April 2003 Archives

Alright, I'm long overdue for another update. Not a whole whole lot has happened, but I'll try to highlight most of the key points.

I think I mentioned (at least I was going to mention) that I would put up a chart with the pro cons of each of the four schools I was considering for college. However, that's irrelevant now because I've already chosen a college and mailed the papers in. Drum roll ladies and germs, .... it's Northwestern. I think that I started the chart, and was going to post it, but then all of a sudden it was time to make a decision and I still hadn't posted the chart. Here's what I finished of it, I didn't really get very far. So I'm off to Chicago next year! Here's the cool thing, I don't have to be there till September 14th for New Student week. That's a lot later than most schools, and my classes don't even start till the 22nd of that month. I do stay later in the spring though, June 10th, 2004 will be the last day of exams, but that means I get to hang around on the beach of Lake Michigan for a few weeks before heading home to the 'ville.

Alright, so, I guess I should start with my visit to Evanston/NU. I did the "Preview NU" program at Northwestern and it was pretty much what did it for me on my decision. I really liked the dorms, the campus was much prettier this time (it was sunny the second day), and the tour was actually worth listening to this time around! My hosts were really cool, and I went to a co-op information session and that program looks really promising.

I'm going to try and destroy my computer engineering classes freshman and sophomore year and build a good enough resume to co-op for Intel, that'd be fun. I know, I know, I keep telling people that I don't want to do computers, and maybe not even engineering. But I figure if I've already got the computer knack, why not stick with it for a while (partly because it's easier for me). And with easier in mind, that will free up some room for a double major in economics. If I can pull all that off (I'd graduate in five years, but only pay four years of tuition) then I'd have a computer engineering degree, with an economics double major, a co-op certificate (oh, and co-oping is where you take quarters off to go work for a company (I'd get paid!)), and a business basics certificate (something new they offer to engineers). Then I'd be set to hit up an MBA or just go straight and get a job and climb my ladder.

So yeah, I came back and didn't have a lot to make up, but I skipped the As I Lay Dying reading that night (it was a double reading because of the weekend) and so I had a triple reading two nights later to make up. The worst part about this, was I was so ready to attack and destroy the discussion the next morning (I even reread crucial sections) and when I get there I find out I have to take the CATS test. Motherfuggas. It pissed me off. That test is so useless, and it really really is surprising HOW nobody from our school has ever gotten a distinguished. My essay was to write a retarded speech about school experiences. It was dumb.

Thursday I work like mad to finish off the prints for my photo book, and Friday after school I make and put together the box for my book because it would be the only thing ACTUALLY requiring a matt board cutter. Saturday afternoon I wake up before the CRACK O' NOON (believe it or not) and get an early start on the day at eleven o'clock. After the routine shower and lunch for breakfast, I head to kinkos and from noon to two I'm there cutting my cotton paper into the dimensions I need. It took me a while because I had to make all my measurements there at the store, plus I wasn't just cutting squares, I was cutting a few l-shaped papers as well. But when I finally got all my measurements squared away I was able to crank out fifteen replicas and headed to preston art center. There, I bought the necessary utensils for the entire construction of my book: a stainless steel straight edged ruler, and an exacto knife with five extra blades (totaled to just over six dollars).

I mess around for an hour or two at home, setting up plans for that evening to expect phone calls from both Marc Farris and Matt Schutz, and then go start working on my photo book. I watched I movie while I worked on it, the first movie: The Royal Tenenbaums. Marc never calls. Matt calls later than I thought he would only to tell me he wouldn't be at the best buy party till ten fifteen but would call me (Aaron piles, a manager there, great great guy, is leaving to go back to new york). Well, I kept waiting for Matt to call, and he never did, and I started thinking that maybe he told me he wouldn't call, and at this point I was watching Donnie Darko (still working on my photo book) and didn't want to show up at the party unannounced. But by the time Donnie Darko ended it was 11:30 and I basically was like "shit." At this point I had maybe 4 pages cut with my exacto knife (the process was horrendously slow).

Around midnight I get a call finally from Schutz wondering where I am, I'd woken back up by this point cause the third movie was Big Lebowski, and I'm like "ok, I'll come over." But I couldn't get out of the house cause the parents were home by this point, and my Dad had gone to walk the dog (which meant he would have seen my Jeep missing from the street). I call Matt back and tell him I'm not going to make it past the parents, and he says no problem, and I go back downstairs and keep working on the photo book till Big Lebowski ends around 12:30 or 1:00. I had six pages done. I wake up at 11:40 the next day, and step into the shower, but then step back out without turning on the water and put clothes on and go running instead (I don't like to have to shower twice, so I try to run before I shower). I did three laps, but didn't go to lift weights because my cold was making it hard to breathe (and it was hard to finish the third lap with my nose totally clogged and my breathing so irregular).

