I’m doubtful (which sometimes means I’m worried) that we simply don’t simply share information with others because of the information’s usefulness and that persons trust, there might be other factors at work here.  I worry about this because it means that either a lot of people don’t think I’m very useful on social matters or they don’t trust me.  I try very hard to be both useful and trustworthy in this realm, but if I’m not perceived that way then I must not be doing something right?

Maybe there are other people out there more useful and/or more trustworthy that are better candidates to receive a information.  Socially speaking I don’t think there is any realistic physical limit to the sources a message can be shared with, but I bet people choose to self–limit this number to better control their flow of information and their image in the world.   By blogging like this I don’t have to pick and choose who I tell my stories to, I can share them for anyone who is interested in reading them.  That was a particularly poor example if I must say so myself.

I had a whole paragraph here where I convinced myself that I was socially useful but I’m not the person that I should be convincing.  I need no additional pressure to take my own advice.  Maybe I just do a really good job of compartmentalizing things so people don’t perceive I have any knowledge in a field.  Alternatively, I guess I could be unapproachable.  I kind of doubt the approachability thing because a) I shower daily b) I’m usually pretty easy to find in person/online.  My contact information is no secret (just look at the right column of my blog).  I guess there could also be this fear of judgement and the potential for repercussions in a workplace, which is a completely justifiable fear.  Everyone is judging everyone else all the time, it’s not like my judgements of you matter much.  I don’t have a silly sign about a “judgement free zone” because that would be a lie, but I’ve become fairly well versed in preventing any personal judgements from effecting my ability to perform objectively.  I might think you are a complete idiot, but you would have no clue.  Alternatively, I could think that you are super cool and want to “be friends” (whatever that means) but you might think I didn’t care to be around you at all.  Anything is possible these days.

Good night moon.

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.

What I think you’ll find is that if you just sit, maybe swim, somewhere where there are waves in the deeper waters you won’t do a whole lot of moving besides the buoying up and down as waves come and pass.  The waves aren’t out to drown you usually.  I do wonder if waves should really be blamed for all the hassle they cause things, maybe it is the things that is really causing all the trouble in the first place.

Sometimes I relate to waves.  I don’t make a lot of progress in my personal ocean, but when I do I tend to cause some quantity of hassel and unrest.  I would be lying to say everyone else may be to blame, as I previously stated in my wave example (my perpetual motion is not controlled by the moon to my knowledge), but I do wonder how much of a reaction is mine and how much should be attributed to others.

What does seem fitting is to toss an association at the closest object, without always using the hula-hoop to check for strings.  I get that, and I’ve probably been guilty of it a few times myself, but I don’t try and toss negative association horseshoes very often.  Like hand grenades, its one of those sports where closeness counts (and can cause damage), collateral I see no reason to risk.

Good night moon.

Let me think, I guess I shall start off with “Senior Week” which I did not participate in at all.  I made a deal that in exchange for filming a few events earlier in the year I would not partake in any of the events, and to be honest none of the events were really down my ally.  I don’t enjoy drinking socially and that seems to the theme for everything senior-week related.  I would have much preferred some really exciting lectures from people doing cool stuff…. not just a colloquy about a topic that I really don’t care for.  During my 4 undergraduate years at RPI I never remember there being a lecture or speaker on campus that was super thrilling to go see.  I guess Richard Stallman comes around every now and then, but he isn’t really my kinda guy.  Chris DiBona from Google came once 2-3 years ago but was in a really small room so I couldn’t get in.  It would have been neat if senior week wasn’t all about bar hopping and included some components of a collegiate nature.

