There is something I don't understand about coming home.  I suppose I want to learn more about psychology, but I don't want it influenced by my preconceptions about it and, in particular, the people I associate with it.  I wish I understood why my Tetris Winamp skin and Link's Awakening desktop wallpaper are so important to me.  There are people I'm glad to see, but I wish I didn't feel so dehabilitated.  I just need to remember that, in general, life is unfair in my favor.

Weeks or months or years from now, I can think back to days I spent with friends, stressing over homework, eating, goofing off, or actually engaged in something productive.  In the distant future, I'll probably appreciate what I have even more.  But at that date, am I going to care about the interminable hours I spent surfing the internet, checking my email, blogging, and generally living in my own mind, but more transiently than if I read a book?  Of course not.

Other than the nagging feeling that I'm unduly monopolizing some people's time (when do their significant others get to see them?) and occasionally mismanaging my time, I am so satisfied with daily life.  I'm incredibly happy to be getting less sleep than I did during Winter Break, and I am happy with the quality of sleep that I get.  I was recently asked to help fabricate some dreams for a psychology assignment, and I'm pleased to say that I cannot remember any dreams I've had since the semester started.

Think of an activity that occupies your mind, overriding unwanted obsessive thoughts with new repetitive patterns; something so addictive that you're burning calories and possibly building muscle, and sleeping better at night, but it's not just "exercise."  It's probably for the best that I don't own any equipment and that they're not in all of the dorms, because just as not having a TV keeps me from going overboard, having some distance (and financial cost) moderates it all a bit.

Spend more time with some people: check.  Studied for exams and put forth a reasonable amount of effort into classes such that I do not feel like I'm squandering my life's opportunitites: check.  Remember how to enjoy my own company and stay sane: check.  And yet I'm somehow not ready to leave at all.  Going home is going to be fun, I know, but I've easily built up enough here that I'm starting to miss it already.  School is a wonderful thing.

Why is keeping a journal any more normal than talking to oneself?  That's all it is to me, particularly when done in the privacy of pen and paper.  Today, I gave some thought to the fact that I'm both privileged and fortunate, and therefore vowed to take greater advantage of what life supplies me.  I also need to spend more time with some people, especially before I have to leave this place for nearly a month at a time.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

As much as I like my laptop, and as much as I like typing on its keyboard (because flatter keyboards are better than those normal ones with giant-feeling keys), I am not much of a touchpad person.  (Not much one for hugs, either, but that's entirely different.)  Luckily, I grew up using a computer with a lousy mouse, so I've grown to love keyboard shortcuts.  I can appreciate the intuitive appeal of graphical interfaces, and do prefer them, but I need to be able to navigate without a mouse.

I mean no offense to the person I know who likes them, and he will (presumably) never see this post, but man, Simple Plan is so whiny.  I do my own share of complaining, but the intro to "I'm Just A Kid" is pretty awful.  That said, I'm liking the bit of Sum 41 I'm listening to on other people's iTunes collections (I like college networks), so there's that.  But who cares if my tastes are synched up with other people's?  That's only really good for playing Name That Tune.

Time passes incredibly quickly.  In three hours, I register for next semester's classes, which will not spell the end of the world, even if I don't get what I want.  This semester's Calc 2 class was not so bad as I expected; of course, this only means my classes will seem ridiculously hard next semester, when I'm taking things I've never seen before.  I feel like I shouldn't be living on chocolate croissants and peach iced tea, but that's one of the best things about living in Wean.

I knew sleeping with two blankets instead of one was a bad idea, but I did it anyway.  I woke up just as Physics recitation was ending.  As Claire said, though, it's probably better that I slept through the recitation for exam review than the exam itself.  I've learned my lesson for tomorrow morning.  I'm also having a friend call me to wake me up, because missing the exam would be bad.  I hear they used to be in the evenings, but being me, I'd probably just forget it then.

