I was never much good at math, science, or any other subject based around understanding much beside actual human-compatible prose. Most of my life, I’ve been viciously envious of those gifted souls with the mental wherewithal to understand pages of symbols, equations, and anything I’ve lumped into the broad category of “symbolic logic” — ranging from accounting and statistics, over computer programming, to calculus and physics.
Journal
Jump up at the beginning of meetings and oppose, no matter what it is you’re opposing. Just to make it clear that you’re capable of opposition. You deserve the respect.
During the end-run of business school, on June 23 2008, we were so drained and head-screwed-on-wrong and stressed and just plain wrung out like old dirty washcloths that you could feel the sheer limp exhaustion hanging in the air like a bad hangover.
This city is easy to rip on. After all, unlike London (which everyone knows is the Center of the Known Universe), Paris is the Known Universe. Outside of the BP, ships fall off the edge of the world and are eaten by dragons, which somehow does not satisfactorily explain how all Parisians possessed of a [...]
Congratulations. You are in Paris. You’ve made it. You are obviously one of the elite fortunate enough to exist inside the safety of the Périphérique. Hopefully, you have the good judgment and resources to not inhabit one of the lesser parts of town, or the sheer abundance of unadulterated bohemian style to turn this into [...]
I wrote this elsewhere, and quite liked it. Read things early. Read things often. Take notes. Review them regularly. Doesn’t have to be long, just keep up. Sounds easy at first, becomes progressively more difficult. First week of every semester, scan every single bit of class materials that you can get in loose-leaf form. Sort. [...]
I would take it through a rationally argued exposition of enlightened philosophy through the ages, underscored with man’s artistic and scientific achievements. I would show it the contrast of well-meant human decency as it manages to bring about constant development despite the aberrations of violence and savagery that the race is capable of. I would [...]
Feb 252010
When I was at Cal, we had a number of regular crazies who frequented campus. Prominent among them was the Hate Man (supposedly a former prominent journalist), a skinny, grey-bearded and thoroughly camp old man who dressed in tattered women’s clothing of all colors and would ask random people to push up against him with [...]
A hilariously, pointlessly absurd thing to do upon coming home drenched from a surprise July thunderstorm. There is something almost Hunter-S-Thompson-ish about taking a shower with your aviators, and there the resemblance ends. Aside from a vague, undefinable desire to do vague, undefinable things (all of which are most likely (a) illegal and (b) a [...]
I bought a bicycle. It only took me about 3 weeks, which, given that I live in what seems like the bicycle capital of the Western world, is a fairly absurd amount of time. After spending several days nearly being run down by angrily-bell-ringing locals (apparently riding a two-wheeler gives you unlimited license to ignore [...]