My weekend and indulgent self-important pretentious intellectualizing
Good weekend. Here's the lowdown.
Friday: Movie night with BCSers. freaked out because I forgot it was Lent, mental check of day's food consumption proved I had played by the rules afterall. Then to Lux with Julia and Kevin. Drinking, smoking, bitching about annoying people, and various other sins. Other admissions employees were there, one bought me drinks.
Saturday: Finally unpacked from spring break. Massive room cleaning. Hung out with Vicki, my old horn teacher now friend. Dropped off stuff at goodwill, took a walk around Cobbs Hill, got sushi, went to UR lib to try and rent free DVDs, was closed, but played on computers and knowing only the volume of Cobbs Hill reservoir and the circumference of the walking path around it, we, through a complex series of geometric and algebraic equations and much googling, we found that it is approximately 24 feet deep. Home. Had my 'friend'/ love interest de jour Alex over for drinks. We have fun getting into ridiculous arguments that self perpetuate and lend itself to ostentatious displays of philosophical knowledge. Did a lot of that. Went out to meet up with a group of his friends who were celebrating a birthday at SoHo. Argued more. Laughed lots. He's so fucking pretentious and I love it. Perhaps I'm a sucker for A) smart people who don't like dumb people and B) sensing that the real person is underneath some external layer, and that the real person is extremely worthwhile. I'm compelled to find out who that real person is, and the thicker the layer 'for show' is the more compelled I am. Plus he's really damn smart. And tall. And handsome. Le sigh. Apparently he's 'slightly involved' with someone else. GRAH!!! How come I can't be the first one to find these great guys!?! But 'slightly' does not exclude fun and witty and sarcastic and taunting banter filled with tension in the best possible way, and resolution of the aforementioned. Right. Oh well, I'll only be in Rochester a few more weeks anyway. Le sigh, again.
Oh yeah, and daylight savings time sucks. Cuz it leads to this: "Damn, it's 5am and I have to schmooze with prospective students and parents at 11. NOO! It's actually 6am!!!"
Now for the indulgent self-important pretentious intellectualizing.
If one thing college has taught me, it has taught me how little I actually know. This sounds like a negative but I think it's actually a positive. Kinda. I think to have the most full understanding of a given topic you must be well versed in all aspects of it, and a full understanding does not mean you have to have an answer. Because likely there is no answer. I ponder this from time to time, especially lately, as Alex my pretentious and very very intelligent 'friend', a man of few yet profound words, has been highlighting my initially vacuous statements that I blurt out for lack of time to come up with a really good statement.
I've been reading some Camus, a French Existentialist, and was delighted to come across this passage. It completely sums up my general feelings about the quality or existence of knowledge.
Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases. At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multicolored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know.
Now that both Alex and I have read this for our class, I can't bring up the nature of knowledge and sound original. Even though I was. Damn it. I wanted to know what he thought about things like this, though. Oh drama. Oh absurdity. Oh well.
And all I want is a close good friend. Seems all I have of those moved away.
One day, Katie. For now, get used to being alone.
Friday: Movie night with BCSers. freaked out because I forgot it was Lent, mental check of day's food consumption proved I had played by the rules afterall. Then to Lux with Julia and Kevin. Drinking, smoking, bitching about annoying people, and various other sins. Other admissions employees were there, one bought me drinks.
Saturday: Finally unpacked from spring break. Massive room cleaning. Hung out with Vicki, my old horn teacher now friend. Dropped off stuff at goodwill, took a walk around Cobbs Hill, got sushi, went to UR lib to try and rent free DVDs, was closed, but played on computers and knowing only the volume of Cobbs Hill reservoir and the circumference of the walking path around it, we, through a complex series of geometric and algebraic equations and much googling, we found that it is approximately 24 feet deep. Home. Had my 'friend'/ love interest de jour Alex over for drinks. We have fun getting into ridiculous arguments that self perpetuate and lend itself to ostentatious displays of philosophical knowledge. Did a lot of that. Went out to meet up with a group of his friends who were celebrating a birthday at SoHo. Argued more. Laughed lots. He's so fucking pretentious and I love it. Perhaps I'm a sucker for A) smart people who don't like dumb people and B) sensing that the real person is underneath some external layer, and that the real person is extremely worthwhile. I'm compelled to find out who that real person is, and the thicker the layer 'for show' is the more compelled I am. Plus he's really damn smart. And tall. And handsome. Le sigh. Apparently he's 'slightly involved' with someone else. GRAH!!! How come I can't be the first one to find these great guys!?! But 'slightly' does not exclude fun and witty and sarcastic and taunting banter filled with tension in the best possible way, and resolution of the aforementioned. Right. Oh well, I'll only be in Rochester a few more weeks anyway. Le sigh, again.
Oh yeah, and daylight savings time sucks. Cuz it leads to this: "Damn, it's 5am and I have to schmooze with prospective students and parents at 11. NOO! It's actually 6am!!!"
Now for the indulgent self-important pretentious intellectualizing.
If one thing college has taught me, it has taught me how little I actually know. This sounds like a negative but I think it's actually a positive. Kinda. I think to have the most full understanding of a given topic you must be well versed in all aspects of it, and a full understanding does not mean you have to have an answer. Because likely there is no answer. I ponder this from time to time, especially lately, as Alex my pretentious and very very intelligent 'friend', a man of few yet profound words, has been highlighting my initially vacuous statements that I blurt out for lack of time to come up with a really good statement.
I've been reading some Camus, a French Existentialist, and was delighted to come across this passage. It completely sums up my general feelings about the quality or existence of knowledge.
Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases. At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multicolored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know.
Now that both Alex and I have read this for our class, I can't bring up the nature of knowledge and sound original. Even though I was. Damn it. I wanted to know what he thought about things like this, though. Oh drama. Oh absurdity. Oh well.
And all I want is a close good friend. Seems all I have of those moved away.
One day, Katie. For now, get used to being alone.