Archive for December, 2004

Finally I have time to write! /hugs himself/ It has been far too long since I last wrote here, and I’m much excited to once again be able to have a little bit of free time. I remember the days last year at about this time where it felt like I was free to write a few thousand words every day. Lately, I seem lucky if I can get five thousand words blogged in a whole week! While my time to blog is dwindling, the interesting events in my life are not. While my time away from computers has given me more of an opportunity to bask in the real world, I come back every once and a while to record and share my experiences. The last few entries in my blog, while interesting, have been impersonal. Tonight I hope to be able to spend a little bit of time catching-up on what’s been happening in my own life. Tonight, as you may have already guessed, is unscripted; another Saturday night blogging freestyle. It’ll be fun. Are you ready?

Last night I wished for a girl story to write about on my website. Friday morning between classes I read the blog of one of my friends, Jeff. He’s a really nice guy who I met about a year and a half ago through my website. Inspired by my website, he began a blog at http://www.mspaint.org. I try to read it every few weeks (he doesn’t post too often so I don’t check regularly, but that’s supposed to change Monday!). This blog, it’s really cool. I highly recommend that anyone who likes my blog check this one out. It’s obvious that the blog is influenced by my website and writing style, but that’s what makes it so fun for me to read! This guy is really cool, and his writing style is awesome. He writes like I do!! Reading what happens to him in his own life in his own words feels like I’m reading about my own life, only I don’t know what happens in the end. I read Jeff’s “Long Weekend” entry (11/28/2004) and loved it! Jeff, I know you’re reading this. You need to write more! Seriously, if you blogged every day, I would be checking it twice a day. I’m sure the guy won’t mind if I quote a little bit from that blog on my site. Doesn’t this guy sound like me? I love it!

…We were allowed to work with one partner of our choice, and me, hardly knowing anyone in my class, ended up working by myself. Sitting by myself, doing hard busy work alone, for some reason attracted this girl that I have been previously interested in to come over to me. She, too, not knowing anyone in this class, had no one to work with. She moved to the desk next to mine and sits down and asks me if I was working alone. I tell her that yes, I was working alone, but she could join me if she wanted to. At this point my inner dialogue was going nuts telling me not to screw things up and say the wrong thing or do something to scare her away. We started in on the packet that we had received in the class, until I somehow stuck up a conversation other then the one we were having about the work we were doing. I don’t remember exactly what this was; it was just something I felt that would work in this situation…

–Quote from Jeff’s blog (11/28/2004)

See what I mean? Why can’t there be more blogs like this out there! Mine lately have felt so dry, boring, and tasteless. I need to try harder to spice them up again! Anyway, Jeff’s site is pretty cool and I thought it was definitely worth promoting for a few days! So, ScottIsHot.com crowd, show my friend some support! And Jeff, seriously, write more often! I love your writing; and that’s not something I say to just anyone!
afterthought: Tom Hayward, another friend of mine and my current web host, has a blog somewhat like mine too. He writes well and I’d link to it, but he hasn’t updated it in over half a year! So, pfft, forget that =op

About that girl story… After I realized how much fun I had reading about the personal life of another person through his overly-awkward experiences with the opposite sex, I decided it was about time for me to do the same. I haven’t written about a recent real-world event in weeks, and I remember scratching my head last night wondering what I could possibly write about. I hoped for something… some story I could use to practice my writing. Writing lately has been a nuisance to me; I wanted to practice writing well! After all, I’m supposed to be starting a book next week. I want to practice to see if I’ve lost my writing touch; yet I had nothing to write about! I mean, beside the girl who’s my physics lab partner and the girl who’s my chemistry lab partner, I don’t really interact with girls at school. And, since I only go from home to school and back, that’s about the full extent of my social interaction. Well, as my luck would have it, something quite interesting happened today.

Okay, I have a great idea! Well, maybe it’s not great; I won’t know until it’s done. I’m going to try writing about something that really happened today. I’m going to try writing delicately just to see what it’s like. I write this way sporadically, but it’s always about hypothetical situations. I want to try describing part of my real life in this higher state of writing. So, for your enjoyment, I just put my writing cap on. It’s time for a writing experiment. Once again, I’m not making up a fragment of this. I’m just slightly embellishing the truth by interjecting my perceptions on my reality. Then again, doesn’t that make it even more truthful? All right, the experiment is about to start. I’m powering it on in three… two… one… aww wait a second. /changes batteries/ Okay, two… one… PFFZZZT

WRITING EXPERIMENT #1: “WELCOME TO MY LIFE”

I could feel the warmth of the lowering sun gently shining on my left arm as I lay back in my seat and closed my eyes. It is rare that I’m able to spend five minutes of my weekend relaxing, but today was an exception. I simply remained motionless, sitting in a Panera Bread restaurant, quietly resting with my eyes closed and my head leaning against the back of the booth. I had planned to meet my physics lab partner to study at one thirty, but she was running a few minutes late. I wasn’t in a rush though. These rare moments of relaxation were too important to me to waste them worrying about how much longer I would have to wait before she arrived. “Then again, what if she were walking in the door right now?” I thought.

