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Monday, January 12th, 2009
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1:59 am - What to post, what to post
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I just don't have much to say these days. My life is good. It's not routine, per se, but there's nothing unexpected. There's no drama... and let me just say, it is difficult to overrate the awesomeness of the lack of drama (of any type) in one's life.
I suppose there's the rapidly-becoming-not-so-long-term issue of wtf I'm going to do after I get my PhD, hopefully this December (if I work my ass of and write my dissertation in time). There are so many options (in terms of places I could end up), but I just... I dunno. Not worth thinking about. I just assume it'll fall into place. I didn't ever really give much thought to where I'd go to high school, and then TJ just happened. Okay, fair enough, I'd always wanted to go to Yale, but I mean, to be fair, that kind of just happened too. And then less than a year before I graduated college I radically switched intended career paths from "lawyer" to "scientist," and Colorado State just kind of happened. So I'm sort of assuming that whatever I end up doing next will "just happen..." and I'm okay with that. There aren't any truly bad options; even if I do end up at RESL in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, I'll definitely make the most of it, and it won't be for an excessively long period of time.
Maybe that's why I'm not worrying too much about where it is that I'll end up next. I've convinced myself that wherever it is and whatever I'm doing, it won't be for more than a few years. Just like TJ, just like Yale, just like CSU. I imagine I'd probably have a very different view of it if I truly thought I'd be spending the next 20 years of my life at whatever job I end up in after I get my doctorate. Hmm.
Anyway. I did my taxes today. I'm getting some pretty sweet refunds. They may be going towards paying for a trip to Rome in May, for the Champions League final (and other things). Stay tuned for more info on that.
meh. I'm tired. 'night all.
--Evan
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| Sunday, January 11th, 2009
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12:42 am - Voyage
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How the world must have been changing while I was holding it still.
Grargh how I wish I'd seen it live on stage in New York.
--Evan
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, December 29th, 2008
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5:11 pm - mostly putting this link here just so I don't forget it
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| Sunday, November 2nd, 2008
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2:42 am - Meh
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So a few weeks ago, I asked Karen to log on to my LJ account and change my password without telling me the new one, with the general intention of giving LJ up at least semi-permanently (but without deleting my account). I don't write in it any more; I just use it to spy on peoples' lives via my friends page - almost all of whom are people with whom I have zero contact outside of the world of LJ. I don't mean that unkindly, nor do I bear any resentment towards anyone - it's just the way it is. For most of Yale, I didn't tell people about my LJ; I kept it for remaining in contact with HS friends and as a place I could bitch about Yale stuff without fear of it being found by people I knew at Yale. Slowly, almost all of my HS friends dropped off of LJ on their own, and by senior year at Yale, my LJ account had become a place to keep in touch with some Yale people... but now I'm at a point where I speak almost never to any of those people in real life - not that I don't want to, but in practice it just never happens. Anyway, it just felt like it was time to move on.
Apparently, I lasted less than a month.
I'm such a fucking voyeur.
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| Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
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10:31 am - Obligatory sappy NIST post
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| Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
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2:15 am - Oh, man...
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| Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
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2:43 am - Who woulda thunk it?
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I'm almost afraid of writing this in fear of jinxing it, but.......
I'm single. And I'm happy.
For the first time in my life, for the past... oh, 2-3 weeks, I've been 100% happy with being single. Not just that - I want to be single right now. I'm actively not looking for a relationship.
I have a wonderful life with amazing friends. There is SO much I want to do, so many places I want to live before I settle down, and I've come to realize that my idea of finding a relationship where that's okay is just plain silly - because it's basically putting yourself in a long-distance relationship, and tying yourself to it, and thus reducing your freedoms when you're in new places.
The thing that worries me a teeny bit about this is, actually, that for the first time in my life, rather than being uber-committmentphilic, I'm actually becoming the dreaded committmentphobic. I'm actually afraid of becoming tied down because I care too much about my own career path right now. I don't want to be unable to go work in the UK in 3 years because I'm with someone.
I realize full well that in doing this, and in saying these things, I'm starting to become my parents - I'm running the risk of not settling down until my mid or late thirties. And that does suck, because as I've said, I don't want to be 50 when my kids are teenagers. I'd rather be... in my late thirties-early forties. But to do that I'd have to have kids now - and that's simply the last thing I want/need right now. Good LORD I am not ready to be a dad... I am SO far from having my own act together, that would just be... wow. Bad, bad idea.
And that brings me to another point - I may be 24, but I don't really feel much different from when I was 19. I do feel older than high school, of course, but that's about it. I don't feel like an adult. I'm sure part of that is the fact that I'm still in school, and another part of it is probably that a huge part of me never wants to grow up... but I think there's more to it. I don't know what, for sure, but there's something that's making me feel like I'm still really young and not getting any older. I'm not really sure what the repercussions of that are... but I think I like it.
