hodge-podge

kiel kaj kie: same as above
kio: chris de burgh: lady in red (80s station, obviously)

a lot has happened in the last month, including acceptances and rejections from grad schools near and far.

i have been accepted to cornell, uc riverside, and penn state. i haven't heard from 2 schools yet but i think that those 3 will be all. and i'm fine with that, except for the 500 or so bucks down the drain to those other schools. (med school applicants: i know, that's cheap. also, i'm glad i'm not you.)

oh right, sorry for the mega-depressing and cryptic previous entry, i just managed to fuck up a whole bunch of data (but not as bad as i thought) and was temporarily relieved of duty in lab, so to speak. but now i'm on a new project and it seems like everything is back to normal.

riverside

i visited riverside on march 4. even though it was sunny and warm (~65), practically everyone was apologizing for the cold and shitty weather (read: drizzle). you can imagine how i felt coming from baltimore, where on that particular day it was 30 and felt like 15 with wind chill. there were oranges growing on the fucking campus for chrissakes.

the department at riverside is chemical and environmental engineering, and as such the faculty, while strongly grounded in chemical engineering, deals with lots of applications to environmental issues, like bioremediation, heavy metal accumulation (particularly of limozeen), and air pollution. that's fine and i think that i would be happy to go there (also, the faculty seem to really want me). if riverside was the only place i got in, i would definitely happily go. unfortunately for them, it wasn't the only place.

as for the town, there are a few bars and stuff and the actual town is very pretty. on the whole it is very suburban, much like most if not all of southern california. you have to drive everywhere. california is nice and all, but it is a big move. in order for me to go there riverside had to really sell me. now, if riverside were on the east coast, it'd be a different story. to put it in layman's terms, moving to the east coast has a high activation energy. unless a catalyst (e.g. lots of money, nobel laureate faculty, instant name recognition) were to come along and stabilize the transition state and allow the reaction to continue along the reaction coordinate, the probability of conversion is extremely small.

cornell

ithaca is the polar (no pun intended) opposite of riverside. it's a small town, not a suburb. in fact, there really isn't an "urb" for quite a few miles. the cornell campus is gorgeous and it was snowing on and off all weekend. also, there was lots of booze, in the form of local beer (ithaca and saranac) and also yuengling (btw, major points off for riverside for no yuengling). and an assortment of fine local and imported wines. i could become a real wine snob there if i tried. heck, even if i didn't try. there are like 15 wineries within a half-hour drive. frickin a.

the faculty at cornell are just amazing. one guy in particular did his post-doc with the same advisor with whom marc did his phd, and he has some really great ideas.

basically, cornell has name recognition, more stuff to do, about $5000 more stipend wise, and is only a 3.5-hour drive from schuylkill county (probably 5 to baltimore). i think i have a pretty easy choice.

oh ps. cornell -> statler hotel (4-star service). riverside -> comfort inn (3...hot dogs?)

penn state

i think i am going to visit there this coming monday (i think), so we shall see. as of now i have no opinion on it.


what else what else. recently i have been thinking notable thoughts and saying to myself "self, you should put that in your weblog." alas, these thoughts have escaped me, as that part of my brain has now been reserved for self-conversing. ironic.

note: is it possible to be ironic when conversing with oneself? who knows?

oh here's something fun:

if you were thinking of getting a custom-made nfl jersey that says "whiskeydick" or "asspuppies" i'm afraid you're out of luck. check out the list of banned words on jerseys (all 1159!) warning: the site is called outsports.com and appears to be some kind of gay sports site (not that there's anything wrong with that), and there are scantily clad men in some of the ads. you've been warned.

speaking of NTTAWWT, when i was in eighth grade these kids would be all "you're gay" and "you're a fag" (because that's what eighth-graders do. god, even alex is doing it. every other thing is gay gay gay. that guy's gay. this is gay. your mom's gay. etc.). so i told my dad about it and after i said they had called me gay, i quoted the infamous seinfeld episode, saying "not that there's anything wrong with that..." and my dad was like "what do you mean, NTTAWWT?" i tried to explain, but it was fruitless (no pun intended, again). then my dad was like "of course there's something wrong with it..." and blah blah reproductive system blah blah queer blah. so now alex is all gay this and gay that. and i want to tell him: "you shouldn't say things are gay. it's not a nice thing to say and some people could be offended. stereotypes, while partially true, breed discrimination. to quote master yoda: 'fear is the path to the dark side. fear leads to hate. hate leads to anger. anger leads to suffering...'" but i know if i said it my dad would hear and i'd be reliving the time when i said NTTAWWT to my dad. well, at least there aren't very many gays in schuylkill county (at least that we know about) to be offended.

i'll probably be in baltimore until august or so, when i will likely be finishing my masters research. it's mostly my fault that it's going to take so long, but whatever. i just gotta find a place to stay for june and july. hmm... where could i do that?

that reminds me. sarah has a new apartment. her landlord decided to be a douche and raise her rent and so she decided to fuck him and move(d). it's bigger and it has a claw foot bathtub, a fact which sarah enjoys immensely. it could have been a cardboard box with a claw-foot bathtub in it and she would have paid double for it.

yup. also, i have a cameraphone now. so if you're going to be naked near me in the near future, you can bet i'll have something to take home with me. i'm just kidding. no i'm not. yes. no. no. yes. no.

i found this cool website yesterday: http://www.coalregion.com it's got a history of my roots (although it originates a bit further north than i'm from. the dictionary is great if you've ever heard somebody from north of the mountain try to tell you ANYTHING. overall very cool stuff.

make sure you play my crossword game. it takes me like 3 hours to make one, so you'd better do it!

i aspose that's all for now. another update next week with 2nd crossword!

ed: i was pretty sold on cornell after my visit. also, alex still calls everything gay. everything. - 9/5/06