not falling down

In the past thirty-six hours, Jon has received offers of a) admission and b) large wads of cash from UNCG and Wake Forest, and thus I felt it incumbent on me to buy him steak tonight. (He got t-bone, I had fillet; I ordered mine medium rare, the bloodiest I’ve ever had it, and I think I can feel myself going over to the dark side.)

It’s a great feeling, being proud, buying someone expensive food because they really deserve it. I’m glad I have this group of friends, because I think I’m going to get to do it pretty often.

Not cool. Unless anybody else saved copies, I think my Gollum wallpaper is the only surviving image from those wonderful, wonderful screen caps.

Man, I could really go for some fish sticks. Or shrimp! Actually I really was craving fish sticks earlier, and the clever segue was entirely unintentional.

Louisville: Hands cuffed behind his back, fifty years old, two white cops, one black man, twelve bullets, and you know, I can’t stand it when people get uppity over every little thing, honestly, but what? What?

(For the first time in a long time,) Emma makes some good points here. I did see and love Hackers many times, and I taught myself HTML, and I am pretty good at finding printer drivers, and there have been times when my computer science major has made me pretty frustrated. I’ve seen my class of CS majors diminish, leaving perhaps not the most talented but the most persistent.

Should I be majoring in something else, then? I love philosophy, and I made better grades in it than I ever have in CS; the same goes for English and Latin. Had I the power, I might go back eight years and join the high school band, because I find myself wishing for that kind of musical background now that I realize how much I like it.

I don’t think I’d change anything, though. Majoring in drama has reduced my once-all-consuming desire to be an actor to a gentle tug, but I want to write software more than ever. It comes down to a basic internal need to solve problems by building things, and since I still hate math and can’t do much with a hammer, computers are where it’s at.

So I think the frustration comes not from an inability to grasp memory addresses (which, surprisingly, I do understand) but from a simple and terrifying lack of good teachers. I have loved a few CS classes, but I have yet to find a single teacher in my field who wouldn’t be better off doing technical design (as one of them decided to do) or math research. Meanwhile, I’ve had Munson, Bayer and Becker for English, Latin and Philosophy–three individuals who are not only tremendous talents but instinctively connected people. They love what they teach and they love that they teach, and their impact on my life and on thousands of others comes directly from that.

Why? I think it’s the same reason computer science textbooks are, by and large, horrific and devoid of readability: the generation of people now teaching comp sci is not a particularly social group. Think about it–if you were really into CS twenty years ago, enough to want to get a master’s or even a PhD in it, you were probably also the one with the large glasses, a stutter and two or three left feet.

Am I stereotyping here? Certainly, but it’s not without grounds. I’ve had a few excellent math teachers, but none of my CS teachers, wonderful people though they might be, has really belonged at the front of a classroom. That means that only the really determined CS majors can do enough self-teaching to do well. The whole subset of people who do like programming, but aren’t quite as singularly focused–the same ones who would never have read As I Lay Dying without Munson, who would never have studied Vergil without Bayer–is being lost to programming.

I have faith that things will get better. There are popular, social people in my graduating CS class, and while I hardly think that popularity is a really desirable personal characteristic, the fact is that none of us are actively afraid to talk to people. That’s important for the next generation of teachers. I don’t think we’re the first class with this kind of social compass, either, so it may only be a few more years before people who weren’t beat up in high school are teaching CS.

So what if my major isn’t a bastion of geekhood anymore? I’m all for the bourgeoisement of the science, and if that means even jocks are writing Java, then that’s what it means.

Besides, the geeks are still going to be better at it.

That is totally an old (old old) picture of Dr. Dre, taken from the inside of Audrey’s Eazy E album. I don’t think they were getting along very well at the time! I find this picture indescribably funny, not only for the sheer ridiculousness of seeing Dr. Dre in a crocheted lab coat, but for the “no you’re a stupid head” nature of the insults around it. I really want to learn how to do “The Dexter Wiggle” now, though. Maybe if I ask him he’ll teach me!

Not to be a braggy pants, but we’re starting to get a little press. No, we’re not making the UCB front page or anything, but when a little college play in Danville makes the Cincinatti Enquirer, it certainly feels mighty.

