conquering the world one oxymoron at a time
Archive for June, 2005
June 28, 2005 at 1:23 am · Filed under wahoowa
There is something about Northern Virginia that just exudes UVA. Visiting Ryan this past weekend in Clifton made me realize that there are a whole lot of us wahoos over there. Following Ryan’s brother, girlfriend, and various cousins & relatives out and about Saturday night, we ran into random UVA kids, some friends, others simply acquaintances, but all in all, many people whom we knew from college. Some encounters were awkward, to say the least, and others were shocking, maybe even a bit flirtatious. But if anything, that’s really only to get back at Ryan for his awkward friend (singular, not plural).
In addition, flying down there for the weekend Friday night, an UVA acquaintance from three years ago just happened to be seated right next to me. I had window; he had aisle. It took us a few minutes, a couple of furtive glances on his part at my Virginia ring, and a lot of thinking on my part about how to break the ice, but we did it, and proceeded to chat the rest of the 1.5 hour gate-to-gate flight from Logan to Dulles.
In my opinion, the world is not that small that I would run into 4 acquaintances and 1 friend in the course of less than 48 hours. I like to think that we wahoos are just a tad bit bigger than life.
June 24, 2005 at 1:49 pm · Filed under wahoowa
My friend Mike and I decided to show our respective school prides by wearing Hopkins and UVA tshirts every day this week. He pooped out on me starting yesterday, claiming that some of his Hopkins shirts were dirty. I made it through the whole week, and really when I took a look at all of my shirts, I realized that I have enough UVA tshirts to wear one every day for 2+ weeks. Going through them brought back memories of things/activities/events that I had completely forgotten about. All in all, it made me miss Virginia.
Motivated by this bout of sadness, I started looking through all of my pictures from UVA. I realized that I really don’t have all that many. This made me more sad, and it made me want to do something with the ones that I do have. I wanted to make a web album of UVA pictures at one point last semester, but got too lazy. No album this time either, but I did make a couple of collages of some great times and some great friends.
June 21, 2005 at 11:50 pm · Filed under friends
I read through my emails on my yahoo account today (which I really need to check more often) and found one from one of my best friends from high school. It wasn’t a mean email, but it just somehow didn’t really feel right. It made me feel like I’m losing her as a friend, that we’ve maybe grown too far apart in the 5 years since high school to remember/save our friendship. I know emails are weird in that the reader often reads too much into the words, or interprets meanings that aren’t there, so maybe I’m over-reacting. But at the same time, I do have to question where our friendship has gone?
There was a point when I felt like I could see her any day, any time, and no matter how long we had been apart, we’d click in no time. The first time I noticed this not really happening was over last Christmas break, when she came through Charleston. I think I was particularly awkward that day, and particularly picky about things, that everything was exacerbated and I really realized that the two of us are in completely different places now. We’re not only separated many many miles away geographically, we’re also in completely different mindsets politically, socially, and maybe even emotionally. I know these differences don’t necessarily break a friendship, but maybe the distance and the fact that I hardly see her (or even talk to her) but once a year has really taken its toll. Add that to the fact that I was having a weird day when we met up last, I don’t even know if she likes me for the person I am now.
It’s amazing what 5 years will do to someone. I know that UVA has changed me a lot, and I’m sure college has changed her as well. I really want to believe that we’re the kind of friends that we’d still see each other and would still be best friends when we’re 40, but maybe my naivete is kicking in strong again. Of course, she’s made new friends since high school, both in college and in what she’s doing now. In a way, I’m jealous of all of them. I feel like they’re diverting her attention away from me, an old friend she doesn’t see regularly, or talk to regularly, and an old friend who’s easy to say goodbye to. I can’t even say that I know what’s going on in her life right now, and she sure as well doesn’t know what’s happening to mine.
Today was a relatively happy day until I checked my email, and now today has a sad ending. I am pretty upset at the thought of having potentially lost a friend, and I don’t quite know what to do about it. I can only hope that I am over-reacting, and that she wants to maintain our friendship as much as I do.
June 19, 2005 at 1:56 am · Filed under the internet, daily grind
http://www.mousebreaker.com/games/sudoku/play.php
Play it. It’s fun and challenging and doesn’t take too much time. And you can only play it once a day (ideally limiting the amount of time you waste per day).
June 13, 2005 at 10:16 pm · Filed under daily grind
I was eating lunch the other day when someone very enthusiastically said “hey shan!” I looked up, realized that I had no idea who this person was, and said “hey, what’s up?”
Usually, I feel like I remember most people I see/meet, but maybe my memory is failing me. Not only did I not know this person’s name, I wasn’t even sure he looked familiar. But we must have at least introduced ourselves to each other because he knew my name …
It would have probably been better just to ‘fess up, eh? Maybe something along the lines of “hi! I’m sorry, can you remind me of your name again?” That would have been slightly embarrassing, but not so bad. Now I’ve ruined it forever; I’ll have to try to avoid him whenever I see him. That is, whenever I see him and IF I recognize him.
June 9, 2005 at 10:11 pm · Filed under friends
I remember telling a friend not long after I got here that the difference between business school people and graduate school people is that the friends you make in grad school are friends you count on having for life, whereas b-school is just a place for superficial networking. That may have been too harsh on b-schools, but now I’ve also realized that I was way too naive about graduate schools.
