OH SHI---

1) So... post-college plans? What's your major right now and what do you plan to do with it?

Current major is honors physics, honors minor mathematics, course minor computer science. CS is currently endangered. Honors would be if we were earlier in this year.

As for the diploma, immediately coming to mind are applications in toiletries and nasal blockage removal. More seriously, I will give it to my parents to admire/squee over while I sneak off for slightly less awkward goodbyes with my Swat friends.

As for real answer to this question, I've been thinking about it for the past 2.5 years and have yet to come up with a clear answer. I've been thinking about how to best express this well, looking for an excuse to explain this without seeming spontaneously angsty. Career-wise, entrepreneurship has strong appeal to me. International study has weak appeal. Acting, solo performance, writing, and politics have strong curiosity. Programming has lost its appeal over the last couple months. I would prefer to get out of academia, because I doubt that I will start loving school after 21.5 years of wishing it didn't exist. I am not so big on corporate office drone either. Physicist is maybe 4th or 5th backup career. Code monkey is marginally preferable to starving, but only as a temporary measure.

I suppose the life-changing realization I made is that I want to be an adventurer rather than a professional. I have always held the ambition of making epic changes - not just day-to-day increments - to the world. I also don't like to stay in the same place for too long. More recently, I've come to hate sitting on the computer. I want to get out. I really enjoy international experience, despite despising both vehicular transport and tourist traps. I also really think that there is vastly more to learn than what could possibly come from school or a job and that only with that knowledge can I hope to do anything serious.

I see entrepreneurship as the most ambitious, adventuring, realistic career that I currently know of. I don't know how that relates to me degree. I'm leaning toward technology because I have very strong training in it and have the math curse. That's probably the first thing I will try.

I also have the strong sense of a better life parallel to mine. I've been living in a dark and stinky hole. That search is now extremely high priority. Part of it is putting social and practical pursuits far above anything I effectively could study from a book.

2) Does Swarthmore Free Culture even still exist?

It's been dying since my freshman year, across 3 presidencies. At the moment, no. I may try a last re-launch. I would say that my faith in the organization and movement peaked around the end of freshman year. It now becomes increasingly awkward for me to try to rekindle. I've been very annoyed with many FOSS projects lately.

3) What would you say has changed most about the school between when I left and now?

Swat isn't as weird as it used to be. We have a mascot now. The mysterious, mystical, dangerous, off-worshipped but never truly understood network known as SWIL no longer maintains a visible presence here. Instead we have the geeks-just-wanna-have-fun club known as Psi Phi. The administration quietly decided they would air condition the new dormitories. Sports teams act more like sports teams.

Oh, and the administrators are all leaving for NYU Abu Dhabi.

4) What do you think is the single most important issue facing the world today that no one seems to care about?

Consumerism.

We have the option of making real, lasting changes to our lives. The technology exists. For the first time, we can talk to people in the 3rd world and recognize that something worth fixing is happening there right now. Even if we cannot yet build an AI smarter than us, we have IA to make us smarter. We could train ourselves to be better people. Build a world of scientists and artists. Eradicate hunger. Kill death. Chill out on Mars. Imagine a world where death is not a serious threat. Where war is obsolete. Where farmers work on UN payroll producing so much food that anyone can eat for free. Where we solve overpopulation by moving to Mars.

I would bet my life that we can do this before the next century.

We won't. Not in the near future at least. World-changing discoveries are too far in in space and time to think about accurately. Humans weren't meant to deal with so much change. Instead we focus on what we can contemplate. This new movie. That new book. The sex we will or won't have tonight. A $15 DVD player from Walmart. Farmville. Warcraft. Football. Tomorrow at the job. Britney Spears had a kid. Dick Cheney said the F-word. Small dogs. Boob jobs. Anything that can make me happy right here and right now.

Furthermore, we fear. What if the robots kill us? What if there are Martians? Will Jesus forgive us for not wanting to die? Will the black people stab us? Will the white people bomb us? Can I trust you? I know I will have a good adventure on my Wii. Maybe I better stick to that and not go on any read adventures. I know that Tiger Woods is a champion and how much easier it will be to live vicariously through him than to train myself that hard.

I think that the invention of the millennia would be a universal, long-term and total collaboration. I mean every Western giving what we can afford to help the Africans. Not just the US sending some aide. Especially not a few thousand college kids around the country each donating a dollar. I mean total and complete dedication to the big goal. I mean that we all give up parts of our way of life for it. If you won't do it too then my doing it won't help.