I guess I should be saving clippings of this stuff for my mom? Or something? I don’t know, my name still hasn’t been in any of them–nobody’s has but Jeff’s. So does that count as Mom-clipping material?

Oh, and while I’m linking Google (and this is almost a g-whack):

So I don’t have the best job in the world anymore.

All the third-year RAs who were graduating seniors were let go, as far as I know, except one who was relocated to office staff and Showcase. I understand the reasoning behind that, especially if they had more returning applicants than usual. It’s not a bad policy, and I would have been grateful for the opportunity to come in if I were applying for the first time.

What I don’t understand is that they’ve hired graduated former Head RAs again, at least at EKU. Meg and McCrary are wonderful people and excellent at their jobs, but so are several of the people who weren’t rehired, or were rehired as regular RAs. If the point is to make room for new blood, as I understand from my pink-slip email, why not make the same room in higher positions? Jon, Jordan, Jim Breslin and I will probably never have even a chance at Head RA now, and that stings a lot more than it would if one of those three guys had been picked over me.

I guess I have to get a real summer job now. I debated on whether to reapply this year, but the fact is that I wasn’t ready to let go of GSP. I learned easily as much from my Scholars as they did from me; this was the first year I really would have felt that I knew what I was doing.

I wouldn’t trade these past two summers for anything, though. Kim, Taylor, Jag, Seth, anybody else who still reads this thing: thanks. I hope there’s room now for you guys to start applying next year, because GSP could use you.

“Y’know, your journal… you’re gonna be able to look back on it and have this collection of deep thoughts and significant events. I’m gonna be able to look back on mine and see ‘boogers are funny. I’m tired.’

And y’know, I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

–Stephen

That’s pretty accurate, actually, except I don’t think the stuff in here is terribly deep, and I’ve left out some significant events because I didn’t think they were interesting. Sometimes I wish I had more of the comic impulse that makes Stephen’s blog such a great read. Y’know, more booger jokes.

I guess I do significant events, though. Today ten years ago my dad died.

I pretend not to place great importance on round numbers, though this kind of gives that the lie. It’ll really be a more significant number next year, as that’ll be the anniversary that marks half my life without him; I was eleven. Mom’s probably going to be moving out of Richmond this summer, maybe down to our family land in Casey County, maybe not. All three of her children will be in college, a statistically ridiculous idea for a single mother and a teacher that she made happen anyway. 1993 was a very bad year; 2003 is shaping up to be something glorious.

All I have time to write about, lately, is big things and being tired. I want to try and remember the stupid little funny parts. My dad bought me my first Calvin and Hobbes book; he would have appreciated the boogers.

I’m so tired it should be visible: there should be waves of it rising off me, distorting the air like our old wood-burning stove.

Last night was the second and last public performance of The Laramie Project. The Fellowship of One, the group of (mostly, and oddly, black) local pastors who have been trying to stop us from doing the play at the high school, were in attendance. They’ve never been uncivil, but their arguments at such venues as the DHS parents’ meeting have consisted mostly of things like

Pastor:	The play promotes a homosexual lifestyle.
Teacher:	The play doesn’t promote any such thing. It shows viewpoints from all sides, including Christian values like mercy and forgiveness, and it shows what happens to people when a crime forces them to confront the issue of prejudice in their community. This is why we’re teaching it as part of our curriculum during Black History Month.
Pastor:	The play promotes a homosexual lifestyle!

Last night, they left after the second act. Jeff, our director, ran out after them and asked what they’d thought of the show. Only one of them would speak to him, but what he said was

“This is a play about not hating people. You’ve made your point.”

We did it. We did it right.

Exhaustion, and triumph, and a ring around the moon.

Collective effervescence.

We’ve started the play, and it’s perfect, raw, gorgeous, exactly everything we wanted it to be.

Afterwards, I walked to the gas station to buy more caffeine (the presentation has yet to be done). I had a flower in my backpack from Deb, and was listening to a Duncan Sheik song, of all things, and I could see the whole scope of it: how last year was home, and this year is setting out away from it. How and why I’ve done what I’ve done, here. How this is the biggest year I’ve ever lived.