Adventures Among Stacks of Compressed and Bleached Wood Pulp

The impending arrival of September points to that one thing I wish to avoid: college admissions. But there can no more procrastinating, so I holed up in Barnes & Nobles for 45 minutes of quality time with a college guide. Bored as I was of statistics and numbers, I picked up a guide claiming to be written entirely by students at their respective college.

If you picked three random students to describe AB, I bet their responses would be nothing like the AB I know and both love and hate. So I took their descriptions with a pinch of salt, but one recurring theme showed up profile after profile: alcohol. Every student devoted substantial space and ink to the school’s campus alcohol policy and student drinking habits. Dear little sheltered me, I know they down alcohol like water on college campuses, but I never expected the attitude to be so blasé. The most disheartening thing is, I expect I will also be a barely lucid drunk throwing up into dorms two years from now. Damn if my parents read this.

The rest of the time at my beloved if overpriced B&N was spent reading a library copy of Absurdistan, a satirical portrait of a fat Russian Jew cum wannabe American. Yes, I read library books in bookstores. Despite knowing I can borrow pretty much any book I wanted from a library, I still have that overwhelming urge to blind buy books for the sake of collecting. Given my meager resources, I only ended up affording a $2.97 copy of The Age of Innocence. When will I finally read this book? Probably when I’m jobless and broke 5 years from now.

Speaking of libraries, I also spent some more time among book stacks at the Lexington library. Whenever I walk in a library or bookstore, I always pause for a moment and breath in awe, as if by simply breathing, I could soak in some molecules of knowledge from this vast depository of information. I originally came to sing the praises of Lexington’s lib, but once the novelty wore off, I realized it’s not that much better than Acton’s. Or maybe it’s just my Actonian superiority complex kicking in. But I must admit, Lexington has a kick-ass nonfiction and audiovisual collection.

After browsing through the upper-floor, which is entirely devoted to nonfiction, I made a beeline to the shelves of DVDs. The first thing I encountered was a special ledge labeled “Foreign Films,” which caused a snicker to escape from my lips. Snooty? Yes, but it’s my pet peeve when “foreign” is labeled as a genre, since the parameters for tagging a foreign film are determined arbitrarily by geography anyways. However, since Lexington seems to have its share of cinephiles, perhaps the label caters to those who endure subtitled fare to stoke their psuedo-intellectual egos. (Like me.) In any case, the collection was rather meager despite containing a few Criterions, most likely because the majority of DVDs had been checked out. The VHS collection, however, was an embarrassment of gems. I now have a stack of ratty old VHSs, labels wearing off but proudly displaying the titles The Rules of the Game, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and Two English Girls. Seriously, I should quit Netflix and just rely on the free resources of my public libraries.

The last leg of my Saturday afternoon sojourn was Costco—the haven of large families, small businesses, and cheapskates of all sizes. Other than the free samples, my favorite part of Costco has always been the book section. Maybe I’ve just grown too inured to satisfaction, but Costco seems to now only carry chick lit and cheap Da Vinci Code knock-offs. Nothing wrong with that…but get back to your quality bestsellers. I want to at least pretend I read worthwhile books. If the literature section was lacking, a real DVD bargain sure got my pulse racing again. Eternal Sunshine + Lost in Translation = ONLY $8.99! I may not be much of a clothing shopper, but I certainly can smell out a good DVD or book bargain. Never mind that I already own a Lost in Translation DVD…must make plans to sell some movies I don’t love.

The Costco food court, site of a dozen quick lunches and dinners, was also the chosen place of my brother’s huge tantrum. Despite my reasoning that veggie pizza is cheese pizza because it still contains cheese, my brother screamed and stomped for real cheese pizza. Silly boy, he needs to eat his vegetables.

This has been way longer than I expected, but I guess that compensates for slacking off all of August.

People Watching at Harvard Square

• Two aging hippes reading The Economist. Hippie One wearing bright pink Hawaiian-boho combo shirt. Hippie Two sporting hemp woven sack decorated into some semblance of clothing. Both smelled strongly of a smoked substance--legality undetermined.

