settling down

It's the first weekend in a long time that I haven't gone out...and I admit that it's not a bad feeling. I'm not spending loads of money and I'm not getting trashed. Instead, I've been doing some hefty programming in matlab and using my head for once. Now I'm amused because I'm not actually bad at programming. Considering how much pain CS has dealt me in the past, it's ironic and surprising. Today, I got a real kick out of programming 4-D matrices, though it was impossible to get any intuition from them and I had to downgrade to 3-D.

I guess I actually could enjoy learning if I somehow get past my mile-high roadblocks. But it's so difficult to learn something new very quickly...like matlab. I place too much emphasis on natural talent and not enough on hard work. It's not that natural talent doesn't go a long way, but I only have so much of that and moaning about the lack of it is not going to get me any further. I also haven't been working hard for a long long time now, which could explain why I feel like I don't know anything.

Making intuitive leaps is difficult, made more difficult by the fact that I always feel like I need to come up with such a leap and usually not being so lucky. It could just be the lack of knowledge or whatever. Or maybe thinking about making leaps stunts the part of the brain that's supposed to be making leaps. It's just a massive heap of delusional overexpectations, too much introspection, ...in general, too much thinking.

Sometimes I wonder if I actually would have liked academia in another life. I admit that I do feel comfortable in the environment. I get along swimmingly with my co-students. It's gratifying to find people whose sense of humor complement mine (or maybe it's just because graduate students tend to be nicer than people in the real world). However, there's some part of me that's not quite satisfied. I have a strong suspicion that it's not the actual thing but all of the baggage that comes along with it.

monochrome delirious

I wanna kick the machine
That made you piss away your dreams
And tear at your defenses
Until there's nothing left but me.

- Goo Goo Dolls, Dizzy -

I'm riding on a minor second wind. While I wouldn't describe myself as motivated by any stretch of the imagination, I'm not kicking and screaming every step of the way anymore. That was a fucking waste. Just one word: acceptance. At some point, I switched to jaded without actually experiencing anything worth noting. I almost feel like I've given up. I don't even remember what my dreams were and what I wanted out of my life. A long time ago, I always wondered why people weren't happy and why they couldn't do what they wanted. Well, we all have to work to live, eat, sleep, etc. It's ridiculously simple.

Honestly, life was so much better when I was seventeen and stupid. I had self-confidence, dreams, happiness...then some evil fairy called life came and waved her crooked wand, and *presto*, here I am. That's the other thing, wallowing in self-pity because taking responsibility is too hard. It's so easy to assign blame to anything and everything and just say: I'm irrevecablly fucked up and I can't ever climb out of this hole.

Surprisingly, I'm on some sort of a local peak because I've had a pseudo-social life for the last few weeks and everything else is hiccuping along relatively smoothly. But I know I'll blink and I'll hit the next plateau or trough (probably ~midterms). What happens happens. I know that something snapped, and I can't pinpoint when it happened and I can't fix it.

It's ironic when I consider that my life is so much better than almost everyone else's. The fourth best college in the country. The third best doctoral program in the country. And I can't fucking live my life. Forgive me, I'm just tired and old and bitter at the moment.

total eclipse of the heart

Hallelujah Jeff Buckley
Chasing Cars Snow Patrol
Running up that hill Placebo
Trouble Coldplay
Superman Five for Fighting
Hot Blooded Foreigner

the major fall and the minor lift

Without a Life

Over the past few days, I've been watching the first season of Without a Trace. Well...I also redecorated my dorm room and did six loads of laundry, but I wouldn't exactly qualify the latter as noteworthy.

WaT exhibits rather strong CBSish tendencies and is pretty much by the Bruckheimer. That's not to say that it's a bad show. In fact, considering how long it takes most shows to settle in, the first season is put together amazingly well. The storylines and characters are strong and cohesive, including in the pilot. The show immediately settles in without the rough patches that almost all new shows go through as a rite of passage, not to mention those that perpetually stumble along in a disjointed and half-hearted manner.

As with almost all CBS shows, the casting is excellent, with the requisite older male authority figure, complete with the broody air and dark past and the two men (preferably handsome) and two women (preferably gorgeous) with sparkling and vibrant personalities that complete the team. It's essential that the people are good looking and cheery, since WaT is so heavy at times that I was certain that it would choke itself on self-inflicted gravitas and drama.

WaT feeds heavily on human emotions (as opposed to say...elephant emotions). Each episode recreates a person from the inside out, learning about the tragedy in his/her life (Usually abuse or drugs or any of the other depravities that CBS relishes in showing). We don't see any body parts or the omniprescent morgue that's the bread and butter of the Eye, but it's creepier, like dissecting someone's soul or mind.

The screenwriting is pretty damn good for a TV show, and the dialogue is snappy, sharp, and clever. Overall, WaT almost feels too clinical. Everything is clear cut and you just get the feeling that every element was thought over, thought over again, and fitted precisely into place. Predictability does stifle creativity, but why care when each episode is as solid as a slab of concrete.

