originally posted february 15, 2001

the end of adolescence

Well, here it is: my twentieth birthday. I'm no longer technically a teen-ager, and that distinction brings other implications as well. It puts the "too old" in "I'm too old for this," referring to things like staying home for the summer. A teen-ager staying with their parents is a non-event; a twenty-something staying at home is downright embarassing many times. This time also gives me a chance to look back and see what happened during those seven years.

what happened?

I can't say that I'm really that downtrodden about having left adolescence; it hasn't been all that good to me. As I cross into my third decade of existence, I still haven't been in a serious relationship, I'm still overburdened with homework, and things don't appear to be changing any time soon. Most of these happenings are apparently self-inflicted, at least in part. I didn't have to miss obvious signals from women who, I later found out, actually did (or did not) like me. I didn't have to choose Carnegie Mellon, where the computer science program is just as grueling as it is famous. What can I say? I've made my decisions, and I tend to lean toward the downside more often. Guess I get to try again in the coming years.

In a way, though, coming to Carnegie Mellon put me in the right setting. I built up a reputation as a nerd all through elementary school up to high school, and that caused more than a few people to have some prejudice towards me. I wasn't approachable. I wasn't accessible. I was, however, available. Constantly. Coming here, I wipe the slate clean: while the fact that I'm a computer science major has its various implications, the class is diverse enough to still prompt the occasional "what's your major?" from a fellow student. This is only a good thing. Looking beyond college, I get to wipe the slate clean once more and head into the professional world. What possibilities lie there are really a mystery as of now.

moving along

As mentioned earlier, the idea of staying at home for extended periods of time is a mixed bag. My laundry, room and board are free, but at the same time I still don't feel independent. When searching for internships, a search that has proved fruitless so far, I indicate that I'm willing to move anywhere in the country. This is partly out of desperation, but it also relates back to the fact that I want to see what it's like to be more on my own.

Syosset High School, where I spent four years before coming here, was noted as being a "bubble," a small community isolated from the Real World. Watch out, they cautioned us: the Real World wouldn't be like this high school. They drew parallels between college life and independence. Well, I regret to say that Carnegie Mellon University is almost as much of a bubble as Syosset was. All around me, I see people speaking ill of Pittsburgh, almost never leaving campus and expressing a disdain for the city. Many will incessantly complain about the lack of nightclubs, Chinese food restaurants, and anything outside the area that isn't open past 2:00 AM. The concept of a "fob," a derogatory term for someone from Asia who refuses to assimilate, is quite prevalent here. People of all races will sometimes segregate themselves, but there are still many people who don't pay any attention to it. The clash between the American notion of inclusion and the traditional Asian ideal of racial purity is evident here.

so what's next?

Well, first of all, I need to get back to my homework. After that's done, the search to find happiness continues. Happiness takes many forms: a girlfriend, a job, spectacular riches, a Perl script to better automate this web site, and so forth. Who knows: I might even be discovered by folks like Losers.org, who dismiss sites like mine with a one-line snyde remark.

A few nights ago, I was talking with an acquaintance about relationships. He explained his idea of the "fuck-it level," where a guy will just cease to care about the consequences of his actions and do something rash. It could be trying an exotic new food, traveling abroad, asking a friend out with some ulterior motives, or anything more. I'm convinced that my threshold is still way too high: while I'll often make a fool out of myself when conversing among friends, I have been very reluctant to advance myself in other consequences. Whining about it on the web doesn't help much either, of course.

and so it goes

So another year in my life has come and gone, and another narcissistic update is up. What next? Who knows? Who cares?

class-by-class

Here's the early returns from semester four.

15-213, Introduction to Computer Systems. The most hands-on computer science course I have taken here, this course deals with assembler and C in implementing systems-level programming. I have taken a liking to it, since theory has never really interested me. This course is designed to let the students play around with homeworks to discover things for themselves, something that I have always enjoyed doing. Outlook: Good.

21-125, Maple Lab. I was a bit disappointed by this class, mainly because interaction is minimal, my section is taught not by a professor but by an undergrad TA, and the level of apathy is high. I spend at least one-fifth of my time in the lab trying to help out other students with their UNIX desktop environments. Maybe I should take the customization out of mine and shut up if I want to get more work done here. Outlook: Neutral.

33-224, Stars, Galaxies and the Universe. At first, I thought that the professor's dry wit, British accent, and use of many colorful visual aids were going to make lectures fun. Little did I realize that the words "fun" and "lectures" don't go together. For a variety of reasons, I find myself falling asleep entirely too often in this class, and the homeworks and lab assignments do not seem to correlate with the lectures a whole lot. Outlook: Uncertain.

80-242, Conflict and Dispute Resolution. Ah, this class brings me back to the good old days of discussion-based humanities classes in high school, where I would frequently make an ass out of myself with grandiose, often incorrect comments. In this class here, the most talkative and opinionated people often aren't humanities students at all, but rather science and engineering students with a lot on their mind. Nevertheless, I find that the material is pretty easy to undersand, and interesting to boot. Outlook: Good.

82-272, Intermediate Japanese II. Continuing on towards a minor in Japanese, this course builds on the previous course but shifts the influence further towards writing and conversations rather than strict grammar. While there aren't any more bothersome grammar quizzes, the course now includes many more speaking, writing and even research activities. I still hope to study in Japan for a summer before graduating, perhaps in the summer of '02. Outlook: Good.

82-273, Introduction to Japanese Language and Culture. This class is fairly elementary, and is intended to be taken during the first year of language study. Still, there is a lot of information to be learned in this course, taught in English. It features a lot of discussion which can be entertaining, but sometimes drags on for too long. The dichotomy of long-settled white students with first- and second-generation Asian and Asian-American students helps to keep things lively. Outlook: Good.

See you next month.

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