Now that college is supposed to be winding down, I have become extremely aware of what I have and have not done while I have been here at college. In other words, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting. And since I’m coming back for another blasted semester next Fall, I have also been giving thought to just what next semester will be like. The combination of these two themes has brought me to the same subject again and again: friends.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the friendships that I have made over the past four years, and those that I have not. I have found my situation somewhat peculiar. The bottom line is that I really do not have many truly close friends. I probably know hundreds of people superficially, but really only like maybe between 30 and 50 would I call good friends. Now that might seem like a lot, at least it does to me. Let’s use a 1 to 10 scale to talk about the strength of a friendship. A 1, on this scale, would be someone who you were introduced to once. A 10 would be a spouse or best friend. When I say “good friend” I’m talking about people in the 6-8 range. When I say “truly close friend”, I mean someone in the 9-10 range.

The bottom line is that I definitely don’t have any friends in the 9-10 range. I really don’t think that I have a “best” friend, at least not at school. I have a few friends from high school who I keep in touch with. Two of them were probably 9’s, but I talk to them so rarely, that it’s hard to claim that this is still the case.

As a result, I am left with my good friends. Luckily, there are quite a few of them. There are a number of groups who they fall into. One group is the Community Development group. This includes the RAs and PAs that I have become friend with over the past 3 years. Another group is the physics group that I have become friends with over the past 2 years or so. Another group is the freshman year group, which mostly consists of people who I met in JAM when I lived there freshman year. Yet another group is the Bailey & company group, Bailey being one of my good friends who introduced me to a number of his friends. Another group would be the debate people group. And a final small, yet relevant group, would be the finance people group.

So that’s quite a few groups of good friends, right? So what am I complaining about? The strange thing is that I don’t really think I can call any one of those group my “core group” of friends. What do I mean? I would define a “core group” of friends being a group of friends who are the default for whenever you think you want to do something on a weekend, you figure you’ll hang out with them. Instead, I find myself going back and forth between all of these groups at various times.

Now it’s not necessarily a bad thing that I have lots of options in terms of places to look when I want to hang out with good friends, but a core group of friends is nice. Why? Because it’s never assured that I have someone to eat dinner with, for instance. When dinnertime rolls around, it’s like, “Okay, who should I try to eat dinner with tonight.” Then I heat up IM as I scan it for people to eat with. Also, if I am having some issues in my life (which happens rarely, I’ll grant you), there’s no core group of friends who I can run to. Instead, I kind of just dabble some or all of these groups in the problem and get a number of perspectives.

I’ve decided that there is something strange about not having a core group of friends and not really having a best friend or significant other. It results in there not being anyone that I am very, very close to. Instead, there are quite a few people who I am quite close to, but not on that intimate, very close friend level.

So what does this have to do with reflecting? Well, when one thinks of people with a very clearly defined core group of friends, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Fraternities and Sororities. Now, I honestly do not regret that I didn’t join a fraternity. If I said I did, I would be lying. But I can’t help but wonder, what if? If I had, I would have a core group of friends. Of course, that core group would have severely limited me, and it would probably be one of the only groups of friends I would have. Once someone has that core, default group, it does not seem as important to extend him/herself into other groups of friends.

What does this have to do with next semester? Well, next semester is going to be utterly bizarre in terms of my groups of friends. What I mean can be seen by looking at each group separately:

Community Development Group: Exactly one person within this group will be in Community Development next year. All the rest are either graduating or moving to collegetown.

Physics Group: All will live in collegetown, and I will not see them in physics, since I am done with physics.

Freshman Year/Jam Group: They are all graduating.

Bailey & Company Group: Basically all graduating

Debate People Group: Some graduating, but I rarely involve myself in debate these days, so this friendship is weakening. They also all will live in collegetown.

Finance People Group: All graduating.

So you’ll notice that not ONE of the above groups will live on north campus. In other words, I will have no good friends living within about a one mile radius of me next year. That’s pretty friggin weird. And it’ll probably lead to me eating dinner alone virtually every night. To make matters worse, many 3 of the 6 groups above will be gone entirely. There is only significant potential to see one of the groups above on a regular, non social, basis, and that’s the debate group, who I have not seen much this year at all.

