For most students, the end of August marks the end of summer vacation.  Sometimes that 2-3 month break is exciting, and other times it’s a very boring experience.  Either way, you probably weren’t in school going through the usual motions.  This is no longer the case now that I’m out of school.  As simple a thought as it sounds, I’m very accustomed to shifting gears every few months from project to project as the seasons changed.  It was predictable, I could look forward to it, and it’s no longer the case.

During my time at RPI I found that I had 4 work cycles: Summer vacation (aka open source broad value RCOS work), fall semester (deploy and build new things for RPI), winter break (experimental things / break from coding), and spring semester (fix all the bugs and make things stable).  Now that I have this 9-5 job (well, technically my critical hours are 8-4, but I usually risk it and delay a bit) that’s no longer the case.  The end of August is coming and there’s no dramatic, or even subtle, shift in my work in the pipeline.  I don’t know if this is what actually bothers me, or it’s the fact that I can’t shift my work if I wanted to.  I mean technically there are these business quarters that are suppose to be important for something, but the only weight they carry to me is on paper.  As far as I know, no one rallies around them because event X is coming up and we’ll all be moving back to campus or something.  They are just dates.

Now that I have left RPI I feel very much like an outsider.  Being on the other side of the country doesn’t help one bit with that feeling either, because my social interactions with relevant parties as nearly non-existent.  I guess I thought work would keep me too busy to notice, but that’s not the case at all.  I whole heartily enjoyed where I was at RPI and what I did.  Professionally: I could hack my way through any academics you could throw at me, but more importantly I had a fair amount of experience and expertise so I could tackle just about any problem thrown at me.  The same side of that coin also made me a resource for others, people would collaborate with me, ask me questions, and generally make me feel of some value.  Socially it took me something like 4.x years to finally start to open up around folks and come off as a nearly friendly (or so I’ve been told) person.

Such is not the case in my new job.  Sure, I feel valuable when I complete units of work but I’m not sure if there is anything that I’ve done that is specific to Brian.  Anything that’s expected of me isn’t specific to me as a person, it could just as easily be passed to someone else on my team.  Perhaps the largest contrast has been from going from the guy who answers questions to being the guy who has to ask really stupid ones.  It’s not a pleasant feeling at all, especially when it’s very easy to to ask really stupid questions to really really smart people.

As I see folks moving back and gearing up for another semester my mind starts launching into projects, ideas, conversations, and input that I, as an alumni, and no longer in any place to give.  Biting my tongue really isn’t fun, but I know it’s part of this process.  That doesn’t mean I like the process at all.  Part of me envies those that have managed to drag it out as much as possible, or found ways to get a taste of it every now and then by staying in touch and visiting.  Not really an option for me.

I hate to extend the ship metaphor, but often I feel as if the ship is leaving port without me this time and I’m stuck on the docks.  I’m left staring at you through some silly looking glass, wondering how much time will pass until we cross paths again.  The optimist in me has a particularly hard time convincing me the probability of that even is high.

Good night moon.

After ye’ early ventures our small crew started to pick up some momentum.  We were aiming to set sail for open water, into uncharted territory in hopes of even greater treasure.  Avast, we couldn’t do it along with such a small crew, so I figured I could help the Captain and Chief Mate out by recruiting some of the drunkards that frequented the tavern.  Sure, they might not be the best sailors in the land, but they seemed to be a hearty bunch of fellows that had an idea what was going on.  I figured instead of outright telling them to join it would be less work for me if they wanted to join on their own, so I posed some quite open ended questions to some quite open minded folks and before you knew it the crew had doubled or tripled in size.  It was surprisingly easy getting people to join the crew by letting them take part in the planning for our venture into uncharted waters.  To be quite frank, we could use any cartographer we could find trying to help chart our course.

Sure, we had our scuffles.  One of note to this day was during one of the initial recruitment sessions (you know, where potential pirates come and right their name in the Crew Log) the Chief Mate argued strongly for a sailor he’d known who was convinced that the knots tied in our Chip Log weren’t measured correctly.  Having tied them myself (and being fairly accurate with my measurement skills) I called his bluff but we let him aboard anyways.  It seemed that having one mutiny-prone fellow would help keep morale from getting too high at times, wouldn’t want the crew to be overly optimistic of anything.  I had to sleep with one eye open from that day on, but paying extra attention to things seemed to work well (and I could live with being a bit tired).

