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spring Sunday April 27

i've been taking a lot of spring pictures

i tried to catalogue the changing season in the fall, and now i find myself doing the same thing in the spring. jon may tout arizona as a place with great weather, but i'm going to have to say that change is good. it is also very possible that this is my favorite season, especially right before midsummer, and i couldn't appreciate it so much if it was a constant temperature (with cacti, to boot).

jon just had his 21st birthday, and i'm just taking some time to realize just how old we've all gotten now. last night i had the distinct pleasure of going to a champaign party with a freshman-year friend -- i dangerously maneuvered around the urine in the hallway outside of the apartment with my open-toed birks, and the thick translucent plastic really put a nice touch on the carpeted floor of the apartment.

the reason, however, that everyone loves the round balconies (i don't know if that's what they are actually called, but that is their campus name) is because of the, well, huge, round balconies. i stood out there, unwilling to pay even $3 for a cheap cup of beer, and talked for an hour with the only two people i knew there: the two people i came with.

but my shoes speak of the facade i'm constructing. any self-respecting champaign party-goer knows better than to wear birks, and that made me stick out like an urbana hippie. but that's not the only reason i'm not really meeting anyone new at this party. my friends have friends there, and i could easily get involved and meet other people that way, but the point is that i feel like i'm just done with that style of college life. not that i ever took too much part in it in the first place.

at least, i feel older, and as i turn 21 this summer, my insurance rates that i don't even pay go down, and i can buy some nice cooking wine on my own accord. yet, even though i don't view this age-milestone as some raucus excuse to drink excessively, like most students, i would like there to be a raucus of another kind.

in this town, it's hard enough to try to get people together for anything; everyone is so busy. however, for some reason, 21st birthdays have maintained this uber-important status that will cause even enemies to ignore their differences and at least "stop by" for the 21st celebration. i'm sure you've all done this. the conversation goes like this:

a: want to go out to a movie?
b: yeah, but i have to stop by (fill in bar name here, depending on the taste of the birthday person); it is their 21st birthday (insert some span of time that may not necessarily be that specific day), and they invited me, so i should at least stop by and say hello...

dramatizations aside, the more organized and constructed the birthday celebration is, the more these people feel the obligation to "stop by". and if you can rope them in with t-shirts, you're even better off. therefore, for my birthday this summer, i aim to have just about everyone i regularly know and like hanging out with me. i'm going to try to focus on friendship, not alcohol, and i already know that i'm going to run into a wall there when it comes to mister ryan schaffer. but i'll deal with him when he gets here.

the point is: there will be a big 21st birthday celebration for me, phooze, the weekend after my july 8th birthday this summer. circle it in red, and keep watching here for updates.

number three (hundred) Wednesday April 23

this is my 300th post since october 2001, for the record. that means i average sixteen and two-thirds posts per month, and i'm not even going to calculate my mean words per post. it's not important, but just a small milestone i wanted to cover. comment number 700 just passed by, and i'm glad that this forum of my personal expression, although sometimes irregularly updated, has kept your attention.

my mom said on the phone the other day that this site had a small following at her work when i was in new york and japan, because i was posting more, and i was posting more interesting things. i don't think that those posts were somehow better because of the location, however, and i will strive this summer (because i have more time) to replicate these results.

i waited until last summer to do this, but with two weeks of the semester remaining, i feel that it is appropriate to cover the top ten songs of junior year (click above to access last year's list). i think that this year i have been more "out" of music, but i think that directly relates to being less involved in programming at the radio station. moreover, recognize that this list is not a comprehensive list of all that i listen to, but moreso an indication of which particular songs remind me of this past year.

honorable mention:
arling and cameron - all in (the entire album must be considered)
incubus - morning view (again, the album is a package deal)
saves the day - at your funeral
the ultimate fakebook - she don't even know my name

ten: old 97's - nineteen
nine: talking heads - wild wild life
eight: sneaker pimps - six feet underground
seven: the beta band - inner meet me
six: wilco - dreamer in my dreams
five: guster - great escape
four: ben folds - not the same [live album]
three: the ultimate fakebook - brok�n needle
two: the toadies - possum kingdom
one: feeder - high

feel free to post your lists in the comments.

