The Rantings of Tom

My New Addiction
Wow, that Facebook stuff sure is addictive. It all started when I read an article in the school paper about it. I thought it was pretty interesting and made a loose mental commitment to check it out. As it turned out, I pretty much instantly forgot about it as I walked back to my room. Then little more than a week later, my dear friend Dave tells me about it and makes me set up an account, and ever since, I’ve been checking it at least 3 times a day. The sad thing is that even after being a member for more than a month, my account is still pretty pathetic. At the moment, I have 65 friends listed in my profile. I suppose that isn’t really too bad except when you consider that only 21 of them are people from my school. Worse still is that I’m stretched pretty thin as it is. Even if I invite more people and expanded it to include everyone I’ve ever spoken to here, I doubt I could even double that number. As we all know, any cool, normal person can easily boast a friend count of more than 60 people at their school. Of course I’ll just keep telling myself that while I don’t have a huge group of friends and acquaintances, I am tighter with the people I do know…

One problem for me with Facebook is that I go to such a small school. Unlike my friend Dave who attends a school with three times the population of Guilford, my school has a measly 4,000 students. This means that awkwardness can ensue if I just started inviting random people to be friends. If Dave chooses to invite random people, he has a fair chance of never actually seeing them in real life. I, however, have certainly seen every face on campus more than once. This same logic makes it difficult for me to flirt with chicks using the nifty “poking” feature. If Dave finds some chick with a cool profile, he has no reason NOT to poke her. If she pokes him back, then maybe they can IM each other and hang out. If she doesn’t poke him back, then he’ll never see her again and has 39,999 other chicks to try. For me, if I poke a chick and she chooses not to respond, that can lead to some very awkward things.

First, I would most certainly see her in real life, though thanks to my terrible facial recognition skills, I probably wouldn’t recognize her. The problem comes from the possibility that she would recognize me. Since I’m a pretty funny looking guy, the chances of me being recognized are very high. This problem is compounded by the fact that my school’s layout is actually very compact. This means that once I’m recognized, she will see me EVERYWHERE. While I may not be the creepy bald guy with a pony tail, if you asked my mom, or sisters, or best friend, or worst friend, or high school teachers, they would all have you believe that I’m heading in that direction. They are of course completely wrong…I assure you I have lots of hair, but if this chick I poked thinks along the same lines they do, seeing me everywhere on campus + me looking like I’m turning into a creepy bald guy with a pony tail = lawsuit + restraining order against me. Of course, this isn’t so bad…who hasn’t had one of those these days? The real problem would come from said chick telling all of her cute friends what a creepy bald guy with a pony tail stalker I am. That would leave me alone, alienated, and with no prospects for romance. Hey…come to think of it, that doesn’t sound too different from my current situation…maybe I should start poking random chicks. Meh, I’ve been single for 19 going on 20 years. What is another 20? If you are betting on immortality like I am, 19 years really isn’t that much.

So, I can’t poke people and I don’t have many more friends to invite, so why should I continue wasting my time with Facebook? Well, for one thing, I can still have fun with it. Today, thanks to Facebook, Dave and I were able to use the shared sketchpad feature of AIM to make a collage of pictures of hot chicks from our schools. Not only did the collage turn out to be quite stalkerrific, but it was also an excellent learning experience. I learned that how attractive someone is in real life has absolutely nothing to do with how attractive they look in their photograph. I also learned that while Dave and I generally have overlapping tastes in women, we also split off and have some very different preferences. This actually isn’t such a bad thing. It means someday (very far in the future) we will be able to meet a couple of girls, pair off, and both feel like we are with the best one. The other stalkertacular use for Facebook is simply being able to read about all sorts of interesting people’s lives and interests. It’s going to be rather entertaining when someday I have a lab partner and realize that I already know everything about them even though we never met. Finally, going through Facebook profiles sure beats studying for finals, don’t you think?

Eeek!!
Ok, it's not that I'm afraid of bugs, but for the love of cheese, I didn't know that cockroaches got so big in upstate New York. I thought infestations by big cockroaches only happened in places like Florida with their freakish Palmetto Bugs. Ok, so maybe I am a bit afraid of bugs, but what do you expect... They are too much like humans, but smaller and with six limbs, and inside out with that crazy exoskeleton that goes crunch if you accidentally step on one. Yuck! Luckily, those big spooky roaches don't fly. If I saw one of those things flying down a hall towards me, I'd definitely turn tail and run in the opposite direction screaming like a little girl. Strangely, I never used to be afraid of bugs, but these days, about the only bugs that don't bother me are caterpillars and butterflies. Someday I'll have to work on unlearning this acquired phobia, but not today.

And Onward I March
Aaah, this three day weekend has been rather refreshing. Nothing like spending three days straight playing a video game as incredibly cool as Shadow Hearts II. Tomorrow I get thrust into one of the busiest days of my week after being a chair potato for three days. Oh well, at least this week will be smooth sailing for me. No more tests until next Tuesday and I don’t have to worry about it until around Monday. Only one more month till thanksgiving break. I’d say that I deserve a vacation. I wonder why first and second semester are unbalanced in terms of time off… There is no equivalent to spring break in the fall. I hope Balladino’s is open by Thanksgiving. Every month I go without one of their sandwiches makes the empty feeling inside of me grow.

Last weekend was Meliora weekend, so I got to spend time with my parents and little Andrea. It was nice being able to go off campus to eat and to be able to share some of the anime and games I’ve collected with my little sister. It sounds like she’s having a grand old time in her freshman year of high school. She’s even lucky enough to have her very own mortal enemy among her classmates. One of the things sadly missing from my high school experience was an enemy that I could loathe and blame all my problems on. It was too bad really, I mean I had enemies aplenty before moving to Guilford, but once I got there, I had no one to battle. Anyway though, I can’t wait to see how this feud will develop over the next four years that Andrea is in high school.