We set sail and made our way from port to port, borrowing what we could and looting what we couldn’t.  Anything we couldn’t use we used to barter (aka sell) at the next port we landed at.  Lucky we had one crew member who could sell just about anything, another one that could fix just about anything, and a few well skilled at putting junk together and making it look like silver.  Turns out that’s all the people really want these days, as long as it looks good and works fine the details and composition of it don’t matter to much at all.

We picked up a few treasure maps along the way and secure some small chests, we were starting to do quite well for ourselves, collection a sizable chest and gathering much needed spices and oils to look to sail to new foreign ports.  Unfortunately, like every great pirate sailing from port to port, the Royal Navy, specially one Rear admiral, seemed to take personal offense to our plunders and plots of conquest.  He set out to shut down ports before we arrived, preventing both us and the “friendly” merchants from doing any business.  Luckily for us, the merchants found other ways to exchanged their goods for our services; turns out they don’t like paying the queen’s tax much either.

This all culminated in a meeting with the Admiral of the Fleet actually, who took us by surprised as we docked in the Port of Tyne to do business.  In retrospect, we should have expected company in the Navy’s backyard.  After putting up a noteworthy fight with the Rear admiral, his commander came in to negotiate peace with us.  I was glad that we were finally meeting face to face to discuss our issues, it’s much harder to sleep with the sound of cannon fire raining in than one might think.  We sharpened our swords and headed to the meet, expecting an ambush of sorts.  Turns out the Admiral of the Fleet is a bit too laissez faire for something like that.  Instead, he conceited that the taxes they were making at the port were never going to balance the destruction we could (and already had!) caused, and we agreed to split our differences and continue on with our voyage.  I suspect the Admiral of the Fleet was loosing faith in his Rear Admiral after he failed to eliminate us several times.  It certainly helped having the tax-dodging merchants on our side too!

Early on as my time as Second Mate, back when we were still recruiting the crew,  the Captain had pulled me aside and said that should he fall to Davy Jones’ Locker I should take the wheel and stand in his place.  Knowing I had large pirate boots that I might need to fill some day I tried to stay as well informed as possible, learning as much as I could from my fellow pirates and practicing the whole navigating a large ship thing when I got a chance.  I suspected I may never be fully ready to take over, but let’s face it I don’t think any captain really is.

We continued on our conquest, but it was becoming clear that the Captain’s time at the helm was nearing it’s end.  He’d been cheating death for a few years now, and a permanent return to shore seemed eminent.  It seemed my time to take the wheel was fast approaching, but luckily the battles were winding down as the Rear admiral obeyed his orders to stand down.

I was new in town, only really knowing the guy I shared a ride with to get here.  I was looking for work, because that’s what I was pretty good at.  I found some part time work at the tavern once a week, the barkeep seemed relieve to have someone on board to help with some of the odd jobs around the place.  It wasn’t super fulfilling, but like I said it was work and that kept me busy.

One of the nice things about working in the tavern from time to time was getting to hear what was going on.  It was convenient to hear the latest news from people as they would come and go; as someone who really was not familiar with the area it was useful to quickly get up to speed.  One night I overheard someone talking about a treasure they had recently found and were looking to plunder.  Being the enterprising soul that I was, I made sure to spend my time mopping the floor near their table to try and pickup as many of the details as possible.

Much to my confusion, the sailors seemed to be taking a very roundabout approach to getting to the treasure.  I wasn’t really from the area, but I had a rough understanding of the seas they were headed into and it seemed like they were sticking to much larger channels than some smaller and more direct ways that were out there.  I considered offering my suggestions when they were leaving, but they looked considerable more experienced and I was a just working at the tavern.  They left, but I didn’t forget about the treasure they were talking about.

I didn’t work everyday, so I had plenty of spare time on my hands.  After some thought and recreating the map they seemed to be talking about I decided to head out and see if I could get to the treasure just as quickly as I thought I could.  I set off in small solo sail boat that direction.   I’ll spare you the details of my journey, but I confirmed that the route I thought I knew was faster.  After successfully arriving at the treasure, I was even able to open up the treasure and take a few coins with me.  I headed back and planned to return to work as usual, I didn’t really know how to get a hold of the pirates (that’s kinda the nature of pirates I believe) so I just smiled to myself, proud that I had at least been able to do something they seemed unable or unwilling to.

I returned to work because, well, that’s what I’ve always done.  I “left” the coins I found on the counter near my overcoat and the barkeep asked me about them, wondering where I got them and all sorts of things.  I told him that I got it from the treasure that I heard folks last time talking about, he seemed impressed that I was able to find my own way there and open the chest.  I played it off as not much work because I didn’t want to look like I had tried too too hard at it.  I got back to mopping because someone spilled their ale.

