Brian's World

Motivational Sources

January 16th, 2011 Posted in Life | No Comments »

Blogging these days is more dangerous I feel, but I’ll give it a shot anyways.  I missed several typical posts over the past few weeks and I’ll try to make up for them here, no promises though.  Let’s start with Christmas, everyone’s favorite holiday.

This Christmas wasn’t terrible, I didn’t enjoy it too much but I didn’t end up nearly as frustrated as usual.  I’m not sure if that is a result of the continual lowering of my expectations or things actually being better.  The worst part was probably Christmas Eve, when the Michalski side of the family comes over for a traditional Polish Christmas-eve dinner.  The food is never tasty, Katie “tried” and didn’t like any of it.  Nothing too unexpected there.  Usually we pull names out of a hat at Thanksgiving and exchange gifts according to that drawing.  This year, my dad decided to mix it up.  Everyone would bring a generic gift and we could draw them live according to age.  He suggested that my brother and I buy for each other so we end up getting something we’d actually like, which would work out great being the youngest and second-youngest people there.  This sounded like a half-decent way to avoid getting something from a relative that I have no desire for.  Less emphasis should have been placed on half-decent.

My brother ended up buying a generic gift, and I ended up buying something specific to him.  We coordinate great.  I briefed him to make sure he would pick my package, and being the youngest he would in theory do that.  The plan wasn’t great, but it seemed decent until my cousin decided we should draw numbers to determine the order.  I got number 2 and my brother got a much lager number.  Being #2, I figured there was a low probability person #1 would pick my gift at random from the pile and they didn’t… whew.  Since it was my turn, and I didn’t want the gift for my brother to get pulled by anyone else (no one would have wanted a wii game + controller) I decided to draw my own anonymous gift.  It was fairly depressing ripping open my wrapping and pretending to be surprised.  Everyone else seemed to genuinely enjoy their gifts, or at least they had fun with the process.  Better luck next year I guess.

On Christmas day the notable gifts from my parents included the following: a toaster, ‘colonial’ style wall clock (stained wood framing), 2 pairs of jeans, <mind draws a blank>, a laptop bag, and a rubber mat to put boots on.  I returned the jeans (now I have to figure out what to do with a JCP gift card) and the laptop bag.  I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with the clock, but in theory the toaster will cook toast and the rubber mat will collect debris from my shoes / boots at the apartment.

In theory I am suppose to pick out a TV at some point that will also count as a Christmas gift from my parents, but I think that buying gifts for youself is almost entirely against the Christmas spirit.  I bought myself a new router (trouble with my WRT54G) and decided to take it out of the box on Christmas night.  I didn’t bother to wrap it, but saying “Merry Christmas self” seemed pretty depressing.  I could have easily told someone else that I wanted that exact router, but it wasn’t something I was super excited about.  The things I want for myself tend to be more utility oriented, and passing them off as gifts only reminded me how boring things can be.

Let me think, what else can I report on after Christmas.

I just got back from a trip to Puerto Rico.  The choice of the word trip, opposed to vacation, is strategic.  My family + Katie went for 7 days and stayed in a condo complex.  The place we stayed in was nice, the air mattress I slept on worked out better than I expected, but eating down there was pretty painful.  I don’t pretend to know spanish, nor do I pretend to enjoy trying new foods.. neither does Katie.  Luckily they had american fast-food restaurants so we didn’t starve.  I think the “best” place we ate it was Pizza Hut, which was hardly the place to celebrate Katie’s 21’st birthday.  Unfortunately she is used to being let down on these sort of things, so making it up is on my todo list.  I know all to well how it feels to be let down with these sort of things, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone for the world.  I feel bad when I can’t figure out how to make things work  or make them right, but some subjects are particularly hard for me.  Alas, better luck next time.  Overall I think my body physically took a vacation, my mind didn’t move an inch.  Someday I will take an actual vacation where I can relax an enjoy myself for a few days instead of a few minutes / hours but I don’t think that will be anytime soon.

