Thursday, November 10, 2005
It is time for a change. Nothing quite as significant as a lifestyle change per se, but more of a blog change. My previous posts were made on MySpace, but that's just because I didn't have a better option available (those should be available here
) . I consider this more of a horizontal change than a vertical one, as in I'm not really moving "up" in the blog world so to speak. I still plan on writing my own blogging software (it's actually well underway) that will eventually be hosted on my own hardware, but this makes a great interim solution. So until then, expect my usual nonsense posts here.
I discovered today that the people coordinating FURI, the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative, have borrowed my poster from last year as a sort of "template" to explain to the new students what their work should look like when it's ready for presentation. I didn't find that poster to be all that fantastic, but I suppose the powers that be think otherwise. What made this particularly amusing to me is that I had no idea they (being the people with FURI) had held on to it. I assumed that my poster was in the same place all left socks and leprechauns go to when they don't want to be found, certainly not as the explanation for being a proper scientific presentation.
In a very bizarre way I wish I was more of a raving egomaniac. I wish that I didn't necessarily keep things in check. That's not to say that I don't have a very healthy sense of self, it just means I don't get to shout "I'm goddamn fucking brilliant," quite as often as I'd like. It's on the eve of these essay submissions, grant proposals, and general requests that are merit based that I tend to develop some self-consciouss behaviors. It isn't like me under normal circumstances to worry about these things or even connect them to a failed sense of competence to not win. Sometimes though, like now, the stakes are high enough that I would be somewhat pist (so pissed that I am forced to misspell the word). I want to be an NSF fellow. Fact of the matter is that this is one of those prestigious awards that shall forever appear on one's CV. It is a little sentence on an application that means "I come free of charge to your school, and I bring incredible amounts of funding."
This is not anyone else's want. This is not my parents vicariously living through me. This is not the pressure of my friends. This is my ego wanting verification, validation, and vindication. This is me wanting to be sitting at a top university with other students who are as jazzed about the work as much as me. This is a lot of things.
This is me wanting it to be April with acceptance letter in hand.
) . I consider this more of a horizontal change than a vertical one, as in I'm not really moving "up" in the blog world so to speak. I still plan on writing my own blogging software (it's actually well underway) that will eventually be hosted on my own hardware, but this makes a great interim solution. So until then, expect my usual nonsense posts here.I discovered today that the people coordinating FURI, the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative, have borrowed my poster from last year as a sort of "template" to explain to the new students what their work should look like when it's ready for presentation. I didn't find that poster to be all that fantastic, but I suppose the powers that be think otherwise. What made this particularly amusing to me is that I had no idea they (being the people with FURI) had held on to it. I assumed that my poster was in the same place all left socks and leprechauns go to when they don't want to be found, certainly not as the explanation for being a proper scientific presentation.
In a very bizarre way I wish I was more of a raving egomaniac. I wish that I didn't necessarily keep things in check. That's not to say that I don't have a very healthy sense of self, it just means I don't get to shout "I'm goddamn fucking brilliant," quite as often as I'd like. It's on the eve of these essay submissions, grant proposals, and general requests that are merit based that I tend to develop some self-consciouss behaviors. It isn't like me under normal circumstances to worry about these things or even connect them to a failed sense of competence to not win. Sometimes though, like now, the stakes are high enough that I would be somewhat pist (so pissed that I am forced to misspell the word). I want to be an NSF fellow. Fact of the matter is that this is one of those prestigious awards that shall forever appear on one's CV. It is a little sentence on an application that means "I come free of charge to your school, and I bring incredible amounts of funding."
This is not anyone else's want. This is not my parents vicariously living through me. This is not the pressure of my friends. This is my ego wanting verification, validation, and vindication. This is me wanting to be sitting at a top university with other students who are as jazzed about the work as much as me. This is a lot of things.
This is me wanting it to be April with acceptance letter in hand.
# posted by Chris/Stewy @ Thursday, November 10, 2005 