The night/morning was winding down, and when I was just getting ready to head out the barkeep pulled me aside and said he had someone I should meet.  I was mildly nervous, had I done something wrong, was I being “loaned” to someones crew, all sorts of unpleasant situations ran through my mind.  Uh oh, it was one of the guys from the table that was talking about the treasure.  He must want my coins back or “express” his anger at me for beating him to the chest!

Much to my surprise, that’s not how it went down at all.  He was impressed to hear that I had made it there so quickly and didn’t seem too hung up on the fact that I too had opened the chest and taken a few coins.  I was fairly shocked at how it wasn’t a big deal at all, what was important wast that I had figured out a better way to get there.  He asked me to join he and a fellow sailor, as they were likely going to be looking to find more treasure and could use a guy like me aboard.  I said sure because well let’s face it, who doesn’t like the appeal of treasure hunting?  I figured that we’d be back in town every few days so I could keep up my appearances at the bar and would still have some spare time to take care of my personal business.

I reported to the dock the next morning not really sure what to expect.  I was worried there might be a huge crew that wouldn’t really have a place for me or that I would be thrown overboard for not knowing enough to pull my own.  Luckily, it was just my fears that got the worst of me.  The “crew”, if you’d call it that, consisted of the Captain and his good friend the Chief Mate.  I would be coming aboard as the Second Mate, though the traditional navigational duties would be handled to the Chief Mate while I got my bearings and sea legs.

The whole experience sat surprisingly well with me.  I’m still fairly impressed at myself for being able to successfully find and open the chest by myself, but the initiative I took way back then paved the way for a number of exciting, unpleasant, educational, thrilling, or otherwise terrifying experiences.

I’ll start at the beginning.  I wasn’t lucky enough to be in the RPI TV NRB activity like 80% – 90% percent of the club.  For whatever reason that check box (I definitely checked it) wasn’t processed by FYE so I awkwardly signed up at the Activities Fair while the officers were distracted talking amongst themselves.  I’m glad they were distracted, it would have been much more intimidating for me otherwise.  I attended a Business Meeting, passed along my credentials to Eric to join the club, and later emailed Andy about filming a Senate Meeting.  At the business meetings I kept to myself, not knowing anyone else in the club  as only Andy and Eric filmed Senate with me, I suspect most people didn’t know my name.

Election season rolled around in the winter and I was determined to help improve the club, becoming an officer seemed like the only route to doing that (again, see my previous posts for more motivation behind that) but I didn’t have a strong feeling what I should run for or who was going to run for what nor how many key players were sticking around or graduating, so I figured I should set my sights fairly low and try to run unopposed (I likely would have lost if I was up against someone else… or so tradition dictates for me).  The election meeting rolled along and I was never nominated for anything, as if there was a chance I would be.  When the final position (literally the eleventh officer), News Manager, was up for election no one was nominating anyone.  Apparently all the key players and prodigies had won an office so there was silence.

Luckily, it wasn’t silent for too long.  Charlie, who had just been elected President, nominated Andy’s mom for the position.  Everyone lol’ed at that idea because being absent, she had accepted her nomination by default.  I decided to raise my hand and nominate myself for the position because I like news.  Awkward, I know.  Everyone had to stop lol’ing and was like “oh, this kid is serious”.  As friends (or future friends, like the case with other new members) most people have an idea who will run for what and can nominate each other for it.  Not having the luxury of friends (or even co-planar colleagues), I had to awkwardly nominate myself.  Luckily, Andy’s mom wasn’t actually there to answer questions or anything and I don’t think anyone asked me anything.  I won.

That story doesn’t depress me very much, and I’ve made it a point to nominate myself for all future positions in RPI TV.  For what it’s worth, Charlie has apologized several times, but I can’t blame him, I was a nobody at the time.  I also think I’ve, at times, demonstrated my value to the organization which is what matters much more than how you got to a position whereby you can create value.

It seems in recent years the cool thing to do is to downsize the RPI TV officer pool in an attempt to make things “stronger” or more “efficient” or something like that.  I don’t understand “stronger” at all, I hope it doesn’t mean more unified or more complacent.  I could see where efficiency can be pulled out, but I think you can have just as terrible as a time with 3 officers as you could with 11 or any number in between.  I also don’t think the number of chairs in the room actually have much at all to do with how the club operates, but it’s the people in those chairs.  Yes, it might be a drag to have some non-contributing folks in seats sometimes but I worry that, like my freshman year, someone who hasn’t had a chance to contribute publicly will be passed over.  I’m also not sure I see the reverse happening, the addition of more official officer roles if there are more interested people.  The constitution is almost always written by someone who plans to have a lot of responsibility in the club, and it would take a special person to give away that responsibility.

