Don't Call it a Comeback

You gotta love the random articles that pop up under the main headline on MSN.com...

Ninja, vanish?

And yes, that is a reference to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies...

Such a Nerd

As I know will come as no surprise, I can sometimes be an anal retentive nerd. Last night I spent far more time than most reasonable people would organizing my iTunes library and making sure that all the tracks were properly labeled by artist and song title. I have over 9 GB of music, so while a majority of it was properly formatted it was still a large quantity of songs that had to be edited.

But it's all good now, and that makes me happy.

Am I the Only One?

Am I the only one out there who can see what's going on in Washington D.C.? Am I the only one who realizes that none of these congressmen really have an opinion on the way our military is handling operations in Iraq, they're just grandstanding for CNN? Am I the only one who gets pissed off about this kind of stuff when the war in Iraq is brought up?

This is what I'm talking about.

The idea of micromanaging our troops and their commanders is just mind-boggling to me. As much as I hate all the ill-informed, narrow-minded, naive views of the public and the media, it's even worse when those in political office start believing the hype and playing right into it. They know that this isn't really going to impact anything, and they are beginning to drop the pretenses and admit that this is nothing more than naked political posturing.

If someone, anyone, can present a coherent and well-reasoned argument as to why the immediate (and by immediate I mean the soonest it is logistically feasible, so let's just say by the end of 2007) withdrawal of all our forces from Iraq will benefit our domestic and foreign interests, you'd have my full attention. As an addendum, please list all the problems that such a course of action will solve. Apparently the very instant the last set of boots leaves the ground in Iraq all of our problems will be over, so I just want to see it in print.

Meanwhile, I for one will continue to support General David Patraeus and his conduct of operations in Iraq. Of all the opinions on how to conduct our forces, his is the only one that actually means a damn thing. Far too many times in history have military leaders been bound and crippled by the shortsightedness of political leaders, and so I hope General Patraeus overcomes Congress' myopic threats to effectively neuter his command and keeps fighting the good fight.

It's Not the Years, It's the Mileage

I may be a little more excited about this than is probably normal, but filming finally started on Indiana Jones 4 this week. There aren't really any details on the story other than it will be set in the 1950's, which hopefully can only mean one thing:

Indiana Jones vs. Commies.

For decades George Lucas talked about going back and doing the Star Wars prequels and nobody believed him. Sure enough, 15 years after Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace hit the big screen. Lucas then said he would go back and make another Indy movie after he finished the Star Wars prequels, and now he's stuck to his word.

And on May 22, 2008, the wait will have been worth it.

Check out the original article here.

I wish the Democrats Would Read This

I don't really have much to say as either lead-in or response, but I read this article and just really appreciated the author's position.

Stay the course.

Just Plain Wrong

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
~ Henry VI (Part 2) Act IV, Scene II

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with our extremist politically correct culture? If you ask me, everything that society has done in the last 15 years in its attempts to "fix" kids' problems has just made things exponentially worse.

Case in point.

I wish I knew who to blame. I've got 3 books (early stages of research for my thesis) on their way to me from Half.com on various subjects within the Men's Movement of the 1990's, one of which is all about how the feminizing of schools from the 1990's to the present has left an entire generation of boys clueless as to how to actually become men. As a result of everybody telling them they everything they ever do is wrong, it's no wonder that boys are lashing out in desperate attempts to satisfy the genetics that society has worked so hard to condition out of them.

I don't know if "good ole' days" ever actually existed, but I'd still much prefer any system that relies on the judgment of a sound-minded individual over the litigious readings of some shyster.

The Big Apple

I've been in central New York for the last 3 weeks now, and this weekend I finally got to visit New York City for the first time. My staff and co-workers were all giving me suggestions and places to visit, but the schedule of my trip didn't really allow me to take advantage of them. They also gave me tips on how to not be an annoying tourist, which I think I avoided on my own without their advice.

