- kathy buck. Undoubtedly from this post where I thought I had a snowball's chance in heck of getting a job with Bechtel.
- tangled black short hair movie disney. It took me a while to find a picture of Rapunzel from the movie Tangled after Rider had cut off her hair, so I'm glad some other people could find it here.
- a series of unfortunate dudefests. Yes! Someone's looking specifically for my blag. :)
- "appropriate touching" lds. Not exactly sure which post that would have led to; probably one of the ones on Gary Chapman's love languages and physical touch.
- andra pathakis staley. Someone scouring the internet for Andra. May have even been Andra herself. Ring check!
- byu football pictures dennis pita. And yes, they did actually misspell it "pita." Dennis PITTA.
- cu boulder 4.0 grading scale. I'm sad to say that all my posts on grad school probably didn't help anyone who typed this into Google.
- fall walls of jericho. I'd like to think that this post is making its way around the internet.
- foghorn leghorn "flying". Undoubtedly from my comparison of Foghorn Leghorn to Swoop in this post.
- lds young women.
- most interesting man in the world cunnilingus. The query for the most interesting man in the world came from this post... but I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned cunnilingus in this blag... until now.
- a reenactment of a famous collaboration, starring eller. I'm pretty sure this one wins the award for most random and ridiculous. I have no idea what this means, and I'm okay with that.
- doyon limited. Back when I thought Doyon might actually be hiring construction engineers.
- female working out. Sorry guys, no softcore porn here.
- walls of jericho cross section
- walls of jericho resonance.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
The Obligatory Google Search Results Post
What brings people who don't know me to this blag? Well, Google has given me some insights via my Blogger Stats page. Here are all the search terms that people have typed into Google to end up at this page, whether they meant to, or not. The search terms will be in all lower case, since that's how Google does things. Enjoy.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Jerk Theory and the Law of Chastity
After my last post about 9 hours ago, I received a comment from one Colonel Crimson, who, I'm about 99% confident, is a SpUte fan (but hey, we all have our faults.) After reading through a few posts on the Colonel's blag, there are two things that I want to say.
The first is that the tenants of 'Jerk Theory' or 'The Game' are at least half true. Jerk theory basically states that women prefer men who treat them like crap; women will deny this left and right, but they often end up with guys who treat them like crap, regardless of how much they say they want a guy who's funny, nice, and smart. In the words of the Colonel, women will follow after "alpha (α) males" (douchebags, essentially) while ignoring the "beta (β) males" who are less aggressive. On the contrary, women will tell you that they want a guy who treats them well and respects them. These two ideas are contradictory and neither seem to reflect the total reality.
Because of the evolution of the human race, there are compromises between aggression and docility (for lack of a better word) among males. In primal human males, the trait of aggression was perpetuated not only because more aggressive men were more likely to pursue women with whom to reproduce, but also because aggressive men were more likely to be able to protect their offspring from outside threats and keep them alive to reproduce and pass on those genes. However, aggression is not a universally beneficial concept in the realm of evolution. A male who is too aggressive will be prone to killing his mate and/or their offspring and will not be able to pass down his genes. Thus, there is a balance to strike between the aggressive and the docile characteristics of males.
Primal females had to strike that balance, and try to find a man who was aggressive enough to protect their offspring, but not so aggressive as to kill and eat them. We can observe similar behavior in modern women. The traits of aggression and docility are manifest as confidence and niceness (again for lack of a better word) respectively in men. These ideas are not inherently mutually exclusive, even though one tends to take away from the other in the observed populace. The best responses I've received from women have been at times when I was both confident and respectful. From what I've been able to gather from my time on the Earth, women want a man who has both swagger and a deep respect for the woman who he's with.
Unfortunately, the traits of confidence and aggression often end being correlated with self motivation, greed, and straight-up douchebaggery. Due to the nature of our evolution, the slightly more aggressive ends up edging out the slightly more docile and the aggressive man who treats women like crap ends up with more women than the docile man who tries to remember what his mom told him about being nice to women. Thus, jerk theory is born even though a balance between confidence and respect would be more ideal.
