As remarked in previous journal entries, Stone Temple Pilots is my favorite band of all time. Well, on their first album, “Core”, there is a track called “Wet My Bed”. This track is not a song so much as it’s kind of an interlude. Well, after it ends, you hear in the background one of the band members say, “Alright, now what?” Then it kicks right into “Crackerman” – surely one of the better songs ever written. This has always been one of my favorite moments of any album ever.

Well recently, I’ve been thinking to myself, “Alright, now what?” See, I’m in a limbo these days. For a few years I was convinced that I would be an investment banker after graduation. Now, however, interviews are over and I am without an offer. Thus, investment banking will never be more than a dream for me. As a result, I ask: “Alright, now what?”

Now what the hell do I do with the rest of my life? Clearly I had chosen the wrong profession to aim for, as they did not respect who I was or what I did for the past 4 years in college. So what is the right profession for me? I think I still want to do something in finance, but I honestly do not think I would be interested in any other area of financial services. The rest are either too research oriented or too sales oriented. And working with the stock market for its own sake is a total bore. So I plan on next trying to land a job in the finance department of a major corporation, like Disney.

But what if that doesn’t work out? I mean, these jobs are few and far between, and they really prefer people who majored in accounting or finance, not economics. So it will almost certainly be a long difficult road. Now, you’d think that someone with 3 degrees from an Ivy League university would not have much trouble finding a job. And I do not think I would. The problem is that I need to find a job that I would enjoy.

For starters, this job needs to keep me at least vaguely challenged. Now I do not honestly believe that there is a job out there, not even investment banking, that would truly challenge me. There’s just nothing that deep beyond maybe research, and I have no desire to sit in a lab of any kind hour upon hour. I also have no desire to work in a university for the rest of my life, because I really believe that university life blows.

Some people have said, “That’s okay. You are too smart to be an investment banker anyway.” So what does someone who is too smart for such a job do? I have utterly no interest in law and even less interest in medicine. So what’s left? This is the question that plagues me these days.

And to make matters worse, it’s not like I can really take my sweet time figuring it out. I graduate in less than 2 months after which time I have to begin paying back tens of thousands of dollars in college loans. And my parents are not supporting me financially at this point in my life.

So I’m open to suggestions. If you’ve heard of a career that could be fun and interesting, do tell. For some odd reason, however, I’m having some serious trouble believing that there is any career out there that I would truly enjoy, other than banking – the hopes of which are over. But as I said, I’m all ears. Because I’d really love to figure out what the next track of my life is, so to speak. College is over, now what the hell do I do?

Saturday night was a pretty good time: I co-hosted an event that was basically a talent show for the freshman and their parents (it was freshman family weekend). So it was your typical talent show type event with like 13 acts with singing, dancing, etc. There was a great turnout: a few hundred people showed up. And as a co-host, girl who I co-hosted with and I were kind of the “MCs” for the evening, where we joked around between acts and introduced each coming act. Ya know? I’m sure you’ve seen things like the MTV music awards, well, I was like the host in a similar capacity. And one of the main things we did as hosts was make jokes about stuff.

Now most of my jokes went over quite well. Especially the glass eye joke. There was one joke, however that almost no one seemed to like. And that annoyed me for a few reasons. The obvious one is that, when engaging in a comedic performance, you want the audience to like your jokes. But the larger reason is why they did not think it was funny: Some people thought the joke was a little, oh how do you say, distasteful?

Okay, okay. You want to know what the joke was. Well, in one of the acts, the guy who was to accompany a girl who was singing by playing the piano could not make it. He is in Air Force ROTC and there was a function that he could not get out of. So instead another girl accompanied her. So when we announced that the guy was in air force and couldn’t make it, I said something like, “Yeah I guess they shipped him off to Iraq already.” And instead of laughter I got mostly “Ooooooooo”’s and even a “that’s not funny.”

Well, here’s the thing: I think that the impending war with Iraq is definitely something to make fun of. First of all, let me say my stance: I am actually not for war with Iraq. I am a pacifist. I don’t think that the cause is noteworthy and even if it were, I would want them to work a little harder at ousting Saddam covertly than going to war.