Somewhere in there I celebrated my birthday.  Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, even those of you who only did it because Facebook told you to.  It’s ok, I regularly forget my birthday too.  Ah yes, I remember now.  For my birthday I got a cutting board and dish towels.  My parents (read as: mom) always pick out the best gifts.  Included was a coupon for more information about Office 2010 Small Business, which my mom said was a coupon for a new laptop… despite the fact that it was only a picture of Office 2010.  Katie got me another super cool gift, which I will be debuting once I get around to writing a widget for it.  My brother gave me a computer chair, which makes sense because my college one is 4 years old and not so usable these days.  I celebrated my birthday by…. hrm, I’m not sure exactly what I did.  I bought a cake for myself and probably ate some food, it’s not really standing out to me.

I also graduated, completing my B.S in Computer Engineering.  The ceremony was very long, and the primary speaker was lackluster from my point of view.  It would have been nice if, instead of having the sun in the eyes of the entire audience… they put the sun in the eyes of the few dozen people on stage.  Luckily it didn’t rain, which would have been a huge deal because my mom hogged all the rain tickets and wouldn’t let me dole them out as I saw fit (aka Katie couldn’t get one).  After taking 0 pictures with my graduating colleagues at RPI, I packed up and moved out of BARH for the last time.  I think in a few years I will have wanted to take >1 photo with people I associated with during my undergraduate years, but it is particularly lame to say “Please gather so I can take a photo proving I worked with people at RPI so in 10+ years people believe me when I say I knew you.”  I admit, I have done a particularly good job staying out of photographs.  Excluding pictures taken of me entering and sitting at graduation, I count a total of 20 photos on Facebook taken at/near RPI of me with another RPI community member in them… this is over the last 4 years.

Upon graduating, I entered into my Masters program with the Computer Science department.  My plan is to get an MS in CS ASAP.  I switched from the School of Engineering to the School of Science for a few reasons.  I really didn’t like how Computer Engineering was taught in the ECSE department.  I felt it was an Electrical Engineering curriculum that made you take a handful of computer science courses.  I gained a lot of knowledge about stuff I don’t really care for (circuits & signals) and didn’t dive deep enough into the computer sciency stuff I’d like to be doing in my future.  I’m not saying the engineering program is bad at RPI, I’m just saying that the Computer Engineering program is not an engineering approach to computer things, like I thought it would be.

The weekend after I graduated my mom organized a graduation “party” which she renamed the Memorial Day Cookout.  I invited my friends (brother Kevin and Katie) and mom invited the family + Katie’s parents. Mom instructed everyone to not bring gifts, so I got a few cards and a business card holder from Katie’s mom.  I also opened up the gifts from my parents (read as: mom) which included a pen with the RPI seal, several pencil with the same logo, a mirror with a very strange rendition of the quad, and a blanket with the RPI seal on it.  You would think we were celebrating Rensselaer here, not my graduation from the place.  I am not sure what I will do with all this strange RPI stuff, it won’t be appropriate to display for ~20 years so I’ll have to figure out how to archive it.

Last Friday my mom had a sizable chunk of skin removed from her leg, so I’ve been at home helping to “take care of her.”  Over the weekend dad decided the grass in Vermont urgently needed to be mowed, so I was home alone taking care of mother on Saturday and Sunday.  Luckily she is not super demanding if you offer her food every so often and bring her reading material (she claims walking is tough).  During this whole process, she and my father seem to think that I am always on-call to do stuff and that I’m not pulling my weight around the house.  Sure, I’m at home which is different than my brother who is working at a theme park, but I’m working just as hard… if not harder sometimes.  I don’t want to attempt to debate whether being a computer “scientist” is harder than operating a roller coaster, but I don’t have a standard operating procedure for completing any of my projects, I also don’t have a boss who assigns me very specific tasks to complete.  I think it is partially a visibility issue.  My parents have no clue what I do all day in front of this screen and neither of their careers have put them in a situation where they can relate to what I do.  On the other hand, standing outside all day repeating the same action for n hours is pretty easy to understand and relate to.