end of the year Tuesday April 22

the end of the school year snuck up on me. there are about two weeks of class yet, and i'm finished with all of my major school projects. i have one story revision to do, and then one final to take. i have a japanese final as well, but i don't concern myself with that because i have long ago learned how to properly take those tests in order to receive a perfect grade. the extra credit is ample per the mistakes i tend to make.

however, i'm still very busy. i have about twenty-five hours to work at the auditorium this week and weekend; not to mention two wpgu projects and, of course, the erik white project. that one will take well into the summer, because the more i work on it, the more i realize that it is enormous and in order to be all-encompassing, i have a lot more work than i had previously expected.

living situations for next year are still falling into place. it appears that nancy, this nice old woman-landlord who owns the house on the corner of coler and california, will find 2 people to sublet todd and i's outstanding lease from weiner, which would free us to lease the four-bedroom upstairs on the corner of california and coler. hardwood floors, a nice bathroom. and a yellow kitchen.

so that's what's up. who wants to challenge me to a hangover burger eating contest?

hangover burger Friday April 18

so there's this diner just west of the train tracks called merry ann's. it's a standard 24-hour college student hangout, and there's a sign that says no studying 10pm to 2am. it's one of those places with orange plastic benches and brown tile flooring and a false ceiling. and it's also the home of the stack, which is a famed stack of eggs, sausage, hash browns, gravy, and hamburger that you can feel clogging your arteries.

then i went in tonight with reva and regan, expecting to purchase good coffee and a $2.15 hamburger, when the following appeared before my eyes:

ooooh. you have to see it to believe it. i want to see it. yeah for clever advertising.

so i asked if i could order this monster because it's only 11:30pm, and the waitress lets it slide. regan, reva, and i chat over coffee and water, and none of us are expecting it when this is placed in front of me:

could it have been a full pound of ground beef?

i took down that beast of a sandwich with tomato, lettuce, ketchup, mustard, and pickles, and i still ate the french fries with salt and pepper. but i still had a hard time figuring out how to begin:

what are you looking at?

lesson in economics Tuesday April 15

agility +130mph, gold -6500usd

todd bought a new motorcycle as a way to get around always paying expensive repairs on his old one. sometimes, when you've got the means, and the one you want is just right there, you've got to go out and get it.

said nathan: "todd, whenever i talk to you, i feel better about my own spending habits."

weekend Monday April 14

listening to: arling & cameron - all in
reading: a book on war and japan. what else?
feeling: weird

i just got back from a weekend abroad in carbondale and st. louis, and i'll detail lightly. the pictures are here, but i recommend reading what happened first, then looking at the pictures. you know, that way you're in the loop even before you try to make sense of them.

first, realize that i had two major things to do before monday morning: (a) write an around-8-page story for rhetoric class, and (b) make a post on this week's readings for EALC 328. now, the readings this week were a couple of movies i had to watch at the library, so watching movies wasn't so bad. i took care of all of that before the weekend hit, but the 8-page story was a different story something i didn't manage to complete before the weekend began.

cara and i polished off a carton of rippin' good chocolate chip cookies (they were buy 2 for $3 at schnuck's) on i-57, and we arrived in carbondale shortly after nine. we got a late start because, like usual, my wallet chose to evade me. it was hiding underneath my towel.

we went bowling, which was good, because cara and i had a bet to settle. the winner took the difference of the scores, added 15, and that's how long of a massage they get from the loser. so, even if i lost by 1 point, we're looking at a quarter-hour massage...so i put my best game-face on and pulled out a spare in the 10th frame to end the game up six. i think the final score was about 110-104 or something like that.

at that juncture, it was off to carboz, and then we went to get bagels and subs, the late-night carbondale food-o-choice.

saturday, we went to mary lou's diner for lunch, a bit of thrift shopping (where i picked up a great pair of sunglasses), and then we went to a park called the spillway, where we did picnic-y rock-cut style activities. it was a nice afternoon in the sun. that night we went out for pizza, and then went on to see some really bad bands at this place called mugsy's.

sunday was guster day, and i made curry for justin and jen before we headed out. our collective slowness (due to cara and i's volume of homework) prevented us from getting out early enough to do much in saint louis, but we just walked around the loop before the show, and then rawked out to the sounds of guster. and then back to champaign-urbana to start this week thing all over again.