You can see it at a smaller scale too. With our bodies. How so many people want a pill to fix this or that - not a lifestyle. With our machines. This summer I picked up an amazingly powerful and expensive computer for about $30 at a trash sale. It was thrown out because the cooling was clogged. I guess the previous owner lacked the knowledge to fix it.

Basically, I think we buy shit, because we're too scared and paranoid to really weigh the costs of everything and spend what time and resources we have on things that count in the end. I think that the more options we have available to us, the more consumerism is going to keep us from the best.

5) What's the one thing you did in college you're most proud of?

I would have to say my solo performance. It was a close call between this and the autocorrelator. Only about 10 people have seen it. All reviews were exceedingly positive, including my course grade and the anonymous peer feedback. I don't understand why. Why anyone would want to hear me talk in stories and strange metaphors about my life. But apparently I have the capacity for epic charisma, oration skill, writing... something.

More importantly, nothing has ever invalidated my solo performance. Computer code is dead to me. Physics is a fun hobby. Maybe I can even salvage my academic overbalance into some kind of general intelligence. That solo performance told me that I was not stuck. That I have the abilities I want as well as the ones people told me to have.

I don't know what I'm going to do with that, but I think it was my best moment in college.

Oh yeah, I can ask you stuff if you comment here.

It's very peaceful here. I've spent the day in a hotel in Massachusetts while my parents are installing a computer for my grandparents. I really don't mind that I'm home because being in a hotel means not being bothered by anyone and not having to deal with the constant mess that comes with hanging around the house. I brought with me a couple of books but haven't read all that much, mostly because I've put down my book on the history of finance in order to read a novel. That sounds kind of weird, but I've found that I just don't ever read fiction on my own time and as a consequence I've had no inspiration to write in a very long time. My attention span though, even for a William Gibson novel, is so limited; I'm not sure what it is, it just takes me a lot of mental energy to really get inside a piece of fiction, whereas I can just pick up non-fiction and go.

On the bright side, got to kill a lot of time at the gym and now the night sky with a single skylight looks intriguingly beautiful through the window at this angle, even if I'm in the middle of a fucking strip mall. I like that my aesthetic experiences rarely come from exceptional places--ordinary things seem to have periodic bursts of beauty when viewed from specific angles.

Speaking of all this peace and quiet, it looks like I finally got a call from my parents to get ready, have to leave for dinner in an hour. To think, I swear I was about to actually pick up that book again.

Hope everyone is having a relaxing break!

Generally not my thing but if there's something that gets me going it's a really studly cub. Woof.

I can write about how I see this as a response to how public education failed an entire generation of kids...but I just wanna jerk.

Flying to Germany tomorrow, for Christmas. Last time I'll be flying around Europe before the big trip back to the states on the 3rd of January. I will miss this place and these people.

I am definitely eager at some times to get back to NYC food and begin the end of my time at Swarthmore.

Still, I appreciate having the time to stay here and enjoy the Edinburgh snow. It snows almost every day here. It's lovely.

facebook has an uncanny ability to bring the people that I don't want to see to the front of my news feed. always.

high fives for feeling like shit!

Going to write a novel over break. Novel idea is an existentialist space opera, set about 50 years in the future, in which human expeditions accidentally spur a war with a previously undiscovered Martian life form (for unclear reasons). Humans effectively play the part of the classical alien invaders. Protagonist wants to do what's right but ends up orchestrating the destruction of a civilization. How many famous writers have done it before? Any suggestions on the merits of this idea?

Hoping my pseudo date tomorrow works out. Also hoping this other guy replies back to my email - 6'5''
35 years old
Works in a "Green-collar" firm
has 2 kids (I dunno why, but I'm intrigued by dating a single parent)
Not to mention I think he's cute.

Alright kiddos - in response to my cooking post:

I'm thinking of learning the fine art of Duck Confit. Browsing for some recipes - we can buy the ingredients in bulk and divvy up with whoever wants to explore this recipe with me. Best part? We get fucking Duck Confit to take home! Seriously, duck. DUCK.

I'm thinking after xmas. Hit me up if people are interested.
Oh and a badass follow up to learning this recipe is you can use the duck with handmade ravioli. DUCK RAVIOLI. The madness goes on.

Two weeks of relaxation with the possibility of regular group dinners and some time to actually play music (something I haven't done in months); then learning transcendental meditation and after that going to San Francisco and Cleveland to learn about entrepreneurship while using my free time to work on my honors project. I have a good feeling about the next seven weeks.

You can only cry at the night sky so many times before you realize it's too indifferent to send back even an echo.

I'm thinking of doing some serious cooking this winter break - Fellow New Yorkers, we should have group dinners!