The past few days I’ve been sleeping later than I would like.  When I’m laying in bed I’m usually coming up with pretty good excuses for not getting up, but they are still just excuses.  Examples from the past week include: running low on shaving cream, mom or brother being in the shower, someone cooking in the kitchen,  or the complete lack of friendly-breakfast food.  I would like to execute the same routine every morning just like I do during the school year, but everyone else at home doesn’t believe in static schedules.  I can’t rely on the shower or kitchen to be open at the same time every morning and there is a high probability any special food I acquire for my own breakfast will be consumed before I get to enjoy it.  I have been seeking a reputable vendor of bagels besides Dunkin Donuts, because it is unacceptable in this house to go to Dunkin Donunts unless it is a special occasion (or you are dad and thereby an exception to any of mom’s rules).  The local supermarket (Big Y) does not supply high quality bagels.  Also, if I wake up early, both of my parent will interrogate me to figure out what I’m doing up so early… clearly not “work” or anything like that.

As usual, I spent some quantities of time wanting things that are very unlikely to happen.  For some things, I think that I should just create an AI bot, but I would have to design it in such a way that I wouldn’t be able to recognize it was my bot.  Besides solving the Turing Test, I’d at least have conned myself into believing today had been a good day.  That came off sounding harsher than I’d like, and I should really find a more achievable approach to all this.

Good night moon.

What did stand out as different this year was the parking lot crowd. It’s possible I didn’t recognize this last year, but it seemed just about everyone was being moved out by a parent (usually a father), While I don’t hold anything against my parents for not helping me move out, I’ve been doing this routine alone since sophomore year and it had never really occurred to me. I suspect a day may come when I wish that I did interact more with my father, but moving out probably isn’t the best way to do so.

Being home is rarely an enjoyable experience these days and I’m starting to think it probably will never be. Despite the fact that I am nearly 22 years old, my mom consistently dictates when I am to do and what she is comfortable with me doing. For example, my dad proposed that I move my desk from the basement to my bedroom so I could spend the majority of my time working in a nicer room that has some windows and lighting. I didn’t even have a chance to consider this idea before my mom installed her opinion, whereby she is uncomfortable with me working in a bedroom because then people will come and visit me in a bedroom and a bedroom is not a hang out zone. Clearly she is afraid of people sitting on a bed. She actually has been for years, while my brother is playing video games upstairs in his bedroom (where there is a desk and a desktop computer) my mom is always weary when Katie and I sit on the bed, which is next to the desk, to interface with my brother. I’m not sure why she is so afraid of people being in bedrooms, but thinking back to my childhood I wasn’t really encouraged to hang out in my bedroom with friends, ever. I almost wonder if I haven’t complained about the aforementioned home issues as much because I’ve been able to easily discuss them with others. Unfortunately this season both individuals I’ve spoken with on this subject are unable to fill in their roles, one moving away from me to deal with more personal concerns and the other only reminding me it’s my fault for being here in the first place because I failed.

Most people enjoy summer as a time to relax, hang out with friends, and take it easy. I do not enjoy any of those things, and would much rather summer be cancelled. During the school year it is moderately acceptable to request time to yourself to work on school assignments and project deadlines but during the summer that all becomes far less easy to do. Its not acceptable for me to spend 3 hours in the evening playing around with an exciting technology project because I should be relaxing and hanging out with others or something like that. Yes, I understand that summer break is one of the few times I can “socialize” with “friends” (read as: ‘hang out’ and ’2 people’ respectively) but I don’t have a desire or need to do that all the time, and whenever I do try and express this alternate logic I am quickly cast away as a terrible person who is all work and never interested in doing fun things. I struggle to balance more commonly accepted views of “fun” with what I personally find as fun, it is really hard to swing between both ends of the spectrum.

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.

I also enjoy running in the rain.  As someone who doesn’t run often, rain provides an excellent reason to run without standing out too much from others, since most people are trying to get out of the rain as quickly as possible.  The rain also forces me to adjust my eyes and pay more attention to what I’m seeing very close to me, something I often forget when I’m running in nice weather and looking off into the distance.  Unfortunately it hasn’t rained very much so far this month.