“Idiot!”, I yelled at myself, “you look like a lazy bum. Get up and at least pretend to be doing something.” I was right. As much as I hate it when I argue with myself and lose, I had to face the simple reality; the guilt of my mindless relaxation was too great for me to put off schoolwork. I slowly opened my eyes and leaned forward, pulling my arms off the table and pressing my hands gently on the edge. I sat-up straight and began disassembling the contents my backpack and scattering them over the table. I found some papers to shuffle and began to randomly arranging the order of them. Was I actually doing anything constructive? Not really, but at least it looked important. I did this for about thirty seconds before I finally realized the full extent of the stupidity in what I was actually doing. “Scott, grow up” I told myself. I chuckled inside but I felt a small smirk gently creep over my face. I looked up to distract myself from the absurdity of what I was doing and, sure enough, there she was walking towards me.

I’ve known Marena for about six months now. She was in my Calculus I class last summer. In the last few weeks of class, I gained the courage to approach the group study table in the library where a fourth of my class would review for exams together. Being fairly socially independent because I felt incredibly uncomfortable around groups of people, approaching the table and asking “mind if I join you?” was a really big deal to me. It was a move I’m glad I made though. I met two really nice people who became good friends that day. Sergio, an engineering major, was guy about my age who seemed smart and determined to do well in school. Marena, preparing for pharmacy school, was a girl little younger than I was who seemed outgoing and personable. The three of us are completely different, but I think that’s why we work so well together. We discussed what classes we sighed-up for in the next semester and realized that all three of us had signed-up for the exact same Physics I class. The three of us formed a lab partner group and we became friends. I was hoping to have met Sergio today as well, but he was busy working.

“Ahh man these things are so good!” Marena said as she slapped down a smoothie on the table and proceeded to lie down halfway on the booth. “Great”, I thought to myself, “I’m sure they love it when customers bring food from other restaurants in here.” Then again, self confidence is rarely in short supply with Marena. She knows what she wants and she gets it without worrying about what other people think about how she looks. “Nice pants” I said with a smile. Whenever Marena doesn’t feel like doing laundry, she wears her brother’s clothes. Since her brother is in medical school, she ends up coming to school wearing scrubs with a quicksilver shirt half the time; quite an interesting mix. We quickly got to business and started working on our physics review by going over old tests and figuring out what we needed to study to for the final exam. After we initially skimmed the old tests, we felt pretty good because we discovered we remembered how to do pretty much everything. The study-cramming mood quickly became less intense, and the conversation became a lot more relaxing. About an hour and a half after working on the material, I decided it was time to grab some lunch. “Have you eaten lunch yet?” I asked. “Nope” “I’m gonna go up and grab something to eat; ya’ want me to get you anything?” I politely asked. “No, I’m not hungry yet” she stated. I glanced at my watch. It was almost 3pm; how could she not be hungry? I figured it was just one of those girl things and decided to let it go. I quickly leaped out of the booth with a quarter spin in the air so I landed in the right direction (which I do in habit, only to feel really stupid afterwards). In an embarrassing attempt to counteract my sudden jolt of movement, I strolled slowly toward the counter. There was a small line, but it wouldn’t be any more than two or three minutes to get through. I looked around the restaurant to kill time. To my right about fifty feet away were the drink machine and the exit door. I looked back at the register. “Come on people, let’s move” I thought to myself. I felt irritated, but said nothing. I just gave a facial expression of “ghaw!” by opening my eyes large and tilting my head slightly to the left in frustration knowing that no one would see it. I looked to my left. There was the booth I came from, and there was Marena laughing. She must have seen it. I mentally smacked myself.

By now a small line was forming behind me. People were standing close to me in a small circle. I looked back to the right. There, standing by the drink machine, was a girl who caught my attention. For me, this is something quite out of the ordinary. I’ll be the first person to admit that I only notice women; they never get my direct attention. The reason this girl was different was because she was looking right at me. Her eyes blue were locked in my direction and, though I knew she wasn’t looking at me, I was able to clearly them. She was about my height with shoulder length blond hair that was half down over her ears and half up behind her head. I mentally complimented the hair style, because it looked pretty conservative (not overly flashy) yet really pretty. She was wearing a black shirt and an apron and was holding a hat in her hand. I realized she was a Panera worker who just began her break, but then I realized something more interesting. Still looking in my direction, she smiled and waved. “That was nice”, I thought to myself, “she just gave a really friendly-looking smile and waved to someone behind me she must know.” I remained motionless and expressionless. I was quite obviously staring at her trying to figure her out, but since she was looking at someone behind me she wouldn’t notice my starting as long as I kept a blank face. I could be looking at the soda machine behind her for all she knew.