This evening I watched “The Social Network” and found it to be a thoroughly depressing movie.  Probably on my top-10 depressing movies list.  I don’t remember the other 9 movies on the list at the moment.  It was a decent film with pleasant acting, overall I would say it was very well made.  That said, I wasn’t a huge fan of the story presented… regardless of if it is the actual “Facebook story” or anything like that.  It might be just me, but I don’t think the film placed a respectful amount of emphasis on the actual making of a website… just the social interactions of a group of people.  It would be like if you filmed all of the Webtech folks circa 2009 or something as we went to meetings and others went out to eat; you wouldn’t get a very accurate picture of all the time I and others spent staring at a computer screen and/or whiteboard actually doing the site building work.  I can see why my parents both walked away wondering why I hadn’t invented the next Facebook or something like that.

That summary turned out to be a lot more mild than I expected.  Let’s get serious (and cryptic).

I always catch the clock, no matter what time it is, it means nothing to me. Not because I don’t let it but because it hasn’t.  Some days I feel like it never will.  You’ll always be better than me.  I know, far to well sometimes, how it feels to exist in an unpleasant state.  We often take the ability to change states for granted.  Unpleasantries are but fixtures most people pass driving down the highway.  Mine are stuck in/on/in-close-proximity-to-and-traveling-at-the-same-velocity-as my car.  Regardless I try quite hard to see the light at the end of my tunnel, and help make the light the end of others’ much easier to see.  It’s days when that light goes missing that we need it the most.  Good thing I have batteries in my flashlight.

Good night moon.

Making Amends

December 2nd, 2010 Posted in College, Life, Personal | 1 Comment »

For those of you who don’t know, RPI TV passed a new constitution this week slashing the officer number in half and reducing the voting members to those active in a given semester instead of those active in the past year.  I’ve been involved in RPI TV for a pretty long time, since the fall of 2006 when I was a Freshmen at RPI; at times Katie (my girlfriend) “jokes” that I’m actually dating RPI TV because of all the time I spend thinking / working / discussing club business.  Alas, I’ve shared many thoughts about RPI TV in the past here, so let me do that again.

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.

Queen’s Throne

November 7th, 2010 Posted in Life, Personal, Problems | 1 Comment »

Short story time.  I am going to tell you about a queen.  Recently, she had gotten tired of spending the past 4 years cramped using a small bench for her throne.  Sure, it fit her well and everything but it wasn’t really convenient when she had company joining her on the altar and it required really strangle sized cushions (the peasants didn’t have them in stock at the local market).  She commissioned a new set of thrones to be prepared, two distinct seats to provide her with a much more legitimate (and hopefully comfortable) seating arrangement.

Yes, you would be right to think why did she get two of them?  She certainly hasn’t been married off yet, but she does have a friendly prince that hangs around every now and then.  I think she got it because her family doesn’t usually commission new thrones to be built very often so they wanted to plan for the future.  It’s a fairly optimistic thought and probably makes sense from a the-carpenter-might-die-soon perspective.

Unfortunately for her, whenever she sits in her new throne she immediately recognizes the seat next to her is empty and feels a bit sad, like a part that belongs is missing.  She tried like filling it up with books once and using it for storage but that really didn’t change her mood.  The fact is that the seat is built for a person and can only be properly filled as such.

Sometimes when she sits down she thinks back to the weird bench she had.  While not as nice as her current seat, it never made her feel inadequate or like she was missing anything.  She finds it strange to miss something that she was never really attached to, but it’s strange how you miss something until it’s gone.  It is especially apparent when there is such a clear void.

Unfortunately the bench has probably been chopped up for firewood to help heat the castle or shipped of to a museum somewhere.  I guess she can only wait for the throne to be filled someday, even if it is just by the court jester to make her smile or laugh for a few minutes.