When I arrived at Port Authority and stepped out onto 8th Avenue, I didn't feel any more apprehension or astonishment than I feel spending time in downtown Chicago. Clearly the city was huge and impressive, but not in a sense that I felt overwhelmed. In fact, I had a woman stop and ask me for directions somewhere because she thought I looked like someone who was from the city. At no point did I feel like the slow, annoying Midwesterner everyone assumed I would be - in fact I got impatient at slow people or people just randomly stopping on the sidewalk ahead of me.

I knew that because all day Saturday would be spent at my brother's company party I wouldn't have time for all the sightseeing and touristy stuff, but I nonetheless had a few specific goals for my first trip to the Big Apple.
- Get a hot pretzel from a street vendor
- Go to the huge Toys "R" Us in Times Square
- Get a slice of authentic New York City pizza
- Hail a cab
- Eat breakfast at a diner
- Not get mugged

I was successful in all these goals. I still need to go at least one more time while I'm here for the summer, and hopefully on that trip I can do a few more touristy things like go to the Empire State Building, go to Chinatown, and maybe even go to a Yankees game.

I'm a Slacker

So every time I drop off the blogosphere I get crap about it from either The Captain or The Last Angry Man. The crap is well deserved, but for every boost it gives me to temporarily rededicate myself to blogging, I eventually fall into laziness again. I won't try to justify or explain it, I'll only say that if you call me on it I will respond and I hope you keep reading and not give up on me.

I first started this blog back in August of 2004 - literally the day after I moved back into my parents' house after I left Ann Arbor without having found a job. It was also right before the 2004 election, so those two facts combined gave me a lot to rant about. I started this blog to write about things I hated, things that frustrated me, things that annoyed me, as a way to vent.

When I moved to North Carolina, I had a six month block of zero blog entries. I hated my job and everything around me, but I didn't have the will to rant against it. that would have involved getting off the couch, which for a while was more effort than I could muster.

Leaving North Carolina and moving back to Michigan ended my depressive cycle, and going through the hell of my failed teaching career gave me the perspective that having made it through that year meant I didn't really have anything to complain about in comparison. This past year was filled with successes and other positive experiences, so I didn't need the forum of this blog to rant about things because I didn't have much to rant about.

But even though I don't have as much venom to spew, I had forgotten the point of the internet - to share my opinions about everything with people who never asked me my opinion about anything.

And so, I will endeavor to broadcast my personal commentary through this medium whether you're interested or not, and while I am sure there will be days and even weeks that I am silent, I will eventually return.

Keep watching.

Deport the Commies

Am I the only one who remembers the 1980's? Am I the only one who still equates communism and socialism as dangerously radical ideologies and failed systems of governance rather that some sort of kitsch trend?

Maybe so. Every time my brother writes a new note on Facebook he sounds more and more socialist, so in response I have to become more and more conservative.

But I'm not looking to deport my brother. I want to deport Michael (Mikhail) Moore.

Most of you probably know how much I hate Mikhail Moore. For those that don't, let me explain.

I hate Michael Moore.

Michael Moore is everything that is wrong with the Left in this country, and yet instead of excising him from their ranks in order to appeal to a broader center, more and more liberals are becoming crazier and crazier just like him.

What brings Mikhial Moore up in conversation today is the fact that there may now be legal grounds to prosecute (and hopefully persecute) him for his antics. For all his talk about how the current administration has abused power and broken the law for its own agendas while the other side remains blameless, there is now irrefutable proof that Mikhail Moore is just full of shit and guilty of doing the same thing himself.

Dirty Commie Hyperlink

You know what I say to people like Mikhail and his ilk? If you don't like it, get out. You can go to Canada, where socialized health care means you wait 4 hours in the emergency room. Or you can go to one of the socialist Scandinavian countries like Norway and pay 80% of your income to national taxes and fees. Or you can just go to Cuba and hope not to be shot in the back of the head as a political enemy.

Socialism is bad, people. It doesn't make everyone equal and happy and solve all the world's problems. It makes everyone poor and entirely dependent upon the government for everything in their lives.