She started walking toward the group of people. “Huh, this’ll be interesting” I thought. I love it when I’m able to see someone, try to figure them out, and test my assumptions by hearing how they interact with their friends. Since I was in the line and whoever she waved to was near me, I’d be able to hear the whole conversation. She was now 40 feet away. As she came closer, I noticed her features more. 30 feet away. She wore dark eyeliner that, although thinly applied, I simply find unattractive. 20 feet away. She raised her hand again and repeated her earlier smile/wave with a polite and friendly “hi!” escaping her lips. 15 feet away. “Dang”, I thought to myself, “she must practice that smile a lot in the mirror; it’s perfect! I’ll bet she manipulates a lot of guys with that smile.” 10 feet away. At this point I had forgotten that I was staring at her and glanced away for a second, only to glance back at her a second later to notice her finger raised and pointed.

“Hey you!” she said with a chuckle in her voice. Whoever she was talking to must not have noticed she was talking to them. I wondered which person behind me it was, so I slowly twisted my head to the left… That’s weird, there’s no one on my left. 5 feet away. I twisted my head to the right in absolute horror. How embarrassing; I was standing there by myself. She must have been waiving at me all this time as I sat there looking like an idiot. I- I didn’t know what to do! This was completely unexpected. My body started to play the symptoms of a physical social anxiety. My heart began to race. My voice raised a few notches. My fingers began to tremble. I could feel a bead of sweat slowly rolling down my forehead. “Hey you!” she said again. I had to think of something to say fast! She obviously had something to say, and I felt really stupid for not having realized it was me she was trying to flag down. No one else was around. It had to be me. My only opportunity to change her impression that I’m a total idiot is to say something charming, smart, and intelligent. I gracefully raised my right fist to my chest and stuck-out my thumb pointing toward my body and asked with a squeak, “Who me?”

“Yeah! Don’t I know you from school?” Ahh, one of those; at least it’s not a desperate girl trying to hit on a stranger. I suddenly felt slightly more comfortable talking with her. I looked over my left shoulder once more and noticed Marena popping her head slightly over the edge of the booth so as to watch what was happening. I looked back and smiled remembering Marena’s expression. It was an expression of curiosity intermingled with disbelief. With my personality, I’m by no means one to walk up and strike a conversation with a girl. And, let’s face it, I’m not the type of guy most girls are jumping to strike a conversation with anyhow. Yet, here I was, minding my own business, and a tall thing blond haired blue eyed girl walks up and starts talking with me, smiling and nodding every two or three seconds. While it may be the American standard of feminine beauty, I didn’t find myself particularly attracted to hear appearance, but I always try to disregard physical attractions because I believe they’re no basis on which to start a serious relationship. I realized I was obligated to talk with this girl, but I was for some reason embarrassed to be around her. I avoided looking at her face by staring into her eyes (eyes comfort me; I can’t explain it) as I spoke (once again in my normal low voice) “I’m not sure, what school do you go to?” She named my old school. “Possibly”, I said with a false sense of interest, “I used to go there! What’s your name?” She smiled as if introducing herself and began “I’m Sarah!” Her expression and voice intonation reminded me of an overly-perky waitress at a breakfast place. I felt like asking “how many coffees have you had today anyway?” but decided against it. “Yeah? I think I may remember you” I lied. “How old are you?” I asked. I thought it was a valid question. She looked like she was about my age, but then again physically I look twelve (though I’m really 19) so I find my sense of age judgment is a little off sometimes. “Sixteen”, she said…

This is the point where the tables began to turn. I, to this moment, don’t know my exact motivations for doing this, but her age was the final straw. I began the process of publicly blowing off of a girl. I think that politely blowing off a girl in public give me a false sense of empowerment, especially when she’s pretty. It’s not that I think I’m better than her or that I think I’m somehow too good for her, it’s more like my mind is screaming “ha! I didn’t fall for you! I’m completely uninterested in you, unlike 99% of other guys would be in my shoes!” Perhaps this mental kick I get by rejecting women every few days, while fun and exciting, might be one of the reasons why I’m still single ^_^

“…and how old are you?” she followed. “Nineteen”, I said proudly. I began to take control of the conversation. “So, where are you now?” I asked. “What do you mean?” she replied in a manner that made my mind flash scenes from the movie Legally Blond. “Where are do you go to school?” I restated. “Oh, I’m at the same place.” I looked at her for a second blankly, laughing inside, wanting to scream “SUCKS TO BE YOU!” but I didn’t. I politely smiled and asked my typical question “so do you have any plans for after you graduate?” Since I’m in college and the only high school people I see are dual-enrolled students who are mostly seniors, this is a valid question. But, I guess I slipped on this one. “Oh,” she hesitated, “I’m only a sophomore.” I began to set myself up for the blow off. “I see” I said quickly, knowing she’d have to say the next line and the only line she could possibly do is asked about my college. She looked at me for a second and said “So what about you, are you going to go to college?” Ahh! Perfect. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s helping me blow her off. At this point I didn’t know if Marena was still watching, but I for some reason hoped she was. I decided not to look back and check. “Actually”, I began, but then paused. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the woman at the register about to finish with her last customer in the line. I paused slightly longer to time this perfectly. I hoped the pause wouldn’t be so long that she’d interject. I watched the register. Another half a second and I’d begin my closing blow off line. I then saw her inhale. No, I can’t let her speak; this is too perfect! I quickly continued answer her question cutting her off. “Actually, I’m almost done with my second year of college already. I started a little early. I’ll be moving to Tennessee after next semester. I’m transferring to another college up there to study premed. I’m going to medical school. I’m going to become a doctor.” I stated with a smile. In other words, you’re a silly girl, I’m a lot older than you, I’m a lot farther than you, and I’m about to move away from you. As nice as you are and as kind as you may be, I only have one thing to say to you I thought. She was overwhelmed with all the points I listed in such a short period of time and took about a second and a half before she looked like she was about to speak. She inhaled. “Sir!” the woman behind the counter called to me. Who rocks? Yeah, that’d be me right about now.