But that’s not the point. The point is, let’s say that we do end up going to “war” with Iraq. I use quotations around the word ‘war’ because I see it as a stretch to call it a war. Anyone remember the “Gulf War”? What a joke THAT was. It basically consisted of us bombing huts in Iraq and when the ground forces went in, all of their “soldiers” ran up to them with their hands up and white flags. If things continue to escalate and we go to war with them again, I would expect much the same thing. Saddam is a joke; Iraq is a joke. If the president does decide to go to war with them (and I hope that we don’t), I would at least hope he has more balls about it than his father did. His father’s biggest mistake was not getting Saddam out of there. If we go to war, Bush should utterly devastate Iraq. I don’t care about the people; I’m tired of it. If you’re gonna do the job, do it right.

The best part is that not one American soldier should even have to be wounded in the effort. We could do the entire thing from the comfort of our submarines in the Persian Gulf. A few big bombs here a few big bombs there. The smoke clears, we go in and clean things up. Frankly, if the Iraqi civilians were worth saving, then they should have overtaken Saddam themselves by now.

And this is why I think the war is a joke: Because it won’t be a war. It will be a silly little military exercise. Saddam is not a threat to anyone except MAYBE Israel, and that I even doubt, because if Israel really felt like it, they could easily blow Saddam to kingdom come. So next time you hear a joke that you think might be in poor taste, take a minute and decide for yourself whether or not it actually is funny. If it is, laugh wholeheartedly. Don’t fall into this politically correct bullshit that our society can’t escape from these days.

On the bright side, I guess since someone remarked, “That’s not funny”, that kind of implies that other stuff I said was funny. So the night definitely wasn’t a whole wash after all. Of course, I’m not about to quit school and start doing standup, but it’s nice to know that I have an option other than McDonald’s for work in case I don’t find a job when I graduate! I’ll just have to stay away from those Iraq jokes.

Today I was at Appel for lunch. While eating my well balanced meal, I noticed a freshman girl eating at the table in front of me. She started her meal off with a bowl of plain white rice. Her next (and last) course was a piece of chocolate cake. I was appalled.

Now this girl is either anorexic, bulimic, has no conception of nutrition, or is on crack and does not realize what she is doing. My hope, for her sake, is that it’s possibility number three above. Now in a broad technical sense, as long as your body gets a certain number of calories each day, it will continue to function for quite some time. But if it does not get the right nutrients, then you’re gonna get real sick before too long, and it certainly will not function as effectively as possible. Being the pillar of health that I am, I realized that perhaps not everyone is in the “know” when it comes to nutrition. So being the altruistic person that I am, I figured I’d educate those who need some guidance.

The biggest part of eating healthy is to avoid some foods and to pursue others. In particular, pursue fruits and vegetables at all costs. It’s almost impossible to eat too many of these. Your body loves them. They have lots of vitamins and fiber. You should be eating at least between 4 and 6 servings of these per day. So if you only eat lunch and dinner, that’s 2-3 per meal. Not many people do this, everyone should.

Protein is also important, but for most people it isn’t THAT important. Unless you are an athlete or body builder, you probably don’t need more than 2 or 3 servings of meat a day. In American culture, however, most people eat far more meat than this. Now, the kinds of protein you pursue matters too. Eat red meat sparingly. It tends to be high in fat. Fat makes you fat, that’s why they call it fat. Leaner meats include chicken and fish. Pork can also be lean if it is the white, dry meat and you cut all the fat deposits off. But if you really want to get high protein and low fat, go for beans and tofu products. Beans are really a perfect food.

Finally dairy is a good source of calcium, but not much else. So eat some dairy to get your calcium, but don’t go nuts, as most dairy is usually high in fat.

Carbohydrates (starches like breads, pasta, and potatoes) are necessary, but not as necessary as you might think. It is far healthier to boost your fruit and vegetable intake by 2 servings a day and reduce your carbohydrate intake by 2 servings. It’s actually virtually the same thing to your body, but the veggies and fruits will bring you lots more vitamins and minerals than the carbs. So I’d say to instead eat between 6 and 8 servings of fruits/veggies and eat 2 to 3 servings of carbs. Also, most snacks consist of carbohydrate based foods, so you probably get a few more servings of them per day without even realizing it through snacking, which is another reason to go easy on them during meals.

Get rid of things like butter, mayonnaise, and oil (fried foods). Pretend they don’t exist.