I head straight back to my photo book. My fourth movie was the Mothman Prophecies. Not bad, but not a lot of it is ever actually explained (the plot is totally explained, but there's a lot of random gaps in the overall setting and various "why me" questions never answered). I continue on the book at this point I'm finally gluing and watching number five, Showtime (on HBO). Then I moved to Snatch, which finished perfectly just before we went to dinner at the Louisville Country Club. I had chicken covered with crab, over some mushroom risotto ... mmm it was good. I came home and started the evening with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Showtime). Next was Better Off Dead, which is pretty much 80's comic genius. Wow a great movie. After this I took an hour break from 10:30 to 11:30 talking online to Joanna, Tyler, Marjorie, and others. This was my problem, getting online for an hour. I finished up Better Off Dead, and at midnight moved to Spy Game. Somehow this is over around 3, so somehow figure out where the lost time went. My last movie was Oh Brother Where Art Thou which ended at 5:00. I decide not to put another movie in because I'd only get forty minutes into it before I had to get up off the couch and take a shower and get ready for school. (oh yeah, did I say I did the whole thing on the couch? I had a piece of mount board on my lap as a table (this worked quite well actually, didn't slow me down at all (and some people told me the movies were my problem, but I only was actually looking up at the screen while glue was drying and such, and when mothman prophecies was playing the scary music)).

So at 5:40, I still had no text, I had all but two pages left to glue to my binding (remember, the book required cutting paper, cutting paper again to fold into frames, cutting frames, gluing frames, making binding, then gluing pages to binding). I came into school, still having not slept yet, and glue the last two pages on. I then glue the paper for my box onto the outside of the box, and head to math class. Somehow, riding off only a shot of Dayquil taken when I got out of the shower, I made it through first and second period. Math I was nodding off, but that's normal, and actually I did better that day then I do some others. English was a practice app test and I did pretty well I think! Too bad I'm not taking the test anymore (Diya and I are going to go get breakfast after math that day since nobody will be in English May 5th ... if anyone is in the same boat, perhaps they'd care to join?). Photo class we present our books. I write one page of text, and Mr. Curtis gives us all an extension till Tuesday morning (this morning). Nothing much to say, for the rest of the day, except I didn't go to bed until 11:00 (I was awake for a good 36 hours). I woke up this morning, drank too bottled coffee Frappuccinos for safety measures, and finished the last four pages of text in my book in the car in the parking lot. I couldn't think of a title for one of the pages, so I went in at 7:35 and wrote the last four words for the title in the photo room at 7:39 and ran to creative writing having finally finished the book from hell.

That about does it, I don't think I'm going to go to prom because I was thinking how great it would be to not go broke just because I feel obligated to take someone I don't really talk to very much to prom just because all the people I considered asking (who weren't already dating someone) were all not going to prom. This way I’ll save money, because that'd be sixty for tickets, at LEAST forty for dinner (because I like to eat good food and I like to eat a lot of it), corsage, and tux, I could probably save at least 150-200 dollars. And I think I may go to a before dinner and just chill at some after party (or maybe not even that). Quite seriously, people are like "but it's senior prom, you have to go, you'll regret it when you're forty" but I'm like "ok, I wont' regret it, because I went to Junior prom and it was such a great night that I can just pretend like Junior prom was Senior prom." Besides, even if I did go, Junior prom would still be the better memory because I was really into it for reasons I’m sure half of you remember.

Alright, so that's that, I'm tired and have math homework to do (which I may just blow off and do it tomorrow morning cause I'm tired still from skipping an entire night's worth of sleep this week).

S.

I just checked the size of the war post and as of right now it's 450KB! (500KB if you're the administrator, which you're not). 450KB means 91 seconds to load for a 56k modem and 29 seconds for cable or dsl modem. That's a long time.

So I've decided that until I can get a nice paging system to work (where it says "view next 10-20 comments" or something like that) I'm going to ask that to spare all of our modems we continue the gay rights discussion here. I know it started as war, but it's not gay rights, and who knows maybe by the next 100 comments it'll be space exploration or the legality and ethics of genetically cloning humans one twentieth their orignal size to be used as pets in little dollhouses and hamster cages.