“Oh, I guess that’s for me; well I’d better get going but it was nice to meet you!” I said. I turned to begin walking away before I finished the last word. “I’ll have a turkey sandwich on sourdough bread and a small drink” I said. As with every time I purposefully blow off a girl, I feel bad afterwards. “I hope I didn’t hurt her feelings in the way I did it” I always tell myself. I had a mental image of her behind me with a dumbstruck look on her face not knowing whether to cry or run away. I felt mean. I regretted what I did, and while it may have made me feel good for about ten seconds, I felt really low standing at the register with my back to that girl. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to hit on me or not, but I sure dumped my power trip on her. I felt worse by the second. I decided I had look behind me. If I saw her sad or looking at me like she was hurt or offended, I’d probably go over there and talk to her again to try to end the conversation on a better note. After all, by now, she seemed like a little girl to me. I slowly twisted my head to the right, pretending to watch a nice car drive by the window so as not to let her suspect I was looking at her. I saw her, her eyes met and locked with mine. I kept my stare for another few seconds. She smiled her huge manipulative smile again and waived once more. “Oh yeah, I’d like only mayonnaise and lettuce on that”

So what’d ya’ think? I know it didn’t loop around to the beginning very well, but like I originally said it was purely an experiment. That’s how I write when I try to write about real events thinking about it slightly more than I do when I normally blog, but writing it fast enough that I would be able to comfortably write in this way for five or ten thousand words in one sitting. It’s the combination of casual and formal techniques that gives my writing its Scott touch and, hopefully, adds a little personality to my words. Personally, I’m not sure if it’s the style I’m going to try to use in my book. I like the idea of writing in a more formal style, but perhaps the casual laid back attitude is exactly what the book needs to maintain its fluid readability. So, what do you think? Comment! I’ll probably write again soon; I have a lot to talk about. So, until we speak again, have an awesome day! –Scott

Okay, I am completely drained of time these days. I have about ten minutes tonight before I go to sleep, so I decided to spend it throwing juicy morsels of media out to my dedicated blogreaders instead of words. I with I had time to write, but I just can’t! Get a load of this schedule! Today, exam. Tomorrow, two exams. The next day, an exam. Monday? An exam. Tuesday? Three exams. I’m dying over here! I’m almost out of it, so that’s good. Anyway, I wish I could write a lot but I can’t… so I decided to take a few pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? I’m covered! I’ll also post a song or something.

As a testament to my inability to function as a human during finals week, check out these pictures I just snapped of my room. You all know how clean and spotless my room normally is, and how I always like to keep everything in order. Well, this week I’ve had literally NO time to do anything, and this includes keeping things clean! If I need to find a paper, I need to find a paper now. I don’t have time to get everything clean, I just ravage through stacks of books and papers until I find what I need. Multiply this by about two weeks of chaos and you get a room that looks like mine. The picture shown to the right is what my room normally looks like. To see a few pictures of the way it is during finals week, click on the following link:

My room in finals week: http://www.swharden.com/tmp/mess/

I feel like posting a song because I haven’t in so long, so I think I will take a little time and do that now. This one’s completely off the wall and not directly related to anything in particular (well, maybe the death of Misia) and I don’t know why I’m posting it. It’s English with a thick Japanese accent. I don’t particularly like the style of Mai Kuraki’s voice when she sings “The Rose”, but I thought the words were particularly interesting. All right, I’d best get going. You can download that song for the next few days by clicking on the following link:

Mai Kuraki singing “The Rose” http://www.swharden.com/tmp/rose.mp3

You are so far away… and It’s getting late
“You’re my friend” was all I could say; and why…?
I thought you were in my heart, now you’re gone.
Can you feel the love? Memories we had…
Tears are falling down to the rose, Melody in the sky…
Do you hear my voice? Can you feel the love?
Tonight, I’ll feel you close to me

Scott’s not satisfied with his current state of public embarrassment and humiliation, so he continues to plaster feminine songs and words all over his weblog. Way to keep a masculine image =op

Good morning to you all! I’m writing this at ten thirty in the morning and let me tell you, I’ve got one packed weekend in store for me. I have so many things I need to do! So, when faced with a daunting pile of work that I have to get done as soon as possible what do I do? I blog. For those of you tuning in for the first time, this is the place where I write my thoughts every few days. I love to read things I wrote years ago, and I love writing things I know I will read years into the future. Aside from acting as an archive for my mind, this place is my emotional dump. Since no one (or almost no one) I know in real life knows about my website, I feel free to write about whatever’s on my mind. Sometimes just talking to someone (or writing to my self, in this case) is all a person needs to feel better about something. Well, today’s a busy day and I guess I’d better get started on this entry. Sit back, and enjoy.