Tomorrow as usual I spend about 4 hours at my job working in a biochemistry lab. The new lab technician there is great. He teaches me how to do all sorts of stuff that I never really got a chance to do last year. For example, last week he taught me how to program the PCR machine, and a few weeks before that, he taught me how to take photographs of gels stained with ethidium bromide. In addition, my molecular biology class is tying into my lab work really well. This year I’m definitely taking larger steps when it comes to my quest for immortality. I think that by the beginning of next year, I will be ready to start performing my own experiments. Of course I won’t be ready to start performing the experiments with eukaryotes that I inevitably must, but I don’t really need to yet. I’ve decided that the first thing I have to do is to become proficient at engineering proteins that can perform useful tasks. Such a skill will lead to the ability to finance the costly experiments that will be necessary to identify and control the factors that cause aging. I’ve also joined the undergraduate biology society. With any luck, my affiliation with this group will help me find others who walk the same path as me. No man is an island. Though I can come awfully close to being an island, the old adage holds even for me, and I know that my success will depend on my ability to network with like minded people. Well, onward I march; by my calculations, I have about 50 years to fulfill my dream. I guess I’d better start working.

The Return of the King
Well, I’ve been in school for a month now and I’m finally motivated enough to start updating my journal. I guess I should start with a quick recap of summer events since I never did get to write the “Part II” of my summer entry… I think the best way to do this is to list the highlights, so with no further adieu, this summer, I spent over $200 on manga, got addicted to the anime “Naruto”, observed what happens when two distinctly different sets of friends mix, was greatly depressed when Balladino’s closed to move to a new location and didn’t re-open on schedule, watched a musician play guitar on my most Napoleonic friend’s head in NYC, maintained my virginity (big challenge there :-P), went to Connecticon, hung out with my dear friend Vince from IL, and did countless other things that I can’t think of at the moment.

Now I’m back in school, so I should probably explain my current situation. This year I’m living on the third floor of Anderson Tower. My floor is actually a special interest floor (Computer Interest Floor aka CIF) filled with nerds like me who are into computers in one way or another. Between all the members of the floor, we must have just about every video game and console ever made. I know a lot of people on the floor from last year. The only downside of living on CIF is that most of my classes are on the other side of campus, but luckily the campus isn’t too big. This semester, I’m taking four classes. First, there is my Molecular Biology course. This can best be described as my freshman genetics class on steroids. Next is my Organic Chemistry course. This is the first part of a two semester sequence. Everyone has told me that this is supposed to be a killer course, but so far, the only killer part about it was the $350 I had to spend on books and stuff for the class. I aced the first test, and everything so far has been a piece of cake. Then there is my math class. This is the third class of the four semester honors calculus sequence. This semester we are doing linear algebra, and so far it seems manageable. The weekly homework is a bit tedious, but I know how much homework is worth in this class, so I’m not that worried. Last semester I got an A- in the course after not handing in about a third of the assignments. Finally, there is my Macroeconomics class. Once again, my economics class is by far the easiest class I have. This professor is not quite as entertaining as my previous professors, but the subject still holds my interest. I’m definitely learning new things in this class about inflation and money that are pretty exciting.

I’m hearing strange things from back in Guilford that don’t make sense to me. First it turns out that little Andrea has entered her freshman year of high school. This is surprising enough on its own, but what really dumbfounds me is that she does not believe in the glory and majesty that is Cuddy. For me, Cuddy was the highlight of my freshman year of high school. Cuddy taught me about vectors, he mixed physics with Tai Kwan Do, he exploded a hydrogen balloon, and he rekindled into my interest in science after a miserable experience in eighth grade physical science. I simply can’t comprehend how someone could ever consider his class to be a waste of time. I’m sure she’ll come around in time. Only people like Zeke are capable of having anything but fond memories of freshman physics with Cuddy. Perhaps even stranger is news that Alicia is going out with some boyfriend or something. Absolutely ridiculous I say. Seniors in high school don’t have boyfriends or girlfriends! I know I never did. I know for a fact that when I was a senior in high school, girlfriends were only figments of my imagination. Heck I’m a sophomore in college and it’s the same way. I don’t know what is going on back at home, but it is certainly fishy. I know the world didn’t turn upside down when I left for college last year.

I should probably do a bit more studying for the bio test I have tomorrow. With luck my next entry will return to my usual style since I won’t have about 1,000 ideas of things to write about competing with each other inside my head. I forgot to mention my lab job here, so I think I'll explain how that is going next time and then move into a discussion about the progression of quest for immortality.

Summer Part 1
So much for trying to write once a week – without any structured schedule, I have found it very difficult to sit down and write about anything. As a matter of fact, I’ve had a very difficult time trying to do ANYTHING productive. I haven’t even totally unpacked yet, and at this point I don’t know if I will. Worse still is that I’m sure I have some dirty clothes I brought home from college hiding somewhere. I suppose it’s not entirely true that I haven’t done anything productive – I have been working a lot.
It’s nice being able to make some real money working at Big Y again. Paying what remains of my term bill and saving up for spring break next year is going to be a piece of cake. Granted, I work odd hours, and being a cashier means CONSTANT work, but my co-workers are friendly enough, and I don’t know anyone with a better paying part time job. Being a cashier also means that I get to meet people. It’s nice being able to speak to old acquaintances that I would never have a chance to talk to under normal circumstances. There are other perks as well – the other day, there were these three incredibly hot foreign chicks that came through my line. I didn’t recognize the language they spoke, but two of them looked like your stereotypical hot blonde Swedish chicks, and omigosh, there was also this gorgeous brunette with them who I think smiled at me ;-D My dear friend Dave believes that I look like the biggest dork standing there in the Big Y smock and has opted to work in a calling center to avoid being seen by anyone he knows. Perhaps Dave is right about me looking like a big dork, but I’d rather be able to ogle hot Swedish chicks and look like a big dork in the process than be cooped up in a room with no chicks to ogle at all.
Outside of work, I don’t really know what I’ve been doing. I’ve seen a few movies and bought a few new games, but I think I’ve actually been reading mostly. I just reread Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for some reason, but mostly, I’ve been buying an unhealthy amount of manga. The stuff is just so addictive that I can’t seem to get enough of it. Oh yeah, I also bought the “Firefly” DVD set. I really do miss that show…it is such a shame that Fox decided to cancel it in the middle of the first season. The good news is that they are making a movie that will be premiering next April. With any luck, it will be good enough to convince some other network to buy the concept and resume the series. Speaking of pirates, Dave and I now have an official looking pirate hat. I had the privilege to wear the hat in the Post Mall a couple weeks ago while shopping. It’s amazing how many girls seem to like pirates. Too bad I couldn’t trust any of them. They were probably just complimenting me on the hat because they wanted to steal it and have their own. Even if they spoke truth and the pirate hat actually did turned them on, I chose to keep my distance since these days, it is impossible to tell by looking whether a random girl you meet is 14 or 20 or anywhere in between agewise and I didn’t feel like asking for IDs.
I should be able to write pages about my adventures, but for some reason, this lazy summer is really clouding my mind. Not only am I incapable of writing as much as usual, but I can tell that my writing this time is actually worse than it usually is. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll have more to write about at a later date. I can’t wait till Vince comes over for the first week and a half of July. It will be so nice having that time off of work and just spending it with an old friend. Oh yeah, one more thing – Scotty T – what’s up?