Thanks everyone. Oh, and to update on my life (I know the journal entries haven't been very good, but I'll start good ones back up soon) I'm going to be in Evanston/Chicago tomorrow and tuesday.

Spork.

I don't know, not much to update on, I'm still prom date-less and I've been under the weather with allergies all week, plus the whole lack of sleep bit.

I just wanted to notify the masses that I've put up some new photos.

Bridge
Elwood
Tree (Horizontal)
Tree (Vertical)

Let me know what you think. Oh, and we're 80 something posts on the war topic, kudos to Joanna. Jordan wants to hit 100 comments, so go read the first 80 if you haven't and then give your input.

Spork.

It's back!

Alright, well, time for another college update. But first, I need to update since tuesday. Tuesday, I don't recall doing anything. If I remember, I'll let you know.

Wednesday, we left for Baltimore and got in about 5:00 to our hotel and then at 6:40 went with my brother Joe (older, Hopkins senior) to a place called Bycicles. Appetizer: Sashimi Tuna with Avacado something ... WOW! Some of the best Sashimi I've had in a while. Incredible. Dinner: Spicy Mahi-mahi with linquine and cilantro and other spices. Damn good as well. Oh, it had some shrimp too. Desert: Some really good chocolate cake. All the adults got tipsy, and then the following transpired:

We were talking about Joe and his girlfriend, and my mom was going off on how Joe should end the relationship if he doesn't want to get married. It was totally illogical, but we wont' touch on that and basically Joe says to her "Mom, you even told us that Dad wasn't your first boyfriend" (or somethig like that, there was a reference to how as a kid I think she DID tell us that Dad was her first, but that's I guess what you tell your kids till they're older). Mom replies back with something like "I did date before your father, I had dated a lot" and Jimmy goes "Mom was a ho." Joe and I were already laughing about the dated a lot comment and this comment from jim just fueled the fire and we were laughing uncontrollably. Even my Dad chuckled slightly. Needless to say, the mother unit gets really pissed off, and yells at all of us and tries telling us that we're chauvinist pigs. And the best part was that then she tries telling us that we get it from none other than ... our father? This was too much for us, we can't stop laughing (most of it internal, cause she's yelling) and afterwards we kept cracking jokes that the Hanauer men are pigs and we get it from Dad. right.

Thursday we spent the day in Washington, DC. We ate lunch with Emily this time at a restaurant in Georgetown called the Peacock Cafe. Good bread, but the burger I got was kind of ... different. It had goganzala cheese. I should have just ordered a regular burger. But yeah, the restaurant is pretty good otherwise, desert was INCREDIBLE. This chocolate souflet thingy (called the Chocolate volcano). Only news on Emily was that she lit her friend's kitchen on fire the other day. Rest of the afternoon was spent walking from George Washington University to the Thomas Jefferson memorial and back (the way there along the patomic, the way back through the FDR memorial). We then drive the Charlottesville, VA where we check in at the Cavelier Inn (a best western) and then eat at this little restaurant right next to it where we get potato skins that were ... incredible.

Friday I do the whole UVA bit. I still love UVA, just like I did in Seventh Grade when I saw it. Secret Societies (I'm thinking if I go I'm going to start my own), dorms are twice as big as Illinois's dorms, and best of all ... this was the first school I went to where there was a constant flow of good looking girls. Do not get confused, this doesn't mean every girl at UVA is good looking, it just means that you could always look around and fine one. Whereas the other schools I saw it was once every now and then you saw a girl that was good looking. UIllinois, as large as the school is, I didn't really see any. WashU, again, same thing (even my parents commented that they didnt' see any good looking girls). So I guess thus is the nature of smart schools ... or maybe private schools? No, cause Illinois is public. And UVA is technically smart. I dunno, but I don't think any of the schools I applied to are as bad as Hopkins, so that's good.

My only problem with UVA is that it sounds like it would be pretty hard by their curriculum to double major. So I'd be stuck doing just engineering, and on top of that I dont' think the Computer Engineering at UVA is as good as Northwestern or WashU's (although I dunno ... perhaps a good time to ask that JLew lend me that US News and World Report book thingy). WashU told me I could double major pretty easily with the Engineering and business school. Northwestern, I havent talked to, but that was all one of my information sessions was about, was how so many students double major and they encourage it. (but with NU, I think it'd be engineering and Economics, I dont' think they have an undergrad business school). Plus NU's coop program definitely seems the strongest.