What does it all mean? It means that, first, next year will suck. My good friends will all be either gone, or very distant. Next, it has interesting implications. I have three options for next semester: Either become a loner, develop a group of friends with next year’s freshman (who I will be living with), or develop a group of friends in economics (the classes I will be taking). The obvious choice is #3, since I will be four years older than the freshmen, option #2 would be a stretch. So wish me luck, because if I don’t meet some cool people in my econ classes next semester, it’ll be a pretty lonely damn 4 months!

I don’t have a girlfriend. In fact, I haven’t hard a girlfriend in over 3 years. They have been 3 long years; they have been three hard years; they have been three very lonely years. I often wonder why it is that I don’t have a girlfriend. I am a senior in college and I have never dated a girl here at college; hell, I’ve never kissed a girl that goes to my school. Not even a solitary hook-up.

Why the hell not? I don’t think I’m particularly ugly. I’ve got a fantastic body (if I do say so myself). I think I have above average intelligence (hey I’m trying to be modest here). I tend to be successful in most everything I do. I’m well respected by my peers. And I can definitely hold a conversation. So what gives?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Like, for the past 3 years. Yet, very recently I finally figured out why: I don’t have a girlfriend because I don’t really want a girlfriend. Because let’s face it: If I really wanted a girlfriend, I would have one. There are literally hundreds of girls that go to my school who would fall over themselves to go out on a date with me. I’m really not being cocky about that, I’m sure it’s the truth.

In fact, I have had numerous opportunities to date girls here. Plenty of girls have been openly interested in me over the years. The problem was just that I wasn’t particularly interested in them. A few of these instances, I deeply regret. A few times, I was just being a dick, and totally should have gone out with them. The point is, I surely could have had a girlfriend at some point over the past few years, I simply chose not to.

Why is this interesting? Because it means that the situation is not that I could not have had a girlfriend. The situation is that I did not have a girlfriend, which is entirely different. I have basically accepted the fact that I will likely graduate college without ever dating a girl here. Pretty sad, but I created my own destiny; only I am to blame.

Am I particularly happy about this in the retrospect? Hell no. I should have embraced that stupid latin phrase. What is it? “Carpe Diem?” I should have lived in the moment a little more. Instead, when a girl is interested in me, I just think of all the reasons why it would never work out. Perhaps the most ridiculous case was when this beautiful, totally beautiful, really cool girl that was from the same part of Florida that I was from, who goes to college here, was openly interested in me. One of her friends even told me that she wanted to date me. My response? “I think she’s a really cool girl, really pretty. I just don’t feel like there’s any chemistry.” What bullshit. How do I know that there’s no chemistry if I never give it a shot? I’m a dumbass, what can I say?

There have been soo many situations that parallel this example that it’s simply disgusting. How about that other really cool totally beautiful girl last year that was clearly interested in me. What happens? We have a miscommunication one time. Instead of letting it go, I let my pride get in the way and act like a total asshole to her for the rest of the year.

But the usual case? The usual case is that I don’t have enough balls to even ask a girl out in the first place. I’m a fairly decent catch, so my hunch is that, more often than not, a girl would definitely be willing to at least go out with me once to see how things turn out. But instead? Instead I usually just get interested in a girl and wish she would make a move – which never happens. So instead I just complain about not having a girlfriend instead of taking the initiative. (Of course, I tried to change this earlier this semester, and what a disaster THAT turned out to be.)

So why am I saying all this; what’s the significance? The significance is that I now know better. I have seen the error of my ways. When one recognizes his mistakes, he can make certain not to repeat them in the future. That’s what I intend to do. Stop this stupid crap, and get real. Now I’m not saying I’m gonna jump at (or on) any girl that’s interested in me. I still have my standards :p I’m just saying that I’ll be more open minded. When a girl who I think is cool is interested in me, I’ll at least give it a shot. I don’t think that’s so unbelievable. Otherwise, I’ll just remain single forever, because let’s face it: I’ll never find the perfect girl without knowing her well enough to discover that she might not be the perfect girl, but she might be perfect for me.