I need to avoid awkwardly walking into friends' backpacks.  I need to stop attending club meetings when I really have no reason to do so.  I need to read more.  I need to spend more time outdoors like I did this afternoon.  I need to stay focused.  I need to be able to take naps.  I need some Green Day and Metallica.  I need to eat on a better schedule.  I need to stop playing puzzles and word games.

I'm going to be a hypocrite in writing this entry (I can't say why because it would be awkward), but the important part is that I told a lot of people that I don't listen to music at all, even though that's sort of untrue; I listen to Green Day and Metallica and a few token cliched pop / rock songs, and I scared a friend by mouthing out the lyrics to "Forgot About Dre" because I went through a bit of a phase in middle school.  All this adds up to the fact that I finally want my laptop back, and not just for coding.

Don't you find it awkward when you walk around a city with a friend and some complete stranger stops to talk to your friend?  I'm never sure how to react to that.  It's also kind of humorous when you go to a bookstore with a friend and then walk down into the basement whose door is discreetly hidden away in a corner, so your friend is totally puzzled at where you are.  Finally, it's a really bad idea to sit outside when you're not wearing a coat that protects you from cold wind, especially in Pittsburgh.

On the advice of numerous people, and because logistics allow it, I've been being a bit more impulsive in the past two months.  Granted, I'm me, so anything I like to do tends to be incredibly safe and predictable anyway; for example, I spent my Sunday night watching an old movie in a CS lecture hall with my programming professor and 20 or 30 of my geekier fellow CS majors.  It was fun, the experience more so than the movie (though I did enjoy the randomness of the movie).  I like nights like this.

I'm awake to print some double-spaced pages.  You would think that after IB, I would be confident about essays, even those about History, but it's still tough when you lack motivation.  The thing is, though, people don't seem to realize how incredibly easy it is to write a bad essay within a few hours.  I'm starting to feel like an underachiever in some aspects, but I'm still fine.  I just wish my work were work I wanted to do.  Isn't that the point of a major?

Is there any better motivation than jealousy?  Well . . . yeah.  But for now, short of erasing thoughts from my brain forcibly ("You watched it!  You can't un-watch it!"), I don't know what to do.  Today's brands of delinquency, so to speak, were good, but exhaustion catches up with you at some point, especially if your naps tend to be eight minutes long.  It's cold outside, though, so I expect to be awake reasonably early tomorrow morning, because my room will be an icebox.

I want to move to mostly mouseless computer usage at some point, but in the meantime, it kind of discourages me how far I am from that.  I can't believe I never knew about ctrl+U (viewing source code) and ctrl+L (jumping to the URL bar) when I do those two all the time.  Anyway, I just wanted to say (to myself) that it's rather disturbing to check the 15-200 bboard and find that I've read these articles from links on Slashdot at least a week ago . . . and I'm sure at least half of my classmates have as well.

I really need to relearn Interfaces.  It's so impossible to concentrate when you have a computer in front of you with internet access.  It's also distracting when classmates sitting somewhere in front of you push a million Mac shortcuts to make their screen flash weirdly.  How do you poke someone from six feet away?  (Which reminds me, I still need to learn zephyr.)  At least Shift+Command+left/right makes Safari easy.  But still; how unintuitive.

As part of my ongoing efforts not to fail at doing useful stuff, I've avoided Windows almost continuously for three weeks.  I may use Macs a little bit less, too, unless that gets ridiculously hard right when I really need to do all my homework efficiently, though I doubt anything besides 15-200 would cause me problems with that.  I also need to Google everything I don't know, immediately when I realize I don't know it, and consult Wikipedia when I have larger blocks of time to read stuff.

My handwriting in my paper journal is getting better.  I didn't sleep too much in the last four nights, but waking up with a headache on one day provides incentive.  I was stupid today--I worked on a paired programming project for more than an hour, and I forgot to save it to the part of my files that I can access from any computer in the network.  Good thing I remembered which computer I worked at and was able to log in and retrieve it tonight, before any further panic could set in.