And so I've been thinking, and I think I've determined how to solve all of this country's problems in 2008. The answer is simple - The Ghost of Ronald Reagan as a write-in candidate. Either that, or we've got a little over a year to find a way to bring him back from the dead.

Get cracking people.

April is the Creulist Month

Sorry about the disappearing act - I was busy.

April started off busy, and just got busier.

I started the month off in Orlando, leaving on March 31 and staying for a week. I was there for a once every decade joint conference between the two largest professional organizations in my field, so while it could be condsidered a business trip I still made time for fun. We tried to spend as much time as we could at the pool of the timeshare one of my colleagues was able to score from her parents, went to Downtown Disney two nights we were there, and generally enjoyed ourselves and our time away from school and work.

Really, as much as it wasn't a vacation, it still felt like the first real vacation I've ever had. I didn't go with my family, I went with friends. The trip had all the major components - airfare, lodging, rental car, etc. that carry with them a certain level of feeling like a grown-up.

A good time was had by all. We didn't want to come back, because we knew that as soon as we got back we had 3 weeks left in the semester and then the process of closing out the residence halls for the year. As daunting as it seemed, it really ended up not being that bad. I basically had a final project in each of my three classes, but each was due in a different week. I focused on one, got it done, and then moved on to the next one.

At the same time, there were all sorts of other end of the year type celebrations and functions to attend and be a part of. For my efforts in advisng my student group I actually recieved the "Advisor of the Year" award, which as cheesy as it sounds really did mean a lot to know that my students appreciated my efforts and that I apparently did something right enough for everyone to notice.

Closing the residence halls down was actually not as bad as I had feared it would be. Make no mistake - I worked 14 hour days Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday - but it was just a matter of plodding through things rather than some unyielding pressure or demand. My supervisor had things well organized and had the staff do as much as they could as far as getting paperwork ready and whatever else could be done before residents actually started moving out, so we kept things moving forward at a good pace.

For the most part as I look back no having finished my first year of graduate school, nothing was as bad as many people made it out to be. Either my cohort is just a lot better at what we do, or the cohort a year ahead of us is really not, or somewhere in between. Now we're just setting the bar higher for the new cohort coming in this fall.

Tomorrow morning I am off to Mexico for my two week study abroad trip. I'll be back for a week in between that trip and leaving for my summer internship in New York, so things show no sign of slowing down. I will try to share as much as I can of my Mexico trip when I return, but until then buenos noches...

GQ's Definition of Cheating

Just thought this was interesting.... discuss.

"Get some scissors and clip the next paragraph. Laminate it. Carry it in your wallet. I don't mean to sound self-righteous; trust me, I've made the same mistakes as all of you. I'll be clipping it, too.So, what's cheating? What's not cheating? I'll tell you.Looking at porn is not cheating. Flirting at a cocktail party is not cheating. Having a female buddy at work with whom you eat lunch every day - not cheating. A shoulder massage from a woman at the bar? Could lead to cheating, but if that's as far as goes, it's okay. An occasional lap dance? Survey says: not cheating. Now, kissing a woman who's not your wife or girlfriend - cheating. An overwhelming number of your peers will also tell you that if another woman has her lips, breasts, hands, or toes on your Johnson, that is cheating. (Jerry, I'm sorry. Sex with guys is still cheating.) If you're lying about a work assignment in Scranton, Pennsylvania, so you can spend the weekend with your lover in Atlantic City? It doesn't matter what you're telling yourself, dude - you're cheating. And if you have a line as elaborate as "In the pants is not cheating; out of the pants is," you probably shouldn't be in a relationship at all."

~ Davy Rothbart, GQ contributor

The Internet is Dangerous at 1:37 in the Morning

Case in point.... surf long enough without direction and you find stuff like this.

Holding Pattern

Other possible titles for this post included "Throwing a Bone"...

