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| Time pressures are rearing their ugly head again. It will be resolved.
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| More journal writing will have to wait. Just bought a Nikon D40 DSLR with 3x zoom lens for $400, but I'll really only pay $200 b/c of my research fund. This is possibly the cheapest SLR that I could've bought, but I'm fine with that - I'm really amateur. Am so tired of continually checking out the engineering dept.'s SLR and tripod to take photos for my research work. Wish I could've bought a cheaper point and shoot but it's just easier to buy sub-pro level gear b/c i need to manually adjust exposure, ISO level, and aperture size.
Going to work on car window now, glass has somehow derailed itself from the window track... afterwards, eat dinner with family since it is dad's birthday, and then drive back to Charlottesville and library it up until... I'll go with until Thursday night.
I saw a half-rainbow driving to Richmond yesterday afternoon arching almost vertically into the sky, which made my day. Went to Vegetarian Festival with ML, AG, and BS, ran into some Outdoors Club people + JF and GW. AG left early because he couldn't find his girlfriend, who is vegetarian and was supposedly chillaxing at the yoga booth but wasn't (she works at Integral Yoga apparently as a side job?). I am not vegetarian, I mostly went because it sounded neat and I wanted to ride my bike downtown, plus, there were some worthy causes boothing there. Seeing the animal shelter dogs there really made me somewhat happy, and made me miss my own dog at home - he is curled up under the desk warming my feet as we speak. Haha, that reminds me, the Coalition Against Civilization booth made me grin for at least 5 minutes; their flyers and posters were just so absurd.
BS recommended TV on the Radio to the people at the apt. yesterday. They're not bad, maybe I'll torrent their discography. I have so much music to get through, though.
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| Rereading yesterday's post makes me nauseous at my emo-ness, haha. Coming home buzzed, wet, and in a depressed existential funk leads to a situation in which nobody should write journal posts. I blame the anemic debate. Hilarious McCain quote: "I looked into [Putin's] soul, and I saw three letters: a K, a G, and a B." The rest of his spiel was spent trying to confuse people into thinking the budget would be balanced by cutting pork barrel spending. As for Obama, he depressed me by promising to bail out Wall Street to the tune of 700 billion just like McCain, and saying he was for funding biodiesel, which is surely the biggest waste of tax dollars ever known. I thought he was against agri-subsidies. Whatever. I'll vote for Obama because Virginia is a swing state this season, but any other race and I'd have seriously considered writing in Ross Perot or Ron Paul. This two-party duopoly has always made me feel disenchanted with American politics.
In other news, today I went to the non-profit/NGO career fair with ML and MW. I have never really considered NGO work before, mostly because the salary has always sucked, and in some ways I have thought that engineering work, done for the right causes, has the potential to affect far more people. But, as I sat through the Peace Corps spiel with MW, I began to seriously consider doing some volunteer work overseas for a bit. I was mostly inspired by a giant Ghandi quote the Z society had put on the wall in Slaughter: "The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others." I sure hope so, since I sure as hell don't quite know what to make of my life. ML signed me up for the TFA email list; he and BS seem very intent on going to teach math in North Carolina, after which ML will go on to do environmental engineering for grad. I don't know if I did TFA, that I could go live in the Carolinas. We'll see.
I think I'm going to apply for biomedical engineering as a grad student. Or at least give it a long hard look. It sounds like something I could get excited about.
Will write more tomorrow, am tired.
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| Is it depressing that I can't find a really fulfilling reason to live for myself, but instead find it only in helping others? I feel like a thief of dreams, where I steal other people's hopes and vicariously live them by helping the owner out. What would I do if nothing needed doing and everyone was materially content? I mean, in this world, I really doubt I'll ever run out of things to do, but it made me wonder -Why can't I be happy and independent by myself... why is that instead, I have to be so dependent on others' validation for my sense of self-worth? If I were alone on a tropical island, why is it that I think I couldn't handle it? My lack of inner motivation and ambition for something... anything, kind of disturbs me in a fundamental way, and I feel like I've been trying everything for the past few years and finding nothing. I drown myself in organizing things, joining clubs, doing research, taking different classes - hoping to find something that I will truly love, but in the end all I feel like is a dilettante. Music, drama, politics, sports, service, dance, environmentalism, the sciences, photography, journalism, robotics, tutoring, blah blah blah blah... at some point in my life I've done it - and I'm no closer to discovering what I really want to dedicate my life to. How can I be jaded!? I'm only 21!
I mean, this is awesome, saying this in my fourth year of engineering school. I've really been treading water regarding engineering for awhile now - it originally developed out of a hobby for computers, and the fact that since I didn't know what I wanted to do, might as well pick a major that would get me paid. I only do somewhat well out of stubborn pride, occasional flashes of intelligence, and the fact that sometimes, I do genuinely enjoy the research I do and the classes I take. But, I've realized, that for the work I've done, a passing/moderate interest really just doesn't justify it. I have never considered switching majors only because there is no other major that I would really want to switch into.
Come to think of it, the only reason I'm applying to grad school is because I think teaching others as a professor sounds fulfilling, not because I have a big passion for for the subject matter. If I had gone into history or whateverthefuck liberal arts major (maybe music) I was also considering when I applied to college, I would be considering going into grad school and teaching that too. And then I'm back to square one... why can't I find out what I really want to do, for myself? My biggest fear is that maybe I'll never find something I can really be passionate about, and I'll just drift through life, just sleeping, eating, shitting, and being apathetic until I die. Or if not apathetic, helping other people reach their dreams, and not my own, because I'll have nothing that I would really care for personally.
Sometimes I really wonder. Maybe I should discover religion. Or maybe just vent more on this Xanga. Typing this out was actually quite therapeutic. I sincerely hope that in 10-20 years if I ever re-read this post, I will be able to laugh and chuckle at my naiveté.
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| This is going to sound tremendously nerdy...
I bought a FF7 piano arrangements book since I have so much more free time in the summer to play. It's nice only having to work 8 hours and then you're done.
It is pretty hard; I'm guessing gr. 6+, which is tremendous compared to what you usually get in OST arrangement books.
Maybe in a couple weeks when I get the first song down I'll post in on Xanga. We'll see. Right now I'm still horrifically botching the intro and Aerith's theme, which are the the tracks I'm currently practicing.
PS. The chocobo arrangement is far too happy.
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