Self Aware

I love netflix. Especially the fact that they have that instant viewing feature that lets me watch movies and certain tv shows on streaming video. I got caught up on seasons of The Office thanks to that feature on netflix. I was just thinking about the episode where Dwight tries to out perform that electronic sales system, and Pam is taunting him by pretending to be the system which has become "self aware."

I laughed hysterically, then I started wondering what it really means to be self aware as a human. And yes, I'm well aware of the irony of using a reference to The Office to make a somewhat serious comment about life.

Life is funny. I think we are hard wired to try to ponder the "meaning of life" or whatever. One one extreme, you have religious folks who are so convinced that they are here to do god's word that nothing can convince them otherwise. Those folks themselves are divided into folks who do good works and those who do strangely fanatical works (i.e. attempting to disprove evolution), all with the same justification. On the other hand, you have nihilists and existentialists who believe in randomness and meaninglessness of it all.

I have no idea where I stand. When I was home during the winter break this past December and January, I kept myself occupied by rereading some of my old Kurt Vonnegut novels. I found a new appreciation for Timequake. Man, that guy was a brilliant, morbid, and somewhat depressing person. In Timequake, Vonnegut shared some insights about life, one of which was that humanity consists of certain people who are so smart that one can hardly believe it, and people who are so stupid you can hardly believe it.

I continually wonder where I stand on that continuum. Some days I feel like I'm in the former category, being one of the pompous assholes who likes to point out the idiotic nature of the majority of humanity. Other days I feel l ike I'm in the latter category, wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life. Most other days I'm in the invisible void that exists in between the two.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Law school is drawing to a close. There is about a week worth of classes left, then finals. Part of me is panicked, but part of me just doesn't care anymore. A lot of people say "there's a light at the end of the tunnel..." and all sorts of other cliches. I've always liked that phrase for some reason.

After graduation, everyone will share in the misery of studying for the bar exam, then most folks are either continuing individual job searches or starting at their new jobs. As for me, I'm taking the less common route... I'm entering another tunnel. I've decided to go to Boston University to spend another year of my life in law school to get an LL. M degree in Banking and Financial Institutions Law.

So looking back over these past 3 years here in Atlanta, there have been a lot of ups and downs. The best and worst moments of my life. I've met some wonderful and some not so wonderful people. But one thing is for certain: I'm definitely leaving Emory as someone more "grown up" than when I entered. No more willful screwing around and putting off responsibility for too much longer. Effectively, law school has made me want to face the real world.

Looking back at the law school faculty, some people have been awsome. Namely, Professor Elliott. He gave me the highest grades I've received at law school, as well as a good reference to the guys at the Fed, who hired me last summer as their law clerk. That, undoubtedly, has led me on my current course to get an LL. M in banking law. So thanks largely to Prof. Elliott, my life is going in a particular direction. Other folks amongst the law school faculty who I thought were particularly great were Professor Witte, just for being an entertaining but knowledgable teacher, and Professor An-Naim, who's meaningful insights and lessons have helped me to further develop my knowledge of Islam and my Muslim identity. The professors who have been not so cool are all of those who during my first year gave me grades below a B. They know who they are. Some of them redeemed themselves by giving me higher grades in subsequent classes, but against some of them I still hold a grudge.

So, high points in law school: Getting Dean's awards during my second year. Definitely a confidence booster knowing that I actually get some of this stuff and can show it. The Halloween parties were also particularly fun. Low points in law school: First year grades, which were particularly humiliating, and not making the Moot court society last year was also kind of a blow. But overall, the good stuff outweighs the bad, and I'm glad I came here and went through this experience.

I'm curious to see what next year holds in store for me. The last time I lived in Boston (I lived in Sommerville actually) was during the summer of 2001, right before senior year of college. What a hugely different world it was at that time. Pre 9/11, pre everything. But I also remember not being a huge fan of the city at that point. Hopefully that will be different this time around, considering I'll be there for an entirely different reason and with an entirely different outlook.

The light at the end of the tunnel is coming nearer. But it's actually the light of the entrance to another tunnel. Hopefully the light of the end of that tunnel will be a brighter one.

Another great sign: The Rangers finally had their first playoff victory in 10 years last week. Woo hoo!

Home for the Holidays

I got back to NY on Thursday night for winter break. The drive up this time was far easier, largely because I had company this time. My friend Elaine and I drove up together, and having company in the car made it seem far shorter and more tolerable than the lonely solo drive.

So now that I'm at home, what am I doing? I'm being quite possibly the most useless human being on the planet. I havn't left my house today, and have quite enjoyed the 5000 calories a day I'm consuming as part of my mom's "welcome the kids home" hourly feasts. There enough food in my house to feed Somalia, yet my mom persists on continuing to cook. Parents rock!

