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I got out of the habit of reading the Stranger when I moved to SF. Then, in ‘s journal, made reference to it, so I went to check it out. The front page story is about a rural homo raised in a fundie family, denied opportunity to pursue greatness in gymnastics, runs away from home, turns to prostitution & drugs, and ends up getting cut up and having the shit kicked out of him by east european immigrant fundies in Seattle for walking down the street and not taking their shit. The immigrant fundies end up going to jail.

A compelling story, but how representative is it? Scary, yeah. Same as the story of the DC sniper. “It could happen to you”. Enh, shouldn’t let it get me down. Back to readings.

No shocker there, but I got the “lots of qualified applicants” email today. *shrug* Oh well, I’ll see what my other options are. Of particular interest are Minnesotans for an energy efficient economy and the minnesota center for energy and environment. Today minnesota, tomorrow the country, the world sometime next week.

It’s all sort of come to a head today. I have a rough draft due in transportation and land use at 4.

In economic development, I had a prelude to a paper due in early march. List your sources and describe them, write a page or so about the notion of your 10-15 page (I think) paper. I’ve found some sources, and haven’t read them. Professor Schuh is pretty cool, and has said that he’s okay giving me an incomplete. Professor Krizek, my instructor for Transportation & Land Use, when I told him I was having surgery said “Well, make sure you talk to your classmates to get the notes for any days you miss.” But I digress.

I’ve made a script to convert real-html to joke-html for my research assistantship. It needs a couple of corners finished before I use it to go on a cut & paste spree. That’s all I’ve done for that since my surgery. I turned in a half-assed paper for creating good work at the midsemester. I turned in a 2 hour abstract for t&lu (the one on which he suggested I use a map).

Of my courses, gymnastics doesn’t really count as a cutting target because a) it’s only one unit, b) it keeps me sane, c) all I have to do for the rest of the semester is show up and I get my grade, and d) it wakes me up for cgw. Economic development I can’t drop the first half of, and it fulfills requirements for my concentration. Creating good work also fulfills the same requirements. Multivariate Techniques is so easy and trivial that it scarcely counts. Plus, it’s useful. Transportation and Land Use gives me units, but does not otherwise advance me towards a degree, nor has it offered me much, pedogogically, outside of lab. Furthermore, even without t&lu, and not counting gymnastics, I’ll finish up this semester significantly more than halfway through the credits I need to graduate.

I did find the data for the paper. I was initially told I could find it here, but it appears that I’d have to go to pittsburgh to find it (maybe) and devote some of my vacation time to getting it, so that I could do the analysis and write the paper in the following week and a half, when I’ll also be working on my cgw and ed papers. In short, screw that.

Previously the thought of working for the physical infrastructure team made me think that keeping t&lu might be relevant, but if it is, then I really don’t want to work for PIT.

My sole misgiving on this is the lab, and my 11th hour abandonment of my group (including the inestimable ). I’ve told one member already, this may inform another, and the third will probably find out later today. I’d really like to have a little more of my life back.

My esteemed colleague has unearthed a graphical depiction that beautifully expresses how grad school feels to me. =)

I think it happened about 30 seconds after I said “I think I screwed my GAO interview,” for the umpteenth time. I got a call from the 312 area code. I thought “great, this is the ‘no job for you'” call because I confused that with washington’s area code, 301. I was talking, so I just turned off the ringer and continued the conversation about bleak internship prospects with a fellow first year.

Well, 312 is chicago, downtown chicago. The guy who called wanted to see if I’d actually dropped out of consideration with the gao, because apparently I’ve been marked as such in their database, if I’d be interested in doing health care stuff despite not clicking that box, and whether chicago would be an okay place for me (hmmm, desperate much? ;).

