Being the paranoid little freak that I am, I even overlayed a semitransparent and blurred logo “ScottIsHot.com” diagonally over the image. This way, in the one-in-a-million chance that anyone in my physics class finds my website, they won’t be able to use my picture! Mua ha ha ha ha.

Oh yeah! Want to know what I’m going to be taking in college next semester? It’ll be my last semester at my current college. From there I’ll be transferring to a different (still undecided) college for the next two years of premed. So, yeah, next semester I’ll be in some fun ones. I get to take Biology II from 2 to 4:45 on T/F. The professor I signed up to take it with is supposed to be really hard, but I hear you learn the most from him, which is exactly what I need. I have a horrible Biology I professor; he’s so easy I’m not learning a thing. Anyway, so that’s that. Oh yeah, I’ll be in that class with Marena (the girl in my physics group). Another class I’ll be in is Calculus III. Like Calculus II, this class I “optional” for me, but I’m taking it hoping that an A in the higher math classes will look good for medical school. I haven’t yet decided whether or not to take differential equations “for fun” yet or not (I’d have to in the summer). Anyway, I’m taking Calculus III with my old Calculus I professor from 5:30 to 7:30 M/W. Oh yeah! Sergio (the guy from my physics group) will be in that class with me. Then I also have Physics II with my same Physics I professor from 10 to 10:50 (am) M/W/F. I am taking this class with Marena and Sergio. Man, this is getting weird. Anyhow, that’s a pretty tough schedule, but nothing like the loads I’ve been taking. But, uhh, wait a minute. Oh no! Biology II is 4 credits. Calculus III is 4 credits. Physics II is 4 credits. That’s only 12 credits! It looks good for medical school to always be taking at least 15 credits per semester… I’m only at 12! Oh, wait, what’s this here? It looks like I’m signed up for a UNIX class… 3 credits. How cute! I’m going to learn how to use a computer that runs UNIX! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh! Oh! Cramp! Oh! Oh! Ahh! He he he he he he he. I’m so bad. Hehehe. oh man I’m so funny I just crack myself up. ^_^

Oh yeah, one more thing. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! It’s past midnight, which must explain why I find this so amusing. Any way you cut it though, me signing up for a basic computer course in UNIX is pretty funny. It’s like one level above taking a semester-long course on how to tie your shoes (with extra credit for double knots). I’m going to try my best to act really stupid in that class so as not to draw attention. My one fear is that I might actually learn something or become re-interested in computers and pick up my old habits. I doubt this will happen, but it could I guess. My number one urge I will have to fight in this class will be letting people that I already know how to use UNIX. I mean, I lived on it for how many years? Ehh, I can’t get all prideful about it. Who knows, I might realize how little about computers I really knew all along and it took this little computer course to make me realize how much I didn’t know. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Okay, I’d better get going. My writing was all nice and neat near the top and deteriorated near the bottom. I think I scraped the bottom of the barrel and even pulled-up a few wood scrapings on that last one. Oh well, it’s all good. It’ll be interesting to look back on tonight’s blog after I’m in the class and compare my current thoughts with my expectations. I guess before I worry about that, though, I should start working more on my current classes. So, until I write again, have an awesome week and stay safe. Have a good one! –Scott

I am exhausted with procrastination. I’m trapped between studying different subjects for school and can’t decide what I need to do next. Consequently, I have decided to do what I normally do when I can’t figure out what I need to do; blog! Unfortunately for the control freak perfections who read my blog, today’s entry will be fairly unstructured as I do not yet know what I am going to write about. On the other hand, my lack of pre-organized structure will cause me to gently transition from topic to topic, so with any luck today’s post will be nice and fluid. There is one topic I’m considering writing about which I think my longtime readers will find quite interesting, as it’s probably one of the most ‘personal’ entries I’ve written in quite some time. So, before I get distracted, on with the blog.

Okay, first there’s something I really want to say. It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately but never found a good time to write about it. Now isn’t a really good time, but it’s been on the back burner of the blog list priority lobe of my brain for a while and I need to get it out. So, what is this crazy little idea that Scott’s conjured up? It sounds crazy, but if you start thinking about it I believe you’ll start to see truth in it. It wraps around the topic of the M-A-double-hockey-sticks. Okay, maybe that was a pretty lame stab at a joke. Anyway, in this paragraph I’ll be talking about how obsessed the mall is with sex. I know that the central focus of most movies is sex and the central topic of discussion on most television sit-coms is sex and I’m sure all of that is obvious to you. I’m not even talking about that. I’m leaving the rest of American culture complete out of it. I’m just talking about the mall. The next time you go to the mall, start looking around at random objects in stores. I’m particularly referring to clothing stores, but this also applies to entertainment shops and other places where the targeted audience is teenagers. I personally go to the mall on a need-basis. Every few years, I’ll run out of clothes, and I’ll decide I need to go to the mall. Maybe I’m noticing all this stuff because I haven’t been brainwashed in going to the mall all the time. Okay, take a mental trip with me. You walk into a store. What are the three things you notice? Most likely, you’ll notice the clothes, the pictures on the walls, and the music in that order. I’ll nail these down in reverse order. Stop and listen to the (usually really crappy) music they play in these clothing stores. Most of the songs… no, all of the songs are always, always, always about a boy, or a girl, in a relationship or talking about one. Now, I know what you’re about to say. “Hey Scott, that doesn’t always imply anything sexual”. So, with my point simply noted, let’s move onto the second thing; the images. This is the most obvious, I think. Look around the stores at the walls. Examine each picture. It’s crazy! A lot of them are obvious to spot because of the people modeling in provocative poses or wearing almost nothing (or nothing at all, in some cases). Okay, quick tangent here. I went with my sister to the mall the other day and she took me in Abercrombie (I’m surprised microsoft word’s spell-check has that word in its dictionary). I was fascinated by the pictures they had on the wall. There were huge ten foot pictures of people wearing no visible clothes at all, with only a few objects strategically placed over the body to make it “covered”. I find it fascinating that in a clothing store (a store trying to sell you clothes)… they would have pictures of models… without clothes!! Okay, anyway, so then the final little thing I was going to mention is the clothes themselves. One of the things I find unbelievably stupid is the dumb little shirts (for both girls and guys) that have sexual metaphors on them. “The in & out hotel”, “Do it in the dirt”, “Hershey’s – bite me”, “Quickie wax jobs”, etc. If people are purchasing these clothes clearly knowing what they mean, then why do they even bother? I mean, wouldn’t it be easier just to have a shirt that says some other sexually immature phrase like “I’m a slut” on it? Okay, that was a little harsh, and I apologize. Maybe instead a shirt that says “I’m mentally shallow, desperate for friends, and willing to stoop to the low of advertising my body as incentive for people to become interested in me” would be more appropriate. Stop right there. I know you’re going to try to argue me on this one, but I seriously don’t think you can! The people who buy those stupid little shirts do so because they want them to be seen. By wanting them to be seen, they want to gain attention to whatever is said on the shirt. Why do people want attention? It varies from person to person I guess, but most often it’s for a feeling acceptance. They are obviously advertising sex on their chest to try to get attention to become accepted. I don’t know, that seems pretty mentally empty to me; or at least it shows that the person has a pretty shallow personality. Hey, there’s something else I want to mention again. Let’s shoot for a new paragraph on this one.