I have to add as a slight disclaimer to this logic, that, in my adult life, I've generally pursued women who were fairly nice and docile themselves. I'm not the kind of guy who goes after the b*tchy, slutty my-size Barbie doll. If that's the woman you're after, then treating her like crap might just be the way to go. And also, as if you couldn't tell from my last post, I'm not exactly the mack daddy of Heimlich County; these are just analytical observations I've made of other relationships as well as of my own along with a parallel to principles of biology to reconcile both jerk theory and what women do to reality.
Secondly, I'd like to bear my witness of the law of the chastity. I was a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I've experience firsthand that sexual contact is not the way to long term happiness. In the end, the only way to avoid the heartbreak and sadness that eventually come from illicit sexual activity is to abstain from it altogether. I've felt empty and worthless as a direct result of the things that I've done, and it was only through the atonement of Christ that I was able to feel whole. I have a testimony that marriage in the temple is ordained by God and I have set it as a goal for myself to make that covenant, despite all the stacked odds against me.
And to Colonel Crimson, if you end up reading this, I want you to know that I respect you, I really do. You refuse to accept the bullsh*t that women dish out about just wanting a guy who's "nice and funny." You've taken a step back, examined the facts as they really are, and realized that what we hear isn't usually what we see. Naturally, I think your conclusions are slightly misguided, but I respect you for making them nonetheless. Stay classy, my friend.
The first is that the tenants of 'Jerk Theory' or 'The Game' are at least half true. Jerk theory basically states that women prefer men who treat them like crap; women will deny this left and right, but they often end up with guys who treat them like crap, regardless of how much they say they want a guy who's funny, nice, and smart. In the words of the Colonel, women will follow after "alpha (α) males" (douchebags, essentially) while ignoring the "beta (β) males" who are less aggressive. On the contrary, women will tell you that they want a guy who treats them well and respects them. These two ideas are contradictory and neither seem to reflect the total reality.
Because of the evolution of the human race, there are compromises between aggression and docility (for lack of a better word) among males. In primal human males, the trait of aggression was perpetuated not only because more aggressive men were more likely to pursue women with whom to reproduce, but also because aggressive men were more likely to be able to protect their offspring from outside threats and keep them alive to reproduce and pass on those genes. However, aggression is not a universally beneficial concept in the realm of evolution. A male who is too aggressive will be prone to killing his mate and/or their offspring and will not be able to pass down his genes. Thus, there is a balance to strike between the aggressive and the docile characteristics of males.
Primal females had to strike that balance, and try to find a man who was aggressive enough to protect their offspring, but not so aggressive as to kill and eat them. We can observe similar behavior in modern women. The traits of aggression and docility are manifest as confidence and niceness (again for lack of a better word) respectively in men. These ideas are not inherently mutually exclusive, even though one tends to take away from the other in the observed populace. The best responses I've received from women have been at times when I was both confident and respectful. From what I've been able to gather from my time on the Earth, women want a man who has both swagger and a deep respect for the woman who he's with.
Unfortunately, the traits of confidence and aggression often end being correlated with self motivation, greed, and straight-up douchebaggery. Due to the nature of our evolution, the slightly more aggressive ends up edging out the slightly more docile and the aggressive man who treats women like crap ends up with more women than the docile man who tries to remember what his mom told him about being nice to women. Thus, jerk theory is born even though a balance between confidence and respect would be more ideal.
I have to add as a slight disclaimer to this logic, that, in my adult life, I've generally pursued women who were fairly nice and docile themselves. I'm not the kind of guy who goes after the b*tchy, slutty my-size Barbie doll. If that's the woman you're after, then treating her like crap might just be the way to go. And also, as if you couldn't tell from my last post, I'm not exactly the mack daddy of Heimlich County; these are just analytical observations I've made of other relationships as well as of my own along with a parallel to principles of biology to reconcile both jerk theory and what women do to reality.