Calculus II project solutions! I can’t believe I’m actually doing this. The bitter reality encompassing my life right now is filled with impending exams and tests, and what am I doing? I’m worrying about 2005’s math classes. I’m writing this paragraph because I feel I need to. If discovered by an old classmate or even my old Calculus II professor, I hope that they’ll take it the right way. My current Calculus II professor gives two projects to his class for the semester that takes about a month each to complete. With my personality, I like to get these things done at least a week before they’re due. I slave over the assignment and work for hours to come up with my finished solution. However, something I find very sad is that people in my class wait until the night before to start their project, can’t do it, and just copy off of someone else’s project. Then, to pour pungent irony over the situation, they get the exact same grade (a higher one) than I do. While I know that there’s nothing I can do to prevent this, there is one more thing I feel I can help with. My professor, although he claims to have created these project assignments himself, actually copies the project from a book near verbatim. The book is entitled Calculus Mysteries and Thrillers by R. Grant Woods. Information about this book is online… but that’s not all that’s online. Detailed step-by-step math walkthroughs for nearly all of the projects can be found online as well. However, they’re not easy to find. Don’t get me wrong professor, it’s not like I think you’re the only one who uses this book; I just know that other professors who copy the assignments at least change it enough so their students can’t find answers to the projects on Google. While I earnestly worked and diligently slaved over the projects until I had finished them on my own, I knew all along the answers were floating around in cyberspace. I was working on principal. I’m not going to lower myself to the petty standards of cheaters. However, the almighty grade book can’t tell the difference. People who cheat a lot or are used to finding information on the internet will be able to find the different titles and places on the internet where these project answers can be found. So, what am I going to do?

I’m leveling the playing field. That’s right; listen to what I have to say. I’m disgusted by the prospect of people who are accustomed to cheating getting off easier than others when it comes to these projects. So, in a desperate mental retribution I’m going to clearly and permanently post the assignment solutions for both of the projects I was assigned in my class. I’m not trying to gain the upper hand as I do this. I just hope that, by chance, future projects will be designed so as not to provide so much coping luxury to cheaters and cop-out students who get high grades without working. I’m not posting these links for the students; I’m posting it for the professors. Hopefully, it’ll be just what it takes to make them write their own projects or at least disguise them enough that they can’t be found on the Internet. So, with no further adieu, I give you my projects. First, there’s my Finding the Salami Curve SOLUTION and then shortly thereafter is my Case of the Cooling Cadaver SOLUTION. I’m sure google will pick these up, and it’ll be just in time for my classes to be over. In other words, my class grades are in no danger =o)

While we’re at the subject of professors, I think I’ll go on and provide my little teacher evaluations. At the end of each semester, my college allows each student to fill-out an evaluation for each of their professors. These evaluations contain short essay lines and I like to try to write whatever I can to improve the professor’s class for the next semesters. Because my mind goes blank whenever I’m handed these sheets in person, I like to fill them out ahead of time so they’re ready to turn in at the time they are given. My math professor was awesome this semester! I really enjoyed the class and learned a lot. The projects were fun too. There was only one strong disappointment with this class, and it’s the fact that he didn’t make-up his own projects (why even bother assigning them if the answers can be found (disguised as a different name) on the internet anyway?) My physics professor is really, really awesome. He’s the nicest guy ever! He’s also in his office all the time and always willing to help. The one suggestion I have for his class is that he makes his tests on the computer. His handwritten tests are awkward and hard to read under the pressure of an examination. Other than that, the class was incredible. My Chemistry II professor is really nice too. He’s in his office and [tries] to help a lot. However, this guy is really unorganized and doesn’t teach anything we need to know! He spends whole lectures showing us shortcuts on how to do hard problems claiming that the shortcut works one out of three times and if you’re completely stuck on a test problem you can use it. I don’t know professor, perhaps if you actually TAUGHT us how to do it the RIGHT way so many of your students wouldn’t HAVE to settle for a one-in-three chance. So, this guy’s settling at the lower end of my professor rank. Then, there’s my Biology II professor. I have an A in this class (99% average). I do all my labs write, and get 100’s on most of my tests… and I don’t learn a single FREAKING thing. It’s really stupid; he puts his test questions online for you to memorize the answers. Then, when you have a test, he uses his online test and adds only 1 or 2 new questions! Anyone with a brain half the size of their butt could get an A in this class without cracking up a biology book or much less reading it. I’m learning nothing in this class, and it scares me. Not only am I supposed to know this information for Biology II next semester, but this is prime MCAT material that I’ll have to know to get accepted into medical school! Somebody help me. Okay, moving on…