I offered a brief form of this story at the business meeting, which took more of an emotional toll on me than I expected.  While I didn’t record my voice, I felt like I was choking up.  My point wasn’t about me, I turned out OK I think, but for someone who finds themselves in a similar situation to me… contributing to the club in a very non-standard way (filming senate) and looking to do more.  What I offered wasn’t really a question, and I completely forgot that there was an answer already in the bag.  The response includes a “plan” (nothing written or formal yet) to create an ad-hoc group of second-hand officers that don’t really count for anything but can still feel special.  Obviously this is described with nicer words, but without formal language written anywhere it’s all very abstract still.   I ended up feeling like my story was turned into a political soapbox to reassure people they’ll be able to get involved if they want, and I was sufficiently rattled as to no longer want to press the issue.

I cast my yay vote and dashed out of the room.

<dramatic pause here>

If I was writing a chapter in a book, I would hang up the towel now and leave you to your imagination to figure out the rest.  This is no story you’ll find on the shelves of your local bookstore.

Knowing this was going to come up for a vote, I had serious reservations if I should say anything at all.  I don’t like telling people no or speaking against ideas because I won’t be on the front lines to help with any fallout, but I also heard Mike in the back of my head telling me to speak my mind instead of blogging about it later.  This time I have done both, I am not sure if it worked any better actually.

In past, like last year, I didn’t have much trouble at all expressing my doubts over the then proposed new constitution.  This year was different, I ended up not wanting people to hate me for expressing my opinions much more than I wanted to express them.  I think it boils down to the fact that I don’t want to be viewed as that grumpy old guy in the corner that no one likes.  This year in particular, I’m not in a situation where people are forced to interact with me ever and there is no reason for people to “get over it” if I were to upset them.  It’s scary for me to identify this, but I don’t want to leave this place alone, some reminder it happened (besides 2 pieces of paper in a drawer somewhere).  I already don’t provide much social value to others (i.e. hangout time with brian != desirable), but I try and be useful in more work-related environments like RPI TV or WTG.  I faced a similar situation in high school I think, leaving the Tiger Times and all, but dating Katie made it easier to feel connected.

There are certainly times when I feel I should just quit while I’m “ahead”, toss in the towel and “enjoy” what time I have left here.  I’ve put out more than my fair share of fires, and I think I’ve earned  the opportunity to smile once in a while.  Sometimes I feel a little tired having to always defend the status quo in a land where change tends to be cool just because it’s different.  Then I wake up (interpret that both mentally and physically) and see the 2 dozen new emails / dispatches that require attention and ditch that plan.  There are never enough firefighters in the world.

P.S. A slight deviation from SOP, if you have any questions / comments / concerns you can try to talk to me about them offline instead of just online… but you can be online as well.  I haven’t read the “Overcoming Passive Aggression” book that someone left on my desk over the summer, but I realize that posting a comment might not be sufficient.

I would have described today as sobering, but I don’t think any parallels could be drawn between my past days and any state of intoxication.  The past few days have been, well, the same as the past few months, which accurately model the past few years of my life.  Most of the time I’m quite comfortable with everything, at least that is what I tell myself when I wake up in the morning.

What I have spent some time thinking about is how do I go about assigning value to things in my life.  The current working theory states that I assign value to things based on the value I provide to them.  This model adequately covers my desires to provide assistance to others but it doesn’t do a very decent job of capturing complex value propositions; nor have I solved the challenge of mapping this theory onto a social graph.  Clearly more work is needed here.

I have officially moved in to my new apartment.  If you are wondering how it is: it is sufficient.  Here is a tour for the visual impaired: walk down stairs, enter door.  Look left – kitchen with table and 2 chairs.  Pantry.  Look straight – two padded chairs (probably for “relaxing”) and a computer desk with rolly chair.  Look to your 1:00, door to the bathroom containing 1 toilet, 1 sink, and 1 shower/bathtub.  At your 10:30 you’ll spot the entrance to my bedroom which contains 1 bed, 1 dresser (or is it a bureau) and some (2) closets.  There are lights, windows, and such, but as a visual impaired or text-based explored they aren’t really relevant.

The moving-in to an apartment process was interesting.  I now have more steak knifes than I do fingers.  In the absence of a saw, I have been using one of them to cut wood and other materials as needed.  I don’t know who spread the rumor that I eat steak often and require knifes for it, I do not.  I will provide more details on this adventure later when I feel like talking about a less pungent topic.

