Monthly Archive for January, 2008

Dashed hopes for many more students

Published
by
Gary
on January 18, 2008
in News and Thoughts
. 3 Comments

According to the IHT, thin envelopes will be out in full force this May:

Applications to selective colleges and universities are reaching new heights this year, promising another season of high rejection rates and dashed hopes for many more students. […] Officials said the trend was a result of demographics, aggressive recruiting, the ease of online applications and more students applying to ever more colleges as a safety net. The swelling population of 18-year-olds is not supposed to peak until 2009, when the largest group of high school seniors in the nation’s history, 3.2 million, are to graduate. (IHT, “Applications to U.S. colleges are breaking records“

In other words, record numbers of parents and teens are putting themselves through an incredibly high-pressure, traumatizing experience for a shot at the university lottery. Is it worth it?

I think it’s one thing if it’s largely the kids putting themselves through hell to get into Harvard. That’s fine. I think it’s another thing for parents to be pushing their kids. Those parents need to kicked pretty hard. Happiness is self-determination, not “success”—and a marquee degree doesn’t guarantee either.

Second Semester Start: “Cohabitation”

Published
by
Gary
on January 13, 2008
in Declaration
. 3 Comments

Yes folks, it’s time for a marvelous spring at the glorious, prestigious, orgasmically wonderful Yale University School of Architecture! This semester begins the famous Building Project—more specifically, the half-semester housing studio that leads up to the famous Building Project.

Our first design problem is a two-week ditty by the title of “Cohabitation,” referring to the imaginary people we’ll be inhumanely squeezing into a 16 foot by 16 foot by 14 foot volume. The lead professor (we’ll call him “Alan” because his last name is entirely too Google-able) has prepared descriptions for five “characters,” of which we are supposed to choose two for our depraved design machinations. The first character is a:

37 year old male; single; unemployed blogger; self-described ‘reclusive’ and occasional ‘night owl’; health problems related to clinical obesity and general inactivity.

Somehow I feel strangely… insulted.

Anyway, 16 ft x 16 ft x 14 ft is not a lot of space to squeeze two separate units for two people (and oh, the whole thing is 10 feet off the ground so valuable space needs to be wasted on a series of stairs), and near the end of the studio introduced our gleeful professor cackled suggested that the design problem was “set up for failure.” Yay!

Winter Break 07-08 Report

Published
by
Gary
on January 11, 2008
in Declaration
. 1 Comment

CHALLENGE: Meet up with all West Coast high school and college buddies, plus immediate family, preserving important social bonds and, more or less, reasons for being alive. (After all, the material for one’s life comes from friends.)

TIME PERIOD: December 23rd to January 7th. (16 days)

OBSTACLES: Work 9a-5p on Dec 27th, 31st, Jan 2nd-4th and 7th. Need to sleep, eat.

RESULT: Reasonable partial success/failure.

BREAKDOWN!

Loara: Decent success. Late night with BevKunPhil plus subsequent KunPhil Metalocalypse night and Bev-at-Starbucks; beat Call of Duty 4 and Ratchet & Clank Future with Vany plus watched Lucky Star and Seto no Hanayome, also New Year’s Eve barbeque at Maison de Teeter including hamburgers, Guitar Hero, and Ninja Warrior, WoW bum friend Mike and long lost friend Phu, plus nervous nameless cat; dinner with Teresa and Her New Boyfriend. Failed to meet with newly-married friend Sean due to tight scheduling.

Berkeley: Suspicious but acceptable failure, mostly due to lack of NorCal trip. Met up with Adora in Westwood, Kyle in Downtown LA, and (bonus!) last minute trip to see Ceci in Long Beach. Otherwise completely missed out on Wurster and Ex-Haus circles, leaving those for possible summer trip approximately 13 months after 2007 summer trip.

Family: Success! Nieces getting explosively adorable though, arguably, Dora the Explorer is slowly poisoning eldest niece’s very soul. Paternal family and grandfather’s grave visited; Cousin Harrison successfully embarking on epic journey of incredible apathy.

NOTES: Friend diaspora means that most likely places of future residence are LA, New York, and the San Francisco Bay Area, not necessarily in that order. LA and SF are almost interchangeable because travel within California is relatively cheap (especially once I have an actual job) and fast (LA< ->SF by plane is almost less time than NH< ->NYC by train, inclusive of stupid arriving-way-early-at-the-airport condition), and let’s face it, friends no longer within a one-hour radius may as well be anywhere in the country for purposes of visiting. New York is chancy but reasonably feasible because most people seem to end up in New York at some point, and also almost no is going to object to visiting the Capital of the Shallow Snarky Dillholes oh wait a second.

Barack meets Kerry

Published
by
Gary
on January 11, 2008
in News
. 4 Comments

kerry-obama.jpg

BARACK, WHAT THE #%@* ARE YOU DOING?!!

It’s just 3%

Published
by
Gary
on January 9, 2008
in News
. 2 Comments

Tuesday night, November 2nd, 2004, I was high up in Wurster Hall with my fellow Asian archinauts, watching the numbers for the last presidential election roll in, the knot in my stomach tightening as red states loyally ticked off for four more years of Bush—my brow beading with sweat, as if clenched fists and sheer denial could avert the second coming of that Dubya dipshit. When our fate was sealed a bitter wave of despair rolled through studio. Expletives escaped lips, hands slapped foreheads, Jessica angrily interrogated CNN.com while I aimlessly shuffled around the worktable.

Tuesday night, January 8th, 2008, I arrived again at my apartment in New Haven, booted my PC and found that Hillary had won 39% to Barack’s 36%. For a second I flashed back to that black night almost four years before, that tight knot, that sense of being absolutely powerless against faceless fools in other states.

It’s a depressing situation.

But ya know what? It’s just 3%. We’re not talking deflation on a John Edwards scale, from second-place in Iowa to a distant Granite State third at 17%. If anything it could be healthy. “Do not take this race for granted. I know we had a nice boost over the last couple of days, but elections are a funny business.” And now it’s not for granted.

What pisses me off the most is that voters apparently fell for Hillary Clinton’s “experience”-harping and crocodile tears. I feel that when it comes down to it, Hillary has the potential to be John Kerry all over again: the “safe” choice by establishment voters more concerned about the Democrats beating the Republicans than about America itself. As we all recall too well, that didn’t work too well last time.

Barack’s key characteristic is his ability to speak softly and carry a big stick. He knows how to feint his opponents while gaining support behind the scenes. He knows how to keep both sides happy while he gets his job done. Contrast that to Hillary, polarizing because she takes everyone head-on. “Some of us are right, some of us are wrong.” If Barack can keep building support under Hillary’s shrill rhetoric then the tipping point will be with us soon enough.

In other words, this is Barack Obama:
John F. Kennedy

And this is Hillary Clinton:
Mom

Seriously folks, come on.