Secondly, I'd like to bear my witness of the law of the chastity. I was a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I've experience firsthand that sexual contact is not the way to long term happiness. In the end, the only way to avoid the heartbreak and sadness that eventually come from illicit sexual activity is to abstain from it altogether. I've felt empty and worthless as a direct result of the things that I've done, and it was only through the atonement of Christ that I was able to feel whole. I have a testimony that marriage in the temple is ordained by God and I have set it as a goal for myself to make that covenant, despite all the stacked odds against me.
And to Colonel Crimson, if you end up reading this, I want you to know that I respect you, I really do. You refuse to accept the bullsh*t that women dish out about just wanting a guy who's "nice and funny." You've taken a step back, examined the facts as they really are, and realized that what we hear isn't usually what we see. Naturally, I think your conclusions are slightly misguided, but I respect you for making them nonetheless. Stay classy, my friend.
This Post is Gonna Get Like a Billion Pageviews
People who have just met me are often surprised to find out that I'm about 97% confident that I won't get married during this lifetime. I think I usually come off fairly typical and maybe even desirable (though that's pushing it) when you first meet me and it takes a while to realize that I'm actually a stark raving lunatic. This is probably why I've been engaged... twice... and neither of them has worked out. Both fiancées #1 and #2 realized somewhere along the line that I'm actually a terrible idea.
The particular event that inspired this post was a bishop's fireside that, naturally, focused on finding a spouse. Most of the people in my ward don't know me that well and were/might be surprised that I hurried off afterward to go cry myself to sleep. I this might offer a little clarity for those who REALLY want to know.
As with my other posts about women, if you're easily offended or disturbed, please take the opportunity to look away now. I'd also re-examine what you're doing surfing the internet, but that might just be me.
Let's examine the evidence of why I probably won't end up married anytime soon:
I hope that gives you a good idea of why I'm so pessimistic about my prospects for marriage. In my mind these all fit together fairly easily, but I'm not sure that I totally managed to communicate what's going on in my brain. I think you get a pretty good idea, though.
The particular event that inspired this post was a bishop's fireside that, naturally, focused on finding a spouse. Most of the people in my ward don't know me that well and were/might be surprised that I hurried off afterward to go cry myself to sleep. I this might offer a little clarity for those who REALLY want to know.
As with my other posts about women, if you're easily offended or disturbed, please take the opportunity to look away now. I'd also re-examine what you're doing surfing the internet, but that might just be me.
Let's examine the evidence of why I probably won't end up married anytime soon:
- My mother didn't love me enough. More strictly, she didn't love me in a way that I (or sane people) could feel loved. It's a terrible cliché, I know, but without the unconditional love of a mother or any other female figure in my life (which there was none) I have a hard time believing that a woman might love me, personally, for who I am.
- My mother tragically skewed my view of women. There's no two ways around it, my mother hates men, and it shows in the way she treats my father. In her eyes, the only men who are worthy to live are the ones with big, fat wallets, and 12-or-more-inch long penises. Since my mother is the only woman I really knew growing up, I somehow gained the impression that women didn't really like men, but tolerated them for the hard labor and spermatozoa. In a cruel twist of irony, this song was made by Good Charlotte... any guesses at what my mom's name is?
- I didn't exactly grow up with the best example of a healthy and stable marriage. My parents tell me they love each other, but it's really hard to tell by looking at them. Their time together was usually dominated by my mom criticizing my dad and throwing crap at him while my dad swore profusely. The times they told me they loved each other were outnumbered at least 10 to 1 by the times they told me how big of a prick/b*tch the other one was. When this is your mental picture of marriage, it's not exactly something you run out to sign up for.
- Contemporary western society doesn't exactly embrace men. Why are men from all over living in their parents' basements playing video games all day? It's because there's really no place in our society for those with a Y chromosome. In courtship, men don't really have much to offer women these days, while women still expect men to significantly improve their lives. Simply put, women still expect just as much from men as they ever did, but men have much less ground to stand on. Additionally, society continuously deprecates men, but still expects them to have plenty of confidence and no insecurities. At no time is this more apparent than when you ask men to approach women in courtship.