I saw this movie tonight called “Waking Life”. A friend of mine, Chuck Erway, replied to one of my e-mails saying that he was going to see it tonight, and that I should come because it’s the coolest movie ever. Since I think Chuck and I tend to have similar tastes in what tends to be cool, I figured that I’d take him up on the offer and check it out. If you’ve seen the movie, then you know why it provoked a journal entry.

Crazy movie. Craaaazy. It’s actually an animation, but it’s not like any animation you’ve ever seen. In order to create the 1 hour and 39 minute movie, they needed more than 30 artists to animate it. And it’s all digital. But not Final Fantasy digital, it’s really a quite different style of animation. Vibrant and fresh. If you see the movie you’ll know what I mean.

What’s it about? Well it doesn’t really have any plot per-say. It’s this guy’s wanderings. But he seems to be in this extra long dream that he can’t seem to wake up from. And all of the people he meets are surprisingly opinionated on various topics. Many of the topics are philosophical, which amused me. There was even a monologue on free will, which wasn’t too far off from why free will still concerns philosophers today.

I was about to type out what happens in the movie, but I just realized that I shouldn’t, because you should see it instead. You really should see it. It’s one of those movies that you walk out of and you feel drunk or something. It makes you more conscious of the things one takes for granted. Not in the trite sense; like you’ll literally notice your body movements of taking off your coat and putting your hand in your pocket. It just makes you aware of what it’s like to be awake. I don’t know why; it doesn’t intend to do anything of the sort explicitly. But there is a lot of talk about knowing the difference between whether one is dreaming or awake.

There was talk about lucid dreaming – being aware of your dream while you’re in it, and gaining control. I’ve actually done this a number of times. I tend to know when I’m dreaming for some reason. I’m not sure why, but it’s usually just obvious to me. The other night, for instance, I had this crazy dream – entirely in Spanish. I was in the Dominican Republic trying to fly home. Unfortunately, my flight got changed, and I went to the ticket counter to get my new ticket, but these two Dominican guys were giving me trouble. They knew I was an American, so they wanted to try to take advantage of me by charging me extra for the new ticket. But I wasn’t buying it, so I was just yelling at them in Spanish and getting pissed off. It was actually pretty funny. It was even funny when I was dreaming it, because I knew it was a dream. I wasn’t worried about not getting home either, because, again, I knew it was a dream. What’s the point of me talking about this dream? Well, mostly because it was a funny dream, but also because it’s an example of a dream where I’ve known I’ve been dreaming. I’ve even been right in the middle of nightmares and said, “Wait a minute, this is a dream. I can stop this bad stuff and go to a fun, happy place.” And I have. It’s really cool to control your dreams, you should try it.

Anyhoo, the point is, if you’re looking for a movie to rent this summer when you’re sitting around vegetating, go and pick up “Waking Life”. I don’t think it’s out on video yet, but it will be soon. It’s a cool flick.

Because I’m still not completely over my experience last night of going to the STP concert (see my previous journal entry), tonight I will address a topic that was on my mind last night during the concert: The phenomenon of the lead singer.

I call it a phenomenon because I think that lead singers are one of the fascinating products of nature. I’m convinced that great lead singers are born superstars. I’m certain that, if you met one of these lead singers when they were, say, 8 years old, you would have known it then. Can you imagine Scott Weiland, Bono, or Gwen Stephani at 8 years old? I’m sure even then you could see it in their eyes.

In there eyes was a certain dissatisfaction: they were not yet where they were destined to be. I have a feeling these lead singers were probably quite restless at children; they expected more out of life than play time and coloring. They were superstars waiting to happen; they had all of this energy, and no where or way to release it.

And then they stumbled upon music. Who knows how? Maybe it was their parents; maybe a friend of theirs had a guitar and they were messing around with it one afternoon; maybe it was an idolatry of another lead singer – a role model that their intuition said they must follow. I believe that when they found music, their restlessness did not so much end, but change shape: it was no longer a restlessness of boredom, but now a restlessness of passion unfulfilled.

Eventually, they joined their first band. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the garages that were the first homes of people like Axl Rose, Steven Tyler, or Kurt Cobain. I wonder if their first bandmates knew it at their first rehearsal? I wonder if the first time they picked up the microphone, it felt natural in their hand. My hunch is that most lead singers have little or no formal training in singing, but I think that’s what makes them great – raw talent needs no training. Training inhibits creativity – training would have urged Steven Tyler to scream less and Kurt Cobain to annunciate more clearly – training normalizes style.