Today I walked down a hallway very similar to the one in my photo.  I don't have the camera with me, but I did nearly memorize the funny wash-your-hands warning sign in the restroom in the UC.  There is something I wanted to convey but really could not have photographed: the totally incongruous inflatable pool of muscular guys hot-tubbing right next to the sidewalk that leads into the stadium, being stared at by every freshman that had to walk past them and wonder what they were doing there.

I was okay with the fact that I'm missing Otakon for the second year in a row (!) until I went to the web site and realized that both Edward Elric (Vic Mignogna) and Ranma / Inuyasha (Richard Ian Cox) will be there, in addition to some other unsurprising guests—Fred Gallagher (Megatokyo), Masao Murayama (Madhouse Studios), and Seiji Mizushima (Evangelion director).  Actually, I cheated a bit on that second list; I do not know how to spell or even ID those names without looking them up (thank goodness).

I may prefer the old me in terms of writing and openness and blogging-related traits, but I'm excited about a few things I've been downloading. Right now, I'm using Windows XP (and downloaded Damn Small Linux to experiment with), OpenOffice (formerly WordPerfect et al.), Firefox (formerly Opera), AVG Anti-Virus (formerly Norton), iTunes (formerly Windows Media Player), AdAware (formerly Spybot S&D), GIMP (formerly Photoshop Elements), and a few other add-ons like ATnotes, Picasa, ZoneAlarm, and Eclipse.

Only three more days until I can take another photo of that place depicted on this blog (if I so desire).  I always want to read an encyclopedia after practice . . . or quit quiz bowl forever, depending on how the practice goes.  I wonder if I will ever again love playing as much as I love reading.  Or maybe McK was accidentally right when he said that I would masquerade as a high school student and see them at nationals again next year . . . that would rock.

I'm listening to NOFX's "August 8th" and reading All the President's Men and wondering whether my cousin's present (his birthday is today) arrived on time.  I need to do a lot of pre-college preparations in the next few days (and weeks, really), so I guess I won't get to catch up on manga and TV as much as I wanted to this summer. I'll miss this area and this life, but I'm also looking forward very much to the next four years, without really excessive angst in either direction.

Seth MacFarlane is Wayne the Brain on Aqua Teen Hunger Force!  Stephen Colbert is Reducto on Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law!  I love Adult Swim, and I love listening to people's voices, but I seem to be pathetically unobservant at combining the two.  I also love Fullmetal Alchemist and Family Guy and other Adult Swim staples, but who doesn't love those (anime and mainstream, respectively) these days?  Sometimes I wish my obsessions were less famous . . . like Spider-Man.

I can't believe I'm one of the last people to see Batman Begins in its regular run, but this way, I got to see it closed captioned.  It's a great movie.  That said, I didn't especially care for Ra's Al Ghul, but Scarecrow was surprisingly effective (considering I've never heard of him before, as I'm not a big DC fan).  I also loved particular lines far more than I expected ("Why do we fall?" and "Bats are nocturnal!"), both serious and humorous.  If only more movies were like this.

Listening to NAQT recordings while playing Spider Solitaire is my new level of dorkiness.  I have been watching Gilmore Girls and am feeling better because not only have I not left the house (and therefore the air conditioning) for all of today, I have also have not spent the entire day in bed or in a computer chair, and may have plans for the rest of the week.  I am very glad that July is ending, but this might be a good way for it to end.  If I can dodge driving school . . . oh, what a great summer.

I can't believe how big Otakon has gotten.  I miss one summer and suddenly they're capping membership at 22,000 and actually may encounter problems with that; they still have 31 days to sell just over 5,000, and with the huge increase in anime's popularity (why the hell, anyway?), they might sell a lot of them.  It's even worse that they no longer have one-day memberships, so it's impossible for my brother to go this year.