More Of Mine Principles
I’m finally home for the summer now. I haven't updated in a while because I was taking a short vacation from all things that require brain power. With luck I’ll find some fun things to do this summer in addition to the cookouts, playing pirates, hanging out, and working that I’ve already planned for.

Today I wish to talk about high school girls – or more precisely, the pursuit of them. When I was in high school, nothing vexed me more than seeing college guys dating the hot chicks in high school. While such couplings are against my principles, what really ticked me off was that those guys were playing in MY field. As far as I was concerned, it was a great injustice that they had the ability to mack with chicks in college AND high school. To say that I disliked those guys would be a gross understatement. Of course the girls were equally at fault – since they were addicted to the status of having an older boyfriend, they wouldn’t be interested in me even if they broke up with the college dude. I’ve also heard the argument that girls are more mature than guys of the same age. That argument is a crock of poopie. High school girls are generally the same as high school guys – they all want to play the game. If they were really mature, they wouldn’t bother to play the game at all because they would know that it isn’t in their best interest to get into any relationship during high school.

Anyway though, I saw those college guys picking up the hot high school chicks and I vowed never to become one of those guys. So here I am today, honoring all high school males by keeping that vow and kicking my friends whenever I catch them ogling high school girls (I swear to God Jake, if you make one more lewd comment about Hillary Duff, you’ll be eating a knuckle sandwich!). I couldn’t bear breaking that promise I made myself. If I was macking on some high school chick and was somehow transported back in time so that a younger version of myself saw me, I think the young Thomas would kick me in the nuts repeatedly. Ahh, so much pent up rage… Anyway though, while I would never go after a high school chick, once they graduate, they are fair game. Well that’s enough for today. I probably won’t be updating as much as I did in school, but I’ll try to write at least once a week.

Horrible Nightmare
Just two things to mention today: First I had a horrible nightmare last night that for some reason I had to go back into high school next year. While I never really disliked high school while I was in it and thought it was a decent experience overall, I am glad that I will never again return there. All I could think in my dream was, “Oh God I don’t want to take another year of English!” If I’m ever successful at achieving my goals, I suppose that I may choose to disguise myself and return to high school so that (worry free) I could indulge in all of the experiences that I missed out on.

The other thing that I have to mention is that I must somehow spend about $400 worth of declining before I leave on Friday. Unfortunately if I don’t spend it before I leave, that money disappears. Therefore, I would like to announce that I will provide anyone with food in exchange for any goods, services, IOUs, currency (foreign or domestic), blessings, good will, stocks, bonds, or futures that you can render. I really should have switched down to the smaller meal plan for the spring semester. Though it has been pointed out to me that I would still be in the same situation with regard to having so much leftover declining, at least I would have saved $500 or so. Anyway though, I will probably buy food and put on an end of the year party in the social lounge on Thursday night and then bring the rest of it home for the summer in the form of half a pallet of soda, cookies, and crackers. Well, back to finals related work.

Girls Are Weird Part 2
I took a break from playing catch up with calculus this evening to go see “Mean Girls.” This was pretty cool since it was an advanced screening – the movie doesn’t come out until Friday. The movie turned out to be absolutely hysterical. Girls are SOOO weird! I’ve always believed that, and after seeing that movie, how could anyone not? After all, we know that anything in a movie has to be true, right? I’ve decided that I’m too lazy to do research and develop a good organized argument for why girls are weird. Instead, I’ll just post the evidence and my theories whenever they come to mind. For this installment of “Girls Are Weird”, three things come to mind:

First, girls and their need to spend time “getting ready” for dances and parties are weird. I recently had an IM conversation with my sister, and she was telling me about how she was fretting over junior prom. I couldn’t really understand this so I asked her what the problem was. She replied that she was distressing over getting ready for it. I asked why she couldn’t just put on her dress and go, but apparently for girls, “getting ready” isn’t that simple for some reason. Hair, nails, and who knows what else somehow have to enter the equation for them. Then again, I shouldn’t complain. After all, if girls didn’t subject themselves to so many beauty rituals, they probably wouldn’t be so hot. I wonder what dudes in the olden days (2000 years ago) thought about chicks. Who knows – maybe they couldn’t even tell the difference between dudes and chicks. One sure thing is that people didn’t smell very good back then, and that would stink. Thinking along those lines, I’m glad to be in modern times. When I see girls traveling in their broods at the malls buying all sorts of hot expensive clothes and beauty products, I just remind myself that they (whether they realize it or not) are doing it for my (and all of dudekind’s) benefit.