Tonight I was in the Union working on a few projects I have coming down the pipeline.  If you were in the Office (you weren’t) you would have thought a hockey game was going on, I was completely alone.  You might also conclude that no one is on campus, which would have been right if many of my colleagues didn’t move in today.  Coupled with the loud freshmen dance party going on down in the McNeil room, I was feeling fairly lonely.  It was just me, Rails 3, Amazon’s S3, and some popular music from the party lofting in.  I recall visiting the “dance” during my freshmen orientation.  If you’re familiar with the decor in the McNeil Room you’ll note the walls don’t take well to a floral pattern.  Obviously I stayed for under a minute before strategically departing.  In my head I ran a quick simulation of actually attending such an event, but then I quickly remembered that a) that doesn’t happen and b) when it does there is no one there.

I came to the conclusion that I am not a day late and a dollar short, I’m just the guy stuck living in the USSR.

Good night moon.

Around me, most everyone I’ve come to know is graduating.  My fellow freshmen from 2006 are going to be graduating and a bunch of other “delayed” students will be graduating and moving on as well.  I’ve finally come to think of it, the group in which I interact with most has remained fairly steady for the past 2.5 to 3 years… we’ve only had a small handful (3?) graduates who’ve left the Rensselaer Community and this year the opposite situation seems true; there are going to be like 3-4 of us still around here.  All technical considerations aside, next year will be a proving year.

Tonight was the last RPI TV meeting of the semester, many members who are graduating (and leaving the community) were recognized and afterwards went out to engage in celebratory activities of some sort.  While I don’t tend to engage in such behaviors, I’m torn whether I should consider myself a true graduate or not and/or have a rightful place at the table.  Sure, I’ll be walking across a stage in a few weeks and getting a piece of paper that symbolizes my work, but I’ll still be eating in the Rathskeller come next fall.  To jump back to a previous thought, I think past generations have had this slightly easier, there has been a strong supporting group (i.e everyone who is graduating this year) that was around to interact with after they’re designated class year left; I’m left with much less.

What strikes me is not that I’m going to be in a situation without many friends, because I don’t call too many people “friends,” but I will be in a situation without too many people I’ve established lines of communication with or have strong work relationships with.  Earlier this week I found myself exploring the lack of an echo response when communicating with someone who will be around next year; and these sort of worries and incidents are not isolated.  Maybe I just lucked out with the acquaintances I made several years ago.  I will remain optimistic that things will rapidly scaffold themselves together when the time is right.

I’ll take a brief turn to talk a little bit about alcohol consumption, which will likely serve (like many things in these blogs do), an a metaphor.  I don’t consume alcoholic beverages while most people do.  I’ve concluded this may create slightly uncomfortable situations in “pubs” and “bars,” especially those typically serving the college-scene that expect many patrons to consume alcohol.  I do wonder if this time of year people engage in these deindividualizing practices more because they too are fearful of the future under the guise of fearing the present.  If you’ve been admitted to RPI or any college for that matter, and especially if you are four years into a program at such a school,  there is a high probability you know how to learn and what you need to do to sufficiently complete a final exam or a final project.  You’ve done this a 7 or 8 times and this year probably isn’t any different.  I postulate drinking because one is worried about exams serves only a superficial excuse to avoid exploring the deeper issues at play, like future life plans or potential social ostracization.  I think its safer for us to do dinner.

On a slightly less abstract side of life, my latest mission is to secure living quarters for the fall semester and beyond (spring semester).  Unfortunately I won’t be able to camp out in BARH A110 much longer, and the options officially extended from RPI, like many things around here, come with lots of paperwork with no guarantees.  Moving off campus seems to be the next logical step, which of course I am looking into months after most of the living facilities have been snatched up.  I shall continue to search online to find a suitable place for someone like myself to live in.  Having no experience, this is slightly worrisome, but I’m sure I can figure something out… someone famous once indicated there are always opportunities for new experiences.

Good night moon.

A quick recap of events:  This afternoon I had to activate video playback on the Alumni House Concerto screen so they could watch the Legends of ’85.  The computer powering the screen isn’t super powerful  so it stuttered a bit when playing it back, the frame rate might have been in the single digits.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do that wouldn’t threaten the stability of the system so I had to leave these moderately bad looking video (by my standards) playing.  After setting that up, I returned to the Union and everyone left to attend the “Big Red Freakout” hockey game (spoiler alert: RPI lost miserably).  I did not leave. Later,  I battled the vehicular hockey traffic up near the Field House to grab some dinner and supplies from my room, then I returned to the Union.