In slightly over a month I’ll be both completing my undergraduate program at RPI and celebrating my 22nd birthday.  Unfortunately, both of these occasions are linked to gift-giving practices.  I face strong dilemma when people ask me “what do you want for a gift?” because that question is really a trick question.  What they are actually asking is “What would be acceptable to give you for a gift that we are comfortable giving you and in our price range?”  You see, those are two distinctly different questions.  What I would like for a gift you may ask?  Well, I would really like some time.  But last I checked, no one was in the business of selling additional time.  I’d also settle for a new pair of comfortable sneakers and someone to write code for me, but I know both of those aren’t very likely gifts either.  Instead, I suppose I should be coming up with ideas like a laptop, a cell phone, and generic household appliances.  I’m not a huge fan of celebrating either of these two events; if it was up to me I would probably not walk in graduation but I recognize that my parents would be extremely disappointed if I didn’t.  I’ve also considered formally cancelling my birthday, but I do enjoy the opportunity to eat cake alone once or twice a year without feeling guilty like every other time I enjoy a desert-like snack alone.  As an alternative to both of those ridiculous ideas, I will participate in both events so others can experience the happiness I’m not feeling.  The phrasing of that last sentence made it sound particularly depressing which was not my intent, but this April has been particularly long.

Goodnight Moon

From what I hear, the press has descended on South Hadley and as I type, Anderson Cooper is going all 360 on Superintendent Sayer.  Unfortunately, South Hadley’s school department lacks anyone who is skilled in the art of public relations so there is zero chance the School Department will be able to show the progress they’ve made on the bullying front.  It’s too bad, because there are tons of people out there willing to share their opinion on what the schools have messed up, but not many people are coming forward to say anything good.

You’ll note that most of this has been written well before 9 students were criminally charged in connection to the suicide of a student.  Not knowing these students or the underlying causes for these charges, I’m not going to comment on the specifics.  The below represents statements I’ve been developing since February.

First, what qualifies me to speak on the issue?  Well, I’m a senior in college.  I like to think I’m sufficiently removed from the situation (4 years) whereby I can offer some unclouded views.  That said, as a student I was more familiar with the administration of the high school and school district than just about any student I met during my four years in the school.   Also, I’m not 40, married with 3 kids, and spending every waking minute on MassLive.  I’m familiar with what actually happens on sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter because I’ve used them since before parents heard about them.  Lastly, I spent most of my four years in high school observing.  I compartmentalized most of my social activities to 1.5 hours each day and spent the rest of the time watching what others did.  I was at that lunch table that was mostly empty, or standing in the corner watching everyone else mingle after lunch.  Not like in the creepy way, but in the I’ve only got a handful of friends and we don’t talk loud enough to stand in the middle of everyone and still hear ourselves kind of way.

On to the meat of the issues here…

I think everyone is on the right page when they say there are bullies in high school.  I think everyone is on the wrong page when they say South Hadley has a bullying problem, or a situation that significantly deviates from the norm.  I think the climate is providing an easy environment for people to say that South Hadley has a bullying problem because of some of the recent events and subsequent news coverage, unfortunately that’s just fuel for the mirage.  What South Hadley does have right now, that most communities don’t, is a great way to start (and continue) the conversation about bullying in our schools.  Dozens of students, former students, and parents are now coming out of the woodwork to talk about how they are/were/represent someone who was bullied during their school years.  I think this is a really good conversation to be having, but we need to get the context right.  We should all be working together as a community to solve this problem, not just dropping our complaints in the complaint box or pointing our finger around at past events… but that might just be my approach, I much enjoy moving forward.