Next we have what I call the “Legolas Effect.” I recently went to go see “The Return of the King” at the on campus theater. One of the girls in my party was seeing the movie for her first time and immediately started commenting on how hot all of the guys in the movie were – especially Legolas. Now I don’t find anything weird about commenting on the attractiveness of the actors in movies. I know that I do if there is a hot chick in the movie. But Legolas??? I mean come on!! Aragorn I could understand – he is actually a guy, but Legolas?? Seriously, if Legolas had breasts, he’d be a chick. But that didn’t stop the collective female gasp in the theater when they saw that one part of the movie – you know, the part near the end where Frodo is in bed and Legolas walks into the room in his sexy green shirt… So girls like big hairy guys like Aragorn and girly guys like Legolas, but where does that leave those of us who fall somewhere in between?

Finally, the next weird thing about girls are boobs. Well, not so much that they have boobs, but more of how they talk about them. From what I gather, including from conversations I’ve heard in my own house, discussion and comparison of boobs has been something that has been passed from mother to daughter for generations. Just last weekend, I was having breakfast with a party that included a couple of girls from our sister hall. We guys at the table were pointing out hot chicks. Eventually we were talking about a short chick who the two girls at our table knew. They then started talking about things like how her build was light and how her boobs looked big but actually they were smaller than theirs and whatnot. My roommate has given me further eyewitness account of girls from our sister hall more broadly comparing boobs. I find this pretty weird, I mean guys don’t compare or discuss any of our physical attributes in quite the same way. Oh well, weird or not, at least these types of conversations are always entertaining.

There is one more thing related to boobs that I have to mention for its comedic value. I read an article on MSN this morning about the “benefits” of kissing. The article (http://cssvc.health.webmd.compuserve.com/content/article/11/1687_51154.htm?DEST=WebMD_contentSRC_csmain) mentions how oxytocin serves as a calming hormone. It also says that oxytocin acts as a “bonding” hormone that helps keep two partners together and that it’s most powerful release comes from stimulation of the nipples! So ladies, this means that if your guy is looking at other chicks, you aren’t stimulating his nipples enough. As for you guys, if the girl is a keeper, make sure you cop a feel as soon as possible – unless the girl happens to be my sister of course. In that case, you better start running because if I get my hands on you…well, let’s just say you’ll never have to worry about shrinkage again. I am tired, so goodnight all.

A Pirate's Life For Me
I can’t believe it – the end-time is upon me! I have so much that I must do and little over a week to get it done. The easy stuff is signing up for a new meal plan next year, selecting my courses, and starting to pack my bags to go home. The hard stuff is studying for my final exams which occur one on each day for four consecutive days starting on Monday. Finally, the really REALLY hard thing will be catching up on and turning in as much math homework that I can. By a welcome twist of fate, I actually did pretty well on my math midterm. Granted, I didn’t quite get an “A”, but since I didn’t study at all until the day of the test, I was shocked to actually get into the high “B” range. This news, in addition to finding out that homework is worth a third of my grade, has strengthened my resolve to work on turning in as many late assignments as I can. I figure that if I can hammer out one assignment per day for the next week in addition to doing well on the final, I may actually get another “A” in the class this semester. Now you can look at this and say that I am a lazy slug for not doing more than half a semester’s worth of math homework, but look on the bright side. By choosing to do them all at the end of the term, I’m basically studying math for 5 -6 hours per day. With a little luck, I should totally ownz the final.

On a side note, I bought my first manga novel this weekend. It’s pretty cool – you read it from right to left. It’s called “One Piece” and it’s about a kid named Monkey D. Luffy who is trying to be the greatest pirate ever. I can relate so well to Luffy. Last year, I tried to be a pirate with Dave & Nick, but we quickly found out that we were the worst pirates ever. However, Luffy’s persistence has inspired me. Not only is Luffy unable to sail a boat, but he can’t even swim. I’m going to try to be a pirate again this summer too, but this time I won’t give up so easily. I think this time I’ll actually try to make some real pirate clothes and maybe wear an eye patch. Also, this time when we bury treasure, we will make sure it is deep enough so no one will steal our loot. Oh well, back to math.

D-Day
Tomorrow is Dandelion Day. Basically it’s a campus wide party. For reasons I’ll probably never understand, parties always seem to involve drinking. What ever happened to the happy and fun parties I used to go to as a kid with the piñatas and the cake and the goody bags? I’ve heard some people argue that such things are childish, but how is drinking oneself stupid any less childish? Even for those people who don’t drink themselves stupid, but do it to loosen up or relax – I find it kind of sad that they need alcohol to help them put their problems aside and enjoy themselves. The only decent argument for drinking at all is that some people drink because they enjoy the taste. Now if we were talking about fine wines, that argument would convince me, but this is college. The drink is beer or maybe some hard liqueur, and it is obvious that quantity over quality is the name of the game.

Despite my strong anti-drinking rhetoric, I hold no grudge against those who choose to do it. As a matter of fact, sometimes I even wish I could join them. There is indeed a social divide between those who drink and those who don’t, and unfortunately, I am in the minority. It is difficult to make friends in the adult world when so much bonding is done over drinks. I imagine that this will make it difficult for me to form bonds with people even after college. In our culture, to refuse to sit down and have a drink with someone is seen as refusing an offer of friendship. It can even be viewed as an unwillingness to open up, or worse – a sign of untrustworthiness.