I spent most of my time struggling on a form to support a has_many join in rails for Concerto 2.  Feeling down, I went to Father’s to buy an ice cream cookie, one of the few “treats” I’ll personally indulge in.  After purchasing the cookie/ice-cream combination, I discovered it expired by opening it up and finding the cookie mostly absorbed into the ice cream.  I confirmed an expiration date of Nov 21, 2009 by examining the back of the wrapper.  The hockey game ended at some point and a modest crowd (i.e 2-3 people) trickled back to the Union.  Most people were attending post-game events and therefore did not return to their place of origin.  A little before 11:00pm I returned to my dorm.  That is where I write to you from.

It is no secret, I’m not a big fan of hockey.  I’m not opposed to the concept of hockey/athletics in general, but I feel no personal draw to attend games.  That said, you’d be mistaken to say that I won’t go to a hockey game.  I won’t go to a hockey game alone or for the hockey, but their are plenty of other reasons that would get me to attend.  For example, I have attended sporting events and musical concerts because there was a social reason for going.  Someone else may have invited me as their personal guest (opposed to inviting a dozen people to go as a group), or someone may want the opportunity to just chat or spend time with me (like my dad taking me or my brother to a basketball game).  The venue doesn’t matter much to me, but the interaction that happens when I’m their does.

In my current social situation, there is a low probability I would have interacted well with any group I could attend such events with at RPI.  I am securely positioned as an outlier, where most others view me as mildly useful for a very specific (and unfortunately shrinking) set of tasks… nothing more.  Commonly I am invited out of  professional courtesy, whereas I am not annoying enough to warrant being blacklisted from event, and it never hurts to invite someone with a terribly low attendance record who you see on a regular basis.

I am unsure how to accurately capture my feelings, because I typically use “left out” to describe scenarios where I am being intentionally excluded from something, which I am not.  I don’t identify loneliness with my current state because I know I could always initiate communication with a friend should I think it would help.  How exactly to capture the feeling of an outlier?  Maybe if I knew more big words I would have a better set to choose from here.  Spare may be a word to describe some emotions, where it is perceived that anything I could offer a gathering can already be provided by others.  In previous years I might have said secluded because I wasn’t as publicly visible as I’ve been this year, but I’ve found that an increased physical presence makes minimal difference.

Maybe it makes sense to explore the logic behind invitations and gathers.  Let go down the list quickly:  As an organizer, it it always logical to invite yourself.  Your significant other will also want to attend, or else they will feel left out, so you should invite him/her as well.  Next, I guess it makes sense to invite some close friends who you know will come.  Independently, they each should be able to interact well with each other so they aren’t relying on you to serve as the  only common ground they have.  Next, you might want to invite someone who can act as the “life of the party” for whatever event you’re hosting, should things go downhill this person could be someone well qualified to supply “event materials,” be it physical goods, services, discussion material, etc.  I think you finally invite everyone else, recognizing that an event’s enjoyment may be measured in sheer attendance and the more you invite the higher attendance might be.  Since these people are, in some regards, extras (i.e you might not invite all of them if you had limited space/resources), you don’t spend time evaluating their social needs or fit with the group… just shotgun it.

Maybe I am just really bad at picking up on sincerity or something; but I would almost always cast myself in the group of extras invited to events… be it a meeting, sporting event, party, food trip, you name it.  I guess most people must be OK with this, they go and do their own thing, interacting in whatever social circles they find themselves in.  Me?  I’m a little more structured than that.  Going with the sole intent of “showing up” to “see how things go” doesn’t work for me.  I don’t do anything to “see how it goes” except for things that I can undo with no damage (like computer programming).  Before I’m willing to take a risk and “see how it goes” I need to evaluate all the possible outcomes and, to proceed, identify some slight probability of success.

That was all very abstract, let me “break it down” for you.  To date, I have asked a total of one person to enter a relationship with me, you can probably guess who.  To do this, I spent approximately a very very long time determining there was some probability of short-term success and an acceptable low probability for little long-term damage.  This is because I opt to not be like a significant group of males and enter a relationship with just about anyone for the sake of seeing how it goes and gaining some experience.  (Though I will say, the knowledge gained from past relationships does leave something to be desired at times.)  Life is not my training dground, I don’t have the time to spend practicing these sorts of things.

Consider yourself lucky.

Goodnight moon.