Finally, avoid the desserts. Every time I see a silly freshman girl getting a piece of cake from the dessert section at the dining hall, all I can think is: “FRESHMAN FIFTEEN!!!” Now, I’m a bit extreme about this, as I only allow myself one “dessert” per month. If you have the willpower to do so, I urge you to try something similar. Most people, however, do not. So just try to limit yourself. If you fill up on better things, like vegetables, then you won’t even want to eat dessert most nights. Or you can change your conception of what a dessert is, by having a piece of fruit like a banana instead at the end of your meal. And anything with sugar in it that isn’t a pure fruit is not going to bring you any health benefits whatsoever. This sugar is usually referred to as “High Fructose Corn Syrup” on the label of a product. This stuff is bad because it will just give your body extra calories that it might decide not to burn, so they’ll end up on your tummy as rolls of fat. As a result, your best bet is to try to drink water and PURE juice (if it has high fructose corn syrup, it isn’t really juice) most or all of the time. That sugar also does bad things to your skin, like causes pimples.

Now, the last question one might ask is when to stop eating. Should one eat until he or she is full? Over the years, I’ve discovered that full is a relative term. For me, when I say full, I mean that if I ate anything else, I would probably throw up. For others, fullness means contentment. Now, I do not believe in starving myself. Because I go to the gym excessively (I’ve begun a routine where I go 6 days per week doing both weights and cardio), I usually eat until I couldn’t eat another thing. But I do not advise that unless you do a great deal of exercising. Your body really does not need that many calories to operate efficiently. It’s more about the vitamins and minerals. So you should eat until you’re comfortable, which does not mean until you can not eat another bite.

In conclusion, let’s think about what that freshman girl was eating: rice and chocolate cake. After reading my explanation of eating healthy, can you understand why I was so appalled? This girl was getting LITERALLY no vitamins or minerals whatsoever with her “meal”. Her body would have almost been better off if she hadn’t eaten at all. Even if she had just a salad and a piece of fruit, she would have been doing leagues better. I strongly suggest that everyone eat healthy. It is not only good for your body, but it also gives you a better energy level, and even helps your mind function more effectively. If your body does not have the right nutrients, then you had better believe that it can screw up brain processes.

And because humans are creatures of habit, it really isn’t that hard to change the way you eat. If you really work at it for a few months, it will become natural. You might not believe me, but I do not even find myself considering eating a dessert anymore. It literally never enters my mind. Most months I have to make an effort to eat my 1 dessert. There are also multiple vegetables that I used to hate, that I now eat regularly because I have acquired their taste. It is your sense of taste, and you can shape it in whatever way you want, including the ways in which your mind desires certain foods. I’m living proof.

The discussion I intend to enter into here is one which I originally conceived at some point last Spring. It has to do with baseball; it has to do with Barry Bonds; it has to do with walks.

Now that I’ve weeded out those readers who do not know or care about baseball, I can continue. Barry Bonds is probably the greatest offensive player of his generation: He already holds the title for most home runs in one season, he won the batting title this year, hitting .370, and he will likely break Hank Aaron’s record of most homeruns of all time within a few years. Now, the last of those assertions is debatable. But the only reason it is debatable is what I would like to discuss here: the possibility of too many pitchers walking him.

Bonds walked 198 times this year. That number is simply incredible. Let’s put it into perspective. For starters, it’s a new record for the most walks any player has had in a season. One should also consider that this means Bonds walks 1 in 3 times he goes up to the plate. That means at only 2 out of 3 plate appearances does he even get a pitch that he can hit well. Tonight was game 4 of the World Series and he got intentionally walked 3 times. Think about that: At a time when the stakes are higher than ever, the pitchers would rather insure that he gets on base than take a chance that he hits a home run.

Now the reason for this is quite clear: Pitchers are scared witless of him. I would be too if I were them. Anything in the strike zone he tends to launch into orbit. In game 2, Troy Percival, one of the best closers in the majors decided to pitch to him. Bonds’ response? He hits a ball about 500 feet over the right field wall. And that was when one of the very best pitchers in baseball decided to try to challenge him. Imagine what he does to average pitchers.

So they walk him. In one sense this is great: his on base percentage this season was a mind boggling .582. That means he reaches base more than half of the time. That’s simply incredible. But on the other hand, imagine how many home runs Bonds might have hit this year if he hadn’t been walked about 200 times. If you figure he maintained his .370 batting average, that means that he would have gotten 74 more hits. About 1/3 of his hits were home runs. That means he probably would have hit about 25 more home runs. That means he would have hit 71 home runs this season. That’s a big jump from 46: The only season that anyone in history has hit more than 71 was when he hit 73 last year. Of course, he did that being walked 177 times last year, which is even more remarkable.