At the School Committee meeting following the incident people lined up like it was a church confessional to detail the times they had been bullied.  All the stories were very sad, and clearly everyone is still haunted by their high school bully today, but most people failed to present reasonable next steps.  For the dialog to work, someone should have presented a story like this “I was bullied blah blah blah, but thinking back on it, I really could have used some help standing up for myself or asserting my beliefs,” not just “I was bullied blah blah blah, and you should fire everyone for not caring.”  One of the things that did stand out to me was that some people were stepping forward to speak about abuses many years ago, before lots of the current faculty/staff were in their current roles.  Maybe the current staff could do more about these sorts of things, but it seems like this trend isn’t new to this specific set of administrators or teachers… it has been going on since the dawn of time!

What strikes me as a little odd is the ratio of those bullied that have come forward compared to the bullies that have come forward (i.e large to zero).  I think people often forget that being a bully and being bullied are not mutually exclusive states.  Based on my experience, there’s actually a pretty decent probability that you’ve been responsible for “bullying” someone at least once during your four years in high school.  Maybe you didn’t want to be their partner, choosing to work with your group of friends instead, maybe you laughed or snickered when you saw their test grade and then went to tell your friends about it.  The tricky thing about bullying is measuring it, it is not like punching someone in the face.. counting the welts on face isn’t as easy as measuring the emotional damage someone may or may not have suffered at your tongue.

For example, I could tell my parents that someone made an insulting comment about my clothes in school today.  They could be worried I was being bullied without every asking how I felt.  Personally, I probably couldn’t care less if someone insulted what I wear…. but for someone else this could be a defining moment of their high school experience.

Based on my experience with the administration of South Hadley High School, they do a bang up job.  As always, there is room for improvement, but I’ve observed them doing the best they can given their limited resources.  The fact is that most people don’t care what happens at the high school until something really bad happens.  In some of the younger schools parents involve themselves in the education process with things like the PTA and parent-teacher conferences.  By the time the students are in high school, they’ve found something better to do with their time.  I attended (filmed) School Committee meetings for a really long time, and the only time I saw more than one parent show up was when the sports or music budget was going to be cut.  Parents never came to speak when the budget for counselors was reduced or when teaching positions were going to be reduced, it just didn’t happen.  If you claim the school is in a terrible state, I can assure you it didn’t get here overnight.  Where were the watchdogs last year?

There is a lot of people out there tossing blame saying that administrator X or teacher Y was made aware of the bullying and failed to stop it.  I suspect if an administrator kept a list of students who they suspected were bullied, something like 75% of the school population would be on it.  That’s not to say an administrator sees you gets punched in the face and just marks it down in a book, but they can tell when you’re having a rough day.  There is also the parent-reporting issue.  I think that a lot of the time parents report issues and kind of make a huge deal out of things.  That is not to say the mold fits for the presently discussed scenario, but a lot of the time your parent calls and they are going to be furious, failing to even consider that they’re kid could have presented them with a slightly exaggerated story.  It’s not like they were emotional or anything I’m sure.  It’s also not likely they called in concerned their student hadn’t been doing any homework or anything educational like that; some of the most effective parent-administrator/teacher relationship I saw were parents that were concerned about their child’s school experience as a package… which includes both last weeks math test and the latest rumor about them.

I try to think what I would do if someone complained to me about a bullying issue.  Having limited educational training, its a tough call.  For starters, I first need to verify that an issue exists. I’ve heard one, probably over dramatized version of the story, and I need to hear the other side.  The problem is that you just can’t sit the other student down and be like are you talking smack about person z?  They’re gonna say no, and if they legitimately weren’t talking smack about that person they now have a reason to do so.  Logically, my next step might be to conduct some digging around and ask teachers and counselors.  Unfortunately, I remembered that the teachers are short handed and underpaid so they’re not the best witnesses.  The counselors might be helpful, if we hadn’t reduced the number of them to four.  Hrm, where does that put me.  I guess I could check out some technology, unfortunately its kind of creepy to be friends with your principal on Facebook.  The school resource officer might be worth a go, but I suspect his undercover Facebook skills are worse then mine.  I guess I’m left with the hold-my-horses approach, raising an alert level but waiting until there is something indisputable I can catch someone on.  A punch to the face would make things much easier.