- I'm not exactly what you'd call a typical Latter-day Saint male. There are two common simple, objective metrics by which a young woman can evaluate her future spouse: RM status and the relationship he has with his mother. I'm not eligible to go on a mission, and as you can image from the reading above, my relationship with my mother is strained. In baseball, I'd have one more strike, but with many women, I don't. Women have a lot of other things they're looking for in a spouse that might eliminate me from consideration, but these are the two most damning ones.
- Nature and nurture. In addition to my mom skewing my views of women, I was born with a chemical predisposition to not be very aggressive. This was combined with the fact that I was an only child and spent much of my time without the company of other people my age, making me not terribly outgoing, or excited to socialize with other people.
I hope that gives you a good idea of why I'm so pessimistic about my prospects for marriage. In my mind these all fit together fairly easily, but I'm not sure that I totally managed to communicate what's going on in my brain. I think you get a pretty good idea, though.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Updatetastic
I'm about a month into grad school at THE Oregon State University, which means that I'm about a third of the way through my first quarter. It's been pretty great so far. My three classes in Lab Testing of Soils, Foundations, and Seismic Design have been enjoyable and I've been doing well in all three of them. The thing that I like best about my classes so far is definitely the sparsity of assignments. In both Lab Testing and Seismic Design, there are only about 4 or 5 assignments due throughout the quarter. In Foundations, we have an assignment every week, and as long as they don't take 16 hours (like last week's assignment) it's really not too bad.
Also, as you might be able to ascertain from my post before last, I found some research with Ben Mason, who I think is a really cool guy. He's also my professor for Lab Testing of Soils. My thesis is going to be something along the lines of "Numerical Methods for Dynamic Soil-Structure Interaction of Multiple Building Systems." Yes, it's a mouthful, but that's how most theses are. In English that translates roughly to "How soils in urban areas behave when the buildings on top of them start shaking in an earthquake." Our goal is to try to get this research published in a technical journal and probably present it at a conference as well. In the words of Ben himself, at the end I should basically be able to staple these two documents together and submit it as a thesis, we'll see how all of that goes.
I'm not starting this research right away. In December Ben will give me some literature to review, and we'll actually begin with the research in about April or May of next year. The research will really begin in earnest during the summer, when we don't have much else going on.
I also just got my own desk in the office for geotechnical engineering grad students. It's pretty awesome.
And my Alma Mater plays my new substitute Alma Mater in football tomorrow. Just in case you haven't heard, I'll be wearing blue and will be sitting in the BYU fan section. Prediction:
BYU - 30, Oregon State -21
Also, as you might be able to ascertain from my post before last, I found some research with Ben Mason, who I think is a really cool guy. He's also my professor for Lab Testing of Soils. My thesis is going to be something along the lines of "Numerical Methods for Dynamic Soil-Structure Interaction of Multiple Building Systems." Yes, it's a mouthful, but that's how most theses are. In English that translates roughly to "How soils in urban areas behave when the buildings on top of them start shaking in an earthquake." Our goal is to try to get this research published in a technical journal and probably present it at a conference as well. In the words of Ben himself, at the end I should basically be able to staple these two documents together and submit it as a thesis, we'll see how all of that goes.
I'm not starting this research right away. In December Ben will give me some literature to review, and we'll actually begin with the research in about April or May of next year. The research will really begin in earnest during the summer, when we don't have much else going on.
I also just got my own desk in the office for geotechnical engineering grad students. It's pretty awesome.
And my Alma Mater plays my new substitute Alma Mater in football tomorrow. Just in case you haven't heard, I'll be wearing blue and will be sitting in the BYU fan section. Prediction:
BYU - 30, Oregon State -21
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Two Way Traffic
Followers of this blag might be surprised to learn that my favorite talk from the recently-adjourned general conference was a talk by Sister Elaine Dalton, the President of the Young Women organization. In her talk, Sister Dalton discussed how three of her sons had recently had daughters and, at least in some way, looked to Sister Dalton for help and advice in how to raise them. She said, simply, that the best thing a man can do for his daughter is to love her mother and to show to her what a loving and gospel-centered home is like.