While we’re at the topic of clothes, I’d like to go on and give a few personal preferences on what I think is cool and what I think is not. The prior paragraph pointed out observations. This one will be more subjective. Since I’m not in a habit of watching men, I’ll write to rest of this paragraph in reference to women’s clothing. From a guy’s perspective (and quite a unique guy, at that) I think it’d be cool to let you (the women who read my blog as a collective group) to know what’s up. I walk around school a lot and I’m always looking at people. I always watch people as I walk by them and I think about most everything I see. So, it’s nice to be able to write it all down again (I think I wrote about this a year ago, but it’ll be interesting to see if any of it changed). The stuff I wrote about in the last paragraph is one of my ultimate peeves. It’s usually younger girls who wear those silly shirts with disguised sex phrases written on them for some reason. I don’t know why that is, but anyway; it’s repulsive. I think that any woman who has to advertise sex to try to get attention is one who is most likely emotionally unstable, fairly desperate, mentally devoid, or has a really empty personality (or perhaps a combination of these). So, yeah, if I were a guy looking for a nice girl, I’d pass-up any girl with one of those shirts. I’d like to recap that last idea. Advertising sex for attention is shallow. So, girls who walk around school wearing really small or low-cut shirts are also placed in the same category. A girl who gets attention by practically flashing every guy she walks by with her revealing outfit is one who I see as incredibly shallow, empty, and desperate. Something that’s not quite severe but something I think is important are girls shirts that are a solid color with large text right on the bust-line. While not actually exposing anything like the type I just described, these clothes create the same general effect. I don’t know, I guess it’s a guy thing, but everyone wants to lust toward other people. If you want to meet a nice guy, you’ll want to help him out! He doesn’t want to stare at your body, but if you wear low cut clothes or clothes with words right on the chest, it’s hard not to. This is also true for girls who are in relationships already with guys. Now I know that well over three quarters of American teenage relationships are based around sex, so I guess I’m sitting here talking about the minority. If you’re a girl in a relationship with a really nice guy, don’t make him awkward by wearing clothes that he has to fight the urge to look at! You can still look beautiful without looking trashy. As far as makeup goes, there’s no reason to overdo it! I know I’m meddling with the subjectiveness of personal opinion here, but I find it really frustrating when an otherwise beautiful woman has really thick makeup, especially around her eyes. “Crap! How am I supposed to see her eyes under all that eyeliner?” As you can probably imagine this is very frustrating for me. ^_^;; Maybe if you’re into the gothic stuff, it makes sense. Oh! I almost forgot to write about jeans. Uhhgg! I don’t know where to begin! I know the current style is to wear tight jeans low on your hips and have a shirt that doesn’t reach to the waist of your jeans so you have a few inches of skin or whatever. This might be physically appealing on a few select women with bodies that are exemplified by this style of clothing, but 99% of American women should NOT be doing this! Ugg, excuse me while I vomit! I can’t think of a more dissatisfying sight than seing a girl with really low tight jeans a nice roll of fat hanging over. It’s not like you have to be fat for that to happen! The tighter your jeans are, the more they press on your waist, and the more your waist counterbalances the pressure by pushing your stomach out. It’s not like this is a problem only with girls who have a lot of body fat. Even really thin women who would otherwise look really good can completely ruin their look by wearing ridiculously small jeans and shoving their gut over the belt loops. It’s just, repulsive. Even if you can wear them correctly, it’s still not something I really go for. Keep your clothes on your body. If you’re in a swimsuit, okay I can understand that. But, walking around school? Give me a break. At least wear clothes that cover your body. Oh yeah, to conclude this little rant I’d like to mention one more thing; bra straps. Maybe it’s just me, but I strongly think that other people are in the same boat as I am on this one. I find girls that walk around with their bra straps hanging out of their clothes simply repulsive. It’s like, “What, you didn’t finish getting dressed this morning?” I mean, it wouldn’t take much to look pretty. Maybe if you’re a homeless person, I could understand that. But, come on, if you have clothes you should at least wear them correctly. I guess to sum up this paragraph; I’ll recapitulate on what I mentioned just a moment ago. I think there’s a lot to be said for a girl who looks beautiful but not trashy. There’s more to beauty than sex, and if you put a little thought in what you wear you can make a huge difference on what other people think about you. What you choose to emphasize by your clothing is what you’re trying to attract by. If you dress with a focus on sex, then the people you attract will want you just for sex. Dress with a focus on yourself and who you are and emphasize your natural beauty and you’ll be attracting people who actually like you for who you are. It might sound cheesy, but it’s what I believe. So, there are my two cents ^_^