So far, I have outlined many of the reasons why someone should drink. I will skip over all of the reasons why one shouldn’t drink because they are so obvious. In the end, everyone must examine all of the pros and cons and make their own decision. I do not feel comfortable suggesting my stance to others because I do not have any personal experience from the other perspective, and more importantly, I do not even know if my decision to abstain from all alcoholic beverages is the best decision for myself. I will however tell you the two reasons why I choose to live this way. First, I have an instinctual aversion towards doing anything that would impair my mental abilities – even temporarily. I guess when intelligence is the main thing you have going for you; you tend to be very protective of it. Then again, I’ve seen enough examples to know that this is a false generalization, but it is true for me. The second reason is a matter of pride, honor, and my integrity as an individual – in short – stubbornness. Throughout high school, too many people (including some upper classmen I looked up to) told me that someday I would be corrupted by alcohol. I then responded by saying, “Never!” to which they replied, “Oh you will – and you’ll enjoy it too.” So you see, the minute I have a drink, I will be proving all of those people right, and admitting that I was wrong. Yes, for all I know, I could be missing out on what could be the time of my life and the opportunity to bond with interesting people who may one day help me achieve my goals all because of stubbornness. Heh, it is a fitting fate that my greatest social barrier is a direct effect of my stubborn character. Of course, perhaps my decision to stay dry will be an integral part of my future success. Perhaps either path could lead to success for me – or maybe failure is inevitable. Only time will tell. Or, perhaps we will never know.

Anyway, obviously I won’t be drinking tomorrow, but there should be enough things that I can keep myself occupied with. I understand that there will be food (including fried dough) and rides. In addition, with all of the rampant public drunkenness, there will be plenty of drunks to mess with. Finally, if all else fails, I have plenty of math homework that desperately needs doing.

The Little Things In Life
Okay I guess I lied about making my next entry be a big manifesto that goes into great detail about my quest for immortality. Believe me that is still forthcoming. I'll probably end up spending several days - maybe even as long as a week or two on it to make sure that it is 100% coherent. I'd rather come off sounding insane than sounding like a fool.

Anyway, I wanted to take a moment to recognize the little things in life that we should be thankful for. For example, today, while digging through my clean laundry hamper, I found one more pair of underwear. I had woken up this morning under the impression that after today I would have no more clean underwear and that starting tomorrow, I would have to either start recycling or do my laundry. Luckily thanks to finding an unexpected clean pair of underwear, that troubling decision is postponed for another 24 hours. I hope that this little story will help you reflect and be thankful for the little things that make life better. On that, goodnight.

My Thoughts On Warm Weather
I’m taking a short break from my lab write-ups to just write a short entry I hope. I’m actually quite proud of myself. I’ve done 2 and a half write-ups and I have one to go. I just checked my exam schedule online and found out that I may be going home as early as May 5th or 6th. Unfortunately this means that I have only two weeks to catch up on half a semester’s worth of Calculus homework. Oh well, sooner or later the motivation of “Oh God I better work on this or I’ll fail the class!!” will kick in. Anyway though, I write today expressing my opinion on the warmer weather we are finally experiencing here.

I am not what you would call a warm weather loving person. I like the temperature to remain between 40 and 50 ºF. If I’m doing any kind of strenuous physical activity, I actually prefer temperatures between 30 and 40 ºF. These are my standards based on the average humidity of the New England. I am comfortable at much warmer temperatures as long as it is dry, but unfortunately, that never happens around here. I do not look forward to the disgustingly muggy days that summer will inevitably bring. The only thing grosser than waking up in a puddle of your own sweat is falling asleep in a puddle of your own sweat, and unfortunately that is what I have to look forward to on a nightly basis this summer. All I can do on those days is either hope to spend most of my time in a vehicle with air conditioning or hide away in my relatively cool, but still muggy basement. Unfortunately my parents have their priorities mixed up. They seem to think that it is more important to buy heating oil in the winter than it is to buy electricity for air conditioning during the summer. I must admit though that such abominable living conditions at home will serve as great motivation for me to get out of bed and go to work.

There really are only two things that I can enjoy about warm weather. First I get some satisfaction from being able to go swimming and boating and of course being able to play pirates. The best part about warm weather though is definitely the girls wearing their summer clothes! As a matter of fact, seeing girls in skimpy clothes is so enjoyable to me that I would actually consider retiring on a beach in some tropical area someday just to enjoy the view. Yup, I’d be a happy dirty old man. Well perhaps not – no retirement for those pursuing immortality. Actually my next entry will probably be more lengthy and serious concerning my quest – to what lengths will I go to achieve immortality, and after a cure to aging is found, what is next? Well back to my labs now.

Girls Are Weird
Today wasn’t bad. I got to go see two pretty good movies – “The Punisher” and “Kill Bill Vol 2.” I have SOOOO much work that I should be doing, but because my weekends are sacred, they cannot be defiled until I face the direst of straights. Fortunately, my straights won’t be quite so dire for another couple of weeks. Tomorrow I’ll be going to CIFnic and hopefully will meet my roommate for next year. In the mean time, hopefully I’ll find John and borrow the next couple of “Trigun” DVDs. Now as usual, I move on to the main point…

Girls are weird. There are so many reasons why, but for now I’ll just focus on the excessive drama they emanate. As I was sitting on the crowded bus on the way to the movie theater, I had the privilege of being able to listen in on some “girl talk.” Of course I heard the usual clutter and fluff of “Oh let’s coordinate our colors for the party!” and “Oh my God, I have to get a new pair of pants for Dandelion Day!” I also heard another thing that completely dumbfounded me. One of the girls on the bus was asking her group of friends for advice. Apparently one of her guy friends asked her to call him after a show and tell him how it went. She apparently agreed to call him, but on the bus, she was asking her girlfriends whether or not she actually should call him! Now it’s true that the situation may have been more complicated than I thought, but in the interest of argument, I’m going to assume this is a common girl thing. I consider phones to be terrifying things. Something about hearing but not being able to see who you are talking to is very frightening to me, but if someone asks me to call them and I tell them that I will, I keep my word.

