National Novel Writing Month starts in less than 24 hours. Unfortunately, it looks like this isn't a good time to do it. I need some stability in my life before I can make that big a commitment, even if it's only to myself. Ahhh...stability...a salary...can you see me drooling?

Mad at the sun

I did get sunburned on the second-to-last day of October. I'm hopping mad! Excuse me while I go beat up the sun.

IT MUST BE A SIGN!

I just ran into an apparition from my distant past at the Worthington Library. I'm not superstitious, but it's just got to mean something. Could be good, could be bad...but I feel like there's a big change coming. And, incidentally, the apparition told me to stay in law school. And yes, it's who you think it is!

I'm not going to lie to you...I'm really getting excited about the idea of the academic counselor job. It seems like it's exactly what I should have held out for when I was struggling to make ends meet before law school. Ahhh...a salary...having health insurance paid for...getting to help people. I've just got to at least apply.

Notwithstanding my "silly Podraza" comment somewhere below, he's hit the nail exactly on the head of what I think about law school right now. (Well, except for the fact that I'm much more of a statist than he is. In fact, I might seek employment with the state in the near future. But anyway...) Maybe he could co-author my big law school exposé book. Then we could get rich and both move to Hong Kong or Singapore or something.

But seriously, I think I came to the same realization that he did when I went through my job/debacle in the IT consulting biz. Yeah, I came out of the U. of Chicago as an idealistic economics major. Yes, I sipped the Kool-Aid of market capitalism. I believed that my work productivity and return on investment to my employer would determine my level of career success 100%. After all, how could the company succeed in the market if it were run inefficiently by idiots and jerks? A true acolyte of Milton Friedman could probably work out a chain of logic showing how state intervention creates misincentives to have the lamest people in charge. But me, I'm just too lazy.

Going...?

Now here's a juicy OSU job posting:

Academic Counselor & Staff Assistant, College of Math & Physical Sciences - Summary of Duties: Counsels students on a variety of issues; assists the department administration and various University offices in providing information concerning math related issues; may help develop/maintain Math Counseling Office homepage; counsels students with regard to various academic questions; assists the Office of Admissions with transfer credit; maintains transfer credit matrices and evaluates transfer credit in mathematics; assists faculty advisors with math majors; assists with counseling office databases; helps prepare literature for orientation of new students; writes and grades math proficiency exams.

It was interesting to watch the Sox fans in the stands in St. Louis last night. They weren't really yelling and jumping around much. They were just in stunned silence. That pretty much says it all.

More baseball

Okay, if I were a true blue Red Sox fan, I would want to see them win it all tonight, even though they're away from home. I guess as a sympathetic neutral I yearn for just a little more drama. But then again, maybe this team already got its share of drama in the ALCS.

By the way...I started a new GMAT class Monday night and have another session tonight. Monday went off almost without a hitch...super professional and polished. I screwed up a couple of math problems, though. Tonight is Verbal, so everything should be under control.

Feeling like sticking it out

I talked to a couple of my professors, and I feel somewhat more encouraged now about just getting the stupid degree over with. And I do mean stupid. Maybe I can get motivated by trying to be intensely critical of everything I read. But it's kind of hard to criticize the law in front of law professors. It's like telling fishermen you don't like to eat fish (which I don't).

Didn't you people think that my "clown college" bit was funny? Come on, I'll make it easy for you. Repeat after me: "HA HA HA".

I want, I want, I want

St. Louis in game 3.
Then Boston in game 4.
Then St. Louis in game 5.
Then Boston wins (at home) in 6.

Make it so. ALAKAZAAM!!!

What are some good volunteer opportunities around campus? I could stand to have something to do on these long afternoons that will make me feel good about myself. If you have any suggestions, comment or e-mail.

Kryptonite? Asbestos?

Just being in this building gets me down. Even if I'm just sitting in this building and not thinking about school at all, I get a lot happier when I just get away.

Well, I can't think of any reason not to say it here, so I'll just say it: I couldn't stand the heat. I got out of the kitchen. I withdrew from App Ad. I could make it up next fall, if'n I'm still here. That's far from certain.

Ah, now here's a fantasy: I write an important and well-received book about the law and legal education that gets published and earns back all the money that's been spent on this law school trip. You know, there really isn't a book about law school for people who don't want to go to law school, never even thought about going to law school, and hate lawyers to death. Everyone in our society ought to know about and be concerned with what goes on in places like this, because everyone is affected.

UNBELIEVABLE!!!

Do you notice that if the Astros win the NL (like I want them to), we would have Texas vs. Massachusetts in both the World Series and the election? All this and the Crew are looking pretty damn good in the playoffs.

National Novel Writing Month is coming again!