Ultimately, I only go for the shows where the cinematography is beyond criticism and the characters are strongly appealing. That's probably why Law and Order and its billions of spin-offs have always turned me off and why CBS, with its camerawork and over-the-top humane saviors of humanity, is my bread and butter. As one critic stated, "Without a Trace is about beautiful people all sleeping with each other". Well...I believe that if they spend all day saving the world and since they're all beautiful, there's nothing wrong with a little fun thrown in the mix. It's all in a day's work.

oh kiwi!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs

borat...sigh

I was dragged to see Borat today. All I can say is that the movie supported my theory that men should wear as much clothing as humanly possible. Period. Especially if their legs look like hairy sticks or if they weigh 500 lbs and are covered in about 10 layers of surrounding insulation. I cannot describe how much I wanted to puke after I watched that scene. Probably more than when I finished my 7 hour extended happy hour tonight in an effort to forget the image of hairy stick and lardo locked in the 69 position. Yeah...

Having never watched the Ali G show or any of Cohen's other brainchildren, I still knew what to expect (Hanging out with guys for lunch every day will do that to you). Sure, the jokes were crass and offensive, but this scene was just horrendous. I like some innocent humor and slightly off-color humor once in a while, but this was just over the top. The fact that some people rated Borat as their favorite movie of all time and its more than favorable reviews disturbed me just a little bit. Is America moving in a new direction that I'm simply not aware of? How can stuff like this possibly be inspiring? Borat was rated higher than Gladiator on IMDB and Rotten tomatoes. WTF?

How can we possibly live in a culture that rates racist jokes and fat naked men higher than soldiers getting their faces chopped off with an ax and wearing short skirts? What has America come to? Why must we exchange gratuitous violence and incest for Jewish jokes, female jokes, and more incest? What happened to blood and honor? Ah well. I suppose it's all for the people.

politically flavored cheesesteaks

The most hilarious cheesesteak place ever...deep in the heart of South Philly and across the street from Pat's, an equally famous place.

Walking along Geno's, the first thing you notice is entire walls covered with police badges from every town, city, and cornfield in the country. Smack in the middle is a picture of some police lieutenant who was killed by Ali Mujahedeen or Muhammed Jafar or whoever in 1981...I really wonder which way the owners voted in the midterm elections. Geno's is famous for putting up a sign that stated: We do not serve customers who don't speak English...talk about neoconservative.

The cheesesteaks themselves are slightly dry, with no sauce. I can't say that I was too impressed. Try ordering in the Philly lingo. Default is wiz. There's wiz with/without, American with/without, and Provolone with/without. Glory to cheese wiz and onions...Then again, since Oprah, Nsync, Michelle Kwan, and various other celebrities have been to Geno's, maybe this dry rendition of sad cheesesteaks ought to be right.

gelato heaven

I have never had such scrumptious, mouth-watering, divine gelato in my life. CapoGiro Gelato Artisans have two spots in Philly and more than three hundred flavors...since I'm going to be here for five years, I should be able to taste all of them if I try one every five or so days:)

On Friday night, I got the Chocolate Scuro, which is the dark, rich, and bittersweet chocolate. It is the best chocolate I have ever had in my life. I was groaning so much while I was eating it that my friends got slightly worried...it was better than anything I've ever experienced...

Anyway, it's a must visit place in Philadelphia. Here are some of the intriguing/mouthwatering flavors:

Pear with Bourbon
Avocado
Honeysuckle
Caped Gooseberry
Mexican Chocolate
Burnt Sugar
Pomegranate
Apple Cider with Clove
Blood Orange
Mascarpone and Fig

losing my head and everything in between

Oh dear God, what the fuck is wrong with me? I went to the bookstore an hour ago to look around. In front of the cash register, I reached into my bag and realized that my wallet was missing. More frantic groping came up with nothing. I raced back to my room, swept over everything in my desk, only to find no wallet. Then it was a mad dash to the bookstore and realizing that someone must have stolen it.

Back in my room, I promptly cancelled all of my credit cards and ATM cards, then called my dad to deal with my missing driver's license. I guess I sounded like I was on the edge of a gigantic breakdown, because he was ubernice and supportive. I tried to figure the stupid DMV stuff for ten minutes, then my dad asked me if I had looked on my bed and around the room. Of course, my wallet was in the second drawer from the top of my desk. Then I did have my mental breakdown and started sobbing like there was no tomorrow because in my utter stupidity, I keep my brass rat in my wallet and I thought I had lost it. Apparently men don't like hysterical and teary females because my dad told me that he wanted to go back to watching his basketball game.

I have never felt so relieved. or stupid. ever. Jesus Christ. Maybe I'll even find that swimsuit that I lost a few days ago. I'm just beyond annoyed because I'm so careless with everything. It was even worse when I was little. Sometimes, it seems to me that my subconscious wants to be careless . I could fill a mausoleum with everything that I've misplaced over the years (if I could find them). Good God. And maybe I should appreciate my parents more for putting up with me.