As pointed out by The Last Angry Man, I haven't written in a few weeks. Given that the last few posts indicated a momentum of sorts with all sorts of big things happening, it's been tough to think of anything worth blogging about as life has more or less leveled out in the last few weeks. Nothing bad has happened, but also nothing as noteworthy as recent occurrences has happened either. In short, I am in a bit of a holding pattern.

The week leading up to Spring Break just dragged on with the promise of a week off on the horizon. We all thought Spring Break would give us a chance to recharge and revitalize for the back-half of the semester, but instead we all came back just as unmotivated as before. We've all got a trip to Mexico and the excitement of a summer internship elsewhere to look forward to, and our patience for the routine has grown thin.

Intertwined with the increasing malaise for the weekly happenings on campus was the even more distracting series of romantic misadventures I was engaged with between here and Lansing. With the flirtatious phone calls and innuendo driven text messages that would lead to our rendezvous in Lansing, it was fun while it lasted.

I'm referring to it in the past tense because it could not make the transition between flirtation and substance. Though I never sought a label or a quantification beyond the simple fact that we had a good time together, it was nonetheless a doomed proposition from the start. After a recent breakup she was in no place to get involved with anyone new, and yet when I entered the picture she briefly thought that she could be. In the end her doubts got the better of her, and so here I stand.

While I am undoubtedly disappointed that things didn't work out, I am also able to take some positive things from the experience. A few months ago I wrote about my own self-doubts and self-assessment, questioning myself and my own perceptions of identity. I wondered about the changes I have been through, and the lasting impact of so many demons that I felt had found their way into my thoughts, feelings, and actions.

And I now feel like I've finally exorcised the last vestiges of those demons. The self-doubt and questions have been, at least in some way, answered and I feel more like the version of myself that I like than I have in years. In some ways it feels like a pendulum coming to rest in the middle - the extremes of nice, neutral, not wanting to offend undergraduate Brad and angry, bitter, cynical, quick to enrage post-college Brad finally finding balance with each other.

Towards the end of my college career and in my attempts at entering the real world, I was just the victim of a cumulative series of disappointments, frustrations, and unfortunate circumstances. As I saw others around me successfully moving ahead without such trouble, I began to don the defensive armors of cynicism, anger, hostility, and distance as a means to protect myself from the damage likely to be caused by all those disappointments.

It's only since coming back to college and the subsequent success I've enjoyed here that I have felt comfortable in shedding that armor. As good things have happened I have slowly removed the plates and shields I felt necessary to face things. What has helped more than anything is the closeness that has occurred in my cohort. While earlier in the year I felt like an outsider, over the last few months I have let them get closer to me, and in turn they have brought me in closer.

The last piece of the puzzle is the girl from Lansing. Even though I tried not to let myself get too close because of the ever present suspicion that things would never work, she was nonetheless able to get close enough to strip the last remnants of my armor away. The fact that things did not work out is, in the end, not as important as the fact that for the first time in a long time I thought - even briefly - that things could work out. And I think it's that feeling, that admission, that hope that I haven't felt the courage to believe in so long, that has finally brought a restoration of confidence and esteem.

Kind of a Nerd

So, should I end up going back to school once again in the future for a doctorate, I have come up with the title of my dissertation.

You're Not Special: How Parents, Schools and Society Have Emotionally, Intellectually, and Socially Stunted the Millenial Generation

The thing is, when I was first getting the notion that I may be going back to graduate school last spring, the prospect of writing a thesis daunted me. I always hated the idea of doing research, and just could not imagine myself being able to write something on the scale necessary for a master's thesis. And yet now I find myself eager to start working on it.

As I've written about before, my brain has been jump started since rejoining the college environment. For every paper I've written I've struggled to keep myself under page limits, rather than the fear I had of needing to stretch and reach for things. When page limits were more flexible, I found myself writing 8 pages for a 3-5 paged paper, and 18 pages for my 10-12 page final paper last semester in my theory class. If I can write an 18 page paper over a weekend without even conducting any research and only making minimal reference to established theories and literature, an entire semester to write a 30+ page thesis doesn't seem nearly as frightening as it did a year ago.