Whoa! You got a new what?! As you know I take my laptop to school every day in my backpack. Because my backpack was too small, I had to carry two backpacks to school every day; talk about looking like a dork. I ended-up buying a bigger backpack with a gazillion pockets and even a little slide-in case for my laptop built right in. Okay, I’m avoiding the subject. Yeah, actually, I bought a laptop. My current one is falling apart. I’ve had it for about three years and used it for quite a few hours every day and I really got a lot out of it. It still works, but it has a big problem. A while back my laptop developed a major problem on the motherboard’s power supply region. Basically, for some unknown reason the power supply wasn’t sending enough power to the fan on top of the processor’s heat sink to cool it sufficiently. After leaving it on for a minute, it would overheat and power off. (Overheating to the point of this forced power-off is potentially damaging to the chip and bad each time it happens). Thanks to the help from the guys at work (a small engineering company) I was able to solder a small wire from the hard drive’s power supply lead to the fan. The fan would spin on high power the entire time, but at least it worked. However, lately, it’s been working poorly again. The fan seems to slow down (perhaps when the hard drive is being used?) and turn the computer off after about 5 minutes of strenuous activity. While it’s fine for typing, high-processor activities like photoshop and network packet analyzers (anything that runs the processor for a solid block of time) causes the computer to overheat and power off. This finally started happening so much last weekend when I was out of town that I got really frustrated with the computer and decided I needed a new one. I’m most likely moving to another state in a few months anyway (after next semester) so I’d be getting one eventually; why not just get one now? That’s how I justify it to myself. ^_^ Also, my current laptop is cracking pretty badly where the “lid” connects to the “base”. The cracks are slowly getting larger and larger every time I open the laptop. One of these days, I’ll go to open the laptop and the screen will crack right off the base and I’ll be holding it in my hand. See? I need a new one! Well, maybe not. I want a new one. Actually, I have a new one! I’ve decided not to show any pictures of list any specifications or any prices or anything like that until after I get some digital pictures of it. I haven’t used it yet (I’m trying to refrain from letting it suck this weekend’s study time away) but it’s there in the back of my mind quietly calling me.

I feel a quick apology is due for my last blog. I began it with quiet and humble intensions of having a nice peaceful blog entry. I hopped from topic to topic, but when I reached “that topic” I found myself becoming really irritated and couldn’t keep myself from writing more. I don’t know who I’m necessarily apologizing to, but I feel bad about it nonetheless. I wish it weren’t even an issue, and I’m saddened it’s something I even had to write about.

This upcoming week is going to be KILLER! Check out this schedule. Wednesday, I have a Chemistry II lab exam and a Calculus II exam. Thursday, I have a Biology I lab practical and a Physics I exam. Friday, I have a Chemistry II exam. Then, the next week is my finals week. Monday, I have a Chemistry II final. Tuesday, I have a Physics I final, a Calculus II final, and a Biology I final. Ahhh!

”What’s this about a summer project?” As I’ve written about before (months ago) I have this story in my head that I want to write. I’ve never written anything of significant length before (beside my quarter million word blog to date) and I think that it’d be pretty cool to put the story in my head on paper. I first posted the cover I made for the book about a year ago (my guess) and occasionally post the cover as an image in my blog when I can’t think of anything else to put as a picture. I posted the picture recently, perhaps two blogs ago. It’s the picture of the tan-colored world with a guy on the ground and a girl (with a blue tit) upside-down floating in the air. I have pretty much all of the story planned out so far. I have the beginning planned in detail, the end beautifully drenched in irony, and the middle’s fuzzy but workable. I have to polish up the plot before I know if it’s worth writing or not, but I think a writing project would be fun for me. I’m not sure who would read it (maybe a few of my quasi-dedicated blog readers?) but then again, I wouldn’t be writing it for the respect or admiration I’d get from other people. I’d be writing it for myself and my own enjoyment. For those of you who might inquire as to the general topic of the story, I can’t even say this without possibly spoiling some part of it for you. I do know that I’ll write it on half-pages so it will be readable (or printable) just like a small book. I don’t know what genre it would be considered though. The grand-scale romantic drama is a quite embarrassing category to place the story in, but for lack of a better word I guess it will have to do. I just wanted to mention it to see what kind of reaction it gets. Who knows? Perhaps ten years in the future when I finally write the story (and make a gazillion dollars off it) I’ll look back on this blog and smile ^_^

I have a lot of school work that needs attending-to. I’d better let ya’ go. I’d like to write tomorrow, but I somehow doubt that I’ll have the time to after I’m don’t with all of my schoolwork. So, until the next time we meet again, have an awesome day and stay safe! Don’t forget to smile; you never realize how many lives your positive attitude will touch until someone else’s positive attitude touches you =o) –Scott

Wait! Stop! Don’t leave this page yet, okay? It’s not that long, just read it! I promise that you’ll find it interesting and well worth your time. See that picture? Yeah, that’s me. I don’t believe I’ve ever posted a picture of myself in one of my blog posts before, much less one with me standing beside a Chinese girl. Something interesting must be churning in the depths of Scott’s inner psyche. Read!