Okay, now I feel bad. I just spent a paragraph blasting women whose choices I don’t approve of. So, I’ll compensate by writing a little about what I think is really cool. First of all, take what I wrote about in the paragraph above and reverse it; that’s awesome! I am so much more comfortable around girls who dress modestly. Girls who wear simple shirts are awesome! Modestly dressed women are so much easier to approach. Also, it shows that they have self confidence and enough self respect to not cheapen their image by dressing tastelessly. Shorts are fine, but long pants are even cooler. I think that women who dress nicely quickly become far more attractive than those who don’t. I’m not even talking about anything super-formal. Go somewhere wearing a nice button-down white shirt with a collar? Heck, it can even be an outfit where you wear a t-shirt and one of those outer button-down shirts with a collar left unbuttoned. It makes it look like you care about how you look and you dress nicely and it’s something that’s, once again, really cool. Something I really find repulsive is when a girl has really perfect hair but always obsesses over it. She goes from touching it to poofing it to poking it to shielding it from the wind when she goes out the door. It’s like, come on, there’s looking nice and then they’re being ridiculous. You can have nice hair and that’s fine, but don’t act like it’s going to break if it’s not touched right. This can make even the most humble girls appear arrogant. Oh yeah, I have to give a note to Asian women here. I know, I know, I feel shallow for singling-out a race on this one, but it’s something I have to say. I look at eyes a lot (I don’t know why; I’m just weird like that) and I think that the curves of a natural Asian eye are a really pretty feature on any woman. There’s something I see a lot at the college that I really don’t care for; it’s when Asian women draw a line over their upper eyelid paralleling it from one corner to another. It’s done primarily to give the look of a folding double-eyelid. And, like I just said, I think the curves of a natural Asian eye are really awesome. This includes non-folding upper eyelids and (for some people) gently accentuated epicanthic folds. What makes you different is what makes you special. My advice to any girl is not to change the way they look to appear like everybody else. Your individual features are what set you apart from the crowd and make you unique, so embrace them!

Okay, enough of this. I’ll resume my normal blogging topics and give you a quick spill on school. It’s going well, I have a lot of work, but I’m managing. I got a lot of math work done yesterday which is good. Tonight I hope to get a large amount of Biology and Physics work done. I have a Biology test on Tuesday, a Physics and Calculus II test on Thursday, and a Chemistry quiz on Friday. I don’t think I’ll be blogging for a little while. I watched Lover’s Concerto again yesterday! I ended up downloading it because I only had it on DVD and decided that I should have a compute copy just in case… in case… okay so I can’t think of any reason. Leave me alone. I realized that I haven’t watched “My Sassy Girl” in quite some time, but I don’t think I’ll be downloading it any time soon. While I found it hilarious and touching near the end, I think the general qualities of both the main characters are those that, as a whole, I don’t want to inherit. I have a short list of South Korean films I haven’t seen yet! Maybe I’ll stop studying so hard one of these days and have enough time to watch some. Let’s see, I have “Wanee And Junah” which looked pretty good and “Taegukgi” which looked like an awesome saving-private-ryan-like war movie about the Korean war. So, those two are next on my list. Hopefully they’ll be good.

Ahh man, how disappointing! I had a really lame Saturday. First off, my dad needed me to fix his computers at his office. The backup system (which, in its greatest intricacy, involved a parallel zip drive) was acting flakey lately and he wanted me to help out. I thought I was done with all this computer stuff. Anyway, I grabbed a cd burner and took it to the office and spent half an hour taking apart these really dumb compact pcs. I finally got everything out, put the cd burner in, and got it all together again. I then turned it on only to realize they were running Windows 95, which can’t really burn CDs with any software I know of. So I was like “aww man!” and had to take it all back apart, put everything how it was, go home, and order another zip drive on Ebay. Oh well. My day was starting to be pretty lame. It was about noon by this time, and I was going to meet a girl from my Physics class to work on the next three chapters of homework. We were planning to meet at a Panera like we did before around lunch time. She called at about twelve thirty and said she couldn’t meet for another couple of hours. I hanged up and sighed. (yes, that’s proper grammar) The later I do school, the less I can concentrate. When I meet with Sergio (the guy in my study group) we usually meet early in the morning, and we get a lot done. When I meet Marena, she usually sleeps in more or is busy in the morning so it’s hard to arrange stuff in the morning. The afternoon, I can tolerate that. But late afternoon? Gag. I almost just said “forget it” but I looked at my watch and it only said twelve thirty so I was like “Okay, call me back when you know more then”. I didn’t want to waste all that time, so I packed my books (and some extra calculus stuff) and went to Panera and got there at about 1pm. I figured I’d do math until she called back. So, I sat there and did math for the next six hours and got a lot done. How disappointing. It’s not 6pm the next day and I still haven’t heard anything. I called yesterday and left voicemail, but oh well. I hope she’s okay. And if she is okay, I’m going to have to lay a guilt trip on her. If it was unavoidable, that’s cool. But, if you want to cancel something, at least cancel it =op

Ahh! I’m over my wordcount. I only wanted to do a two thousand word entry tonight but I guess I ran a little over. I need to make some dinner really fast then get back to my homework. I probably won’t write again until Friday afternoon or evening, but feel free to email me or write comments until then. I usually have ten minutes here and there around school where I can hop on the internet and check my website. I hope you’re having an awesome day whoever you are wherever you are, and I hope you have a good week! So, until I post again, stay safe and have fun! I’m outta here. –Scott

ps: posted as a comment in this entry is a link to my solution for my calculus II project “the case of the cooling cadaver”. I decided I’d just go on and post a link to it to make google happy ^_^

Hey there! I hope you’re having a splendid day; I certainly am! I know I only blogged two days ago, but I feel like writing again. I do miss the days where I was able to write four or five thousand word entries every day, and now it seems as if I can only nostalgically glance at my old writings between classes. However, schoolwork aside, and procrastination pending, I have decided to insert another written chapter into the novel of my life; my blog.