This might be puzzling, based on my tumultuous and often antagonistic relationship with women as a whole. However, that's just it. This talk hearkens back to the root of my tumultuous relationship with women, which is that my mother didn't really show her love for my father in a healthy or constructive way. I'd like to add my testimony to that of Sister Dalton, by saying that the best thing a parent can do for their opposite-gender child is to love their spouse in a way that their child can see what a healthy and celestial marriage is like. I testify that the counsel that Sister Dalton offered to the men of the church applies equally well to the sisters when seeking counsel in how to raise their sons. Women are more naturally predisposed to follow this counsel without even thinking about it, but I live as a testament that this is not always the case. It is important that, regardless of gender, latter-day saints take care to love their spouses, for their own sakes, as well as for the sakes of their children.
I'm sure that, at some point, the Lord will bless me with a daughter, much like the sons of Sister Dalton. When this happens, I look forward to following the counsel of this general officer and showing to my daughter what a loving, gospel-centered home is like. To me, there is little more important in my future family life than breaking the cycle of gender-based contention that started generations ago, long before anyone on my mother's side of the family had the gospel.
The gospel of Christ gives us guidance to do things that we never thought we could do, like raising a son or a daughter. I think that's pretty grand.
[Video of Sister Dalton's talk.]
This might be puzzling, based on my tumultuous and often antagonistic relationship with women as a whole. However, that's just it. This talk hearkens back to the root of my tumultuous relationship with women, which is that my mother didn't really show her love for my father in a healthy or constructive way. I'd like to add my testimony to that of Sister Dalton, by saying that the best thing a parent can do for their opposite-gender child is to love their spouse in a way that their child can see what a healthy and celestial marriage is like. I testify that the counsel that Sister Dalton offered to the men of the church applies equally well to the sisters when seeking counsel in how to raise their sons. Women are more naturally predisposed to follow this counsel without even thinking about it, but I live as a testament that this is not always the case. It is important that, regardless of gender, latter-day saints take care to love their spouses, for their own sakes, as well as for the sakes of their children.
I'm sure that, at some point, the Lord will bless me with a daughter, much like the sons of Sister Dalton. When this happens, I look forward to following the counsel of this general officer and showing to my daughter what a loving, gospel-centered home is like. To me, there is little more important in my future family life than breaking the cycle of gender-based contention that started generations ago, long before anyone on my mother's side of the family had the gospel.
The gospel of Christ gives us guidance to do things that we never thought we could do, like raising a son or a daughter. I think that's pretty grand.
[Video of Sister Dalton's talk.]
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Foresight
I have a testimony that the Lord knows which path in our lives will lead, ultimately, to the most happiness much more than we know it ourselves. If we trust in the Lord... and even sometimes when we don't really, he will guide us toward the paths that will lead us to the most prosperity. There are elements in my life currently that I never could have predicted nor have pieced together that has lead me to a great place, even in the midst of bitter circumstances.
I've pretty much blagged about all the elements of my life before, but have never really put the pieces together until now.
My consideration of Oregon State University for a master's degree began well over a year ago while I was still under the impression that I would work in industry for a few years to figure out where I wanted to specialize before beginning a master's degree. Like most of the other schools I began considering, my interest in Oregon State was based on their ranking in US News and World Report. Though, unlike most other schools, Oregon State seemed to stand out at me as a good idea even though I'd never been to Oregon and had little experience with the university outside the '09 Las Vegas Bowl. (In retrospect, this was an inspired decision.)
With most of the schools in the rankings, I could find one or more reasons to remove them from consideration based on their graduate assistant policies, grad programs, research, etc. However, Oregon State, ranked at #41 (in an 8-way tie), managed to stick around. While other schools lost favor, I couldn't find any reason to not like Oregon State. The earliest list of potential grad schools I made in this blag was in March of '10, which would have been about the time I started considering Oregon State.