Maybe this is the year that I put up or shut up. Maybe this is my big chance to put the summer of 2000 "independent study project" behind me once and for all. Just 1,666 words per day. Well, er, and one extra word every three days.

YEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!

The Red Sox forced a seventh game, and I own a $20 toy accordion!!! What could be better?!

Diary of a 1C

I started my first day of school, and boy, it's hard to even describe the scene. I've never seen such intensity among a group of students: everyone here is willing to put it all on the line to achieve their dreams.

The professors are a real trip. They're all consummate professionals and dedicated instructors, but at the same time I can see in many of them a certain emotional instability that threatens to erupt at any moment.

There are a lot of people out there who are terrified of those who have entered my chosen profession. I don't blame them. My fellow students put on a happy face every day, but at heart most of them are cutthroats and killers. Society should be happy that they are given an appropriate outlet to vent their rage as part of their job instead of letting it out in spurts of violence on our streets.

The pressure is enormous. Very few of us will really "make it" in the business. Many more of us will end up living in the gutter and getting perpetually drunk between bouts of schizophrenia. And I have no illusions that all of us will even live through this hell long enough to see graduation day. There is no question that whatever happens, I will come out of this experience a changed person. But somehow, damn it all, I know deep down that I'm going to knock 'em dead here at Clown College.

Come ahn, Baaahstan!!!

I'm a stepuncle times two!

The new step-nephew is here.

Another "conservative against Bush" argument...

...from Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute (which was, just to remind, against the Iraq war from the beginning).

Am I crazy, or wasn't it Garrison Keillor who said "Never trust humorless people"? Didn't somebody say something like that already? If not...I hereby claim this quote as my own! Never trust humorless people.

The Browns and Buckeyes now have the same record. When was the last time that happened?

These Buckeyes are not easy to watch. If we can pick up three of these last six games, we can make it to a bowl game. I'd be perfectly content with that. The one today isn't looking too good, though.

Second viewing

I went with Jon, whose first reaction was that the film is unambiguously pro-Bush. I suppose you could get out of the movie that they'd see Bush as the lesser of two evils, but I don't think they're 100% for him. They're libertarians, they're not fundamentalists or ultranationalists or anything like that. Then again, consider their view of the world: there's three kinds of people. All of them are bad, at least in some ways. But it's unambiguous who they think is best and most valuable. Bush fits squarely in that category. I guess I just don't believe that there are only three categories. Where's the brain? Where's the heart? Hell...the liver? I mean, sure, at root it's a joke, and we're not really supposed to think that they see the world that simplistically. But it's a view of the world that's 50% more sophisticated than the views of both committed conservatives and committed liberals. And it's a view that's consistent with the ideology of pretty much everything else Trey and Matt have done.

Gizmodgery by Self is both dope and fresh. It was recorded using all toy instruments. It has inspired me to go blow $30 or so at Toys 'R' Us in the near future. Isn't it just the ultimate irony that once you're old enough to afford basically all the toys you want, you don't want them anymore? I mean, I bet you can get a lot of Legos for $30.

So I walked three miles today, then I had to stand in line at the police impound lot for an hour because I parked my car on Chittenden on street sweeping day. Foo!

Mapquest is pleased to inform me that I walked over three miles today! Healthy healthy!

What Watt said

"Start your own band, paint your own paintin', write your own book...let your freak flag fly."

Light at the end of the tunnel

It's kind of maddening to have to be so ambiguous, but...I have some options and choices to make, and I don't feel as trapped as I did before.

The beard is coming along.

It will be a big relief if and when I can say what I really think.

Tattoo idea

The word "UNEMPLOYABLE" right across the front of my neck.

RENEWAL!

I bought a new wallet today! It's like a cleansing of the soul! Look at this old and busted wallet:



Food for thought...what do you think there will be first: a new Supreme Court Justice or a new Pope?

Team America: A Misunderestimated Opportunity

That was a very entertaining movie, but not particularly politically earth-shattering. When Trey and Matt attach a message to their creations, it can be utterly devastating. But I don't know if they really knew what they wanted to say with this one. There was the "three kinds of people in the world" idea (which I won't repeat here), but it was pretty ambiguous whether the filmmakers thought America should be the world's policeman or not. It also didn't make sense the way they used the various public figures (mostly actors). All I got out of it was that they thought the actors were stupid and should die.

It's a must-see movie if you like South Park-type humor, but it's not going change our culture or the course of the election.

Five hours from game time...ten hours until...

TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE...special sneak preview TONITE! The most important movie...EVER...is HERE!