The weeks are counting down until I have to make a certain decision. This decision, which seems so small at first, will directly impact, influence, and ultimately direct my future. I’m almost done with my first two years of pre-med at my local college. The time has come to transfer to a university to finish two more years of pre-med. Where am I going? That seems to be the two hundred and fifty-six thousand dollar question. (get it? 256 is 2 raised to the 8’th power… never mind) These next two years are important for me, because how much I learn in these years and how well I do will dictate whether or not I am accepted into medical school (and how far I go in medical school). A fairly large university near my house is an option. It has a pre-professional biology major that’d put me on the track for medical school. Another large university a little bit up north has a pretty good pre-med program, and they also have a medical school. Also, there’s the change of me moving somewhere (who knows where) and attending some small private college in some other state. “Scott, that doesn’t really sound like you.” Yeah, I know, but it’s somewhat a long story. I was sitting at the dinner table a few nights ago and one of my parents said something along the lines of “If we’re going to be paying for some of it we’ll be picking where you go” and it caught me a little off guard. I always just assumed that my parents and I would agree on this sort of thing. I find it interesting that they thought they felt they had to set the stage for possibly rejecting (or forcing) my choice of what college I attend to study medicine. It’s not really an issue though, because I’m more than sure that our interests (being my parents and my own) align; we both want what’s best. I greatly value their advice and realize that they have far more experience than I do. I think that’s why I found it so awkward that the phrase I mentioned earlier was said. I think I should just let it go. It was probably a throwaway line. It’s just, every once and a while little lines get stuck in my head playing on repeat. It makes me feel bad for some reason. While I know it’s not true, I keep getting the stray thought that not only do they think I’m going to make a decision different than theirs, but that I’m going to be stubborn about it and try to push it through. I consider myself very open about the whole subject, so, I don’t know. I guess it’s just me blowing things up way out of proportion. Oh yeah, one last thing. At another time it was mentioned that I might be sent to a small college in another state. I’ll explore the interesting aspects of my thoughts on this move in my next paragraph.

You might move to another state? I’d hope that much would be obvious. Hey, I’m open to anything here. If there’s a good college that offers the next two years of pre-med for me and it’s in another state, it is completely fine with me. As long as it’s the best college, I’m absolutely for it. So, what if in the next few moths I realize that my perfect school is in another state? I guess that means I’ll move. Whoa, did I really just say that in a six word sentence starting with “I guess”? This is a big thing for me folks. Well, on paper at least. Think about this; I’ve lived within a two mile radius for as long as I can remember. I was a wee baby when I moved into the earliest house I remember. I was about eight when I moved to my current house (two miles away) which I’ve lived in since. Now I’m nineteen and looking at colleges. So, what am I thinking about picking up and moving across the country? I’m not entirely sure. I remember talking about this exact topic when I earlier (a year ago) wrote about possibly transferring to a small school in Texas for engineering. How things have changed since then. I’m very glad I ended up choosing not to go to that school; in retrospect, I don’t think it would have been the right choice for me. But, at the time, it was hard to tell. That momentary blur in decision making is what I feel immersed in right now. The blur always clears up right after it’s too late to take back your actions. So, for the sake of my future, I hope that the right choices are being made right now. Dang, I got off topic here. Okay! I was going to talk about moving. I think that my room will be my memories of moving away. After all, I’ve been to different schools and colleges already. The big thing about moving to a new school isn’t the new school part, it’s the moving part! If I were in a small house with well-chosen roommates, it could be a completely different experience than if I were stuck in a dorm room with randomly selected whackos. I honestly don’t care where I live. I don’t care if it’s a dorm, a closet, a house, or a dumpster. I really, really, don’t care. I don’t care where it is. Are ya’ getting the picture? I don’t care where it is, or how big my room is, or any of that. There is only one thing that I care about; one thing I need: silence. I don’t care where I live, as long as I can close a door and study. If a roommate listens to music at two hundred decibels at 2 am, I’m going to have some issues with my new college. Like I said, I don’t need anything! I sleep on the floor for goodness’ sakes. So, yeah, just silence. As long as I have a place where I can talk with Misia, I’m cool. ^_-

Hey, that brings up another quick minitopic I wanted to talk about; my friends! Since moving out of state is a definite possibility, I spent a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to move. At first I thought “It’d really stink to leave all my friends behind”. Then, well before I continue I want to say something. I’m not dissatisfied or unhappy with this right now, and I’m not saying this to sound bad. Even if I were given a change things, I’d leave it how it is right now, so realize I really like things how they are and don’t want to sound back. Okay, here we go again. At first I thought “It’d really stink to leave all my friends behind”. But then I thought to myself “Scott, you don’t have any friends?” Doesn’t it sound sad? It’s not sad to me, but reading what I wrote it sounds really sad. Anyway, so, yeah. One advantage to moving out of state is that the act of moving wouldn’t be a disadvantage. I’m only close with my family; I don’t go anywhere, do anything, or spend any time (outside of schoolwork) with anybody else. I have no close friends I’d be leaving behind, and I have no special girl that I’d be missing. I can, quite literally, pick up and go at any moment and it really wouldn’t affect my life as far as other people go. Now you know why I spent so long talking about the room; it’s the only thing that’d be changing. I don’t know what else to say about this, and I’m not sure why I wrote it. I think, if nothing else, today’s writing will be interesting to read in a year or so, especially if I have moved away. Hey, Scott, if you moved away and are in another state and are reading this a year and a half from now, Hey! I hope you’re doing well, I hope you’re doing well in school, and I hope your girlfriend is really nice a year and a half from now. Oh, really? Don’t worry; I guess you still have more time to meet one. (heh, I’m such a dork)

Okay well I just remembered that I have a biology project that is due tomorrow and I’d better get started on it as soon as possible. I hope you’re having a great day and continue to have a good week until I can post again. Luckily my week has already started winding down. After Chem II lab on Wednesday afternoons, my week slowly falls into place. So, with all due respect in time, I bid thee good night! –Scott

pretext: Since this blog is a little long, I’ve prepared listening music for you. I include an mp3 in the post later on, but until you get there this will certainly do. It’s one of my old favorites Every Little Thing – Jump. It’s a song I listened to ages ago and a song I like still. Yes, it’s in Japanese. One of my friends delicately described it as “very bad rock.” Enjoy =o)

Good evening! I come to you today not as Scott the annoyed, Scott the critical, or Scott the slacker; I come to you as Scott, the casual. I had an awesome weekend and a pretty good Monday. For those of you who had “a bad case of the Mondays”, I hope this blog entry will be just what you need to cheer up, lighten up, and maybe even laugh a little. I’m not sure what I’m going to be writing about tonight, so anything’s possible. I’m a little bored tonight but in a good mood, so I’m expecting tonight’s entry to be pretty down to earth conversation with small whims of comic relief strategically injected into the otherwise incredibly boring dialogue. So, with no more time wasted, I give you tonight’s blog.