In order to truly understand who I am and comprehend the purpose of this website, someone would have to begin reading my blog (web log) from the beginning. However, since I’ve begun keeping an online version quasi-daily posts where I dump my mind, this little blog has grown vastly larger than I would have imagined. I’ve currently written over a quarter million words this year in my blog alone. That’s more words than you would write taking over forty Gordon-rule college level writing classes in the state of Florida. To give provide a new beginning and a fresh starting place to those who may be reading my website for the first time (or who have recently become addicted), this entry is for you. I’m going to be casually talking about a plethora of personal topics dealing with my past, my life, my preferences, and my thoughts. I will try to design this entry as a way to let new readers understand more about me without digging through old posts, and a method of patching up the holes of misconception in the minds of the people who have been following this website for years. This website is a log of my life and my thoughts. I keep it purely for fun for many different reasons. The primary reason I write is so I can reflect on my past in the future. However, the spontaneity is a wonderful pleasure seemingly devoid everywhere else in my life right now. While somewhat quiet and reserved in person, I use this website’s texts as a way to vent who I am or who I want to be. As long as this website is kept mostly secret from the people I see often, I don’t have to worry what I write, what I say, or how silly I might sound. I just write about my life and my mind for my personal enjoyment without worrying about how other people will think about me. So, sit back, relax, and start reading.

I got the idea to make this entry when I found an old backup CD I must have made a long time ago when I ran an earlier version of this website. About two years ago, I ran my website with computers in my room. I was a computer guru; a complete and total self-professing geek. I had over fifteen servers (special monitorless computers) in my room running my various websites. What happened? About a year ago I got really sick of computers, gave everything away, and changed my college major from computer engineering to biology in preparation for medical school; I’m going to try to become a doctor! Anyhow, this CD held a huge amount of files. I still haven’t gotten a chance to look at all of the files yet, but I hope to be able to sometime this weekend. One of the funniest pictures I found was probably one of the oldest pictures on the CD. Picture here to the right, you can clearly see the beginning of my life in computers. Notice the hub (the blue thing that connects computers together) having only ten cables in it. I only had ten computers when this picture was taken! I’m guessing this was sometime around early 2003. The picture is of my two main servers at the time. I have no idea why I took the picture. Also, notice the stacked boxes of the national goldfish reserves (otherwise known as Scott’s Closet)… some things never change.

Okay, I’ll bet you’re wondering who the girl in that picture is. Well, about two years ago my family adopted a girl from China. No, it’s not her in the picture (shucks (that was wrong on so many levels)) but in china I had a few pictures taken on me. Something interesting is that, for as much as I talk about my life and my website, I don’t have a single picture of myself in the last two years. I don’t have close friends or anything like that (perhaps I’ll write more on this later) so I’m never out “with people”. Thus, my picture is never taken. So, the only pictures I have of my own life on the computer are pictures taken by a member of my family while in China. Thus, all of the pictures you can find of me on the internet and on my website are pictures of me in China. The girl in the picture above was just a girl who I met on one of the streets that wanted to take her picture with me. I’m pretty sure she wanted me to send her the picture. After the picture was taken, she wrote some Chinese on a piece of paper and gave it to me before she left. I managed to get someone to help me make an envelope labeled with her address in Chinese that would go to her house. I developed the picture and mailed to her. A few months later I got the letter back in the mail with an error sticker on it saying that the family had moved. Oh well. Anyhow, I kept the picture because it’s one (of 3) pictures I have of me (all of which are in China). So, there you know all about that. Now, on to the juicy paragraph…
postnote: All I have of the original image is a horribly encoded jpeg. Unfortunately, the granulation of the crummy image compression (<15%) caused “pixel shifting” or small squares that float around the image. These floating squares are normally unnoticeable except on areas of the image where fine detail is noticed. In this picture, the girl’s right eye and mouth are both badly affected by this. So, no, she doesn’t have a strange birth defect or anything like that ^_^