Okay, up until now I’ve only been rattling off statistics, and I apologize. So now I’ll get to the point: I think it isn’t fair that pitchers have the opportunity to walk batters whenever they want. I can only imagine how frustrating it is to be someone like Bonds who can only stand there and watch the balls fly by. Yet, at the same time, I do feel that it is okay for pitchers to have the opportunity to walk batters sometimes if it is a good strategic move in a game. Well, I think I have devised a solution that accomplishes both these conditions. I think they should restructure the rules for walking batters. I’ll use Bonds as the example because he is basically the motivation for the new rules. The new rules should be as follows:

- The first time in a game that Bonds gets walked, he goes to first base.
- The second time in a game that Bonds gets walked, he goes to second base (like a double).
- The third time in a game that Bonds gets walked, he goes to third base (like a triple).
- The fourth and all subsequent times in a game that Bonds gets walked, it counts as a run (like a home run).

I think this will accomplish a few things. First, it preserves a pitchers’ opportunity to walk batters within reason, and when it is a good strategic move in a game. For instance, if there were runners on second and third and the 8th batter is up, a pitcher will likely walk the 8th man to get to the other pitcher – an easy out. But the beauty is that they can’t just walk the same batter again and again just because they are scared of him. They can definitely do it once, but after that it usually isn’t such a good idea. As a result, they will be forced to pitch to these batters eventually.

This would be a huge departure from the way baseball currently works in terms of walking, and few pitchers would be advocates for the change. But I think virtually all batters would think it was a pretty good idea, especially the best ones. And I think that’s what’s important: You want to create the rules of baseball to make it the most exciting game possible where its stars can shine the brightest. When the best players have a higher probability of making things happen by having pitches to hit, this goal is achieved. And let’s face it: walks are never exciting.

So there is my idea. I think it could really work. So if you happen to see Bud Selig walking down the street one of these days, let him know about my idea. It would be good for the game.

One of the greatest questions of philosophy of religion takes the following form: If there is a God, then why is there so much evil in the world? This seems like a very difficult question for one who believes in a benevolent God. After all, if God really loved his people, then why would he allow so much pain and suffering? Why would there be war and famine? Why would there be crazy snipers killing random people? Why would he allow 2 planes to collide into two buildings and kill thousands of people? Many atheists believe that if there was a God, then he would not allow such things to happen.

And it’s hard to claim otherwise. How can one say, “Oh yes, God is benevolent. But he allows horrible things to happen to us sometimes.” That seems obviously paradoxical. What are some possible reasons? One popular claim that some make is that God only allows infidels to be hurt or in pain. Of course, anyone with half a brain can use some empirical evidence to show that there are plenty of good, God fearing people who experience the fruits of evil in the world. Was everyone who died in the World Trade Center a bad person? This is obviously ridiculous.

But there is an answer. The answer is something that I had realized in the past, but through a different context. I intend not to argue here so much from a philosophy of religion standpoint, but just from a general standpoint. One need not even delve into religion to ask the question of why there is so much evil in the world. It’s an important question for its own sake. And the answer is easier than one may think.

In order to understand the argument that will be made, it may be helpful to begin with an analogous question: Why is there any light in the world? Like literally, why isn’t the world completely dark? Let’s pretend that life could somehow survive with no light and we didn’t need it, but there just happens not to be any light.

If there was no light this would have a few implications. The most important implication is that there would also be no darkness. Think about it: Without having something to contrast the normal state with, one would have no name for it. For instance, when movies first came out, they didn’t call “black and white” movies “black and white”. They called them movies. Once color film came out, they then had a contrast that they were able to make, so “black and white” movies came into being. The analogy with light and darkness is exactly the same. So let’s say that one hates light and would prefer infinite darkness. The fact that no light ever existed would not bring pleasure to this person, because this person would never develop a taste for darkness, as it would just always have been that way. You need a contrast in order for there to be an alternative.