It's hard to belive that Christmas is tomorrow. Since my family doesn't celebrate Christmas, it doesn't matter in the least. But nonetheless, culturally, the entire nation and consumer world builds up to this holiday. To me and my family, it's yet another day to hang around and be lazy together. Few people know this, but December is also known as "National Jews go to the Movies and get Chinese Food Day."

One of the things I love about Christmas is the TBS marathon of "A Christmas Story." It's a modern day classic. It's officially in the classic's category because some mobile phone company spoofed it for it's commercials. Even better, I got a t-shirt a few weeks back featuring Ralphie's face and the words, "you'll shoot your eye out!" Love it. It's good to be home.

Halloween and the Inner Child

So Halloween is just around the corner. It's funny, after middle school, I stopped dressing up for Halloween for quite a while. It was just another holiday (despite the non-cancellation of school) where my sister and I insisted that we go to costco and buy gargantuan bags of candy, then somehow find that our family is not home on Halloween, resulting in a windfall of leftover candy for my and my sis. Those bags of candy always had a good mix of fun size Snickers, 3 Musketeers, and Milky Way bars. In the months that followed, the snickers undoubtedly went first, followed by the 3 Musketeers, then eventually, the Milky Ways. Mmm... chocolate. Definitely a regression to childhood chocolaty bliss.

I started dressing up again back in college, around my junior year at NYU. I went all out my junior year, dressing up as Alex from A Clockwork Orange. Went to the NYC Halloween Parade that year... that was a lot of fun. In years following, dressing up has been insanely fun. I place a lot of emphasis on originality. It's bothersome on some level that at Halloween parties, girls just dress up slutty. But then again, that's more than made up for by the fact that I'm a male, and don't mind the girls on Halloween dressing up like that, despite the fact that it's not all that original. Not surpringly, dressing up is yet another regression into childish fantasy bliss.

At the law school, every year we see an interesting combination of costumes. First year, I went as the Monopoly man, but nobody understood the outfit, largely because despite the whiteout white face paint, top hat, cane, and fake mustache, most people thought I was Charlie Chaplin. So last year, I went as something more recognizable, the Count from Sesame Street. This year, some friends and I are going as a crew of 80's cartoon characters. I'm Alvin, from Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Leading to my funny anecdote. The North Dekalb Mall, near Emory, is one of those malls targeting a more African American clientele. So noticing the hip hop style of tall oversized tshirts, I figured a huge red tshirt would make a good Alvin outfit. So I went to footlocker there, dressed in my work clothes of dress pants and a buttondown shirt, and found a 3XL shirt that went down below my knees. I asked the salesman there if 3XL was the largest he had, and he looked at me and said, "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" I'm still not sure whether he found it amusing after I told him that it was for a Halloween costume. I dunno, maybe I can pull off the hip hop style?

One thing that sucks about Halloween, is that after this date, everyone at school gets super serious and locks down and works. I'm no exception. The stress increases exponentially after this date. After a night of revelry and reliving your childhood, we go to the opposite extreme of being stressed out semi-adult law students. So wish me luck.

War of Weirdness

So recently, it looks like the Bush administration's strategy of treating the American public like retards is starting to backfire a little. Bob Woodward's new book slams the administration for its denial of the truth and misleading the American public about the true ferocity of the fight going on in Iraq. The conservative pundits are lining up as usual to blame the Democrats, when finally, Bill Clinton decided to slap back. So things are getting a little more fierce on the political scene. No surprise when we're only a little over a month away from the midterm elections.

But not only have things gotten more fierce on the military and political fronts, but things have gotten just plain weird. In today's New York Times, there's an article on how the Maine National Guard is giving the families of its soldiers cardboard cutouts of their family members deployed abroad. This way, their children can include "flat daddy" in pictures they take, and pretend that daddy is really around. I can't believe some dumbass in the chain of command thought this was a good idea. It's just creepy. See:

It reminded me of an episode of the Simpsons, where Homer is teaching a class about something, but it always dwindles down into him telling intimate secrets about his lovelife with Marge. Marge, naturally, finds it extremely embarrasing, and eventually tosses Homer out. Living in the treehouse, Homer makes a plant version of Marge, which he tells his children is their new mommy. Funny because of it's madness. See:

It even happened on an episode of Sex and the City, where Kyle McLaughlin buys his wife a cardboard baby, when she wants a real baby. Naturally, it leads to a bitchy fight because it's just a strange and creepy thing to do.

So in the end, things are just bizarre on every front. But so long as none of my friends decide to travel somewhere, and leave me a cardboard cutout of themselves, I think things will be ok. Cardboard cutouts should be limited to advertising, and advertising alone. Outside of that context, it's just creepy.