In July of '10, even though I still held out vain hope of finding a job, I decided to take the GRE just in case I wanted to apply to grad school in the fall. This turned out to be another clearly inspired decision.
As my desires to continue fruitlessly applying and networking for jobs faded, I applied for master's programs at 7 institutions of higher learning. As I began the process, it was fairly evident that I would have to pick a specialization, ready or not. I decided that I had been trying to convince myself that I didn't like geotech and that that was really my favorite specialty after all. Applying for the geotech program was a third inspired decision.
In March and April of '11, I was thinking that I wouldn't receive funding from any of the schools to which I had applied and that I would attend CU-Boulder. I was wrong on both accounts. I received funding for the 2011-2012 school year from Oregon State and immediately began the process of matriculating. The tuition waiver and stipend that I received were the first immense blessing that I received on account of my inspired decisions.
On March 11, 2011, a megathrust subduction earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the northeast side of Honshu, Japan causing extreme loss of property and life. A similar subduction fault exists a few miles west of the Oregon and Washington coasts, and the prospect of an almost identical quake hitting western Oregon scared the Benjamins out of the state government. They will now be providing a significant piece of funding to the one significant civil engineering program in the state, at Oregon State University. See my previous blag post about this here.
The professor who is spearheading much of this research (who did his undergrad at Georgia Tech) is brand new at the university, since they have been understaffed for the past couple years. I just talked to him this morning and he said that administration and red tape would need to be taken care of for the next few months and that the research would begin in earnest in the first few months of next year. To put it bluntly, the timing is perfect. And since this professor is brand new, he doesn't have many grad students/other minions of his own, allowing me to slip in fairly easily. Trust me, I'm at least as amazed as you at this point.
In summary, with foresight of a pair of unforeseeable events, the Lord was able to prepare a path for me leading to more happiness than I could have ever procured following my own plan(s). I've rarely considered myself very keen on hearing and listening to the still, small voice of the Spirit. However, will even the tertiary ear that I lent Him, the Lord was able to guide me. And I'm sure that the guidance and blessings are not over. My time in Oregon has only begun and there is almost certainly more in store were this much came from.
I've pretty much blagged about all the elements of my life before, but have never really put the pieces together until now.
My consideration of Oregon State University for a master's degree began well over a year ago while I was still under the impression that I would work in industry for a few years to figure out where I wanted to specialize before beginning a master's degree. Like most of the other schools I began considering, my interest in Oregon State was based on their ranking in US News and World Report. Though, unlike most other schools, Oregon State seemed to stand out at me as a good idea even though I'd never been to Oregon and had little experience with the university outside the '09 Las Vegas Bowl. (In retrospect, this was an inspired decision.)
With most of the schools in the rankings, I could find one or more reasons to remove them from consideration based on their graduate assistant policies, grad programs, research, etc. However, Oregon State, ranked at #41 (in an 8-way tie), managed to stick around. While other schools lost favor, I couldn't find any reason to not like Oregon State. The earliest list of potential grad schools I made in this blag was in March of '10, which would have been about the time I started considering Oregon State.
In July of '10, even though I still held out vain hope of finding a job, I decided to take the GRE just in case I wanted to apply to grad school in the fall. This turned out to be another clearly inspired decision.
As my desires to continue fruitlessly applying and networking for jobs faded, I applied for master's programs at 7 institutions of higher learning. As I began the process, it was fairly evident that I would have to pick a specialization, ready or not. I decided that I had been trying to convince myself that I didn't like geotech and that that was really my favorite specialty after all. Applying for the geotech program was a third inspired decision.
In March and April of '11, I was thinking that I wouldn't receive funding from any of the schools to which I had applied and that I would attend CU-Boulder. I was wrong on both accounts. I received funding for the 2011-2012 school year from Oregon State and immediately began the process of matriculating. The tuition waiver and stipend that I received were the first immense blessing that I received on account of my inspired decisions.