I had a great weekend! While I am at school almost all day every day and am rarely at home these days, my weekend “alone” somehow felt unique. Perhaps its just the mental notion in knowing that your family is out of town for the weekend and you have the place to yourself, or maybe it’s something a little simpler like knowing you have the freedom to go to bed early. Yes, you heard that right. I casually threw out that tidbit and it got an interesting response. Then again, I don’t know what I expected. I think that may have been the point (subconsciously, at least) of saying it. Yes, when my family is out of town and I have the house to myself, I go do bed early. Why is this? Because I’m tired! More specifically, when my house is occupied and I try to go to sleep early, it is very difficult. Lights are going on and off, the TV is on, dialogue is being expressed (sometimes louder than others); in other words, it’s crazy around here. So, needless to say, it’s hard to go to sleep early on the days I know I will have to rise early or on days where I desperately need to reclaim lost sleep. I can’t believe it’s only 8:23pm right now! This daylight savings time thing is cool. Oh yeah, where was I. The time I spent over the weekend was well-used. I worked really hard (put a lot of time into) a math project. I got it about 95% finished. I just have to polish-up the written document explaining how I did it. I’ve been using MathType (downloaded) to insert complex math symbols and equations into Microsoft word. It’s really cool, I highly recommend it. I also loaded adobe acrobat pro (downloaded) which is a program I’ve never actually installed before. I haven’t used the actual program yet, but I am impressed with their printer drivers. In my dropdown list of printers, I have a new “print to PDF” option. Awesome! I guess in my years of computer work, hardware twiddling, and computer programming (dabbling in about 10 different languages) I had somehow managed to miss this little feature. Then again, it is only recently that I have been using windows again. My days (years) of running Linux and FreeBSD seem so long ago, and a UNIX shell feels so foreign to my fingers. While I may have been “savvy” with computers, I seemed to have missed over all the cute little pieces of software that make your heart warm and your smile form when you use them. Hey, there’s a theme for tonight’s blog! No, not my heart, I’m talking about my past! Believe it or not, it was something that came up a few days ago in person!

Yes, Scott has a past. As enjoyable and wonderfully interesting (almost) my life is right now, it’s funny how much of a one-eighty difference it is from the way I was living about two years ago. For the purpose of simplicity in the remainder of this document, I’ll just refer to my ‘past’ as my life about a year and a half ago. People who have only recently found my blog or only know me in person, chances are that you don’t know how [adjective] I was. I leave that word empty because I can’t think of a catch-all term that I could describe myself. I almost used the word ‘unique’, but I hesitating knowing that there are probably hundreds of other people my age just like I was. I almost used the word ‘interesting’, but I must say that to someone who isn’t interested in the kind of stuff I was, my life was a far cry from interesting. So, what is all this I’m talking about? Well, I’ll tell you; but first I must provide contrast by telling you about my current life.

Who am I now? I’m Scott. I wake up every day, get ready, go to college, work hard and get my studying done there, come back home late, go to bed, and do it all over again! Right now, college is pretty much all it seems like I do. On my weekends, I do a lot of schoolwork, but I usually have time in between to do other things. The free time I have I’ll usually spend watching movies (favorite genre is the South Korean romantic melodrama (doh!)) or just relaxing. I have my desks arranged longwise so I have maximum desk space to work with my books, papers, and other schoolwork. I have a (one) computer which I use for writing blogs and emails; nothing more. I’m not particularly good at any one thing these days… I try to be the best at what I do (school, pretty much) but because I have a full load of significantly difficult classes, it’s hard to be number one and at the top of every class. I think I could safely say I’m somewhere within the top five students in all of my classes. I’m not perfect, and I don’t try to be. I just put as much effort into doing well as I can. I sleep at least five hours every night. I have some friends. Well, there are three, and mostly because they’re in the same classes I am and we do homework together… but they can, at this point, be labeled as “friends” nonetheless. Aka: I make human contact. I listen to mostly classical music (with occasional uncontrollable lusts for Japanese, Korean, or Chinese vocal contemporary ‘pop’ (for lack of a better word)). I’m studying to get into medical school; I want to become a doctor.

Who was I? Get ready, this might get a little trippy. I don’t think I’ve ever specifically blogged about my past (being that the switch didn’t happen all that too long ago) but it’ll be interesting to see how it goes. To set them mood, you have to be listening to a song I’ve prepared from my past. This used to be one of my favorite songs a few years ago, so I think it’s only fitting to upload it so other people can hear it. The link will be posted in the next paragraph. Click that link now. Are you listening to it? Liar. Click it now! Play it while you read. Jeez. To grab the attention of people who might otherwise skip this paragraph, I’ll quote the last 30 seconds’ lyrics of this song. No, I didn’t make them up, I googled for them. Please don’t criticize me for my lack of Japanese knowledge. I don’t even know enough to know what I don’t know. In other words, if these words are wrong, just let it go. Download this song! [Akina - Touch Me]

Ima sugu daki shimete ii noni. Mune no oto kikoeru hodo motto chikaku de kanjite. Aenai aeru sonna kotoba. Watashi ni wa mou iranai? No matter where I go, no matter what I do; I will keep on searching… I will keep on searching… Watashi no ugoki hitotsu futatsu kioku ni nokoshite hoshii. No matter where I go, no matter what I do; I will keep on searching for you.