But yeah, UVA food supposedly isn't bad (according to two students), the campus was beautiful even though it was totally rainy, everyone was nice, the campus was booming with activity (again, rainy, so this was a change, cause the other schools were all rainy too), etc. I really think the only flaw is that I don't think I can do the business and engineering deal, or coop. UVA students do coop, but only a small few. Whereas Northwestern a third of the enginnering students coop (in contradicition to my cousin amy's remarks that NU had no coop program). So I still don't know. I'll do a pro/con chart after I see northwestern. (I've already got it formulating)

We got a tour of the school, engineering panel discussion, engineering tour, dorm rooms tour (old dorm hall style, new dorm hall style, and new dorm suite style are the choice, we toured all three, I like the suites best I think). OH, and according to one girl UVA is an XBOX college. Rawk.

We drove back that afternoon, but not before eating at the hardware store. (it's a restaurant, called the hardware store). We ate there five years ago when we were looking at UVA for Joe, and it was just as good this time around. We got in about 12:00. I have 60 pages left in "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers. Great book, I'll finish it tonight.

Yesterday I got some work done, picked up the dog from the kennel, and then around 8:00 I walked from here to waterfront for thunder. I made it at about 9:10, and then walked around so that I wasn't standing in someone's view for too long, then when the fireworks started I just watched from the sidewalk (once everyone's realizes that everybody usually stands up they stop complaining that I'm standing in front of them because now they're standing and it doesn't matter) and then i walked home. Got back around 11:10, totally exhausted (the walk up my hill I think burns more energy than the entire walk to waterfront and back (I drove it last year to double check it was doable ... I think 3 miles? 4?)

So that was that. Today I took this quiz, see how you do.

Spork.

My little brother is hilarious: he complains any time I beat him in a game. Like the whole chess deal where it was 13 games (me) to 3 (him) and he wouldn't play any more after that. And now Halo. Anyway, yeah, just got done playing with him, it was just funny to see him whining like a girl.

So the University of Illinois is a very nice school. Great education, good facilities, an excellent social life, but unfortunately I just don't think it is for me. I just got back today from Champaign-Urbana and I had a lot of fun doing their program and staying in a dorm with these guys, but while I enjoyed myself and thought the school was fine, I don't see myself there. Interestingly, it's the best engineering school I applied to, they're fifth in the nation for Computer Engineering too. But it's just all, to use a term my brother Joe used last night, too intense. The campus is gigantic, you take a bus to get everywhere pretty much, or ride a bike. Walking is alright if you live close enough (like the Illinois street residence hall, for example, which is very close to the engineering quad (which in itself is a very impressive quad)). But 28,000 students and close to ninety percent of them being from Illinois, is just a bit intimidating for me. I'd prefer one of the middle sized schools I applied to like WashU, UVA, or Northwestern.

I did the driving all by myself this time, and without parents. I average 75 mph the entire way, and made it there in three hours and fifty minutes or so, with two stops, and the way home I did in three and a half with no stops. After three four hour driving trips (St. Louis one-way and Illinois both ways) I'm getting used to road trip driving. It's fun, I want to go somewhere this summer (I'm thinking Chicago pretty much) and I think after these trips it'll be more likely because I'll have more trust from the parental units. Yeah, so, I took the tour of the campus, and the engineering tour, then they gave some stupid lecture, then the Xtensions chords came on (an acapella group) and sang, and they rawked! Then we ate dorm food (it wasn't bad that night or the next morning, but I could see how it might get old after a while, kinda like cafeteria food this year). Then we met our hosts and we played a hella lot of RBI Baseball (hell yeah!) and Time Splitters 2 on Gamecube (not bad, I expected it to be better after all the hype Phil gave it). We did other stuff too, but that was the high lights.

So yeah, tomorrow is my spring break in Louisville, I think I'll take pictures if anyone is game, and then Wednesday morning we leave for east coast, I think hit Baltimore that night and eat dinner with Joe, DC the next day with Emily (for some reason I want to say we're actually going to sight see the city, which blows, because it's not like all of us haven't been to DC more than three times and seen all the same repetitive attractions. Then Friday we'll hit up UVA for Days on the Lawn, or Lawn Days, and then I hope come home the next day. Or I guess even that night. I hope I don't do ALL the driving, as fun as it is, because one I can't listen to my cd's the whole way, and two I wanted to at least finish A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius over spring break, and maybe start You Shall Know our Velocity, but I'll be lucky to finish the first one. But if I didn't have to drive, I could get a lot of reading done.