I hate July.  Now that that's out of the way, I read in Game Informer that Frankie Muniz is going to be the gamer in a movie about a horror / survival game that turns real.  He totes an Alienware laptop and wears those jackets with the 1UP mushroom on it.  (He reminds me of some people I know.)  I am typing this on a laptop, though not on my own, because I keep procrastinating what should be a fun task.

She recognized him before I did.  I fail.  I don't know why this bothers me enough that I'm writing myself a quick note about it, but it does, and it also bothers me that it bothers me.  I also recall, unpleasantly, the store clerk that frightened me today.  I can grasp the concept that it might look bad to have some sitting on the floor if the windows are large, but it's still alarming to be scolded.

I didn't even watch the fireworks on TV, but I enjoyed three hours of Monk that I had not previously seen, and my brother ran into the room to tell me that he could hear the first explosions.  I am weak—I picked up something at Borders today—but the only difference in my mind between B&N and Borders is that I associate B&N with blond wood and Borders with dark-colored wood.  I also made a ThinkGeek wishlist that I won't actually buy things from.  Now . . . celebrate the 5th of July!

"I've always been fascinated by con men because they have to be really smart about people and able to look right into a person's heart and see what that person wants, and yet never reveal themselves." —Jeffrey Lane

I guess that's why I enjoyed Hitch more than I had expected.  Those are the same reasons I like watching or reading about con men, but you can say it about a certain Will Smith matchmaker.  I now feel vindicated.  My obsession makes sense!

I wish I knew when I've crossed the line from being caring to being creepy.  On a different note, it's sad to watch Jeopardy! and see easy questions (or even hard ones) go dead.  I keep checking my email but there's nothing I really need to do, so I should go upstairs and watch my DVDs and listen to some CDs.  I could also take an inventory of all the CDs and DVDs in the house, and in my room, because I nearly bought some things today that we already have.

I never really watch The Simpsons, but tonight's episode (which I assume is a rerun) had this humorously inappropriate excerpt from "Don't Stand So Close To Me."  I guess it was about Lisa's restraining order on Bart, but it was all a little disturbing.  I much prefer Family Guy and Futurama and American Dad.  I wonder why I feel so strongly.  I must be really idle if I can occupy myself with this sort of opinion.  You should all be pretty scared that I can vote soon.

I feel terribly spoiled.  My mom rented two Adam Sandler DVDs, but on the bright side, I got some new shirts from Kohl's, bought Blade of the Immortal Vol. 14, and now possess an awesome Nintendo keychain, along with a copy of The Princess Bride on DVD.  I want to absorb all of the material junk I've bought, but I'm preoccupied by some things.  My mom (rightly) gets irritated when I fail to communicate very basic things.  This time I've printed out the papers, so I can't mess it up.

Addressed to someone who does not read any of my journals, to the best of my knowledge: I think you are rather gullible, but I don't hold it against you.  I hope nothing is wrong.  I also want to tell myself, or someone, that despite my quips on the contrary, I really don't mind it if you are ahead of me, which I have just found out that you will be.  I wish I could say all of this, and a few other completely trivial things, but I haven't been talking to you very much.

You know what sounds difficult?  Participating in the Blogathon, in which one posts every thirty minutes for 24 hours.  I've taken more than thirty minutes to write one entry before, but on the other hand, it would feel like cheating to post just a few links or three sentences and leave it at that.  Maybe I'm taking all of this too seriously.  I did, after all, just finish watching Elektra.  I can enjoy a lot of movies that other people hate.

I'm mixing things up.  I'm no less narcissistic, though, if I ever was, so that's not why the baby pictures are gone.  The reasoning is all aesthetic.  The layout is a photo of my current favorite hallway at CMU, and it's pretty lightly edited, as far as web site layout images go.  I needed to make a new layout mainly because I've been reading about writing CSS on a friend's blog, and it's been bugging me that I haven't changed things in a long time.  Life gets stagnant, but there's no reason the internet should be that way too.