And what's more, I find that I clearly don't hate research as much as I thought I did. While clearly it would not be my first choice of weekend activities to pour over journal articles and write a research paper, I have nonetheless found a certain level of enjoyment from the process of writing such papers. When it all comes down to it, it's just like constructing an argument... something we all know I love to do. You have to seek out those whose views are similar to your own, find evidence to support your point, construct a logical framework through which to express your idea, respond to the likely criticisms and challenges to your position, and wrap it all up with a conclusion that removes any doubts of the persuasiveness of your reasoning. Sure you've got to do some actual research with numbers and figures that lend quantifiable support to your claims, but really that's just the necessary evil of the scientific method.

And then you just sit back and wait for the ignorant masses to condemn your ideas....

The Golden Age of Brad

So, there is one of two possibilities. Either 1) Karma is finally repaying me for all the crap I've been through in the last few years, or 2) This is just the good that's happening before a huge storm of bad. Either way, the last two weeks at least have been, as the Captain put it, The Golden Age of Brad as a result of my returning to college for graduate school.

It all started last Tuesday when my top choice school offered me the summer internship I had applied for there. Saturday night there was a girl involved, and I'll leave it at that...

And then yesterday was the annual 1st Year Graduate Student Case Study Competition. Basically, we were put into pairs and at noon on Thursday given a case study that involved a hypothetical situation or crisis to be resolved at a fictional college. We had until the next day to put together a presentation utilizing relevant theory and practices for how we would respond to the situation in the case study. My partner and I worked on our presentation for about 5 hours on Thursday, and were surprised at how quickly we were able to pull it together. We met again yesterday in the early afternoon to go through things one more time and get the final presentation ready, and by the time we presented at 3:00 were supremely confident in the product we had put together.

And we were confident for good reason... we ended up winning the competition, which included a $250 prize for each of us to be used for professional development (which works for me since I'm spending like $500 to attend a conference in Orlando this spring).

So as I began this post... either things are truly looking up, or this is all just the calm before the storm...

Hooking Myself Up

As John "Hannibal" Smith would say... "I love it when a plan comes together."

On Tuesday I was awoken by cell phone, and I picked it up in time to receive a summer internship offer from my #1 choice school. After a week of scouring the internship listings and contacting schools to set up interviews, two weeks of phone interviews, and week of waiting for the "official" date and time offers could be made, I am all set. I will be spending my summer at Binghamton University in New York state, training and supervising their summer orientation leaders. Rock.

Yesterday I went to the international student and study abroad office for their passport fair, getting myself hooked up for my trip to Mexico this spring. It took about an hour worth of waiting in lines and filling out forms, but I got it all taken care of in a one-shot deal, which would not have happened if I had to go get pictures taken, and then go to the post office, and make sure I had everything done correctly. I guess we'll see in 8-10 weeks if the study abroad office dotted all their "i"s and crossed all their "t"s.

Right now I am in the process of applying for professional development funds for my conference trip to Orlando in April. I've also got to get home and do my taxes so that I can apply for financial aid again, which will include a $500 grant for my trip to Mexico. There are two academic case study competitions going on next week with monetary prizes, so hopefully I can put all this graduate schooling to good work for some more immediate gain...

All in all, things are coming up Brad.

The Blunken Drog Entry

Sitting on the floor of The Captain’s new apartment in Hot-Lanta, we’re coming to you live and direct. As the title of this post alludes to, we’ve since finished a case of beer while sitting on the floor of his as yet unfurnished apartment. The furniture is supposed to arrive on Tuesday. Just like the medical staff, tractor beam, and photon torpedoes. For those of you not catching the reference, just move on.