Hey! Some of that is in English! Way to go Sherlock. Okay, anyway, I used to play that song a lot. Listening to it again brings back those subtle ripples of nostalgia that make me remember the warm moments of the time I spent alone basking in my ‘life’ but they also remind me of how different I feel today. I don’t know how different I really am and I don’t think it’s a chance that other people could put their finger on. Things have changed slowly and subtly over the last few years, but when comparing the instant present to the distant past it’s interesting to see the contrast between the two. So, who was I in the past? I wasn’t Scott, I was KnightHacker! Hey, I still have the email address to prove it. Anyhow, I was KnightHacker, the ‘hacker’ who had better things to do with his time than meddle in the affairs of newbies. I’m saying that sarcastically, by the way. For those of you who know about hacking or are familiar with the lifestyles of intense computer users, you might derive some mild comic value from that statement. Anyway, yes, I was a computer geek, a guru, a little coding ninja monkey. I lived in my computers. After all, I had sixteen of them! Actually, I had more or less depending on when you’re referring to, but the number I seemed to have was sixteen, because my beautiful blue Netgear 100mbps hub could only handle sixteen. Man, I had everything! I was, for a lack of a better word, utterly cool. I thought so at least, and so did a small ring of cult-like followers. I built a homemade router, several web servers, IRC servers, DHCP servers, print servers, SQL servers, file servers, stream ripping servers, media servers (connected to my TV and stereo)… I mean you name something crazy, and I had built a server to handle it! I couldn’t have one nice computer to handle it, no. I was cooler than that. Okay, breaking off for twenty seconds. While today most of my movies are Korean, Japanese, or Chinese live-action drama or suspense films, 90% of the movies I watched two years ago were Japanese anime. And no, I’m not talking about pokemon! I’m talking about Serial Experiments Lain, Noir, Neon Genesis Evangelion, .Hack//Sign, or Ghost in the Shell type movies. You know; the anime that either warps your mind or is pretty much just an excuse to show ultra-violent images on a TV screen. I don’t think anyone “outside” understands anime; it’ something that only we anime watchers realize and enjoy. The world is naive. You can’t force it upon them. Anyway, back to my computers… I made these incredible networks of machines completely from crap parts! I used old computers (mostly 486es) to build this giant machine to do everything for me! The nicest computer I had was my main computer, which had five monitors on it at its prime. However, five was a little much for a single computer. I usually liked to run three on it. Oh yeah, all of my computers ran Linux or FreeBSD by the way. Hey, why not clarify? All of my headless (no keyboard, mouse, or monitor) servers used FreeBSD (I liked how it handled networking) and my workstations and laptops ran Linux. Oh yeah, my little homemade router ran FreeSCO. Microsoft (and Windows) essentially stood for everything that was evil to me. And, while it does today, I tolerate it. “What’s so bad about Microsoft?” Man, I’m getting mad again! Microsoft charges hundreds of dollars for really, REALLY crappy software. Linux, on the other hand, is completely free, runs faster, is more efficient, never freezes, doesn’t crash, is more customizable, and is a whole lot easier to intricately configure. Programs run better on Linux, and it has incredibly better memory management. It virtually can not get viruses or get hacked when compared to Microsoft products. So, it’s obvious that UNIX-type operating systems are in most ways better than Windows… but Microsoft has the gaul to slap a 200$ price tag on their standard operating system! Their server side operating systems are thousands of dollars. It’s sad. Anyway, I spent almost all of my time on the computer. I spent as little time in school as possible.

Hey, I was an engineering major, grades aren’t as important as people trying to get into medical school! My room was crazy. With all that equipment, my closet was full of servers and my desks were cluttered with monitors and computers everywhere. Every inch of every desk of mine had a monitor on it. I spent all of my time programming. I’d usually think of useful programs to code or scripts to write, but when I couldn’t think of anything better to do I’d dabble in virus writing. I got this little kick out of it that was emotional hunger mixed with an empty sense of power and humor. Thinking back, I don’t know why I did a lot of what I did… I just did it because I thought it was “cool”. Oh yeah, my last virus (YAABL) was cool and I still think so by the way. I mean, think about it! I write malicious code that only attacked the computers of really lame hacker-wannabes (not that I claim to be one). In other words, I wrote a virus that attacked loser hackers! In quick defense, these people are the scum of the internet. They’re people who, having newly gained exposure to other people’s “hacking tools”, act like children in randomly attacking (and sometimes damaging or destroying) other peoples computers. They’re usually just known as script kiddies. Anyway, I coded all the time. I listened exclusively to trance or Japanese contemporary music, much like the song that you’re listening to now. I didn’t really go out of the house much, and friends are something I didn’t really have. The only social interaction I had was the people in my classes when I went to college. The years before that, it was the “track team”. I think I’ll conveniently skip over that little epilogue. I had one friend who I was fairly close with. We agreed on a lot of things and talked a lot, mainly at night, and were both in roughly the same situation and sage of our lives. She was my opposite, with all of the qualities I wanted in my own life but having none of the features I didn’t like in myself. She was a good friend. She was perky. She was fun. She was Misia! I guess I don’t have that much more to talk about, so I’ll go on and beat myself to the ending. I’ve changed a lot in the last few years, and I somehow hope I won’t be changing much as I age from here. While there are still some things about myself, my personality, or my life that I don’t like as they are, I am afraid to change things too quickly because I don’t want to offset the things that I have right now that I hold so close to who I am. So, on that cheesy emotionally cramping note, I’ll end this paragraph.

I’m flirting with the idea of getting a minidisk player. “They’re crap” seems to be a common notion I’m getting these days, but let me defend my reasoning! First off, I’ll be the first to admit they were pretty bad when they came out a long time ago. However, even in the last year, they’ve improved a lot. Now we’re talking about encoding mp3s onto 1GB minidisks! Also, the part that makes me strongly consider getting one is the ease of recording capabilities. CD players can’t record. Some Mp3 players can record, but not for that long, and the memory is really expensive. In other words, you’re stuck with what you have in the Mp3 player. Minidisk players are cool because they’re easy to record to and minidisks are really cheap, so you can just buy a pack of them and swap them out whenever you want. I know this sounds cheesy, but I think I could greatly benefit in two of my classes by listening to my lecture twice. In class, I’m always worried about taking notes; I don’t learn the lecture very well. If I were to listen to the professor speaking while reading over my notes, I think I could get a lot more out of it with less work. The drive to and from school is about an hour and a half each day. I could use that car time to my advantage! And, beside the recording part, I think I might get a lot out of a small minidisk player because the disks are cheap and I can have a lot of music on hand. I just pick what type I want to listen to, pop in a disc, and I’m fine. When I go to China, I’ll be in another country for about two and a half weeks. A cd player would eat up batteries and an mp3 player doesn’t store much audio. (Well, hard drive based mp3 players do, but I don’t want one; they’re too expensive, eat up batteries, and are pretty heavy.) I just, I don’t know, maybe I’m in one of those little moods where I actually want something just for the sake of having it! ^_^ And, no, before some wisecracker tries to say that the only reason I want one is because they’re popular in Asia you can go on and shove that idea back where it came from. I’m sick and tired and sick and tired and tired and sick and sick and tired and unwell and exhausted of hearing comments like that! Grr!!! I’m not going to touch it; I’ll just ignore it and move on.

