evolution

i would like to have a 32-inch sony wega tv. if my mother hadn’t bought me my current tv (which is a good one, no doubt) for christmas a few years back, i would probably go and buy one right now. she used to have a little tv in her sewing room; maybe she would like to have the one she bought me.

i am looking to redesign this site.

i finally got all my gre scores back. here’s the word, in score/percentile rank format:

• verbal: 670/94
• quantitative: 800/94
• analytical writing 4.5/45
• math subject test 600/46

the general test went well for me. i am a very deliberate writer, though; forty-five minutes is not enough time for me to compose a thoughtful essay. the math subject test, which i took back in december, didn’t go that well either. i feel that this test is not an accurate indicator of my math skills – the only thing that test indicates, in my opinion, is one’s capacity for memorizing formulas and “tricks” in order to answer very specific questions. i know that what i am saying sounds like a cop-out, a “blame the test” argument, but in this case i feel it is valid. i just hope that the math departments to which i applied have similar-thinking admissions committees.

i told you the other day that a girl i used to like a lot is getting married. another one keeps me at an arm’s length now, and a third has decided that the best route to go was to not talk to me.

it’s times like these i’d like to live in a cave by myself.

however, i got an e-mail from penn state’s math department today telling me that they are reviewing my application. i am high on their program; i hope they accept me.

today was not much of a day for me. i woke up at 1:00pm because insomnia, among other things, kept me awake until 3:30 and again at 5:30. finally I fell asleep and bang – it was 1:00. then i watched the super bowl, which was extraordinarily non-entertaining. bang – it’s ten to midnight.

also, i found out that this girl i had a crush on through high school and into college is getting married next weekend. when i sat down to think about that, i felt like i was a thousand light-years away.

i was using blogger’s nextblog thingy to randomly browse through other people’s blogs as they are updated, and i had come to the conclusion a few minutes ago that other people’s blogs suck.

i thought to myself (there being no one here to talk to) that these other people’s sites were full of boring, meaningless tripe based on their puerile political rants and their banal lives.

then i came to the crux of the problem – i have become an arrogant motherfucker. i have noticed this about myself lately. i’m much smarter than you, because i (soon will) have a master’s degree in mathematics and you don’t. jane snuffie doesn’t want to date me? it must be because she’s a dumb broad with at best questionable morals and a fixation on six-pack abs.

i find myself trailing off into space in the middle of conversations with everyone – the pretty TA at the office, various casual acquaintances, my friends, even my roommate, who has for five years been (and will most likely always be) my friend. i have made a conscious effort not to do this with the people i care about, but it’s another example of my trend towards self-centeredness. i have had a hard time paying attention to things i don’t directly relate to; or perhaps more accurately, to things that aren’t related to my ph.d. quest. lately i have had a hard time caring about other people, and when i step back and look at that, i am appalled, and i wonder how such a thing could have happened.

by the way, the kierkegaard quote in the last post needs some explanation. i’m not suggesting that osama bin laden and his ilk load up the anthrax and the nukes and the stinger missiles reagan sold him and start killing the crusaders. the way i interpreted this (out of context, i know) quote was that christianity has lost its edge. back when christians were an endangered species, christianity was about the people who believed in it and the small communities they formed for worship and protection. when it got to be about the institution, sometime in the 12th or 13th century a.d., it became somewhat “flat”. for me, that is the main problem with christianity – its leadership feels it has nothing to prove. to my mind, there’s a hell of a lot left to prove.

the trouble with christians is that no one wants to kill them anymore. — soren kierkegaard