No, what they end up doing training cannot teach. No one can be trained to be a superstar: you either are, or you aren’t. Most of us aren’t, but for those that are, it’s unmistakable. Yet, wouldn’t it be fascinating to have been there the very moment that the superstar realizes who s/he is? When did Prince realize he had to dedicate his life to music? When did Lenny Kravitz realize that he wasn’t just another guy? Imagine that feeling – the feeling of knowing exactly who you are and what you have to do. No superstar mistakes this feeling, because it is what drives them.

Yes, the other members of the band are important. Yet, bands rarely recover from the loss of their lead singer; neither Van Halen nor Nirvana ever did. There is something mysterious about the spell that the lead singer can bring over an audience. Watching a great band isn’t really like watching a one man show, but it’s the lead singer than energizes the audience. Without a charismatic and energetic lead singer, the band might as well leave – the concert will be a bore. It will simply be a concert, instead of an experience. But with a talented lead singer, with a superstar, it becomes almost spiritual. They make the concert more than just music; they make it a show.

I just got back from the Stone Temple Pilots concert. Ya know that post-orgasm feeling? Yup.

What is it about going to your favorite band in the entire world’s concert? It’s like, pure adrenaline. Afterwards you don’t know if you want to collapse or fly, but either way, you’d be content.

But let’s back up. The adrenaline starts way earlier: The opening band is like foreplay, ya know? They start up the music, but it’s not really what you’re waiting for. It’s like they’re just teasing you; they’re just playing with you. They’re not what you want, but what you want will be there soon enough. And they do what they can; they do their best to make that time fly.

The set change ends, the lights go back out, and the band enters. The first song is always a favorite. The crowd roars. The speakers are blaring, and you can just feel it, all over. It overcomes more than just your ears; it overcomes your entire body. But it isn’t about the treble; it’s about the bass. That bass drum banging – it rattles your entire body. It thumps at your heart; it awakens your soul.

And the band: You can’t tell whether or not they’re more into it than you are. I mean, they’re clearly into it with their all, but how could ANYONE be more into it than you are? But you know they are, you love what they do, but they do what they do. They are the music makers; they are the dreamers of dreams. They are responsible for it all; they are the Gods of the hour.

Almost nothing on earth is as unique as the energy of the crowd. How does a conglomeration of a few thousand people create energy? Yeah, it’s hot and they’re sweaty, but heat isn’t the kind of energy I mean. It’s the crowd, gyrating at the same time, dancing, jumping, crowd surfing, singing along to the lyrics, screaming, yelling, clapping, whistling, enthralled. They are taking it all in, and it possesses them. For the hour or two that they are in there, they are no longer themselves; they become an extension of the music.

It’s always fascinating when the band leaves the stage for the first time – because you know they’re coming back. Not because they’re known to do curtain calls, but because the crowd is still deeply involved; the music has not stopped with them, and the band knows that. During their short absence, their ecstasy mingles with the smoke in the air. And they return. There was a finale when they left, but now they’re serious about it being the finale. The curtain call is the climax, and the crowd feels it along with the band. Cheering, yelling, screaming, chanting the name of the band. They want more, but they know it’s over. They can feel the finality of the curtain call, and not even they are strong enough to deny its power.

Then the feeling I have now. The energy doesn’t leave quickly; it remains. Life stops, the energy takes over. And I hope that this exposition has been saturated by it. The energy drove me here, now I all I have to do is figure out where it wants to take me next.

Here’s a something you probably haven’t given much thought to in the past few decades: Names. Unless you’ve recently had a son or daughter and had to think up a good name for him or her, evaluating the quality of a name usually doesn’t seem to be at the top of one’s priorities from day to day. Let’s change that just for today.

So what’s a name? Let’s face it: a name is a label, pure and simple. Provided you’re not a dope that decides to change it in the years to come (like P. Diddy, for instance), then the name your parents choose will be with you for your entire life. That’s a pretty big deal. If they screw up and give you a name like Herman or Ethel, then you’re screwed. If they were hippies and give you a name like Moonbeam or Lenin, then your dubbed “weird” even before people know you.