I know I start nearly every blog with the word "So." Well, if you don't like it, I don't like your ugly shorts.

Stephen King really sucks

So for the past few weeks, I've been seeing ads for "Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King." Supposedly an epic miniseries event with some big name actors and freaky stories. Last night, I was flipping channels and came across this series. The verdict; it really sucks, isn't scarry, drags on too long, and in general, is just a big waste of time.

I caught bits and pieces of an episode Nightmares and Dreamscapes involving some guy being attacked by toy soldiers and fighting them off. Cross between the children's movie and Jay Mohr pile of dung film called "Small Soldiers," and an episode of the Twilight Zone. Stupid and pointless, with a miniature nuclear bomb going off at the end. Fails to scare or even unnearve.

The second episode was truly an hour of my life that I could have better spent staring at my forearms. It was titled "Crouch End," about a newly married couple honeymooning in London, to be invited to one of the husband's associate's house for dinner. But the place they're supposed to go is in a bit of a shady neighborhood, with crossings between dimensions or some crap like that. Completely idiotic. Worse yet, the acting and character development was horrible, with the characters way too cliche and predictable. The plot also reaked of crappiness. Overall, I came to the conclusion that as a horror writer, Stephen King, despite his reputation, completely and utterly sucks. His one saving grace is the fact that he wrote the short story "The Shawshank Redemption," which was turned into a movie I really liked.

I'm a fan of horror movies and shows. The problem is that today, very few movies are truly scarry. Most of them try to be gory, or rely too much on building up tension only to disappoint at the climax. (Which is why I think M. Night Shaymalan also sucks royally. Sorry if you liked the Sixth Sense, I thought it blew). Stephen King's movies fail to scare.

Although I did like the Stanley Kubrick version of the Shining, from what I hear, it's very different from King's original version. During the filming, King reportedly walked off the set. They made a tv miniseries version of the Shining, more true to the book some years back, which I can easily say, sucked completely.

I remember when I was young, I enjoyed some horror movies. One of the few that truly scared me was "Candyman." The rest were just crappy gorefests. I'm hoping one day hollywood will produce a good horror director or writer, because honestly, the only scarry thing coming out of hollywood right now is the idea that M. Night Shay-whateverhisnameis-man and Stephen King are actually quality movie makers.

Random Thoughts and Ramblings

It's been a while since I've updated this thing. For some reason, I just havn't felt like writing. But on the overall, things are pretty decent this summer. Working at the Fed has been awsome. I've never worked anywhere before where people are genuinely happy with what they do. I have yet to come across anyone who complains about working here. I only wish in the future sometime I'd be able to work somewhere like this.

So I learned some really random crap lately. People always teased me for knowing all sorts of trivial stuff that is of no consequence to anyone... but fun to know nonetheless. Here's some stuff:

The word "salary." It comes from the same root word as 'salt,' the latin word salarium. Back in the Roman days, soldiers were sometimes paid using salt as a medium of exchange, thus the word salary.

The south is known as dixie quite often. Nobody knows for sure why, but one theory is that way back before we had a national currency, each state had its own bank notes and bank laws. Louisiana had particularly strong bank laws and a stable currency, and one of the most common notes was the Louisiana $10 note. Since it has the french history, the note has the French word for ten, or "dix," printed on the back. They were so common here they contributed to this place being called the land of 'dixie.' That's according to the Fed money museum downstairs.

Lastly, "I heard it through the grapevine." Strange Marvin Gaye song and California Raisins cover. Also a term about gossip. It stems from the civil war. In NY, in what is today a part of Chinatown, near Chatham Square, there was a tavern known as the 'Grapevine," which was a popular spot for Union Officers to go drink. It was also a popular place for journalists and Confederate spies. Everyone knew that they were being spied on and whatnot, so many rumors originated there. Thus the term, "I heard it through the Grapevine."

Completely unrelated to anything, I've now been living in my apartment for more than a year. I remember living there last summer, wasting away. Now this summer I'm still wasting away, but undertaking some home improvement projects while I'm at it. But this summer I've noticed how strange some of the people in my building truly are. For one thing, there is a woman who lives there who has a beagle. Cute looking dog at first glance, until you realize this dog is completely psychotic. Makes these weird hacking noises and aggressively barks and antagonizes anyone it comes across. I want to kick that dog sometimes.

Secondly, the children in my building are really obnoxious. See previous post "Little Kid Lost." There's an Asian family in my building with a kid who is about 5 or 6 years old. In the elevator last week, I accidently hit both the ground and lobby buttons while alone. As the elevator stopped on another floor and this family got in, the kid went over to the button panel, gave me a really dirty look, and said, "Why'd you press boooooooooooooth?" I want to kick that kid sometimes.