I could probably write a small book reviewing my feelings with the institute I currently attend, but I’m doubtful my feelings are bound to this specific establishment.  I think back to high school, and I probably could have succeeded in just about any other high school.  Sure, I wouldn’t be the same person today without my daily exposure to a television studio, but I’m confident I could have supplemented that technical knowledge set with something equivalent… like the lighting control for the sage I always wanted to learn but never was permitted to.

One thing I didn’t mind about high school was my interactions with others.  Sure, most people would classify me someone on the geeky/nerdier end of the spectrum, but that didn’t spot me from saying hi to people in the hallway, and almost as importantly, it didn’t stop people from saying hi to me too.  Maybe people felt they had to be nice or I wouldn’t help them fix ______, but I’d rather think that people are inherently nice most of the time.  I suspect that at RPI I have done a poor job of establishing the field in which I’m interested in interacting with others, and instead of trying to figure it out, most people opt to ignore me all together unless absolutely necessary.  For example, I can send dozens of emails out looking for feedback, suggestions, or just a simple “Thank you”  and can count on the same individuals to respond or acknowledge me, its not until I send “Hey, I’m about to throw out something of yours” that I get a timely and succinct response.

Freshmen year at college I spent most of my non-class time online in my room, during which point I was signed into AOL Instant Messenger.  As the semester progressed, the unique senders of messages to me declined steadily to around 4.  Since freshmen year I’ve opted to revive my MSN account, add my Facebook and MySpace chat account, and add my Google chat account bringing the total # of services I’m available online for an instant chat with to >5.  The number of people who regularly message me on these services may have grown to 5 I think.  Logically, I expect the number of people who regularly commutate with me online to have some direct correlation to the quantity of people who interact with me in real life and one would have thought that being around longer and interacting with more people might have increased that number.

I often wonder if my work-oriented approach to things serves as a detriment to me  It makes sense to me: people attend college to graduate.  Graduation requires good grades.  Good grades require some quantity of  working.   Being work-oriented facilitates work… at least thats the hypothesis I’ve been working off of since the 6th grade.  If everyone worked “better” in sweatpants and hoodies, we would probably see more people wearing them in professional settings.  I’ve digressed a bit, but I may resume work on the automatic chat bot I worked on circa 2005.  While it never carried out the most intelligent conversations with me, it knew enough to ask about the weather from time to time.

Like I said earlier, I wasn’t one of the popular kids in the school, but there were my areas of expertise that I was given near-free reign in to work as I pleased.  I miss that component these days.  The only free reign I have now is what I can squeeze in during my downtime, which is sparse to come by.  Don’t think I am opposed or disinterested in the other tasks I am doing, I could just use a clone (actually, another interested person would probably less confusing to all) to help me do them faster.  If the red tape I have to cut through was your typical paperwork or hierarchical problems I would have no problem pressing forward, but the red tape holding be back right now comes from within.

Also on my list of misconceptions was the notion that college would at least make me  desirable employee, if not a desirable “well-rounded” person.  I can safely say that my 3.5 years to date at RPI have generated minimal leads that could help me after I graduate.  I have not been taught a unique skill set, and I suspect peers from other schools may have taken classes that have taught them actually useful skills.  While my outside-of-the-classroom projects may help set me apart from others, much of their scope is limited to RPI; its not like I could write myself a recommendation or reference letter about the work I did on Concerto or something weird like that.

If my second to last undergraduate semester is any predictor of the future,  I am in store for much of the same in the spring semester.  I guess I’ll have to get work on that chat bot, maybe I’ll train it to help write some code too.

Goodnight Moon.

Over the past few days I’ve had a few new experiences, most of them negative, and a few repeated experiences, most of them also negative.  I have also lost a pair of pants, also negative.  Let me dive into some of the less than pleasant tales.

Over the weekend, I performed inadequate in my relationships with others.  I was distant at times and occasionally found the status quo to be acceptable.  A fair number of people would have also agreed, or at least argued, that the status quo was acceptable but logically I should have realized this was not the case.  It was not logical of me to permit the situation to stay as is, despite any perceived convenience for me.  Thinking back, I believe I made the mistake of thinking too many steps ahead, instead of where I needed to put my foot next.  I will have to improve in this area.

Additionally, I provided insufficient gifts.  As a gift giver, I know that what I give is never going to be the best idea ever since I will always apply my own “spin” on the token or item.  What I failed to take into account this season was the comparison factor.  In any other season, my tokens would have likely been much more sufficient.  This season is different from others, and I should have remembered that I needed to respond accordingly.  I will provide an example for clarity: If you present 12 golden coins, it seems like a pretty nice deal. That is the case until another person presents 25 gold coins.  If the 25 gold coins were never presented the 12 you had would have been super, but after 25 have been passed on the table, the comparison to others makes your offering much smaller than you intended it to be.  Better luck next time I guess.