I don’t intend to philosophize about names here, that would be stupid. There ain’t a whole lot to say about the philosophical significance of a name, like I said it’s just a label. Surely I could go on and on about the sociological significance of various names, but I’m not sociologist (thank God). So instead, in my usual form, I’ll talk about specific names that I like and dislike. Why? Because it’s my journal, and my opinion is the only one that matters here.

Let’s start with guy names, because I find them particularly boring in general. Most guy names suck, my own included. I mean, how boring is “Dan”? Or what about “Matt”? These one syllable names tend to be the most popular. Even when people are blessed with multisyllable names, they tend to shorten them to such variations. Why? Because life is about efficiency, not aesthetics. And while a longer name may be more aesthetically pleasing, efficiency rules in modern times.

Time for a digression: Yes, I just said that a name can be aesthetically pleasing. You didn’t really think that I’d get through a journal entry without talking about aesthetics, did you? If you haven’t figured out by now that I’m totally obsessed with aesthetics, then you must not have read enough of my journal. How can a name be aesthetically pleasing? The same way anything else can be aesthetically pleasing: by people finding the sound or sight of it beautiful for its own sake. Don’t agree? You’re entitled not to. Everyone’s allowed to be wrong.

So what guy names are aesthetically pleasing, i.e. good? (That is my criterion for something being good in general, if you haven’t caught on.) Not all of that meaning crap. Like I know some people whose names have a specific meaning. For instance, one girl I know has this incredibly long name (literally like 10+ words or something), and it tells a story. That is not necessarily better than a one syllable name. Because we all know that aesthetics has nothing to do with meaning. A Monet can be beautiful but say absolutely nothing insofar as a deep meaning or purpose is concerned. As a result, I choose to avoid names whose only appeal is their meaning. It’s about the aesthetic value.

Back to guy names. Are any of them any good? I actually tend to like Roman-sounding names, and not just because I’m Italian. For instance, I have a friend named Darius. I think that’s a good name – I like the ring it has to it. Julius or Julian isn’t bad either, and I think Jules is a great nickname. I’ve always like the Spanish name Horacio (my name is Spanish class back in high school). Actually, a great number of ethnic names tend to be pretty good. I think it’s mostly the English names that suck. I think the problem is that English is not a very beautiful language. Of course, it could be worse – it could be Russian or German.

There isn’t a whole lot I have to work with for guy names, so let’s move onto girls’ names. My favorite girls’ name is Dominique, and not just because she was the girl from the Fountainhead (and the epitome of what the perfect girl is probably like). I just think it’s a beautiful name. I also really like the name Victoria. Other names I like include Madison, Lynn (with that spelling), Cristen (with that spelling), and Gabriella. Recently, I heard the name Annalisa for the first time. I think that’s my “new” favorite girls’ name. I think it’s a quite beautiful name. Rarely do name combinations work, but I think that one does.

Girls’ names I don’t like? That’s always the fun part, right? How overdone is the name Kate, Katie, Katherine, Kathleen, Kathy, etc. Or Sara? Most common girls’ names bore me for much the same reason that most guy names bore me. Some that I really don’t like: Gertrude, Gretchen, Bertha, Brittany (with that spelling), and virtually any beginning with “La—“.

So what was the point of all of that? Just to say it. Just so I could have it on the record some names I like and some names I don’t. And if I eventually have children (many, many years from now), that will be one less thing I have to worry about dealing with. And besides, it put off writing my philosophy paper by that much longer.

Tonight I attended the MILRSO fashion show. MILRSO stands for Minority Industrial Labor Relations Student Organization. They put on a fashion show every year. 

I heard about this fashion show through an e-mail, and it sounded interesting. I was particularly intrigued when I read in the promotion that the famous fashion designer Donna Karen would be there. So would some famous comedian from New York City. Since I like fashion, and I wanted to see the Donna Karen, I figured I’d go. So I talked my friend Charles into going and we went. Of course, I was making sure I wrote my favorite DKNY (Donna Karen New York) shirt.