I got a good grade on my last Physics test! Yes! Score! Scott’s points just went up baby. I might actually have a solid A in this class now! I took a Physics exam last Tuesday. It was the exam I was studying for when I met that girl at Panera and got beleaguered about it, remember? Anyway, I did really well I thought. I went to Dr. Oelfke’s office almost every day checking if he had graded the tests yet. Each day he said no, except for today when he said “I’m going to be getting to that this afternoon…” At that time I was with that girl, so- wait. I need to get over this. “That girl” has a name. It’s Marena, okay? There; I said it and, just now, lost all social anonymosity. We study together in Physics so there’s always a little competition to see who does the best. Well, we went into his office and when I heard I got an A and she got a B I didn’t know how to react. Once she got a higher grade than I did and she joked about it, so I tried to politely make sure she remembered how it felt. ^_^ Anyway, I missed one problem, but I got part of an extra credit question right so my grade is a medium A. Marena’s average in that class is probably higher than my own though right now, otherwise I wouldn’t joke about her score being lower than mine. Anyway, so, yeah. I’m feeling good about that class again.

If I hear one more person try to tell me about “Twelve Girls Band” I’m going to… Oh man, okay, whoa, I don’t even know where to begin with this one! Just because I’ll watch South Korean romantic melodramas or have a taste for a good Japanese animated suspense film or perhaps even because I listen to Japanese, Chinese, and Korean music a lot of people find some reason to tell me about “Twelve Girls Band”. If you’ve been watching TV lately, you’ve probably seen a commercial. It’s a band of twelve girls playing “traditional Chinese instruments”. Whatever their motivations, a lot of people have been emailing me or asking me, “Hey, have you heard of Twelve Girls Band?” So, I’ll answer you all in a collective rant. Yes! Will you shut up about it already? Jeez! “Twelve Girls Band”, as optimistically friendly as I’d love to be, simply sucks really, really badly. I’m sorry if anyone out there actually likes this crap. If you like it, that is fine. I’m not insulting you. However, I am deeply saddened when I hear this music. Yes, I’ve heard their music a long time ago. Their targeted audience eludes me. I mean, twelve girls playing “traditional Chinese instruments”? Since when was the squeaky whine of an electric guitar or the pounding of a percussion stand actually considered traditional Chinese music? While there may be some “interesting sounding melodies” in the music from interments or of tunes that remotely resemble traditional Chinese music, I think that it’s defiling to the whole concept of everything! Maybe I’m being a little extreme here. Have you ever heard of “Hooked on Classics?” It’s a collection of classical music pieces set to a percussion stand (umm puth umm puth umm puth) beat. What did it do? It just took that wonderful traditional music and perverted it into something it clearly isn’t supposed to be. I guess that TGB is simply too awkward for my tastes. So, there are my two cents.

Now, it’s time for me to retire. Hopefully I’ll be able to write again soon! It looks like I already wrote more than thirty five hundred words. I went over. Oh well. I hope you all are having a wonderful day wherever you are or whenever you read this. I’ll write again when I can, but no promises. Remember that friendly personal emails are always cherished and comments on this post are encouraged. Have a good one! –Scott

Sentimental opening paragraph: Yesterday the world held its breath as millions of people voted for the man who would become the next president of the United States of America. Truly blessed to live in such a prosperous and successful nation, we were all given the opportunity to cast our vote and have our voice heard. By now, a day after the election, the winner has been decided. The president of the United States, George W. Bush, will remain in office for another four years. While the winner of the presidential election is the man I voted for, and I am cheerful in his victory, I want to remind everyone that the men and women who voted for John Kerry are also people, with their own views and ideas. They are people who stand behind John Kerry just as much or even more than we stand behind George Bush. They are people who earnestly believe that John Kerry was the best option for a commander in chief of our military, and the president of the United States. They are the people that we like to so delicately refer to as LOSERS.

Weeaaaahhhhh! Kicking-off tonight’s blog is a little theory I’ve contrived on why Bush won by (what is adding up to be) about four million votes. It’s all in the pumpkin! Thanks to my website proudly displaying the pumpkin on the front page for three days, enough people saw it to ensure that George Bush would win the election. So, for you millions of website viewers who were swayed by the pumpkin; we did it! John Kerry, I’m sorry. You’re a LOSER. ^_^ I’m not going to worry about being harsh tonight. I’m not going to worry about offending people to night. I’m a little relieved, and little tired, and I’m just glad that when everything was said and done the best man came out on top. I have to hand it to our president, even though mud was thrown at him from all directions (especially the Michael Moore following liberals), not only did George W Bush win the election, he got a higher percentage of votes this election than he did in the last election! So, yeah, I’ll have a little fun tonight. But, to retain what seriousness I have left, I’ll go along with the gist of this politically oriented blog by replying to two emails I got today.

I was under the impression that the government represents the will of the people, not their own agendas and what they think is right. If John Kerry is willing to change what he’ll do for us, based on what we think, more power to him. I’d rather have a man in the presidency who can leave what he wants done behind to do what we, the people, think is right. Then again, since Bush won, that won’t be happening for four years. –Jeff

Do people really buy this garbage? First off, Jeff, you seem like a cool guy and I don’t want to make it sound like I think of you any differently as a person even if I get a little hot when talking about your comment. So, we’re cool. So, about your question… What do you think you’re doing when you vote, Jeff? You’re choosing the man whose values and goals closely match the ones you have. Think about it dude; anyone could make decisions on the polls. If that were the case, why would we even need a president? George Bush has strong views and he makes his decisions based upon them. I agree with his views, so I voted for him. The problem with John Kerry (and the real reason I think he lost) is that NO ONE knows his real moral views. Why? He doesn’t have any! Like you’re trying to point out, he changes his views to match whatever people want. “Whatever side you’re on, I’m on too!” I’m sorry man, but he sounds like a little girl. That is not the way to rule a nation. Then, to top it al off, people like you come up and start jabbering about “Look at Bush, why is he ignoring the polls and making decisions on what he believes is right!?” Gee, I don’t know Jeff, some people call that LEADERSHIP!