changing times Thursday April 10

i have a paper due tomorrow, or at least, a mental deadline exists; i have chosen to procrastinate in the best way: doing all that stuff you really meant to do but never got around to.

yep, we've got two loads of laundry done, and i have tooled around with moveable type for long enough to proudly announce that already hatachi now also exists in japanese. this is done for a couple of reasons, namely that (a) if i want to become a better japanese writer, i need to write, and (b), most of you are tired of the having windows prompt you every time you come to my page about not having Shift_JIS or whatever other character set installed. i have adjusted this by completely seperating the two blogs such that this blog will always be english-only, and will not discuss things relating to my interest in japan and japanese, unless i feel it is worth noting even to the english speakers.

to access this version, just click the j in the title bar, e to return to this blog, obviously.

telemarketing

the following just occurred. the phone rang, and a loud, twangy country bumpkin started talking to me.

"hiya, this is rockin' dj <insert name here>, and you're our selected caller to receive a free offer from motorola for a free motorola phone with up to 3,000 anytime minutes. if you want to hear more about how to redeem your phone, press 1--"

at this point, i am so dumbstruck that a recorded voice just called me that i didn't even hang up right away. instead, my jaw just dropped, and i said aloud (to todd, presumably), "what t--?"

"again, partner, don't forget that that's the number 1 to take advantage of our special offer, and--"

click.

renaissance Wednesday April 9

so i just registered for classes for next semester, and i had a hard time selecting courses. you see, there's so much that i want to take now, now that i don't have to take a strict requirement, that i don't even know if i can fit it all in. to choose from:

• japanese 205: requirement. what would i do if i wasn't taking it?
• ealc 298: colloquium in modern asia. i'm required to take one of these 298 classes before i graduate, and the topic is always changing. modern asia beats modern japanese religion anyday, which is what the topic was this semester when i dropped it.
• art & narrative media 331: image studio. need i say more?
• art & narrative media 360: moving image. naomi wants me to take this class with her; apparently, you get to make movies and such and express yourself creatively. not a bad gig, if you ask me.
• ealc 170: civilizations of china, japan, and korea. another requirement, probably will be a walk in the park after these 300 level ealc classes i've been taking.
• music 260: choir. i'm in it now, there's no reason not to be in it next fall.
• political science 279: international relations (advanced composition). this has just always sounded like a cool class to me.
• chinese 101: it's never too early to start.

i'll take your suggestions in the comments.

explanation Saturday April 5

i feel the need to explain nathan's last comment (no, not the quote from the big lebowski).

freshman year, people often asked me why i chose engineering. i laughed, and i told them that it sounded interesting, and it looked neat. so i circled it on my application. years later, i can honestly say that i was not joking at that time, and i don't think that i would have been able to properly select a field even if i had tried.

i knew i didn't want to be in journalism, and i knew that theatre beyond high school was not for me. well, those are really the only two interests i developed in high school, so i set out for something new.

when i arrived at campus, i quickly learned that the engineering school, in my case, specifically the ece department, has a regimented way of processing students. the graduation requirements are stringent; my first two years were, with the exception of japanese language, scripted for me by the department. in a way, it built some camaraderie: other engineers in allen and i took the same classes, complained about the same homework, and it felt like a big group of interesting, intelligent people. in retrospect, this is most likely because i was referring to only allenites. either way.

for my first two years, i had no choices, really. as a result, i didn't take any chances. there was no class that i took "for the fun of it"; everything, even the "for the fun of it" classes were strictly general education requirements of some sort. therefore, when i took modern japanese literature in the fall for my minor, i at first joked that i would get to act like a normal LAS student for once.

and so it unfolded: i started looking around and realizing that engineering exists as an interest for me, but it is not my sole interest. there are many other things which i love, and i should be opening doors to these things in college. that is what college should be about, right? taking various things and finding out what you like, what you don't like, who you are, and who you are not?

i am not an engineer in the sense of being like the other engineers. i'm not boasting about my internship (mind you, i never applied for any), or which company called me in for an interview after a job fair (i never went to a job fair), or why engineering is so much better than LAS (they like to do this, and rattle on about job security and salary and all that). and i'm not saying it's the people -- it's the department, too. they're fueling the fire; when i went into the ECE office to inquire about what it would take to "get back in" if i decided to double major, they made a reference about "crawling back", and "realizing i screwed up". mind you, they were joking, but the joke says a lot about the thoughts of these individuals.