Right now it’s “cold” in Atlanta, which means like 45 degrees. In Grand Rapids, GVSU shut down all activities and programs for the day since the entire campus and surrounding area is in a state of emergency given the blizzard that is occurring around them. I wonder if I’ll be able to get home tomorrow or not…

The Captain’s move to Atlanta brings up a lot of memories for me related to the tremendous failure that was the North Carolina experience. Successful only in so much as it pushed me forward into my current state of being in graduate school, the point of the affair was to reinforce the inherent difficulty involved in moving cross-country for a job you’re not entirely sure of. To quote a Panic! at the Dicso song, “It’s not so pleasant and it’s not so conventional, it sure as Hell ain’t normal but we deal, we deal”, one has to try to roll with the punches that life throws at you.

As a qualifier for anyone who is confused by this post, I’m coming to you thanks to the grateful sponsorship of a case of Ice House beer, which is almost twice the alcohol content of a normal beer.

These things are all true…

As an aside… you know what you get when you buy a folding chair from Target for $20? You get $20 worth of promise that said product is designed to support a 200+ pound individual. I’m not so confident in this lounge chair’s ability to meet the strict quality control standards of The Captain and myself.

I’m almost out of battery power, so I’ll end this post and retire for the evening on the $6 inflatable pool mattress I bought at Meijer before the trip down.

Making a Difference

I had something nearly akin to an epiphany today, and I wanted to try and write out my thoughts and feelings on the matter before I lost the initial rush of it all. So, as I assume many of my posts are, it's more for my benefit and posterity than your interest. Though I do appreciate any who still haunt these pages, and welcome your comments.

What led to this epiphany were the recent goings on in my position as a graduate assistant in the last week. I am currently in the process of scheduling interviews with potential internship host sites for the summer, and at the same time I've made some inquiries as to my options as far as graduate positions for next year. Though I was initially disappointed by the fact that no opportunities exist for me to transfer into an advising setting, I now feel a certain sense of rededication to my position within housing. And since the majority of paid internships for the summer are within housing, it all has come together.

What brought about the true insight and inspiration, though, was a meeting I had originally hoped I didn't have to go to this morning. All of the Living Center Directors and graduate students got together in a conference room at 8:00 this morning and tried to place both the new and returning Resident Advisors into staff teams for next fall. The meeting was scheduled to go until noon, and the idea of a four hour meeting this morning held absolutely no appeal to me.

One of the themes that came up during the course of the meeting, and has been articulated on many other occasions by many other people, is the difficulty in both finding and retaining quality male candidates for RA positions. We've had to fire a few so far this year, many others are not returning, and the number of new qualified males is nowhere near enough to make up for these two things.

As it stands right now, I may be the only returning male graduate student to housing next year. And either because of, or in spite of this fact, I had the idea to try and change the pattern and cycle that has become a perennial problem.

I've talked with a few of the living center directors and one of the assistant housing directors about my idea, and all have been supportive of any effort I am willing to put forth in order to identify and hopefully change the problems we've had in finding and holding on to qualified male staff members. This may give me the opportunity to do training, advising, mentoring, and all sorts of other means of involvement that I have been missing sometimes in my position this year.

The issues our department is facing are just smaller examples of a phenomenon that affects the entire field of student affairs from student staff all the way up to professional staff, and as a result it may provide a foundation for my thesis project.

Who knows what I'll be able to do, and what results it may have, but right now this idea feels like the kind of project and commitment that I have been envious of in watching some other grad students in the program. It's something I have a vested interest in, something I believe I have the skills and background for, and something that I hope I will be proud to have been responsible for.

True Colors

During our staff training today we took a personality assessment known as the "True Colors" test. It is based on the Myers-Briggs typology which defines 16 different personality types, and Myers-Briggs is itself based on the theories of Carl Jung. There are 4 different colors - Green, Blue, Orange, and Gold - each color representing a different combination of personality traits, interests, preferences, and values. No one color is better than another, and everyone has their own spectrum of which colors are brightest and palest, indicating which types more or less define them.