I guess it's a positive feedback loop: I feel young, therefore I don't want to settle down; since I don't want to settle down, I get to do things that young people get to do, like travel freely and not commit to any definite job or career path; since I'm not committed to anything, I don't feel like I'm settled, which makes me feel young; etc etc etc. And as I said - right now, I don't mind it one bit. It makes me really happy.
Other than the part where, since I'm still a student, I'm not making any money. Eff that, yo.
--Evan
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| Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
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8:09 pm
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Really, really depressed right now.
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| Friday, January 18th, 2008
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11:38 am - YES
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I just got re-hired again for another year-long student appointment at NIST starting in May (when my current appointment ends)! Oh my god I love my job, and my life. Best birthday present ever.
Happyhappyhappy wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
--Evan
current mood: :-D :-D :-D
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| Thursday, January 17th, 2008
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10:21 am - Huh.
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For the first time in my life, I am working, i.e. at my job, on my birthday.
Whaddya know.
--Evan
current mood: meh
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| Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
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9:56 am - People and places to visit this semester... holler if you're not on this list and want to be!
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1) Marisa in Baton Rouge
2) Karen in Los Angeles
3) Erica in Tallahassee
4) Opening Day in Chicago with Andrew
5) Southern California with Kevin
6) Las Vegas with whoever wants to go
7) Jarek in Toronto
Since I get back to Fort Collins in late January, and since May is for finals, that leaves February, March, and April to do this travelling - i.e. two+ trips per month.
Hmm... where have I seen that travel schedule before?
--Evan
current mood: go go gadget travel!
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| Monday, January 7th, 2008
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2:32 pm - She's dating someone in GA now...
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...which I found out last night. On the plus side, it took me less than two hours of being awake this morning to realize...
Wait a minute. I spent an entire semester on this girl. There is no reason for me to waste another second of my time on her if she's not interested.
Time to move on. And time to do it in style.
--Evan
current mood: relaxed
current music: Good Charlotte - I Don't Wanna Be In Love (Dance Floor Anthem)
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
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9:57 am - yawn
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holy crap I'm tired.
11 AM class this semester spoiled me. I've got to remember that I can't go to bed after 1AM and still get enough sleep before getting up at 7 and going to work...
sigh.
--Evan
current mood: tiiiired
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
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1:12 am - On eggs and baskets
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I think I've come to realize that I do not, in fact, put all my eggs in one basket. I put them all in what I think is a basket, only to much later find out that this basket was in fact a cruel illusion, so my eggs actually just fell and cracked on the sidewalk. And it's not even a hot summer's day - so my eggs aren't even fried and edible. No, it's winter, so they're frozen to the pavement - icy chunks of yolk and egg white. And I mean come on... that's not even appetizing. Crunchy, uncooked eggs? Ughhhhh. Check, please.
--Evan
current mood: disappointed
current music: none
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| Sunday, November 11th, 2007
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1:03 am - Can't sleep, --> post in LJ!
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Yes, I'm an Ivy Leaguer. I became one on my own. My family didn't buy my way in, and I wasn't a legacy or a minority or anything like that. I earned it by being smart and working hard in high school. I am and will always be extremely proud of that. That's why my diploma is framed in my room at home. That's why I wear my Yale class ring every day.
But spending time with my friends here in Colorado who went to state schools is exposing me to all sorts of things that I realize, in retrospect, I missed - because I went to an Ivy League school.
Okay, namely, I'm talking about college football.
Sure, Yale's football team has got history, and The Game is always fun, but that's all anyone cares about. And they don't care about it because it's football. They care about it because it's a chance to beat Harvard. And really, who cares which rich white athletes are slightly better than the other rich white athletes from year to year? It stinks of elitism purely for the sake of elitism.
However, seeing Georgia's "blackout" today gave me shivers, for two reasons. One, it reminded me of the unity I felt at TJ, especially around homecoming (more on that later, perhaps)... but even moreso, it made me realize that I wished I had memories of going to every home football game along with 90% of the student body and getting drunk with my friends and just... being a part of something huge like that. Sure, Matt was a diehard Yale football fan and went to every freakin' home game... but he was the exception. Even had I chosen to join him and the few others like him, it would have been nothing near the same, because it was such a minority of the student body who went to the games - nothing like at a big state school. I mean, even The Game my junior year was overshadowed by The Prank - proving even more that it just wasn't about the football. It was about being better than Harvard. Now I'm all for rivalries and that but like.... honestly? It's Yale and Harvard. Yes, Yale is better, but holy shit they're basically the same. Argh, it's kind of hard to make my point here but what I'm trying to say is that it's really silly for Yale to unify only over wanting to be better than Harvard (or vice versa). They're not the same school, but 95% of the people who go to Yale could switch with 95% of the people who go to Harvard and you wouldn't notice the difference, intellectually or otherwise. It just seems to me that it would be much more ... envigorating? pride-inducing? to unify each week around actually caring about how your school's football team does.