I called him up, assured him that chicago is my first choice town, that while I interviewed in washington, I had not yet received an offer, and that the health care division of the gao would be quite interesting to me, even though I hadn’t marked it. (It was borderline, I was pretty sure it was physical infrastructure that was going to call me in, so I was a little flippant in clicking those boxes. Heh, seems I was right)

In short, phone interview friday. And an info interview wednesday with the green institute. Hmmm. Maybe I’m not so screwed… On that front. =)

I am somewhat disappointed with their nonprofit fair today. I was hoping for some renewable energy activism organizations. Enh, oh well. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

When browsing a gaming website, one of the banner ads was for ExploreFreedomUSA.org. The use of the keyword “freedom” as in “they hate us for our freedom”, and “freedom fries”, “freedom to starve” and related patriotism-justifies-anything bullshit, suggested to me probable republican ties. Curious as to the political leanings of my favorite how-to-craft-X-in-ffxi website, I checked it out. It has a one sentence thing about homeland security, saying that it’s everyone’s business. Report suspicious things. (Turn your neighbor in, if you’re a good party member you’ll do it).

But it also has extensive linkage on the first amendment. The only one I browsed was talking about overprotective hyperreaction to something that smacked school officials as vaguely collumbine-ish. Apparently a killed was expelled and spent 3 days in jail for something he’d drawn two years ago, that his brother unknowingly brought to school, and accidentally displayed. Hmmm, sounds a little more protecting free speech, not something I associate with republicanism these days (unless by “speech” you mean “campaign contributions”).

Then there was the get out the youth vote thing. Something I associate with thoroughly democratic strategies. *shrug* I have no idea what to make of it.

Let me tell you how I feel about grad school. If I find work I enjoy, where I feel like I’m useful, I will be happy to never finish my masters degree.

Well, I wasn’t a first-string offerree for the GAO, but I’m apparently on the alternate list. Enh. Something in an advocacy/education organization on energy policy, preferably renewables, particularly biofuels would probably be more along the lines of my exact interests.

Stick kids in an educational system where you only have to be “good enough”, and there’s no reward for going beyond that, in fact there’s no system, no challenge, no nothing for going beyond that. Now, assume that bar were set low. Whether it’s low or high is purely subjective of course. But if you spend 2/3 of the first 18 years of your life where your only goal is to be ‘good enough’, doing your best won’t come really natural. And when you run into less structured environments in life, your toolbox probably doesn’t fit.

Welcome to my life. Sadly, this pattern is still working out for me. B’s on the midsemester papers. B’s on the midsemester tests. It’s fucking grade inflation. I want a do-over on my life. I want sister dorothy gerlica (I only just now realized the potential pun value on that one) to shove her “wait for the rest of the class” attitude up her habit. I want mom and dad to support me getting a real goddamn education, including not deciding that “skipping a grade might stunt Stephen’s social life”. I want to have not internalized all these stupid “wait for it and good things will come” attitudes. Most especially that last one. The rest is incidental, and matters only as it leads into that.

Bitter, party of 1, your table is waiting.

Too late now, but I was thinking of UW Madison because they seemed to be less structured there, and it would have made me take more initiative, in theory. Hmmm. How to cultivate a habit of proactivity….

‘s recent post on living wills and what not, got me thinking….

I’d say that I haven’t done this yet, because deciding what to do with my body after my brain goes buhbye is up to the living, but really I think it’s mostly because I’m lazy. If there’s hope, keep me alive. Even if I come out retarded, I’m fine with that. Crippled and retarded, I’d adapt. If my speech centers go, if I am incapable of feeding myself or communicating, and there is no rational chance that that will be reversed, then pull the plug. Or spare the uncertainty and delay, pump me up with happyjuice til the meat can’t take it anymore.

I’ve often thought how odd it would be for me to die. Who would know who to contact to get the word out for my funeral? Would they call everyone in my cell phone? (that would result in some awkward conversations, I’m sure.) Would some friends of mine not find out for years? It’s dumb to say, but I’d feel kind of bad for them (I know, I wouldn’t be feeling anything, if my guess as to the afterlife is on target), more accurately, the thought of people missing it who’d want to be there makes me a little sad now. Everyone should have their time to grieve and get on with their lives together.

I signed up for organ donation with my last license. If my whim were the determinant of the fate of my remains, I’d say cremate the rest & use it to fertilize (is (human) ash useful as/in fertilizer?) a garden somewhere. Maybe a floral garden if people get weird cannibalism vibes. Though the idea of my body helping feed other people has a certain symbolic beauty to me.