Strangely, girls don’t seem to be too weird when you talk to them on an individual level. As a matter of fact, I find that most girls seem to be quite normal when I talk to them one on one. Perhaps girls are more prone to irrationality when they are in groups. The 2003 Time Almanac says that the term for a group of chicks is a brood. Unfortunately girls almost always travel in broods. Guys have been trying to figure out girl mentality throughout human history. We can never hope to understand it, but at least we can hope to one day predict it. One of the keys is to read their literature. You could probably make a whole psychology course around feminine periodicals like “Teen People,” “Seventeen,” and “Cosmopolitan.” Yup that’s right, when you aren’t watching, we are reading through your magazines seeking enlightenment. If you ever catch us however, we instantly start making fun of them. Of course even as I was listening to that crazy girl talk on the bus, I was admiring the figure of this one hot Asian chick. Why must I find girls so attractive? Of course being gay wouldn’t make things any better – I am told that they have enough of their own drama to deal with. Will I ever find the right girl for me?? Unlikely. Oh well, there are services out there for guys like me:
http://bride.ru/
http://imaginarygirlfriends.com/

Hmm, this is a bit weak of an argument about girls’ weirdness, but I’m tired and want to get to watching “Trigun”. I promise I will eventually put together are far more detailed and broad argument in the future.

Let Us Raise Our Sobes In A Toast To Eternal Melancholy
Believe it or not, I need to keep this one short. I have a chem test at 8 AM tomorrow and I have to finish writing a lab tonight. I want to be in bed by 11:30. Before I get to the main subject, I’ll just put in a quick word about the Spring Porn. It was pretty funny – it reminded me of the circus. In a circus you have all of those performers doing the anatomically impossible. In the porn, it was the same thing. Performers were doing what should be anatomically impossible. The only difference was that they were doing it naked. ‘Nuff said ‘bout that for now – onwards!

I went to see “The Girl Next Door,” and I thought it was an awesome movie. I definitely have a special place in my heart for romantic comedies. As much as I love these types of movies, they always turn out to be a bit painful to watch. I could relate so well to the characters in so many ways with one glaring exception. The characters’ stories in those movies always have happy endings. This pains me on two levels. On the first level, as much as I can relate to the characters in the beginning of the movie, in the end, I always realize that there are things in life that I miss out on. I’m a hopeless romantic shackled to a burning ambition. Will I ever find the girl who pursues the same thing as me? Having vowed not to let anything get between me and my goal, she is the only one I have a chance with. Even if I do find that one in a million girl, will we even get along?

On a more profound level, I sometimes find it sad that in the real world, there are no happy endings – I must go through life enjoying it sometimes, suffering at other times. The closest thing I have to happy endings in reality is a happy ending to one episode of my life. Once that episode finishes, I must continue with my journey and the next episode isn’t guaranteed to be happy. Even if I succeed in my goals in the best way possible, I’ll simply be making my journey go on forever. Of course it would be a sad thing if there were no more challenges to overcome or battles to fight. I really would never have it any other way, but sometimes the dream of a happy ending is enticing. Any way you look at it, the nature of our journey is unsettling. Perhaps it is best to remain caught up in the moment and not dwell on these things. ‘Tis enough for today. Back to my labors I go.

Saturday Is Looking Promising.
I went to Carlson Science & Engineering Library today to borrow another digital camera for the weekend. The service I received at Carlson was far superior to what I got from the Multimedia Center in Rush Rhees. Though the camera I got from Carlson has a slightly lower maximum resolution, at least they gave me a memory card that holds 100+ pictures as well as a serial cable and a CD with photo editing software. They even gave me a charger for it, but unfortunately they didn’t give me rechargeable batteries. Finally, I didn’t have to sign any release form, and I get to keep the camera until Tuesday (that’s 4 times longer than I got to keep the other camera). Maybe I’ll be able to get a better picture of myself to post.

Tomorrow looks like a fun day for me. After lunch, I’m planning on going out to Wegman’s with DJ to finally take that picture, and then to the movie theater to see “The Girl Next Door.” I might even buy a new game, but I really shouldn’t because I have so much work to do before the end of the semester. This much would usually constitute a good Saturday for me, but luckily the fun for the day will just be beginning at this point.

Later in the day, the cinema group will be putting on its most popular event of the year – the annual “Spring Porn.” The cinema group uses Hoyt Auditorium for screening all of its other movies, but due to the huge audiences they get for the “Spring Porn”, they use the larger Hubbell Auditorium. This year’s film is “The Texas Dildo Masquerade” starring Tabitha Stevens, Candy Apples, Mila, Sweetie Pie, Randi Storm, Jonathan Morgan, Rod Fontana, Dave Hardman, Julie, and Ron Jeremy. You can bet that there will be a lot of protestors outside of the auditorium. Silly Feminazis complaining about demeaning and objectifying women! Don’t they realize that those actresses are compensated very well for their talents?? After all, in today’s world, you can only be young and beautiful for so long. If you have the goods to be a big porn star, the opportunity costs incurred by taking almost any other job would be so astronomical that it would be a crime not to be a porn star. Those women are easily able to pay their way through school and get a big head start on the rest of their lives. When they retire from the industry, they probably don’t even have to worry about anyone recognizing them as long as they are wearing clothes. It’s too bad there isn’t such a high demand for male porn stars…I certainly wouldn’t mind being a little objectified if I could make that much money.

Along with the Feminazis, I’m sure that there will also be some of the more religious zealots protesting tomorrow. Unfortunately, unlike with the Feminazis, I can’t really use economics to argue against their moral objections. I think the trick in this case would be to raise a point of contention between the Feminazis and the Faithful and to then manipulate them into arguing with each other. The issue of abortion would be just the thing for this situation.

While using my manipulative skillz to incite a riot among the protestors would obviously provide me with much pleasure, it would also be fun to act like the kind of person that they hate most. Come to think of it, that actually wouldn’t require much acting. Of course I respect their opinions, but I’m not sure if I respect the people themselves. In order to earn my respect, they have to prove that they are actually willing to have a dialog about the issues in question. It will be interesting if I stop on my way into the theater and look at the pamphlets they will be handing out. I could then talk to them, ask some thoughtful questions, explain where my views differ, and then turn around and start handing them some of my own literature detailing the benefits of safe recreational sexual activity. If they are willing to accept my literature and can at least act like they are thinking about my different viewpoint, then they would earn my respect.

Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t do either of those things. I’m pretty lazy and both plans require a bit of preparation, not to mention that I want to get a good seat for the movie. The most that I might do would be to run up and down the line of picketers and hand them prophylactics. For your benefit, maybe I’ll just pretend that I carried out one of my two more ingenious plans. There certainly aren’t any rules against writing about stuff that never happened. Either way, I’m sure that I will have much to write about next time.

As for tonight, it looks like much boringness for me. I should be doing some homework, but I’m a little sick right now. It isn’t much really – just a scratchy throat, stuffy nose, and a little pain from an incoming wisdom tooth, but I’m a real baby when it comes to feeling sick. I hope I feel better tomorrow. Pride Network and Drama House are throwing the “Big Gay Party” tonight to celebrate the month of Gaypril. It sounds fun, but you know me – Tom avoids them situations with the dancin’ and the boozin’, especially when he is feeling sick and has no one to go with. As usual, it’s a Friday night and I’m all alone with nothing to do. WAH!! I need a hug *sniff*

To The Future!
In case you haven’t noticed, I finally managed to get a little picture of myself on this page. I borrowed a digital camera from the library with the intention of going to Wegman’s and getting a photo of that “found porn” I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, I never did end up going to Wegman’s yesterday, so in order to do something productive with the camera, I spent most of the night taking a bunch of pictures of myself. I basically got pictures of me expressing all sorts of emotions and auras – everything from friendly to sinister to seething to thoughtful. Eventually, I’ll probably start using them to set the moods for my journal entries. I guess my trip to Wegman’s is postponed until Saturday. It looks like I’ll be doing a lot of fun stuff on Saturday, but I’ll write about it tomorrow.

I found out that being the model and cameraman at the same time is a difficult task. It didn’t help that the camera wasn’t very impressive. First, they don’t give you a memory stick and USB cable to go with the camera. Instead, I had to use a floppy disk (not provided) to store the pictures I took (Yes, the camera had a floppy disk drive). This meant that I had to stop after every 5 photos, and transfer the contents of the disk to my computer. They practically made me sign my life away when I borrowed the camera, so I don’t see why they couldn’t supply me with a memory stick and cable.

Now on to the main subject – sometimes I wish I could just skip a lot of the drudgery that I must endure and fast-forward to the point in my life where I am on the verge of making my fortune. I can’t imagine how incredible it will feel to know that all of my hard work and ambition is about to pay off. I think that moment, and all of the emotion that comes with it is quite possibly the greatest experience a person can have. Being rich of course would be absolutely splendid, but nothing can compare to that transition.

Anyone who thinks that money can’t make them happy must either be greedy, or already have all the material possessions they could want. After all, if you could buy everything you ever wanted, how could you not be happier unless you are supremely greedy and desire things that are priceless? Money certainly can’t make you less happy than you were before. I won’t argue about whether or not money can buy love, but I can guarantee you that if you can’t get the girl/dude when you are rich, you won’t be able to get her/him if you are poor. Luckily, I am a shallow enough person to want very few things outside of the realm of material possessions. Therefore, money would certainly make me very happy.

So now we come to my favorite part of the show. What would I do if I were rich you ask? Well, I’d always be traveling. I really want to see as much of the world as I can. I’d like to visit every country at least once. I would participate in exotic activities such as the Running of the Bulls in Spain and big game hunting in Africa. Of course I would be traveling around the world in one of my private planes. I wonder how many chicks I could fit on a private 747… I’d also have several huge estates around the world as well as penthouse suites in all of the great cities of the world. For ground transportation, I’d have a collection of sports cars, and for the sea, I’d have a personal yacht that would be large enough to have a helipad. If I were rich, I would stay away from the press so that I could walk among the hoi polloi unrecognized. Finally, I would definitely establish my secret research facility in Antarctica. As a matter of fact, if I were rich, the majority of my money would be put into human enhancement research. As for charity, I wouldn’t give money to charities. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t be charitable. All of my charitable acts would be on a personal level. So rather than giving money to charitable organizations, I will simply be charitable to anyone I see who is in need. For example, I’d be a person who would hand a bum a suitcase stuffed with $100,000. For me, I’d feel happier watching that one bum’s face light up when he opens the suitcase than I would if I fed a million starving people who I’d never meet. I feel good when I make other people happy, but I only feel good when I can see first hand that they are happy. Ahhhh, to be rich…that is the life for me. Now I just have to make sure it becomes reality.

More Economics
It is confirmed – I did indeed get a perfect score on my economics test. I don’t understand why economics is so easy for me. Believe it or not, a good portion of the class actually finds the subject challenging. They have 3 TAs for a class of less than 40 and apparently, people actually do ask for their assistance. Perhaps highly intelligent people don’t tend to take economics courses. Or, maybe economics just comes very easily to science minded people. I wonder if people taking economics classes tend to be social science people who fail to realize that economics is actually more of a pure science. I should make it clear that this is not a case of me having intuitive economic skillz. I actually learn a LOT in the class. It’s just that the learning is easy.

I’ve heard some people call economics “common sense.” This is somewhat true in the sense that all of its principles follow logically from a few basic observations, however, the logical steps you need to take are not as clear cut and simple as you may think. Economics provides answers to the questions that most people would consider unanswerable or subjective. Why are Florida oranges in NYC better than Florida oranges in Florida? If you are driving through a high rent area of a city and you notice that prices in stores are high, did the high rent cause the high prices, or did the high prices cause the high rent? Those are just a couple of the crazy questions you could give a specific answer to if you were taking economics.