Alright, so, the fam rented One Hour Photo, and I was going to watch it, but then when I came back from taking my brother to his friend's house I found that the rents had already started watching Bourne Identity (great movie, but I wanted to watch One Hour Photo cause I haven't seen it). So I'll hit that up later if I don't fall asleep.

SPo

Sorry, I had to take off Joanna's radiohead album post. Jo, if you want to write up a review of the album that'd be awesome and totally appreciated (and a great idea, actually, if I weren't traveling I'd do it) but for logistics purposes, ethics, and etiquette, I have to remove that link to the album (and because the post served no purpose with no link, I decided just to remove the whole post).

Anyway, I'll update on what's new. Yes, there's a new radiohead album coming out in a few months and most people have it already and it's very good. Not much happened this week, although, I wrote up this post (a short one) about how I was sick and going to bed (this was early week) and I didn't get into UPenn but it didn't matter because that made my decision making process easier (because Penn wasn't any higher on the list than the others that are all tied for the same spot). But that post didn't make it to the site, and to be honest I'm not sure why it didn't. I thought I hit preview and submit twice, but whatever.

So yeah, other than that, the week was fairly simple, with decision letters making everyone happy (for the most part, I haven't heard of any major upsets other than I think Marc Farris deserves to go to Harvard but screw them their pretentious pricks anyway), and I also found out this piece was bumped from gold at the state to silver at the national now, so that's cool. I couldn't believe that Ballard boy swept the state level which such average pieces (and square prints), but then to see he'd swept the national level was unbelievable. A gold key for that stupid dog picture!

Anyway, I just got back from St. Louis, looking at WashU, and tomorrow I leave bright and early to head to Champaign and see Illinois. I did all the driving from Louisville to St. Louis last night, and that was fun. Especially the crazy crazy thunder and lightning and heavy rain (for only like ten minutes). I hate driving with my mom though, she's hypercritical of my driving, and a total hypocrite at the same time. She yells at me for making adjustments to my dad's cell phone in the cup holder or even the air conditioning. She thinks that if I take my eyes off the road for a split second we'll die. SHE COMPLETELY FLIPS OUT, and it's terrible, and then she does this thing where she grabs the handles for dear life, and it just really ticks me off, because she drove BACK today, and she tried making a shitty joke and turned around to look at me and smile and held that look for at least a second and a half! And she dances to shitty oldies while she drives, and not that oldies are bad but she'll be snapping her fingers instead of two hands on the wheel like she wants me to do 24/7 and the car jerks when she snaps. And she tried telling me that you need two hands on the wheel, even when putting the car in reverse and backing out of the driveway.

And excuse the ranting, but when I tried telling her that the only reason for two hands on the wheel was so that you wouldn't lose control of the wheel while driving and that there's no way to lose control of the wheel backing out of your own driveway, she replied that you could hit something and then you'd have lost control. I told her that the reason I only use one hand when I back out of the driveway is so that I can turn my body around more to look behind me while I back up, and as a second note, anyone who hits something backing up is a complete idiot in the first place and shouldn't be on the road! To which she actually tried arguing that they weren't an idiot. I didn't want to remind her that she's the only one in the family that's hit our own mailbox twice and she wanted to tell me that people who hit stuff backing up are not complete idiots. I kept my mouth shut on that one. There's a lot more, but I'd be wasting time continuing.

Wash U was cool, I'd be find going there. It was knock out oh my god I want to go here so bad, but everything about it seems fine and I know I'd be very happy there. We took a Wash U tour of St. Louis, and St. Louis seems like a very cool place to be as well, so I'd be happy in that city. And holy shit! Two blocks off campus was a church of scientology! It had a sign and everything, and the building was all concrete kind of ... Christian churchy architecture! I had no idea there were scientology churches, I seriously thought they just met at random houses and had mini seminars. And I certainly wouldn't think it'd have church-like architecture, I'd think the scientologists would have some sort of metal spaceship looking contraption. Anyway, yeah, we were the only family there for the engineering tour, so we got one on one with this systems engineer chick who showed us around. Seems like a fine school. We'll see how the rest turn out. And since I've gotta get up early and drive alone to Urbana/Champaign, I should probably hit the hay. AND THANK GOD I CAN LISTEN TO MY OWN MUSIC TOMORROW! That was the worst part about driving up, is the four hour ride we listened to one Elliot Smith and one Belle and Sebastian, and those two cd's are only 40 minutes long. The rest of the time was either oldies, mix stations, Delilah, or stupid middle aged best hits stations.

S.