The doors were to open at 7pm, so Chuck and I arrived around 6:45. Around 8pm, the doors opened. We sat there for a while and around 8:30 the fashion show began.

Let me start by addressing the models, because that was probably the factor that pissed me off singularly more than anything else. Basically, they sucked. Now, I know they were only students, but you would think that if they had volunteered (or worse, been chosen) to be models, they would have at least practiced, or known what the hell they were doing.

Let me back up. Most people probably think that being a model isn’t rocket science. What do you do? You put some clothes on and walk down a runway, right? Not too tough. Now, I agree that it isn’t rocket science, but it is harder than it looks.

First, there’s the walk. You have to do the walk right. Almost none of the models tonight did the walk right. I think there was basically one or two women who had it – none of the men got it right. It’s all about the hips and the one foot in front of the other. Anyone who has spent some time watching the Fashion Channel (like myself) knows this.

Second, there’s the attitude, or lack there of. This is a subtly that I only now realize after seeing how bad models can be. A good runway model has attitude, but at the same time seems utterly emotionless. A good runway model should not draw attention to him/herself. His/her personality should be unknown to the observers. They are not modeling themselves; they are modeling the clothing. At tonight’s show, the models almost exclusively had one focus – themselves. They did not care about the clothes; they cared about how “cool” they were acting on the runway.

This is bad for a couple of reasons, the most important being that it is distracting. When someone is trying to evaluate a new fashion design, s/he does not want to be distracted by the model doing something stupid, like pulling a scarf from inside his pants. (Yes, this happened.)

Finally, most of the models up there had no business modeling. Now I don’t want to sound like an asshole here, but some of these girls were just too large to make the clothes look appealing. In fact, there were only one or two female models up there who had any business modeling clothing on a runway. The men, on the other hand, were all built quite well for modeling. As a result, there was a bizarre disproportion between the male and female models. This made things even more distracting. Again, if someone has to look away as a result of the size of a girl’s ass, then this is distracting him/her from the fashion. It also caused some of the designs to look like giant table clothes or tents rather than dresses.

That’s probably about all I have to say about the models. They were simply horrendous. I could have done a better job up there. There was literally only one model, who happened to be a female, who looked like she knew what she was doing up there and belonged.

The designs? Some were good, some were bad – much like any fashion show. The men’s designs were generally uninteresting to me, but there were a few nice suits. There were a number of good dresses, on the other hand. As far as the designs are concerned, my biggest complaint is that there were not enough. There were only like 3 or 4 sets. The actual designs probably took up thirty minutes of time. The rest of the time was spent with various dancing groups performing and doing mindless shout-outs to the minority fraternities and sororities and the various classes.

All in all, I would have to say that it was a fairly disappointing night. I love fashion shows, but I think that I could have put on a better one with my eyes closed. How sad.

Oh, about that famous NYC comedian and Donna Karen: Neither showed up. (Lucky them.)

So for most of my life I have had allergies. I’m allergic to a host of bizarre things including, but certainly not limited to, dust, cats, and pollen. The dust one is really problematic, because let’s face it, dust is pretty much everywhere. Luckily, most of the time my allergies behave just fine. I’m rarely bothered, so usually I just forget about it. Lately, however, that has not been the case.

No, lately I have felt utterly horrible. See, Spring started this week, and everything started blooming all at once. So the problem begins with pollen. But that’s not all! Because Spring is here, and suddenly it is in the 80s, the windows must open and the fans must be turned on, with no AC. So that means that all the dust sitting around my room that accumulated during Fall and Winter is now rushed about by the breezes that circulate around the room. The two key ingredients there were dust and pollen.

The result? (He types as he sneezes.) An allergy attack on an unprecedented scale. Never in my life have I experienced anything like this. For those of you who have never had the (dis)pleasure, let me elaborate.

Most of it’s in the nose, but all of it’s in the sinuses. (Break to blow nose for the umpteenth time today.) It’s not pain; pain would be okay. Pain is a distinct and fleeing feeling. Instead, it is itching. And itching is worse then pain, because it’s an itch you can’t scratch – which makes it the most annoying thing ever. So it’s just a matter of frustration and annoyance, but constant.