What’s with all this Asian stuff on your website? Hey, I’m glad you asked. This is an interesting topic that closely deals with my life, because I get his with this a lot. Personally, I’m interested in some stuff that happens to be Asian. I started watching mind boggling Japanese films like Serial Experiments Lain and became completely addicted to the deep and intricate plots of Asian cinema. Eventually, I found the whole genre of South Korean romantic melodramas; by far my favorite type of movie. To me, these movies are the coolest thing ever, but it’s really hard for me to explain to people. If you’ve lived in America all your life and only gone to the movie theatres, chances are all you’re used to seeing are relatively empty and shallow movies, so there’s no possible way you could understand what I’m talking about. I’m not going to waste my time trying, I’ll just recommend the South Korean movie “The Classic” and strongly suggest you see about watching it (the DVD is only about $7 on EBay!) I also have always liked listening to music that doesn’t have words in it. Words in music usually distract from the music itself and rarely have lyrics even worth listening to. Over the years, I’ve shifted between various types of music without understandable words. I listen to a lot of Classical music (especially German operas), and in the last few years I’ve become particularly fond of non-English music that’s soft with a girl singing (I can’t listen to guys sing, I don’t know why). I listen to vocal music in Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Spanish, Chinese, and Latin. As long as it’s soft and I can’t understand the words, I like it. Japanese contemporary music is incredibly popular globally (not really in the US) so it’s very easy to find on the internet. Korean songs are harder to find, and songs in Chinese are even rarer. Does this all make sense? Great; now onto the mushy crap:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about people!? I’m getting to that slow down! Okay, in the previous paragraph I said that I watch Asian movies because I like the stories and I listen to Asian music because it’s non-English music that’s easy to find on the internet. Do I enjoy either of these things because they’re from Asia? No. Sadly, I’ve been red flagged by quite a few different people in many different situations. They quickly jump the conclusion that since I watch Asian movies, listen to Asian music, and post pictures of me standing beside Asian girls, that I’m especially attracted to Asian women. This is a dangerous assumption, but one I fear I’ve handled improperly over the last few years. Long ago when I started watching the movies and listening to the music I let these comments slide. After that, I started trying to defend myself by standing up and saying “no, it’s really not like that”. Quickly the situation elevated (fueled by my uncomfortable rejections?) to a point where it was a comment of joke and laughter. Frustrated, I just decided to “let it go”. I even played a long here and there to try to play down this shallow accusation. Hopefully the fact that I’m dedicating a paragraph to this topic will be an expression as to how much it really does make me feel bad inside. While I think many women of many races are pretty, I think the outward beauty of a woman lies in what makes her unique. (I’ll probably write about this later too.) Over the years I’ve carried this silly little cloud over my head and never stood-up and outwardly rejected it firmly enough to make it go away. Now, I’m still not sure how to handle the situation. It seems as if everyone who knows me in person and all of my family (thanks to awkward parentally-projected joking comments at family dinners) thinks that I’m somehow obsessed with women who have Asian features. It went from an assumption to a joke to “fact”, and now it’s really starting to make me feel bad. I can’t definitely say where I’d be right now if none of this had happened, but I do know one thing; I would be able to walk from class to class at school and not feel my chest ache in guilt every time I pass an Asian woman and feel an irrational need to twist my head away from her as to somehow prove to her, myself, my family, my friends, and the world that I’m not as shallow as I’m painted to be. My heart grieves at the very concept that people actually think that I am so incredibly shallow and heartless that I may become interested in a girl purely for the way she looks or her ethnic background. While I fully realize and accept that the fault of my situation lies within nobody other than my self, I can’t help but wonder how this whole false persona changed things. I’m trying to think of a way to delicately put this in words, but I can’t seem to find the right way, so I’ll just be blunt about this. While I’m incredibly thankful for being somewhat different in that I somehow missed the train of “American culture relationship normality” as a teenager (aka: dating like crazy) and was able to view relationships in a more serious and hopefully more respectful light, I am nineteen and have never kissed, hugged, or had a girl who I could spend time with. In other words, when given the chance to embark on shallow relationships just for the short term emotional, physical, or social enjoyment, I’m perfectly content not getting involved with shallow relationships with the prospect of possibly meeting someone one day who is perfect for me. It may seem like a story from a movie (which may be part of my problem) but nonetheless it’s the way I think and it’s the way I have chosen to plan and live my life. I hope that you can get a small taste of the respect that I have for women, especially in relationships. I hope that by now you’ve realized that this is something I think about quite often. Everybody wants to have friends, and everybody wants to be close to someone. Exercising years of this kind of emotional restraint is hard and often lonely, but unlike so many people today I’ve decided early on that it’s simply something I want to do out of the highest respect for the woman who may one day become my wife and our relationship together. By now I hope it’s painfully obvious how serious I am about this. Now, can you even imagine how badly it stings when people who are close to me (even my family) make jokes about it when they talk about me and Asian women? It’s unbelievably heart wrenching to hear and think about; and what do I do about it? I just sit there and cry internally. I know this paragraph is long but I have to keep going. This is far longer than I originally planned but I have to finish. Now you know how important this is to me, and you know how bad it makes me feel; now I’m going to tell you about the third bullet in the magazine. For hypothetical purposes, let’s assume that I were to have a girlfriend in the near future. I would feel simply terrible if she ever heard any of the comments that people make about me today. If she were non-Asian, I would feel awful if I knew that for one second she believed what she heard and, although they’re nothing more than lies, felt that she was somehow one notch less than what I “desired”. Yet, if she actually were Asian, I would feel horrible if I knew that for one second she believed what she heard and, although they’re nothing more than lies, felt that the reason I liked her was because of some physical feature that she was born with rather than who she is. I’d either fill terrible, awful, or horrible. At this point, I’m not seeing any other options. That’s why I’m trying to write about this subject. I guess I’m asking for help. I’ve let this get way out of hand and I don’t know what to do. Comments are welcome, and personal emails are always joyfully accepted. I mean, this really is my fault. I’ve let this get way out of hand, and it’s not other peoples fault at all. When I hear these stray comments, I can’t say I’m mad at them; I’m just disappointed.

Yeah, I completely forgot what else I was getting into tonight. I don’t even feel like it matters anymore. I’ll continue my first time blogreader entry this weekend. For those of you who are new here and wanted to me to actually finish this post, get used to the disappointment. I never seem to be able to achieve quite what I set out to, and I all too often settle for less than my best when it comes to what I work on. To you, I apologize. Until next time, “I’m drowning; help me to breathe”. –Scott