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September 1, 2004 - ...

So it's that time of the year again. Wait, no. It's that ... year ... again? No, that's not it either. Maybe we should just go with "It's that time."

What the hell am I talking about, you ask?

Good question. It started this morning when I had a meeting with my academic advisor. Well, no. It started yesterday in Senior Design when the person in charge of grad school for the College of Engineering came and spoke to us for an hour. This got me thinking, and I made an appointment for this morning. So I go and see my advisor today with some general, high-level questions about grad school - you know, timelines, locations, finances, benefits, and the like. Well, after close to an hour, I walk away a little more knowledgeable about grad school, and significantly more confused about my life.

See, here's the thing. I hate deciding things. I hate boxing myself in, and limiting my options. I like to be flexible in these things. To quote the old cliché, I'm afraid of commitment. (Example: I picked a major at the last possible minute, and only because the university made me.) And on top of that, I don't really have the attention span or the drive to be focused on any one thing for too long. I loved high school because I got to learn about a little bit of everything: all the sciences, programming, Spanish, even things like history and economics. And then at some point they stop letting you go to high school. I finally figured out that's the reason I came to college - not necessarily because I wanted to learn something, or because I wanted to advance my job prospects... No, no, simply because they stopped letting me go to high school. Next logical choice: college.

I'm getting way off track. The point of all of this is that now, pretty soon, they're going to stop letting me go to college too. Obvious question: What then? Well, you go to job fairs, get dressed up, pretend to be someone you're not, get an eight-to-five job, and work for fifty years as a corporate tool. Now, I've had a couple of internships - not real work, I realize this, but close enough - and I have found that I much prefer college, for a myriad of reasons that aren't important to this. And I have increasingly come to reject the idea that one's accomplishments in life - and especially how happy one is - are measured by the size of your salary, house, and car. It becomes a slippery slope: okay, you have a big salary, so what? Well, I can have a big house. Okay, so what? Well, I can afford to have my yard taken care of and have my big house cleaned. Okay, so what?

I think you see where I am going with this. I just don't see the point of it all. I suppose if you continue down that slope, you come to the questions of 'What's the point of my life' and 'Why am I here' and 'What am I doing with my life' - questions that come dangerously close to religion, which is something I most certainly am not trying to get at with this.

I'm off track again. This last question - you know, the one about what I'm doing with my life - is the one that bit me today. I asked a couple questions about grad school and find out that it's all about research. Well, what the hell kind of research can you do in the (very general) fields that I am interested in? "Admittedly, not much..." Great. A little further into the conversation, my advisor stops me and goes, "Allright, what do you want to do?" ... ... ... ... And I don't have an answer for that. I don't have a passion, a dream, a lifelong goal of any kind; hell, I don't even have short-term goals. I feel like I am just cruising along, waiting for something to happen - and yet part of me thinks that I should be out there trying to make this happen, trying to find my spark. But being the way I am, I would much rather put these things off for as long as I can, future be damned.

Long story short, (boy, I bet you wish you'd read this paragraph first!) I have no idea where I'm going. I don't have a passion, I don't have a specific enough field that I want to pursue to even talk about grad school, and almost more than anything, I don't want to fall into the mold of the corporate eight-to-five worker. All of this was tripped by this grad school process.

I guess this next nine months is what it all comes down to. This is where you decide what you're going to be, what direction you're going to go. Mess this one up, and you could be really, really screwed. Sure, there have been 'defining points' before this - pick a school, pick classes, pick a major - but never anything that seems so very irreversible as this. I don't know what to do, I don't know how to figure it out, and I don't really like either of my options. I feel lost and cornered, and I don't like it.

That's pretty much the closing of this, so feel free to stop reading and take the above for what it's worth. The rest here is going to be some rambling thoughts I'm having at the moment.

I thought of an option today, though. Going through the too-small list of things that I know, I found: I like Ames a lot, I like 'computers' in a general sense, and I like the entire atmosphere and institution of the university. I guess these things could be combined if I was to be a professor here at ISU. And then I take a look at that option and realize that it's a pipe dream. I have no ambition to be a professor, God help my students if I become one, what the hell am I going to do for research, how am I going to get my credentials, and a million other points that just make such a thing impossible. And the funny thing is, I'm not even second-guessing a goal of mine. I'm second-guessing a random, fleeting thought that I stumbled on while trying to avoid the inevitable eight-to-five, corporate tool fate that 99% of people fall into.

So now the question becomes, why am I putting this up here? I don't know the answer to that. I tend to be a pretty private person, and I usually try to keep things like this to myself. I'm not expecting anyone to have any answers for me, and I'm not asking for help or anything. This whole thing probably sounds really depressed and defeatist - and the funny thing is, that's not even close to how I'm feeling in general. I guess I just felt like throwing this out there. Thanks for reading.