On March 11, 2011, a megathrust subduction earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the northeast side of Honshu, Japan causing extreme loss of property and life. A similar subduction fault exists a few miles west of the Oregon and Washington coasts, and the prospect of an almost identical quake hitting western Oregon scared the Benjamins out of the state government. They will now be providing a significant piece of funding to the one significant civil engineering program in the state, at Oregon State University. See my previous blag post about this here.
The professor who is spearheading much of this research (who did his undergrad at Georgia Tech) is brand new at the university, since they have been understaffed for the past couple years. I just talked to him this morning and he said that administration and red tape would need to be taken care of for the next few months and that the research would begin in earnest in the first few months of next year. To put it bluntly, the timing is perfect. And since this professor is brand new, he doesn't have many grad students/other minions of his own, allowing me to slip in fairly easily. Trust me, I'm at least as amazed as you at this point.
In summary, with foresight of a pair of unforeseeable events, the Lord was able to prepare a path for me leading to more happiness than I could have ever procured following my own plan(s). I've rarely considered myself very keen on hearing and listening to the still, small voice of the Spirit. However, will even the tertiary ear that I lent Him, the Lord was able to guide me. And I'm sure that the guidance and blessings are not over. My time in Oregon has only begun and there is almost certainly more in store were this much came from.
Monday, September 19, 2011
The Beaver is Doing the Richardson Dance
So, I have made my move to the great state of Oregon. Both myself and my roommate are moved in and I'm pretty much loving it so far. I found out that the roomy is actually 18 years old and doesn't have a driver's license, but that's not really a big deal. The good news is that he's a computer (science) nerd and is pretty mellow. So basically, we're both just socially capable enough to hold a decent conversation, but just socially awkward enough to leave each other alone most of the time. It's pretty awesome.
The rest of my likes and dislikes I'll be putting into list form, so here you go:
Dislikes
The rest of my likes and dislikes I'll be putting into list form, so here you go:
Dislikes
- My apartment is in the middle of little Mexico. Seriously, very few of my immediate neighbors speak English.
- The walls of my apartment are nothing but lumber, drywall, and air. You can hear everything that goes on within 20 feet of your apartment walls, on any side. Most this goes on in Spanish.
- Along these same lines, the door to my bedroom doesn't currently close... at all. Neither brute force nor gentle persuasion will make it go to its home. We'll see how quick they are on my maintenance request.
- More generally, the university is apathetic to the concerns of student housing. Living in the 1-mile radius at BYU made rent slight higher, but it also provided some protections for students. Namely, BYU ensured that student housing included furniture and mail keys for their students. Since I've arrived here, I've had to spend a boatload of cash on furniture and I haven't been able to check my mail.
- The university and surrounding entities are profoundly liberal. I went to a GTA orientation this week in which one of the presentations was on "The Diverse Student Populations of Oregon State University." My dad suggested that this particular brand and level of liberalism was best described by the term 'pure collectivism,' with which I can hardly disagree.
- The people in my ward are pretty freakin' awesome. I've never been quick to make legitimate friends, but it's been happening here so far.
- There are more women than men. During my Memorial Day trip up here, I figured that the ratio was about 60/40. After attending this week, I'd estimate it's more like 55/45... either way I see plenty of women without feeling like I'm swimming in the estrogen ocean. When you're an engineer, that's a nice change of pace.
- As I mentioned already, my roommate is pretty cool.
- The university has really nice accommodations. The nice thing about going to a state school is that no one's all that apprehensive about spending the taxpayers' money. As a grad student, I get my own desk and shelf space with my own computer. It's pretty legit.
- Even in a disastrous football year, the students have spirit. At BYU, students often walked around in other universities' apparel and wore pink and brown horizontal striped shirts to football games even when the team went 11-2. I would always vomit a little in my mouth when I'd see someone wearing a USC shirt on campus (or even worse, the University of SpUtah.)
- I have my own car here. Honestly, I'm sure how I survived 4 years as an undergrad without at least something resembling a motor vehicle.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)