One of the greatest parts of my economics class is that we check all of our principles at the door. They only interfere with the study of economics, and often, you will find that if you were king and acted on your principles, society as a whole would be worse off. We have proven that tariffs, subsidies, price ceilings, and price floors all make society worse off. In fact, we have even proven that society is worse off with ANY kind of taxes, but one can argue that if we didn’t pay taxes and had no police or military, business couldn’t be done in the first place, so taxes are a necessary evil. The one thing we rarely discuss in class is the question of why we have tariffs and subsidies and price floors if they aren’t good for us. The truth is that there is rarely a good answer for such a question. Quite honestly, the best answer to these questions is that special interest groups push for these policies because they benefit from them. For example, though society is worse off when we have a tariff on foreign cars, American car manufacturers benefit. As horrible as that reason is, it is far better than the other possible answer – that politicians don’t understand economics and actually believe that these crazy policies are actually helping our country. If you ever hear a politician argue that they can improve the economy by putting more regulations on international trade, don’t listen to them because they either don’t have a clue about what they are talking about, or they are working for a special interest group and don’t think YOU understand economics (sadly they are mostly right in this assumption).

The only real reasons to ever restrict trade are issues of morality. The question in this case is: Do we as a nation agree on a moral principle? If we agree on a principle, the question then becomes: How much are we willing to pay to enforce our principle? One easy example is the case of sweatshop factories in poor countries manufacturing goods for us. Some would argue that we should force American companies to pay the foreign workers a minimum wage. Implementing such a regulation would obviously be bad for our economy since the goods being made will be more expensive for us. Since this is a moral question, we ignore the normal economic model since we have to add in the social gains of the warm and fuzzy feelings people get by knowing they are improving the quality of life of foreign laborers. The dollar value of the warm fuzzy feeling is almost impossible to ascertain, and therefore makes the moral argument for this plausible.

In conclusion, everyone should take economics. Economics tells us which policies are the most efficient and socially beneficial. If everyone understood economics, we could eliminate much of the stupidity in politics. If politicians understood economics, they would know which policies are best for the country and all of the debate would be concentrated on which moral principles we as a country should stand for.

The Joys of Chem Lab
Well, this morning in my first waking moments, I was assaulted by a sore throat, stuffy nose, and pain in my sinuses when swallowing. It was much effort just to crawl out of bed. Luckily, my symptoms started to clear up in the shower and by noon they were pretty much gone. I had breakfast, went to work, and then I came back to my room to work on my chem lab write-up.

At 2:00 I went to my chem lab. I don’t know how it was possible, but this lab was even more drool inducingly dull than usual. We had to perform (surprise) 6 titrations. I hate titrations so much! Though I recognize the importance of the procedure, surely there is more to analytical chemistry than titrations! My group was one of the last groups there. I have no idea how some groups managed to finish all 6 titrations in less than an hour. Oh well, I guess I deserved to have a really boring lab this week. After all, it was such a crime that last week’s lab was almost not unenjoyable. We went out of the building and down to the river to get the water samples that we tested for oxygen content today. The weather was pleasant, and it was nice to be on the water – even though it was rather icky water. Not to mention that there was this über attractive girl from the class wearing this thong that… Ahem - anyway, the professors who wrote the lab manual must have planned on letting us get our hopes up last week so that they could then brutally crush our spirits this week.

I can’t wait until we get the course survey sheets at the end of the year. I’ll finally be able to state all of the grievances I have against the lab. First, there are no chairs in the lab. For a class with more than 20 students in it, there are about 4 chairs in the room. We average more than two hours per session in there and it is no fun having to stand through all of it. Secondly, the lab manual is extremely vague, and the TAs constantly have to write corrections for the procedure on the board. The labs don’t follow the material being covered in class, and I don’t even think that the lab should be a required part of the chemistry course. We are required to pay a $40 lab fee for the semester and we don’t even get to use any cool equipment for it. Finally, the lab reports are graded on little technicalities and trivial details. I really don’t think they bother to check if you actually understand the material. Uhgh, enough! At least 24 is on tonight. I think I’ll get back to watching it.

Blast!!!
Ack, what an icky day today. First I woke up with a bit of a scratchy throat probably because of the return of cold and dry weather. Then I found out that I only got an average score on my third biology test. Luckily, I think I can get some more points by appealing for a re-grade. I didn't get my economics test back today, but we went over the test and it seems that I probably got a perfect score on it. My success in economics today serves only to mock me. My calling has been science for a very long time and yet today it seems clear that I would make a much better economist than a scientist.

I still haven't quite decided which profession will best allow me to advance my goals. On the one hand, if I'm a scientist, I'll take a hands-on role in the development of human enhancement and life extension technology. On the other hand, if I work as an analyst or consultant at a financial firm, I’ll have a chance to direct capital to whatever biotech companies I believe will make the greatest advancements in human enhancement. Anyway, I have a few years before I have to make a decision. It will all boil down to whether or not I feel that I will have the power as a single scientist to change the world. If not, then I will wield the power of many scientists to change the world for me. Perhaps I can even do both.

Decent Day Today YAY!
Well, today was decent. I got up around 10, had breakfast with Rydawg. Then I watched some TV and did a few more math problems. Eventually, I went to have dinner at the Pit with Ben, John, Nastassia and Czar. Right after I finished eating, Ben got a call from DJ and I learned that DJ was going to see “Hellboy.” I had to run from the Pit to the library to catch the bus, but it was worth it since it isn’t as fun to watch movies alone. Originally, I was hoping to see both “Hellboy” and “Shaolin Soccer” today, but unfortunately, “Shaolin Soccer” is not currently playing in any theaters around here. Anyway though, the movie was quite sweet, and afterwards, I went to Wegman’s and bought six bottles of Sobe to begin restocking my depleted reserves as well as “Air Force One” on DVD. Also, while in Wegman’s, DJ and I found an awesome example of “found porn.” We will definitely return there on Wednesday with a digital camera to photograph it. In case you don’t know what I am talking about, “Maxim” (the magazine) has a monthly contest that awards $100 to whoever submits the best example of “found porn.” Finally, when I got back to school, I sat down and watched my new movie. Now, it is time to go to bed, and I will be going to bed happy since today was such a decent day.

By the way, if you haven’t seen the previews for “Shaolin Soccer,” go here:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/shaolin_soccer/viewingpage.html

Current Mood: content

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