September 8, 2004 - Right, I have a website

I think I may actually have forgotten about this at some point during this last week. Things turned amazingly busy amazingly quickly there. A brief recap:

• Last Thursday I had two meetings in addition to all the normal classes. Well, almost all the normal classes; let's not kid ourselves about that 8AM recitation. One was for Senior Design, and I got a couple of responsibilities right off the bat revamping documents and looking over code. Good times.
• Friday was a good day. Take another look at that schedule, and then guess whether or not I got up for that 9AM class. After rolling out of bed at about 1, going to the one class, and whipping up some dinner, the SCUBA Clubbers and I had a DDR festival over at Emily's. Very good times, even if Jared did bust one of my pads in a fit of overzealousness. A lot of duct tape and a six-pound SCUBA weight later (no, I'm not kidding about that), it worked fine again.
• Saturday was a hell of a day. Marie and Matt came down for UNI in the morning, and met up with Scott and Renee, high school friends of theirs and fellow computer-engineering classmates of mine. Small world. The five of us did a wee bit of tailgating, went to the game, watched ISU actually get a win, got very sunburned and probably heat-strained, came back, ordered pizza, played board games, and had a make-your-own-sundae party. Then we were joined by about eight other people for a whole lot of DDR. Saturday was a good day.
• Sunday, I did a lot of work. And watched some football, too. That's about all I can remember.
• Monday I worked pretty much the whole day, but I did it in front of ESPN, watching baseball, football, the World Cup of Hockey, and more. It's amazing how much homework you can actually get done if you put half your mind to it.

September 12, 2004 - Ha! Less than a week!

Another Sunday night, and the prospect of another week starting. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, though - while last week was insanely busy, it was also strangely satisfying to be feeling so productive some of the time. Yeah, I know, strange - especially for one so lazy as I. And maybe it just seems that way because right about Friday, things just sort of stopped, and I was left wondering what to do for most of this weekend.
And another strange thing about this weekend: I felt highly antisocial for most of it. I don't really know why, or what happened; I'm only reminded of my (rather extended) period of self-discovery I had about two years ago. I wonder if this whole "What do I do with my life" episode is affecting me in the same way. I hope not; I'm certainly going to be making an effort to not be so damn irritable and antisocial for some time. Although, I have a very convenient excuse: The medicine(s) I got on Friday (Prednisone and Zyrtec, for a very severe allergic reaction to something; current theories include allegries to pollen, ragweed, and life) came with warning labels that they may affect one's mood. So hey, what can I say, I was doped up this weekend.
I spent a good portion of Saturday night watching old Family Guy episodes, which suited me just fine. What a great show; I was just about rolling at several points. Highly recommended if you like the Simpsons, you like random humor, and you're impossible to offend. Of course, in that case, you probably know about it already.
The big news for Saturday was the ISU-Iowa football game, which turned out to be much closer than expected. It was actually pretty decent to watch, and we only lost by one touchdown to the twenty-six-point favorites. Perhaps this emphasis on defense might actually pay off for us; we shall see this next weekend when Northern Illinois comes to town. It should be an interesting game, at least from my perspective - Adam and Kelsey have informed me that I am going out with them to the bars on Friday night, then getting up at 8AM on Saturday to start tailgating again. It might be a long Sunday.
Back to news of today, Lisa needed another guy for her co-rec Flag Football intramural team, and it was awesome to finally get outside and get some exercise, something I have been severely lacking for a week and change now. Incidentally, we pretty much whooped up on the other team, winning in a severe fashion.
And lastly, fantasy football has pretty much embedded itself into my brain. Something so silly is awfully addicting; I was much happier than I should have been tonight when Quentin Griffin, my recent acquisition, rushed for 150+ yards and three touchdowns. Praise be for football season!

September 20, 2004 - ... And back to a week. Crap.

Yeah, yeah, I know. So I've forgotten about this again. I have a way of doing that when I'm busy, tired, and confused. None of which I am at the moment, mind you, but this past week was most interesting. I'm hoping that I can pound this update out in the twenty minutes that I have before class. Here we go:

• Basically, last week was pretty much nuts. I had homework assignments in four of my six classes, pending and long-term things to do in the other two, meetings and appointments galore, a website redesign (which you really should check out, as I am rather proud of it ... some minor tweaks still needed), and on and on. It seemed like I was awfully busy for most of the week there.
• Sleep tends to take a back seat to other things during weeks like this, and so my schedule was massively screwed up towards the end of the week. Here's the rundown: I didn't sleep much Wednesday night. Came home from a meeting Thursday and slept from 6-9 PM. Slept that night from 5-8 AM. Came home from class Friday and slept 11 AM till 2:30 PM. I think that the end of last week actually happened, but I don't really remember that much of it. Go figure.
• Fortunately, the weekend hit, and while I still had some pending things, it was pretty laid-back. I went with Kelsey and crowd to DQ for a birthday treat Friday night, but opted not to hit the bars, as I really needed to get my schedule back on track. That, and the part where on Saturday morning, I got up at 8:00 to start tailgating. Funny (long-ish) story about that, feel free to skip it:
  • Friday night I was informed that I'm responsible for bringing the beer to the tailgate the next morning. Okay, sure. So I get up at eight, go to Hy-Vee, and buy a case of Bud Light. (Note that the choice was the group's decision, not mine!) As I'm putting it in my car, the handle on the case breaks. Well, crap, now I can't carry it to the tailgate. Okay, so I need another way to get it there. So I go back home, unload the case, and put all 24 cans into my backpack. It's a little heavy, but no problem. So I start walking towards the tailgating lots (a long ways, by the by - likely a mile and change). I get maybe a quarter mile out and ... hmm, that feels kinda funny. Golly, that ... that almost feels wet on the back of my leg there. I look down and, crap, my backpack is dripping. The left side of my shorts is soaked, my sandlas are soaked, the whole deal. So I stop and start digging through the backpack... Yeah, one of the cans had broken. Crap. I fix it and move on. Well, inbetween there and the tailgating lots, I lost two more! So I'm walking through the courtyards by all the residence halls, across main roads, through parking lots filled with tailgaters, looking like an absolute imbecile with my dripping backpack, soaked shorts, and smelling like an alcoholic. Oy. Even better, after getting home from the game, I ran my clothes, sandals, and backpack through the wash, and apparently I left a black gel pen in my bag. Of course, it came to rest wrapped tightly inside the white t-shirt I wore to the game, so one whole side of the formerly clean, white t-shirt is now very permanently black and cruddy. But hey, at least I don't smell like beer anymore. :)
  So after the lovely tailgating experience, we hit the game, which was by far the best game I've been to here. Huge momentum swings both ways - at one point, we were down 15. We came back in the third quarter, and in the early fourth when we hit a very nice third-down touchdown and then the two-point conversion to tie it up, the place went *nuts*. If it would have happened more toward the end, I think that we may have rushed the field. Granted, Northern Illinois is not exactly a football powerhouse, but it was still an awesome game. The recap, in case you want a slightly more thorough and objective take on it. Oh yeah, and I came away with a scratchy voice and a sunburn, so you know it was a good game.
• A good portion of Saturday was also spent in tech support. Computer people may not want to continue reading, as it may cause actual physical pain to you. Robert's computer has been running, for three years, with Windows ME (bad enough in itself), using Internet Explorer, without a firewall, without antivirus, without spyware detection, on a static IP, on a campus connection. For the non-computer people, this is roughly as safe as riding a rusty bicycle, naked, the wrong way into traffic on the autobahn, except instead of wheels you have sawblades, and instead of a seat you have a bayonet, and instead of handlebars you have red-hot stove burners. Needless to say, his computer basically has herpes, and it finally started acting up on Saturday. So after a lot of work and a lot of frustration, I think we've restored it to a usable state, though there are some things that I can't seem to get rid of.
• And then Sunday, I slept in, went to a meeting-slash-training-session for Senior Design, and then played another Flag Football game. Man, that is a fun sport. Again, we whooped up on the opposition, something to the tune of 30-6 or so. Next week's game actually matters, though, so we'll see how it goes then.

September 26, 2004 - Plodding along

So last week was absolutely insane, as predicted. Besides all the classes and homework, it turns out that I had a quiz on Thursday and a test on Friday. I ended up missing Wednesday's career fair; small loss, since the vast majority of companies that I would have wanted to talk to were there at Tuesday's career fair, which I did make it to. That's also the same career fair where I spent about four hours, handing out about fifteen resumes and talking with a whole ton of companies. I was pretty stoked to talk to Microsoft, as they at least made it interesting (and gave me a fun toy, too!), and IBM seemed interested in me but didn't have any open interview spots left.
I did, however, end up with an interview on Thursday morning with Lockheed Martin, which was kind of cool. It seemed more like a preliminary interest screening than an 'interview', per se. They gave me a little card as I was finished that says basically, "Thanks for interviewing with us! You're probably wondering, 'Now what?' Well, basically nothing. We put your resume on file and it's available to hiring managers for one year. If something comes up, we'll let you know." ... How very vague. But at the very least, it was a little interviewing practice.
And the big news of the week: I had a meeting with the head of the Human-Computer Interaction graduate program here. One of the faculty members joined us also, and over lunch I was treated to a description of what they are working on. I must say that it sounds like just about the coolest thing I've ever heard, and I'm going to try and arrange a time to check it out in person. Basically, my understanding of it is that they have goggles that you wear that superimpose images onto your vision. These images can be anything - projecting an electronic document onto a real, physical piece of paper, displaying a 3-D holographic image of something, ... really, I'm getting the impression that if you can think of it, they can make you see it. It sounds amazing, and I'm quite excited to see where this potential path leads. Once again, we shall see.
I'm trying to think of what other specific things happened last week, but it was such a blur of craziness and sleep deprivation that I don't really remember it, to be honest. :) Now that it's over, I'm very much looking forward to this week, which looks to be a little less insane and a little more manageable.
Reminder: Keep checking out the POTD, as it changes every day!