What does the itching feel like? Let me try to explain, and it’s hard to explain. You know those hairbrushes with the small bristles? No wait, maybe the bristles of a toothbrush would be more obvious to what I mean. Imagine having a bunch of those bristles throughout your nose. First, they tickle your nose at times, causing you to sneeze violently. Other times, they just tickle, making you try to itch your nose (by pushing on it). But by pushing on it, you just irritate it more, it’s like pushing the bristles into your nose. This usually makes you sneeze some more.

And of course, the sneezing and itching leads to your nose running, like a faucet. I’ve gone through I don’t know how many Kleenex today. And the best part is that it’s not just run of the mill blowing of the nose. Often times, I’m lucky enough to have a few traces of blood as well. Where does this blood come from, and why? Who the hell knows. . .

So what else? Oh! The itchy watery eyes – that’s one of the best parts. Those are pretty self explanatory, but you can’t appreciate it until you’ve had it. It doesn’t sound nearly as bad as it is.

The result of all of this at once is worse than any cold one could ever get. Why? Because a cold brings sinus pain, not sinus itching. Moreover, colds go away, allergies don’t.

I know what you’re thinking: “Dan, why not take some medicine. Surely they make SOMETHING that can help you out.” Don’t you think I’ve tried? I’ve been on Claritin for a few days now, and it was doing wonders at first, but last night/today it has done absolutely nothing. Tonight I got some Flonase. It seems to be useless as well. I have heard that Benedryl does wonders, yet when I went to the convenience store nearby to buy some, they didn’t have any! So I guess that just means that I’ll go to the drug store tomorrow afternoon and attempt to suffer through the night without it.

Ahh the night. If it’s anything like last night, then sleep will hardly be its theme. Last night I had the fan on, because it was warm. My allergies were so bad, that I was forced to turn the fan off and sweat. It did help, however, to have the fan off. At least then I got some sleep. I don’t plan on even starting it up tonight.

And that’s been the highlight of the past few days. Sounds good, huh? So if you know anything about allergies, or what I can do to stop ‘em, please let me know. I could definitely use the help. I guess this springtime crap will end eventually, once the flowers finish blooming. But until then, this suffering is simply unbearable. I wish my nose would just fall off.

After a long hiatus, I’m back! Now that my prelims are over for the semester, life will be infinitely more pleasant, until exams (in about 2 weeks – okay I guess that’s not very infinite). So I’ve got time to ramble some more. Today I’m going to ramble about beauty and shallowness.

The question henceforth is as follows: Is it shallow to like that which is beautiful? I think not, but recently someone brought an interesting argument to my attention. An example of this argument involves fashion and designer clothing.

Now the point of high fashion is to have clothes that are aesthetically pleasing. Famous designers spend a great deal of time and money designing a beautiful article of clothing in much the same way a painter spends a great deal of time and money creating a beautiful painting. I think that’s straightforward enough.

Yet, often people consider those who like designer clothes and such to be shallow and/or materialistic. The reasoning here is that these people only buy this expensive clothing for external purposes: They want to look beautiful. If they wear beautiful clothing, they believe that this is a step towards reaching that end.

This can be first seen as materialistic because they are spending (often times) hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on clothing for the sake of appearances. For example, I own a Versace tie that cost something like $115. Most nice ties which are other brands one can get for $40 or less. Hence, I might be seen as materialistic because I have this expensive taste.

This can also be seen as shallow because the person is going through great lengths to improve his/her appearance and/or to impress others. In the case above, the great length was spending $115 on a tie (it was a gift, for the record!). To do this sort of thing in order to look better and/or impress others is surely shallow.

I’m not so sure. If I were to buy a Monet for my living room for $2 million, would I be shallow and/or materialistic as a result? I hardly think so, and I believe that most people would hardly think so. Above, you might recall, I commented that the fashion designer is completely analogous to the painter. In each situation a piece of art, be it painting or tie, is purchased to be exhibited, on your wall or on your person.

Something has to give: Either in both these situations people are acting materialistically and/or with shallowness or in neither situation they are acting in this manner. I think the answer lies in intent.