• Middle-aged man hunched over ledge with nondescript gray t-shirt and khakis. Eating cinnamon and raisin bagel (identified by distinct smell)--equally gray and drab colored. Nominally boring except for words "Cinderella Man" emblazed across t-shirt. Do not know whether lack of hygiene, heterosexuality or self-esteem beholdened him to wear said shirt.

• Portly Hispanic lady with two-year-old girl in tow. Her short, clingy, and sheer black shirt reveals a large tattoo across lower back: Doggy Style, with a Playboy bunny in between the two words. O_O What will she say when her daughter starts asking about the tattoos?

ri-dic-u-lous

Flip flop tan lines on my feet. Ridiculous.

"I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know...taking pictures of your feet."

Before Sunset

Driving home through Ohio...or Indiana...or New York. Whatever, it's home.

Phantasmagoria of Pop Culture

In honor of my psych class, which is now studying dreams, I present the most bizarre dream I have yet to remember. There’s a theory in psychology that dreams are simply the result of random chemical and electrical firings of your brain. I find this a depressing explanation, but scientific, empirical me leans toward it. (You would too if the alternative was Freud’s psychosexual theory of dream interpretation where every possible object takes on sexual meaning. Methinks Freud was a dirty old man.)

My dreams have always been fragments of stories, stitched together by fade-out transitions and loose connections. This one is no different, and if it gets too weird, just chalk it up to random nerve firings.

I’m reading the newspaper in a brightly lit salon—the kind with open glass walls and an overabundance of sunlight. As I flip through my newspaper, a photo of two preppy young men catches my eye. The headline above the photo reads in big, bold, newsprint letters: “Prince of Monaco to Marry.” My immediate befuddlement at seeing a picture of two men accompanied by a wedding announcement was solved as I glance up to the TV, which is playing the exact same story. The black and white news reel explain that the Prince of Monaco and his fiancé both belong to an ancient Jewish sect, which allows the matrimonial union of two men. Another grainy black and white photo flashes on screen, depicting the Prince and his fiancé exchanging vows with white skullcaps on their heads.

At this moment, I catch a glimpse of the fiancé’s face and realize that he is Asian. In fact, the TV explains, he is actually a Taiwanese émigré who works at Dunkin Donuts. The screen begins to show a color video of the Taiwanese man filling cups of Coffee Coolata on a conveyer belt.
My brow furrows in disbelief that the Prince of Monaco would deign to marry a Dunkin Donuts worker, but the TV continues profiling the strange fiancé. It turns out that the man is actually a nuclear genius forced to drop out of MIT due to lack of funds. Aside from working at Dunkin Donuts, he had also managed to build a superior nuclear defense system—a miraculous accomplishment if consider that this man was living off of his Dunkin Donuts’ income the entire time. On TV, he is showing off his nuclear defense system aboard a speedboat, from which he launches a small rocket while shouting, “George Bush should come talk to me!” The rocket, in truth, was about one foot long and hardly seemed capable of defending against a snowball attack, let alone a nuclear one. The rocket’s amateurish designs and the man’s arrogant attitude convinced me the Prince’s fiancé was a hack playing for the money.

Just as the news program on the Prince’s impending wedding ends, Kate Beckinsdale saunters into the salon. Perhaps mistaking me as an acquaintance, she walks up to me and starts complaining about how this salon had messed up her hair. Despite thinking her hair is fine, I smile politely and wonder why she is in this salon again if they were that bad. Brrrrring brrring. Alarm clock beckons.

Mediocrity or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Slackers

According to my psychology textbook (not a trusted authority but better than the Internet at least). Math scores of American immigrants out of 50:

1st-gen Asians: 50
3rd-gen Asian: 44

1st-gen Latinos: 46
3rd-gen Latinos: 43

1st-gen Blacks: 44
3rd-gen Blacks: 42

So why are we such overachievers again? If you ever feel dumb, just think that you at least will do better in school than your yet unborn grandchildren.

Dr. Strangelove, by the way, is da BOMB.