Saturday night I attended an indoor barbecue-style event.  I do not believe I have attended similar events during my tenure at RPI or during the course of the current campaign.  This event confirmed my belief that I am socially distant from others and overall an undesirable social asset.  I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but my intuition is telling me that I would be much better off if I was located within 1.5 IQR here and not so far off course in outlier territory.  As a result of this, my engagement (though I didn’t engage much) ended early.

After departing the BBQ event, I went to get ice cream.  Somehow, the battery in my car decided that it was going to die/not do it’s job.  This creates quite the predicament for me.  A dead battery is not something I can easily solve on my own, like a flat tire or dislocated shoulder.  Asking for assistance from others is tough for me, because I dislike being indebted to another person for an undefined period of time.  Luckily, Ms. Boudreau was able to telephone Mr. Emala on her mobile and he and Mr. Kouttron were able to provide the required electricity to get my car started again.  I backed my car into my spot in front of BARH and it hasn’t been able to start since.  I hope to resolve this “tomorrow”.

Backing up a few hours, I’d like to resume discussion on the social.  For a while I’ve know that I am usually classified as socially awkward, which hasn’t bothered me much.  I guess I’ve always found awkward and acceptable not to be mutually exclusive, but maybe the analysis yielding that result is wrong.  I have always recognized that my guest is socially more desirable than myself, so I kind of write it off when a group joking doesn’t permit her to leave while I attempt to exit.  All in good spirit.

I am also poor at “shooting the breeze” because this just sounds like a dumb idea.  Shooting at wind is almost always a waste of bullets, and I find conversations of the sort to go the same way.   Its not that I don’t like to talk to people, its that I have trouble generating appropriate topics for discussion.  Like most, when I have trouble generating appropriate topics for discussion I talk about the things around me.  Unlike most, I could spend a measurable quantity of time talking about someone’s choice of stance, sitting pose, dress, etc.. none of which really go over well in a “hey, how about this weather” kind of way.

I am unsure how to proceed, but will continue to explore a few options. One of those options is not proceeding at all.

I was disappointed to loose another pair of pants.  Somehow I had worn down the right knee area to a critical level.  By the time I had noticed the damage and sown up the hole, the structurally integrity of the fabric had been lost and I was unable to stop the hole’s growth.  My pant rotation will be off until I can find a suitable replacement.

Good night moon.

The heat snuck on in my dormitory earlier this week.  Luckily my thermostat was set to 40-something so I didn’t get a full blast of it.  Last night I dared to raise the temperature to something useful in the 60s to ensure I didn’t freeze overnight.  The heat seemed to respond well.  I’m going to try and keep a better eye on it this year so I don’t always have to keep a window open mitigating the difference.

Last week in Professional Development 3 we had to deliver a “60 second sell” to someone about ourselves.  It seems this presentation is somewhat notorious at RPI, but I knew nothing about it.  I spoke about myself for the required minute and received some decent feedback, figuring I’d probably get a B or a low A.  Alas this week the Professor indicates that two Brian M’s were among the top 6 performers.  Buckets!  What was the probability there were 3 Brian M’s in this class?  I assume very low.  Unfortunately this is one of those teachers who makes you do extra work if you stand out, and somehow my performance qualified me for the exact opposite of the experience I had wanted.  She indicated that the 6 of us should distribute ourselves evenly amongst the groups that we were to form and we should be responsible for presenting another 60 second sell to the class.  Luckily my group didn’t ask my name and I pretended she said “Ryan M” so I didn’t feel as guilty.

Sometimes I go out of my way to accomplish something or make progress on a task only to find my efforts fail, go unnoticed or unappreciated.  Take it from a technology perspective:  Everyone is getting used to really cool websites.  If my sites don’t look graphically appealing and have fancy AJAX search boxes they’re just less cool.  Unfortunately for me I’m no expert in AJAX and my version of graphically appealing consists of background-color: blue.  People may rate me as some amateur developer because I can’t make a website that visually competes with site X but I can probably get the pageload just as fast as the other site or the database query to be as efficient as possible.  Another example, the social platform.  I’m known for eating alone, not participating in social activities, and avoiding fun like the plague. That said,  I recognize that such environment may not be as conducive to others.  My attempts to accommodate have gotten me nowhere, leaving me to wonder what faults I’m demonstrating.

Good night moon.