looking ahead

I got my Stanford application in the mail a few days ago, so I guess the beginning of this whole insane process has arrived with it. The colleges I plan on applying to as of now:

University of Arizona
University of Colorado
Stanford University
University of Michigan
University of Maryland
Arizona State University

Those are in no particular order, and the list is pretty much devoid of small schools simply because most smaller schools don't have Aerospace Engineering, which is what I plan on doing.

My birthday's coming up, if anyone was any great ideas what to ask for, let me know.

-alex

plugging the friends

Katie and Steve have gotten into the blogging game so go ahead and check out their blogs.

Katie: http://www.cerealblogger.blogspot.com
Steve: http://www.noiseandwords.blogspot.com

Good stuff. So yea I've had some serious blogger's block lately. I'll be back.

-alex

oui?

Does anyone else think that Jack-in-the-Box commercial is really funny where the French guy is interviewing Jack about the french fries? I just think it's great when the French guy says "Oui?" all angry-like. Good times. That's all, nothing else.

-alex

People who annoy me

I don't get why people think energy drinks are all cool now. They're not. You can say you need to stay awake for whatever reason, but a Coke will do fine for that. You can argue that it tastes good, but you know it doesn't. You can say you're tired, in that case you should probably sleep (Concept, anyone?). You can say Red Bull and alcohol go good together, but somehow mixing something that speeds up your heart rate with something that slows it down just doesn't sound like a great idea to me. The Red Bull ads annoy me. The dumb little Red Bull car annoys me. Even the stupid little Red Bull half-can annoys me. But what gets me more than anything is the people who think drinking an energy drink makes them look cool or hip. Go home people.

-alex

You know what's coming

Is it smarter to answer questions or to ask them?

When you spend hours fishing, which animal really seems to be outsmarting the other, the fish or the human?

Doesn't it seem like you can have more fun in one good conversation than in all the parties you go to combined?

If a large portion of inventions just end up causing more problems than they solve, shouldn't we just cut our losses and stop inventing things?

Is it OK to be intolerant of intolerant people?

Which would you prefer, everyone liking you or everyone respecting you?

Aside from obvious scientific changes, how would the world be different if there was no night?

How do we know that that we don't have impaired vision and color blind people are seeing things how they really are?

Is life so complicated just because we make it that way?


-alex

and it's keeping me awake

I don't know how often the average person dreams. I have like 1-2 dreams every 6 months that I actually remember, and they're never very fun. But every once in a while I have one of the good ones. The kind that has people you know and like, the kind with intelligible dialogue. Not one of the ridiculous ones where your flying or falling, but an actual legitimate situation. It's the kind that covers every little detail, so it plays almost like a little movie. It's the kind that just makes itself exactly what you want (Because honestly, why shouldn't it?). It's the kind that fills whatever void you have so well that, for a little while, you actually believe it to be real, just because deep down you want it to so bad. It's the kind that disappoints you so much when you realize that its perfect world won't be waiting outside your door that when you open your eyes, everything seems darker.

-alex

anyone play violin?

Apparently now I'm in a band as a violinist, yet I don't play violin. I better get on that. I actually had a cool, productive day today that didn't result in me coming home and listening to depressing Dashboard songs all night, so thanks to all the people I hung out with today. I learned that if you put an egg in a microwave for a minute, take it out, and just hold it, eventually it will explode. This could make me rich if I play my cards right. Anyway I'm going up to Pinetop till Saturday morning.

Katie: dust off the bass, it's game time.

-alex

i see it around me, i see it in everything...i could be so much more than this...

It just doesn't click. I know this is a terribly cynical generalization, but it seems that the wrong thing to do is both easy and fun, while the right thing, though satisfying in the end, is dull and difficult. I'm hanging out with friends because I have nothing else to do. I don't want to get too specific, but I chose to throw back Dr. Pepper all night instead of alcohol, so while people have their drunken fun and others partake in the proverbial game of baseball, I have the pleasure of playing solitaire on someone else's kitchen table. By myself. For three hours. And now I decide to hijack this computer and blog. I don't really enjoy playing the martyr, but I simply don't understand why you always have to pay some price to do the right thing. It doesn't make sense. Now I know rationality is both severely overrated and painfully uncommon. And I know that a truly selfless person wouldn't go online and bitch about making some petty sacrifice, but I'm just tired of this basic situation manifesting itself night after night. Where's the real fun, where you don't have to be wasted? It seems to have been misplaced, and there doesn't seem to be very many people looking for it.


-alex

I really do ask a lot of questions

What in the world makes AP tests so ridiculously expensive?

Are politicians really less honest than the average person, or are they just an accurate sampling of society in general?

Why do people pay $1.99 for gas, when, in clear view down the street, there's a gas station with gas for $1.89?

Do you think someday the whole political correctness thing will get so out of hand that people will complain that in a deck of playing cards, all the face cards are white people?

Why do cops tailgate you? Are they just taunting you like "haha, yea, just go ahead and break 45, sucker"?

Isn't there kind of a small ethical dilemma when someone gives you a burned copy of a CD they payed for?

Are you annoyed by all my quasi-rhetorical questions?

Who else is disappointed that all the really cool things have already been invented? (sticky notes, pizza bagels, etc.)

If people were never introduced to the concept of violence, would they discover in themselves on their own?


-alex