I guess in a way I'm calling out Yale students for being bandwagon fans of the football team for just one game per year, and I'm also calling out the Ivy League for being in Division I-AA. Seriously, what the fuck? WE INVENTED COLLEGE FOOTBALL! It's a fucking disgrace that we're not even in a division that COULD play for a national championship! It's absurd that there's only ONE GAME that matters in the entire Ivy League each year (The Game) (no, really, ask a Cornell student or a Columbia student if they even knew their college had a football team. and Princeton likes to think they matter... but they don't. really. they don't.). The Ivy League champion should be competing for the national title, not wallowing in obscurity.
Seeing the unity of the "blackout" and hearing stories from Lisa and Jerri about going to their college games just... has made me realize how much I miss that sort of feeling. If there's one thing Yale lacked, I would say it's a sole "thing" for us all to identify with and rally around, other than, y'know, being Yalies. Which was a big deal, of course, but like... what does that mean? When it comes down to it it's just a word on your diploma (okay it's a kickass word to have on your diploma and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but you know what I mean). I loved the residential college system, but in a way, I wonder if it helped to foster this perceived lack of a Yale identity that I'm attempting to describe. I also think that the multitude of extracurriculars that everyone participated in at Yale helped to create the diversity that resulted in the lack of a "Yale" identity, unless that diversity itself can be considered an identity. Which I suppose it can, but doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose? Wow I'm rambling. Anyway. But seriously, think about it - as I finally grew to love Yale, it wasn't for Yale. It was for Pierson and my friends there (having Annie thrown into the mix for my last semester was a nice touch as well, of course, but that's sort of irrelevant, since I would have had fond memories of Yale with or without her). In a way, you could argue that in fact, I never actually grew to love Yale - I grew to love Pierson (wow I've never thought of it that way before... I'm going to have to spend some time thinking about that, but for now I'll just roll with it). Why? Because Pierson was the closest thing to a "football team" that we had to rally around. It was an institution in and of itself, it had its own sports teams (most of which I played on) for us to cheer for. I feel like I had more in common with the average Piersonite than with the average Yalie. I wonder if that's true for all of the residential colleges? All Yalies do a hell of a lot of different activities - but in almost none of them (barring varsity sports, but so few Yalies are varsity athletes that it's kind of irrelevant) are we representing Yale itself. When I sang a cappella, I was representing the Spizzwinks(?). When I sang in Schola, I was representing the music grad school, in effect. I never got the feeling that these activities represented Yale itself... just tiny little parts of Yale. But when I played IMs for Pierson, I was representing Pierson. I definitely felt that connection - and I think what I'm saying I missed, and what I feel like most Yalies missed, is the feeling of representing Yale in any way, shape, or form when we were students there (except at The Game, of course, but my entire point is that that was contrived and fleeting and silly, because it was more about being better than Harvard than caring about Yale).
I'm really glad I never lived off campus. I feel like in that case I would have had no identity at all at Yale. Or at least, no Yale identity at Yale (if that makes sense).
I guess there is something to be said for the quintessential "Yale identity" being doing your own thing and finding your own activities. And I know from experience that Yalies love and are passionate about Yale - but like.... asldkfja;lsdkh argh I just can't describe it. Yale is an awesome place and it gave those of us who went there such fantastic opportunities... but they were all definitely do-it-yourself type things. Every organization was its own separate little entity, with no real connections to Yale or other organizations. It was like a hub-and-spokes arrangement, but without the hub - it was as if the hub was purposefully detached from the spokes. And maybe that's sort of the point. Maybe that's how Yale is so good at creating each new generation of leaders. I just wish it weren't so for EVERYTHING there, because I'm realizing now how I missed out on feeling like I was a part of something awesome and big.
With respect to the TJ comment from earlier, basically, what I meant was not so much that we cared about the football game at homecoming, because honestly, we usually didn't, really (though it was very representative of my TJ years that we won freshman and senior years and lost soph and junior years), but the homecoming competitions themselves gave us something to rally around and represent TJ for. I can refer back to an entry I wrote about a month or two into my freshman year at Yale, talking about how much I missed having that sense of being a part of something that I'd gotten when parading the float down the TJ track during the homecoming game, in front of EVERYONE - all the TJ students, alums, parents, etc who were there, organizing the ripping off of our jackets to show our SuperSeniors shirts, feeling that incredible sense of pride in showing off the float that we'd spent so much time on... sure, we were representing the class of '02, but we were also represeting TJ itself. We loved '02 and '02 loved TJ. '02 was TJ for two (or arguably more) years - we probably took over de facto after '99 left, just like '99 was TJ for its own 2 years. Yes, the competitions were between the classes... but what was the root of the competition? It was showing that we were the most proud of being TJ students. We were rallying around a unified identity that, at the root of it, was defined by the school we attended.