Green was my brightest color, closely followed by gold. Orange was my palest color, and Blue ended up in the middle. Here's a description of each:


Green expresses itself psychologically as human will in operation: as persistence and determination. Green is an expression of firmness and consistency. Its strength can lead to a resistance to change if it is not proven that the change will work or is warranted. Those with Green as a Primary Color value their intellect and capabilities above all else. Comfort in these areas creates a sense of personal security and self-esteem.

Green characteristics seek to increase the certainty of their own values through being assertive and requiring differences from others in intellectual areas. They are rarely settled in their countenance, since they depend upon information rather than feelings to create a sense of well-being. Green expresses the grounding of theory and data in its practical applications and creative constructs.


Gold is the body's natural perceptions. It represents a need to be responsible, to fulfill duties and obligations, to organize and structure our life and that of others. Those with Gold as a Primary Color value being practical and sensible. They believe that people should earn their way in life through work and service to others.

Gold reflects a need to belong through carrying a share of the load in all areas of living. It represents stability, maintenance of the culture and the organization, efficiency, and dependability. It embraces the concepts of home and family with fierce loyalty and faithfulness.


Blue represents calm. Contemplation of this color pacifies the central nervous system. It creates physiological tranquility and psychological contentment. Those with Blue as a Primary Color value balance and harmony. They prefer lives free from tension... settled, united, and secure.

Blue represents loyalty and a sense of belonging, and yet, when friends are involved, a vulnerability. Blue corresponds to depth in feeling and a relaxed sensitivity. It is characterized by empathy, aesthetic experiences, and reflective awareness.


Orange represents energy, consuming physiological potency, power, and strength. Orange is the expression of vital force, of nervous and glandular activity. Thus, it has the meaning of desire and all forms of appetite and craving. Those with Orange as a Primary Color feel the will to achieve results, to win, to be successful. They desire all things that offer intense living and full experience.

Orange generates an impulse toward active doing: sport, struggle, competition and enterprising productivity. In temporal terms, Orange is the present.

Sound pretty accurate to you?

You can take an abbreviated version of the test online here.

Memory

Memory is a tricky thing.

As great an ability as I think I have to remember things and keep track of stuff in my head, just like everyone else my memory has its flaws and its limits. There is a great deal that I have forgotten or gotten mixed up over the intervening years, but in no regard is memory more uncertain than in remembering yourself at certain points in your life.

Whether or not anyone still reads these diatribes is only a very small part of why I write this - it's as much for myself and my own posterity as it is for any casual reader to indulge their curiosity.

I've spent more time than usual in the last few weeks of break thinking about the past, and more importantly trying to compare it to the present. I'm at no great turning point in my life - I'm actually more content with where I am now than I have been in quite some time - but nevertheless one's thoughts invariably turn toward the future. And one cannot look to the future without taking a moment to recount the past and the course that has led one to the present.

The question on my mind is one of identity. I've never been one to suffer from identity crises and feel the overwhelming urge to reinvent myself, but at the same time I find the line that I trace back to my sense of self is a bit fuzzy in places. People who have gotten to know me since I graduated from college have described me as a smart ass who likes to make his opinion known, a bitter cynic, anal retentive who doesn't know how to be casual and relax, and I'm sure other descriptors that may be even less kind.

I looked back at my high school yearbook and read the notes of people who talked about how I was such a nice, honest, caring, funny guy who was such a great listener. I was humble and lovable, always there to be counted on, selfless and open.

What changed?

I know I've wrestled with my own demons of anger and hopelessness in the last few years, but what other demons have I allowed to win in their battles with my better angels? Did I let the weight of the world crush my hope and idealism? Did I get tired of being the nice guy who finished last in the hopes that a little darkness and self interest would yield greater rewards? Have I turned to the Dark Side?

And yet in the last few days as my own perceptions of myself have been unclear, there have been those who have seen me as I once saw myself and reminded me of that part of me. Have I simply become more guarded, put up greater defenses as a result of the pain that openness brought? Have my anger, my arrogance, my pride all been an act to ward off those who may find my vulnerabilities and weaknesses?

Where do I go from here?