"The Splash is Art"

I went to the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center yesterday. They were doing some major jackhammering or some other kind of noisy construction next to the building while I was visiting. The museum featured an exhibit of minimalist and ambient art. The fun part was that there were no labels on either floor of the exhibit, so you had to pay close attention to see where the art was. For example, there was a perfectly ordinary looking, unlabeled water fountain, but if you pressed the button on it, wine came out instead of water. There was also what appeared to be a gross squashed fly on the wall, but if you looked at the brochure for the exhibit, you actually discovered it was a tiny model of a squashed fly.

Anyhoo, the quote above came from one of the museum guards. I noticed in the exhibition program that there was a piece of ambient music playing that involved the sound of a splash playing throughout the museum at specified times each hour. But I wasn't sure if the low rumbling I was hearing was part of the piece or not. So I asked the guard, and he said no, the low rumbling was the construction. But "the splash is art". That kind of cracked me up.

From the Children's Museum of Indianapolis

This is a cute, fun place. But it makes me slightly sad at times to be here by myself. I really want to be a dad someday and have a little person to take to places like this. Then again, I wonder when I'll feel secure enough in myself to know I can be a good father. I've been told nobody ever really knows, but I think if you're at all responsible you should have a pretty good idea before you get into the whole endeavor. I know my parents did. I also wonder whether I will feel right bringing new kids into this world given all of its dangers and uncertainties.

Then again, I'm getting ahead of myself. It generally takes two people to make a baby. I have some challenging work to do in order to find my other half.

My next stop will be Broad Ripple, where there's a recommended Indian restaurant and, later, the show. I'm hoping I might find a place to watch part of the debate before I go into the show. Then I'll be taking off (very late) for Cincinnati (or rather Florence, Kentucky).

Photos are coming soon! Wait'll you see the "End of the Day Parade" at the Children's Museum! It's cute as all heck!

Indianapolis...more like Awesomedianapolis!

Highlight of last night...I ventured up to the revolving restaurant atop the Hyatt Regency in downtown Indianapolis wearing a coffee-stained T-shirt. I rode up the elevator with a guy pushing around huge carts labeled "MEAT". I got off the elevator and realized that there was nothing to see unless I actually went into the restaurant, and a helpful "DRESS CODE" sign clearly indicated that in my current state of disheveledness I was not particularly welcome. However, the meat guy said: "He just wants to take a look around." And the Maitre D' said: "Well, that's alright, because there's no one else up here." So I went in and saw what I could see, and it was very cool.

I went all the way around, and then they asked me if I wanted to sit down and order a drink. I said sure and got a Pina Colada. So I sat for about half an hour and watched the city go by very very slowly.

I'm contemplating going to the Mike Watt show tonight at The Patio here in town. The only thing is that I wouldn't get to Cincy until about 2 or 3 AM local time. But heck, I could sleep in! So I might do it.

And I'm growing my beard back. Again. I feel rebellious.

And the best World Series we could get this year (by my standards) is Boston vs. Houston??? That's so lame! Well, go Sox, and (I guess) go Astros.

Another wacky Priceline jaunt!

Tomorrow I'm headed for Indianapolis. One night there, then two nights in Cincy. Pictures will be taken!

Tough loss.

There goes the Heisman for the Nuge!

Time to get away

I think a quick trip is in my future. Any ideas? Any happy customers of law school notes who would let me crash at their place? Anyone want to go with me? (Presumably not both at the same time.)

Going...

Recent Monster.com job postings:

Math for America: The Newton Fellowship Program is designed to attract mathematically talented recent college graduates and mid-career professionals into high school teaching. Candidates must have a bachelors degree with substantial coursework in mathematics (at least 18 credits at a Calculus or higher level) and should be able to demonstrate a strong interest in teaching. Applicants also must be willing to commit to a five-year fellowship term. Individuals who are currently teaching, are certified to teach or have completed an education degree program are not eligible.

Charles County Public Schools, La Plata, MD - Mathematics Teacher: Growing, suburban-rural county school system 30 miles south of Washington, DC. Job Qualifications: Minimum BS in Mathematics and student teaching or teaching experience. Job Description: Teach geometry to high school students.

Institute for Children and Policy - Policy Analyst: The Institute for Children and Poverty (ICP) is an independent research and policy think tank based in New York City...ICP's work is multi-faceted, engaged in three main areas of action: original research and program evaluation, technical assistance, and outreach and advocacy. Job Qualifications: Bachelor's Degree in the social sciences - Excellent written and oral communication skills - Creative thinker and problem solver - Ability to make effective presentations in group settings. Job Description: Design and implement surveys - Analyze original data on child poverty - Cultivate and maintain relationships with government officials, social service providers, and policy makers - Produce books, reports, and fact sheets - Develop pieces for various national and international journals.