What it comes down to are still the people, and there are all kinds of people everywhere. Grad students, as a whole, may be more grounded, but that doesn’t mean that our lives are devoid of backstabbing, nor that our friends forever remain good friends. Our acquaintances don’t even remain acquaintances, for good or bad. Those whom you don’t really care about drift into oblivion, and those whom you do care about eventually become friends.
After a year at this place, I see a lot of strong rifts even in my department’s small 20-person first year class. You have to wonder, how can merely 20 people manage to develop such complex webs of relationships and deceit? I don’t for one second think that I am innocent within this network; I am in just as deep as everyone else, but this isn’t what I’m used to. I began UVA with a similarly small group of engineers, the so-called illustrious Rodmans. Those 30 some odd people became some of my best friends, and still remain so. Can I then generalize this to be a difference between MIT vs UVA? Grad school vs undergrad? Or has overly strong nostalgia simply masked any bad memories or dealings I had with the Rodmans?
Outside of the department, there is even more drama. At least within BE, people are careful to not overly step on toes and put their animosities on full display for fear of having to work and see these same people regularly. It is a whole different playing game outside. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; parting on bad terms is a whole lot easier with people you don’t expect to ever really see again except maybe when scurrying past them in dim hallways. The people I met my first couple of weeks here, those whom I chose to be friends with–and those who chose to be friends with each other–are displaying some of the strangest and most unfriendly drama that I have ever seen. I sometimes feel like some of them live in movies.
I guess most of all I am just sad and disappointed. We can put on facades for our professional lives, saving face in the context of the department, but we can’t put personal differences behind us for people who really do matter, friends with whom we chose to associate. Maybe this is the biggest lesson of growing up: we really aren’t innocent creatures (anymore) who develop pure relationships with each other. Somehow, somewhere, there is always something that pollutes the water and ruins it for everyone. I guess I just really wanted to believe that those things were left for ritzy swanks in 3-button suits, but I guess human nature crops up even in the simplest of places.
June 5, 2005 at 11:48 pm · Filed under the internet
I found myself once again wanting to write something about which I probably shouldn’t in such a public forum as this. What am I really afraid of? Strangers finding out details about my life that I’d rather not share? But in that case, I shouldn’t have a blog at all.
Strangers really aren’t such a big deal. Probably the worst are acquaintances, you know, those people who are friends but then kinda not really. Friends, I wouldn’t really mind, but acquaintances … how much should they be allowed passively into my life?
Sometimes, it’s even awkward when someone I don’t see that often mention something which they really had no way of knowing, and they knew because they actively follow this blog. In a way, I’m flattered that people are interested in reading this thing, but on the other hand, I’m more cautious now about posting things than when I first started out 2 summers ago. And really, this is about me, right? Maybe.
Thus in the meantime, I will mull over this thing about which I am tempted to write, sleep on it, etc. Maybe it will have become so trivial in a week’s time that I won’t even remember what it was all about.
June 4, 2005 at 10:41 am · Filed under daily grind
I have not seen my roommate once since two weekends ago. She has been in her room twice since then, but she closes her door when she hears me, and thus the only time I saw her was as she was leaving the apartment while I was coming in. Her average length of stay each of those times is approximately 10 minutes. Now granted, I am in my office during the day, so if she’s around then, I wouldn’t know. But wouldn’t she be in her office/lab too?
The third time she was around was this morning. I heard her walking around her room when I woke up (she was not here last night). She then proceeded to use the bathroom/take a shower for a total of 45 minutes, no joke. Her shower was 30 minutes long. It was almost as if she hasn’t taken a shower in 2 weeks. And I am bitter because I scrubbed that tub clean last weekend, and she with one shower has managed to get hair everywhere and the tub unclean again.
These are minor things. Now, let’s talk about the fridge. She has bag after bag of mysterious things in the kitchen fridge that takes up two shelves (there are 3 shelves total). 80% of the bags contain thing (maybe vegetables) that are rotting, ie, there is nasty liquid coming out of the bags. She also has a bowl of what was originally cooked wide noodles with some meat in the fridge. When I first saw it about 2 months ago, I wasn’t around the apartment much, so I thought she’d make a bowl of these noodles every week, and I just happened to always see it in the fridge. Then I talked to my other roommate and found out that no, it’s the same bowl of noodles that sits there week after week after week. At least it has seran wrap over it.
I have consolidated all of her things onto the bottom two shelves in the fridge, threw away one bag of stuff that was really dripping badly, and now I use the top shelf. Does she not realize that she still has stuff in there? Where does she go every day if she’s not coming back here? Why is she such an unkempt girl?
June 2, 2005 at 2:08 am · Filed under friends
I really appreciate all of the friends that I have, both those who are far away and those who are right here next to me. You guys make all of the difference in my life. Many many many thanks for all of the support
I think I’m over my blog dry spell. For a while, I just really didn’t want to post anything because I didn’t really know what to say, and I felt like I was plastering my life for all the world to see. Now that I feel a little more normal (life’s not so crazy anymore, and it doesn’t seem quite as unfair and desolate anymore), I feel safe writing in my blog again.
First note of business … I saw Star Wars III again last weekend. It actually really sucked this time around. I think the opening night rush got to me …