The next step is to connect this analogy to evil. Imagine that evil is light. What contrasts evil? Of course, good contrasts evil. And people would far prefer if there was only good in the world and no evil. From the argument above, one quickly realizes, however, that there could be no good without evil. This should be a striking claim in one’s mind. Those who wish for there to be no evil in the world must necessarily condemn good along with it.

“But wait!” Someone says, “If things were just good, then that would be great! No one would miss evil.” But this person misunderstands the point. Recall the black and white versus color movies example. There I showed that you would not even recognize black and white movies having that distinct characteristic that might contrast it with something else if that contrasting alternative did not exist. The point is that you would not even be able to experience the good. It may, indeed, be present, but you would not be able to appreciate it.

I think that this is kind of important. I think it is important that we having something to distinguish things like good and bad. Imagine if you could never describe something as being good again: Nothing could ever make you happy. You could never sit back and be pleased that something worked out the way it did, because EVERYTHING would work out that way. It would not be a perpetual state of happiness, it would be a perpetual state of nothingness. Everything would just be there, and not have a quality that distinguishes it as being pleasant or unpleasant. Imagine listening to music. “Oh, did ya hear that new Ace of Base song? How is it?” A friend asks. You reply: “Oh, you know it’s a song.” That would be about as opinionated as you could get. There would be no such thing as a good song or a great song or a bad song. There would just be a song.

Now you might think that these ideas are a little extreme. You might believe that there could still be degrees of how good something is. But even then: If A is better than B, then B is worse than A. Thus, B is bad compared to A. Without bad you could not make this claim. A would have to be equivalent to B in quality. There is no middle ground here.

Finally, you might say, “Well, the world could still be a whole lot better and the evil could be less extreme.” This may be true. But I’d have to say that the world could also be a whole lot worse. What if there were giant monsters that attacked us whenever we went outside? What if we were all born with one leg and had to hop around everywhere? What if there was no chocolate? But seriously, because things could be a lot better and they could be a lot worse, I think that we are probably in a good middle-of-the-road position when it comes to good and evil.

But I’d like to take things a step further. I’d like to claim that magnitude of quality matters. What I mean is that I believe you cannot have very wonderful things without very terrible things. Think about a horrible tragedy like September 11th. What did it do first and foremost? It made us thankful for the things that we have, for the things that we take for granted. It made us realize just how wonderful the little things in our lives are. The good things seemed even better. The existence of something being very evil made us realize (through contrast) just how good other things were.

Through all of this, I think it is quite obvious that there must be evil in the world. We need evil, and there’s no two ways about it. Without it, nothing would ever seem good. There is evil in the world because we need good in the world. Maybe some would be willing to sacrifice good for having no evil, but I am definitely not ready to do so. So I think this is important to remember in order to put things into perspective from time to time. Evil sucks, but ironically, it’s absolutely necessary for our happiness.

So my 2 weeks of Hell is officially over, and I survived! I’m not saying I necessary got A+’s on all 4 prelims and my paper, but hey I got through it, right? And as a result, my journal can resume in a more regular fashion.

Yeah, I was finally over the hump around 4pm today after a job interview. Now I just leave for New York City in less than 12 hours for a couple days for another job interview. So after I finished up today, I decided to de-stress.

There are many ways to de-stress. I decided that it might be pleasant to take a nice hot bath and just lay there for a half hour or so. So I put in a Jewel CD, drew a bath and relaxed. I then followed that up with a cool, refreshing shower.

Now the above activity might not seem like a particularly male-gendered activity. And that’s what I want to talk about. I mean, how many guys do you know that take baths while listening to Jewel? And if so are willing to admit it! I’m not saying I do it often, I take a bath maybe once every other year, but every once in a while I don’t see the harm.

Here’s why: Because who cares? There’s no reason a guy shouldn’t be able to engage in such activities that, in general, girls tend to engage in. If it’s a pleasant activity, it’s a pleasant activity, end of story. The fact that it’s female-gendered is just a social construction. That means that society has placed a certain value on an activity like this one, an arbitrarily placed value.

So my message here is to not let social construction dictate what you want. If you want to do something that tends to have social construction different from the one you fit into, don’t let that stop you. Only let it stop you if you would prefer NOT to do it in the first place. Never let society dictate who you are or what you do. And I gotta say, I felt like I didn’t have a worry in the world after my bath. It was soooo nice. It seemed like the rest of the day was just in slow motion. And now I’m beat, so I’m gonna get some sleep. I have to be up early tomorrow.