I feel like I never had that at Yale. And I feel like if I'd gone to a state school where the football team was a big deal (or somewhere like Duke with their basketball team), I would have found that identity to associate with and be proud of.
I have a feeling the Yalies who read this might not agree with me at first - but think about it. Each of you had a couple of activities at Yale that your entire Yale identity centered around (i.e. mine were IMs and Schola, Kirsten's were swimming and slavs, etc etc). Each of those activities had a very dedicated following (usually consisting of the other participants, occasionally also including a small fan base) - and outside of that following, no one cared one bit (or probably even knew) about that activity. My argument, in a nutshell, is that there was no one activity or group or club or sport or anything that everyone (or at least the vast majority of people) at Yale cared about. And that sort of sucks. And that's why in a way, I'm really sorry that I missed out on the opportunity to go to college at a state school, and experience that unity.
I guess that's a long enough rambly entry for now. I've been writing for over an hour. I'm still not that tired, but I should at least try to sleep.
--Evan
current mood: tired
current music: none
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
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11:43 pm - Of sugar and ice, I am made
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There is so much for me out here in Colorado.
I'm surprisingly more excited for this coming school year than I have been since ... oh, probably senior year of high school. The past 6 months have been probably the hardest/most depressed of my life; however, this summer back home with Kevin, Andrew, and NIST was exactly what I needed. I regained two of the most important things in my life: my confidence/carefreeness (for me, that's really one thing, not two), and my conviction that I'm doing what I love and want to do.
Colorado already feels like a second home to me. Unexpectedly, I actually look forward to coming "home" to my apartment. It'll never, ever be Fairfax - nothing will - but it's comforting how comfortable I feel here... and I don't even have any close friends yet. Though that will be remedied within the next few weeks, oh yes it will.
I'm looking forward to my classes. I'm REALLY looking forward to my research. I'm looking forward to getting up early to watch soccer in my apartment on Saturdays* and to play soccer on Sundays. I'm looking forward to having a cool group of people to hang out with on random weekday nights, to go out to the awesome bars in downtown fococo on Thursday/Friday/Saturday nights (heck, maybe I'll start the CSU version of TNC), and to share the awesomeness that is my life with. Maybe I'll find a girl to do that with too, maybe I won't. Honestly, right now, that's just not as important to me as finding that core group of people to hang out with.
All that being said, I expect to still have a fairly busy travel/visitation schedule, just a much more diverse one than last year. Toronto, Baton Rouge, Edinburgh, and London are some of the cities that will be visited by yours truly in the coming months. Los Angeles and Williamsburg will most likely be added to that list. As I wryly observed to Marisa, I won't really be travelling much less than I did last year - I'll just be having a lot less sex :-Þ
*So I have this idea that I'll post sort of an open invitation on Craigslist or something, advertising my apartment as the place to be on Saturday mornings for any and all EPL fans. Sort of an open party for anyone who wants to come and share their love of soccer. I realize I'm sort of risking attracting random sketchy people by doing something like that, so maybe I'll refine the idea (by like, y'know, not posting my address directly on the Craigslist ad), but also I think it would be a fantastic way to meet people with a similar love of the sport that I might not otherwise meet.
Anyway. I'm really proud of myself for making it through the past half year intact. Breakups are never easy, but this one was particularly rough on me (not like that's news to any of you), and from late April through late May it was everything I had to keep it together until summer (if drinking alone in my apartment each night while watching TV counts as "keeping it together," that is). Since then, though, I'm loving my life, I had an awesome summer back home with my friends - Andrew and Kevin, of course, but also Amy, Becky, Kristin, Karen, Erica, Chris... and anyone else I might have accidentally omitted - and now I'm really looking forward to the next year here in Colorado, unattached and free to enjoy life here and take advantage of all of the reasons I wanted to come out here in the first place.
Oh yeah, and I'm thinking, come December 31, I might give out the first annual "Fuck You / You're Cool" awards on my livejournal. Stay posted for further updates regarding said idea.
--Evan
current mood: eager
current music: AFI - Love Like Winter
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, August 3rd, 2007
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1:29 pm - NIST
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| Thursday, August 2nd, 2007
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1:56 am
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| Monday, July 30th, 2007
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1:24 pm - Your tax dollars at work
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I spent the first 2+ hours at work this morning writing the following discourse on science and religion. It's posted as a comment in a friend's protected LJ, but I wanted to post it unprotected here so that y'all could read it, 'cause I'm kind of proud of it.
( To expound upon religion. )
--Evan
current mood: accomplished
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| Saturday, July 28th, 2007
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3:45 pm - We post mostly for amusement purposes... mostly.
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