i really didn't plan to have my whole academic world fall apart in the past month like it did, but i could have avoided it if i had had a better knowledge of what i wanted for myself. i never knew because i never explored until recently, and after that exploration, i freaked out because i realized that i am getting old in collegiate terms, and i may not be able to do everything i want anymore.

it's rather paradoxical; if i had explored other curricula as a lower-classman, i would have realized that engineering was not what i wanted. however, due to engineering's strict requirements, i failed to deviate other than to take a necessary foreign language: the only choice i had was which. and look at that: the one real choice i had was which language, and which classes have i taken that have meant the most to me?

so.

i went into the career center to see nate yesterday, and i knew i wanted to talk to him about all of these options that have been floating about my head as my study abroad plans changed, but he ended up asking me a number of questions that really allowed me to frame the "problems" into forms that i can properly grasp:

• engineering: there is no rule that says you have to learn everything you'll ever know in college. in fact, i'll learn much more in the workforce, i'm sure. so if i am so interested in electrical engineering topics, but not the college, department, or people i would be around and the stupid non-engineering classes i would have to take to get the degree when i really don't even want to be an engineer anyway, why don't i just read books on it? or just take the ECE courses i want, but not worry about requirements, or degrees?


• study abroad: i'd like to go to japan again, obviously. if i go to study, it's going to be easier to live, obviously, and i'll learn more language in a classroom setting than just on my own (even though i'd learn more on my own there than in a classroom here). for the record, i elected not to go next year because i wanted four full years here, i didn't want to back out on todd (because he keeps talking up this place we're going to be living in, even though i've never seen it), and i didn't want to leave here, then come back. so what am i going to do about that? i don't know, but i know i won't go next year. from that point, we'll just see how things fall out.


• ealc: i only need ten more classes to graduate in this major. two of those are language, which i would take anyway, and two more are college requirements. with summer classes, i could graduate in four years flat. but that would be taking only my requirements, and that would be taking a little heavy of a load. but the load's not important, the point is that it would be exactly like engineering: no flexibilty, just get-in-get-out-get-job. i'm not like that, and i want to explore now. i'm still in school, so it's not too late.

so nathan's point in scolding jon and michael for their (offline) opinions about my major (jon: pro-EALC only, michael: pro-EALC with engineering) to me is just that: their life experiences are different than mine. they need different things than i do to be happy. and some of the things i need, they don't see. some of the things i don't need, they see. i take their opinion because i value it; they are both intelligent, respected family, but this close bond does not mean they know exactly what makes me happy, and i think that nate's ridiculous nurse suggestion, as jon says, makes the point.

because of my overall cluelessness of the past month, as my plans changed daily, i have sought help from my friends and family, and that is where jon and michael's comments have come from -- they were not unsolicited. todd, cara, leslie, naomi -- many gave their opinions; it's just that jon and michael particularly tend to think they are right...the facts do not surprise me; part of it is the character of those two individuals. it makes them great, really, and i'd like to get them together sometime and watch.

so, i'm done with flopping majors and all that, i'm just going to go take some classes that sound neat and graduate. oh, and if there's time, i'd still like to go abroad to japan, too.

next year Friday April 4

fyi: next year will be spent here, not in japan. details at ten.

life unwinds, part ii Wednesday April 2

AND i just bounced my checking account.

life unwinds

(only) good news: my redesign of the planet's site earned me employee of the week. yay. personally, i think that it's not hard to impress planet staffers when the old web design used seven <iframe> tags on the front page. i just wanted something that was easy to read, that's all. in design, often times less is more.

bad news: it may not be possible to graduate in five years with two degrees, i still don't know whether or not i'm even going to japan next year or deferring, or going at all. and i'm pulling my hair out running around to all these campus offices trying to get schedules, graduation requirements, and the like taken care of. the biggest proponent now to staying in EALC is that i don't have to deal with all of that, but i don't think i'll have a job lined up in the fall of 2005. unless you have something?

oh, and i think i might be showing the beginning stages of mono. quick, get to bed, mark.