I have no doubts I will be classified as very pro-South Hadley Public Schools.  I don’t think that would be a lie; heck, I held a sign when I was 10 encouraging you to vote yes on 2 so we could renovate the schools.  My allegiance does not come because I spent summers working for the school or because I’ve been pretty involved.  My allegiance comes because I see that South Hadley Schools produce, on the most part, decent, successful, contributing members of society.  Sure, I can go online and find tons of underage students drinking, but I consistently find them ending up in college and doing something decent with their life.  SHHS produces very few homeless students.  I also think that South Hadley is, on the whole, a pretty decent place to be raised.  I don’t care about how many millions of dollars the golf course is eating, I care that people don’t get shot in gang related violence.  Sure, there might be some drugs here or there, but it doesn’t get in the way of an AP Calculus class.  You think South Hadley has problems, try going to Springfield!  Not that I want to bash Springfield specifically, I’m just trying to point out that things could be worse…

For those of you who have been in to room at some point over the past 3.5 years you may have noticed I have 3 pillows positioned vertically at the head of my bed.  Unlike home, I don’t have purely decorational pillows, but I do my best to create an aesthetically pleasing bed.  The first pillow in the queue is a smaller pillow (maybe 18 inches x 18 inches), and was stitched together by Katie Boudreau sometime in Middle School.  Graphical in nature, this pillow contains elevated sections of 4 dogs on a scenic nature background.  The second pillow is a regular-sized pillow but is moderately thick.  None of these pillows are stuffed with feathers, and this pillow’s thickness peaks around 8 inches at the center.  As a thick pillow, this pillow is moderately soft and compresses to provide a mildly comfortable sleep environment.  Last in the pillow line is another regular sized pillow, with a thickness peaking around 4 inches thoug.  This pillow is not terrible soft and doesn’t compress comfortably.  I suspect when my head is laying on it the pillow compresses to be 1-2 inches thick.

Every night I use the last “brick-like” pillow to rest my head when I sleep.  While turning down my bed, I relocate the large poofy pillow to the floor next to my bed.  I’ve tried using it once or twice when I first installed it, but I fear that using it too much will compress it down to be hard like the brick pillow.  I’ve concluded that its best left unused by me, available for the rare instance I should need to provide a pillow for someone else.   Since most people enjoy soft pillows, it seems logical to keep that one soft and available.  Pillows are not as easy to acquire as say, matches, so you really have to think about how to be prepared here.  While I haven’t done the math, this pillow stands dormant, in the ready-stage, most of the year,  always available for emergency use or alike.

As for the smaller “graphical” pillow, I place that under the covers on top of my chest while I fall asleep.  In the winter it helps keep my core warm, and I think it would also serve to slow down the blade of anyone trying to stab me in the chest while I slept.  Wouldn’t want that LOTR stabbing thing going on without some very very very mild protection in place.  I could also use it to absorb blood if I was stabbed and started bleeding. This is a very unlikely scenario most nights.  Since I have not mastered the skill of sleeping perfectly still the entire night, it does drift slightly during the night.

I use the less-soft, mostly hard pillow to sleep on night after night here in college.  It is not very enjoyable, but I does make me feel better to know that a more comfortable pillow is available if the need were to arise.  There have been a few nights I’ve been resting in bed thinking “Hrm self, you might fall asleep faster if you used the other pillow.”  I have managed to remain steadfast and never given in to my temptation to use a more comfortable pillow, serving as a constant reminder that I am on a decent course.

Well, I should get horizontal and rest my head on this pillow.  I think I’ve actually used rocks which are more comfortable.  That wasn’t a metaphor, I do not bring pillows when I go camping.  If I really need something to rest my head on, I can improvise.

Goodnight moon.