With the painting example, if the person really does not care for art at all, but thinks that if s/he believes that having a Monet in the living room will make people think more highly of him/her, then surely this is shallow. Moreover, if s/he does not like art, but likes expensive things, and Monets are expensive, so s/he buys one, then this person is acting materialistically. On the other hand, if this person has a passion for art, and it has been his/her life dream to one day acquire a Monet for his/her living room to admire it whenever in the room, then this is neither shallow nor materialistic. This last situation is the one where the person simply loves art in the intellectual and deep sense.

This can all be applied to clothing. If the intent in buying expensive clothing is to impress others and/or spend as much money as possible, then the person is being shallow or materialistic, respectively. Instead, if the person really has a passion for high fashion, and has always dreamed of owning a Versace suit, then buying one is admirable in the sense described above. In this case it is about the art, not the object.

As I said, it is all about intent. One is not necessarily shallow if s/he loves beauty, but only if s/he desires beauty for the sake of a shallow end. I know that’s ambiguous; it’s that way purposefully, because I am not comfortable making a stronger statement at this time. In fact, I think that it is perfectly natural for people to desire that which is beautiful; I actually believe it is rational.

Here comes a stronger claim: A person is acting admirably when s/he values beauty for its own sake. If s/he values beauty for the sake of appearances or some other reason, then s/he is acting with shallowness. This claim has some interesting consequences depending on whether one accepts an objective or subjective account of beauty, but I will leave those to be discussed another time, or for you to think about yourself.

Do you ever hunger for the good old days? I do. Sometimes I wish things were the way they used to be. I don’t mean like in high school, or elementary school. I don’t mean the 1960s, or the Ozzie & Harriet Period of the 1950s. I’m definitely not talking about the days of Lincoln or Washington either. Actually, I hunger for the good old days circa 400-320 B.C.

In particular, I would have loved to live in Greece during that time. This is the period that history books refer to as Ancient Greece, probably because it’s pretty damn ancient. That was 2400 years ago. Can you imagine how long that is? I can’t. It’s hard to believe that there was even civilization back then, much the less the great form of civilization that the ancient Greek had going for them.

So what do I hunger for in particular? It seems like life is just too crazy sometimes. Sure, it’s exciting. I like running from one meeting to the other, having multiple prelims in one day, and pulling all nighters, but sometimes it just seems like a little too much. But see, none of that ever happened in Ancient Greece.

I’m talking about the time of Socrates, Plato, and (most importantly) Aristotle. These were truly great times – I think they had the best of both worlds. Intellectualism was at the maximum level up to that time, yet it was laid back. People could just hang out, talk about philosophy, go to the theatre every week, wear togas, and just have a pleasant existence. Totally chill. None of this stress, deadlines, prelims, papers, etc. For some reason, this is the way I picture Stanford.

Now, I could digress into how much I love California because the people there are much less uptight than East Coast people, and how everyone there has a pleasant attitude and is good looking. But that would be off-topic, because, though nice, it sure ain’t Ancient Greece. One would hardly find people walking around in togas while having dialectal discussions when walking down sunset blvd.

But I would like life here to be a bit more like Ancient Greece. Now, I’m not ready to give up my running water or computer just yet, but perhaps there is a compromise. Perhaps I can put some things in motion to make things a little more pleasant. I don’t even mean slowing down my life necessarily, but maybe incorporating activities that would have a more chill, Ancient Greece-like feel to them.

Here’s one example of what I was thinking. What if I started a philosophical discussion group. It wouldn’t be like the one I started last Spring, however. Instead, we would all dress up in Togas and walk around campus in a group talking about given philosophical topic. Heck, I’ll volunteer to play Socrates’ part and get the discussions started. Now, the toga thing might be problematic when it starts getting cold, but we’d have a good month and a half next Fall to get things started. (Incidentally, I think that there might be a technical name for these walking discussions that Socrates used to have, but I forget the term. If you happen to know it, please let me know.)

Can you picture it? A group of Cornell students walking around campus in togas talking about Ethics (for example). Eventually they walk down the arts quad and sit down in a circle. They talk for an hour or so, and begin walking again, while still discussing. I think it sounds fab. Of course, I’d have to find other people as eccentric as me to take part, but what if. But that is the key, it will be difficult finding people to participate in such an awesome activity. And they say we’ve progressed. . .