I know we’ve long disagreed on many of these subjects, but there’s something that you mentioned that I’m kind of strongly opinionated about. You mentioned that you supported George Bush [because] he didn’t support gay marriage. This was one of the main reasons that I didn’t support him. Many of the arguments for this are entirely based on [either] the idea that Bible says so, or [because] it’s always been the way we’ve done it. First of all, in our society we have separation of church and sate, so this should not be a valid argument at all. What the Bible or the church says should have no influence on the government. Second of all, moving ahead in the world is something that you’ve got to do, and to do that, you have to have change. Sometimes these changes are very different from what we are used to.

Also, marriage is a civil right. By denying it between same-sex couples, you’re actually denying civil rights to people, which is never cool. I [believe] that these people honestly love each other and want to be legally bonded. That’s what, in the government’s eyes, a marriage should be. A legal agreement stating that this person is now a member of your family, and that they have the decision-making power if you are put into the hospital on life support, and that if you are to die, your estate goes to them, along with the other aspects of marriage. Even if we were to go to civil unions that have the same exact things, but a different name, I’d be OK [with] that, since big changes work better if they come slowly. If you do not [believe] that two people of the same sex can love each other, then, well, I present to you the case that many times the people who get married in heterosexual relations don’t love each other [either], hence the divorce rate being so high.

That is how I present my [opinion] on this issue. I respect your [opinion], so if you would please respond with reasoning, I would be grateful. –Stephen (Morolin) Longfield

Well Stephen, I guess you want to talk about gay people again. I’ll try to respond to your points in order, but understand that it may get a little mixed up here and there. Yes, one of the reasons I strongly support George W Bush is because of his firm stance on the fact that marriage is between a man and a woman. You jump right into trying to negatively say that the law is being impacted by the Bible. Hello! Have you been living in a coma for the last five hundred years? Christopher Columbus went in search of a new world to “bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. From the beginning, the people who immigrated here came for religious purposes. Our first forms of government were made by our own people. They were based entirely around the Bible. Where else do you think our laws came from? They’re nothing new and I don’t think they’re things that should be changing. The Bible has very clear black and white stances on almost every issue. From murder, rape, or theft (to cite the Ten Commandments) to abortion and euthanasia, it’s all been written thousands of years ago and our laws were created to reflect those of the Bible. So, if you’re going to try to preach to me that laws banning legally binding contracts on homosexual marriages because it came from the Bible, you can shove that little idea back where it belongs. Our legal system is based around the laws of the Bible. As much as people want to whine about it, it’s the simple fact. The separation of church and state was an initiative started a long time ago to ensure that the government would not be able to interfere with the Bible or those practicing religion. The laws calling for the separation of church and state were created to protect religion from influence or control by the government, not the other way around (as you’re trying to tell me). It’s long since been twisted to try to provide some shelter for people who, mostly oblivious to what it really means, try to hide behind the word picture it creates.

If you think that your life is worthless and that you’re a cosmic accident and that life has no purpose and that humans are no more important than animals, suddenly lots of things change. I’m going to be really honest with you. If I thought that, then I would have absolutely no problem with murder. I would have no problem with rape. I would have no problem with anything. If life is worthless, meaningless, and purposeless, why would anyone care what happens to anyone else? Thankfully, this is not the case. I believe that we are not cosmic accidents and I believe that we are here for a purpose. I believe that human life is sacred. Your life is sacred, and my life is sacred. The life of a child, obviously beginning at conception, is sacred. The live of an older man or woman is sacred. Because I believe this, I know abortion is wrong. I know euthanasia is wrong. I know that “mercy killings” like they do in areas of Europe is wrong (where they kill handicapped children who are six and seven years old). We gasp at this last one because it hasn’t been “legalized” yet. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean its right. That explains the basis behind a lot of my other views. Into my last thought…

The fundamental reason why I think homosexual marriages should be permanently banned is simple. Like life, I think marriage is sacred. Marriage was created as a bond between a man and a woman as the fundamental unit behind a family. I’ll say it again. I believe Marriage is sacred. It is NOT something that is done purely for legal benefits. It grieves my heard to think of all the depressing words I’ve been hearing lately from people who talk about marriage as the past to obtain whatever temporal legal rights they can. No, no, no, no. no. no! So many people completely miss the mark when thinking about the whole concept of marriage. Okay, new paragraph because I want to make this clear.

Stephen, if you TRULY thought that gay people want to marry because of love, you’re completely wrong. Think about what you’re saying. It’s not just this way in gay couples, it’s also this way in a lot of heterosexual couples… but for the purpose of being consistent, I’ll refer to a gay couple. If two gay people “love” each other, why on earth would they fight so hard for a legally binding contract to give them extra rights or whatever it is they’re trying so hard for? In America, homosexually is not only not persecuted, it’s promoted! Homosexual people who want to publicly be gay have their little refuge in the US. If they really “loved” each other, they’d be happy loving each other. But, no, they’re not happy. Whatever their motivations may be, (insecurity?) they for some reason feel the need to stand up and try to fight against the mainstream. Homosexual legally binding marriages are of these little fights. If gay couples were really happy being gay, they’d quit complaining so badly about not being able to have legally binding marriages. I think that homosexuals make a big mistake in calling themselves “gays”, because the ones I’m around are probably some of the unhappiest people I have ever met.

I spent way too long on this blog. I guess I got kind of distracted in responding to my little emails. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll get ripped up in the comments. My views may be unpopular, but I stick to what I think is right. (Hey, there’s a novel idea!) At any rate, I should get going. I’m meeting a lab partner at 6:45am tomorrow morning which means I’ll be waking up at about 5:45am. It’s already 10:00pm and I still need to study hard for a biology test tomorrow. Hum, maybe I should have planned a little better with that one. Anyway, I hope you’re having an awesome day wherever you are! And, oh yeah, don’t worry. I try to keep from talking politics in my blogs because it always makes me mad -_- So, don’t worry, my next blog will be fun again! Until then, VIVA BUSH!