Thoughts of -e^πi man - Tien Nguyen

 As humans we greatly anticipate new beginnings and blindly ignore how often past new starts have mistreated us (hence why we want new starts).

In video games it’s disappointing to fail/die, but not so much since the reset button is always there. In Mario if you die you’re left with plenty of lives left–and when those are exhausted you can hit a continue button and start all over again.

Life is not so simple though. Our life is one continuous journey where our past in one way or another affects our present/future.  And inevitably our past is filled with countless mistakes and regrets that won’t ever go away, similar to Mario where that damn turtle finds a way to hit you even though you hit that damn jump button before he got to you and throw your controller across the room…so it’s no wonder we’re constantly seeking new beginnings.

We celebrate New Years, birthdays, spring, etc. as new beginnings even though they’re completely arbitrary days that fall in line as they do due to the orbit patterns of the earth.

We celebrate graduations even if it may mean 3 months of seeking employment and failing, we anticipate new relationships even though every single previous one we had fell apart at one point, and we celebrate weddings even though divorce is basically a coin flip away (if you’re married/getting married..I don’t mean yours).

A new job? Let’s celebrate! Even though you’ll probably hate it and be miserable. Kids? Break out the cigars because they make you miserable too (except for your kids).

New football season? Your team probably won’t win the Super Bowl. Bonus points if you’re a Raiders fan.

So the point is, other than trying to depress the shit out of you if you actually take me seriously, is that try to make the most of your nows. You never know what you can do with the cards you’re dealt and a redeal may even get you worse cards. Our brains are wired to look forward to changes in areas of our lives that aren’t perfect. 

But the best things in life are those that last, rather than those that are new to us.

Back in college the panic caused by the deadline of a paper sets off certain neurons in one’s brain that it’s go-time. Distractions are suddenly unwelcome, whereas just 5 minutes prior, IMs and Facebook notifcations were not only accepted, but encouraged tangents.

The luxury of time is only an asset when you’re fighting against it; and the less that remains its value increases exponentially. From a mathematical standpoint it makes sense–percentage wise the first 3 hours of a 24-hour deadline is the equivalent to 7-8 minutes of the final hour.

Without deadlines time is of seeming abundance, it becomes wasted away never to return.

It’s ironic then that as we edge close to our deadline on earth we become much too old to actually enjoy it.

While a deadline for finishing a paper in our younger years meant our senses were heightened, our focus was intensified, and our brains sharpened up; as we head closer to our meeting with St. Peter’s, age makes its appearance with time as our biggest culprits.

All of a sudden instead of the pressures helping bring out the best of us, our mindsets change from what can I do now to maximize my situation, to what could I have done.

As we’re young the regrets we’ve lived through allow us to learn from them, preventing such relapses in the future (ideally)–but one day those regrets will no longer serve as lessons, but permanent, unfixable fixtures.

tl;dr: The moral is then, learn now from your regrets, there’ll be plenty of time one day to dwell on them.

-this previous emo moment has been sponsored by Life; no purchase necessary but refunds are also out of the question

On the local San Diego news they were talking about Ben Roethlissberger’s 6-game suspension for alleged rapes/assaults and as a result the Steelers are shopping him, he mentioned that “some of the names include the 49ers, the Raiders”, while snidely remarking, “no surprise there…”

Actually Mr. newsreporter, it is if you followed sports at all.

To his and others’ credit though, the reputation is not completely unfounded, obviously, but over the past few years other than uh coach Tom Cable, the Raiders could just as easily be confused with the members of Glee (except for Sue Sylvester) for their act off the field…and, perhaps on the field as well.

Their veteran acquisitions over the past two seasons include Jeff Garcia, Greg Ellis, Richard Seymour, Lorenzo Neal, four guys whose names are associated with being professionals, great teammates, and guys who have exhibited nothing but great behavior. Group this along with Bruce Gradkowski, Charlie Frye, and you’d think you were at a volunteer group for homeless people.

In terms of their draft, these have been some of the thugs that they’ve gotten recently:

He’s too busy eating steaks to be causing trouble:

He’s got no hands but a great personality:

He’s white:

Don’t want to be at a bar with this guy!

No:

Notice a pattern yet:

Last one*:

So no one’s ever made a living guessing what Al Davis does, and he’s said he’d rather be right than consistent, but if the recent Raiders are any indication, guys that are bad citizens  or bad teammates…the Terrell Owens, Brandon Marshalls, Chad 85s of the world that are always being linked to the Raiders, are not in old man Davis’ sights at all.

*Of the 4 NFL players in history who’ve been named Napoleon, 3 have played for the Raiders, the only one who hasn’t was Napoleon Barrell who played one season in 1923..back when Al Davis was 82 years old, so Napoleon Dynamite would be a good fit.

A career fair as we just found out is an incredible way to look for hungry, eager students, and as an added bonus to appear superior to these jobless youngsters while communicating to them, “yeah, one day you could be sitting behind this table.”

Having finally had a chance to be on the other side here are some points to be made if you plan on attending a career fair as an ambitious, goal-oriented student looking to start out his/her career in a positive direction:

Do: go up to a table and if you haven’t heard of the company before, confidently ask what they do and what they’re looking for

Don’t: linger around the table for 30 seconds with your head down, looking at the paper work and  giving quick glances to the employers behind the table unsure of who to talk to and what to say

Do: give your potential employer a good firm handshake and introduce yourself, “Hi, I’m Max Power”.

Don’t: go up to someone with sticking out your index finger and thumb as if you’re an alien born with just two fingers

Do: ask relevant questions about what the employer is looking for and specifics of the job they’re looking for

Don’t: ask questions like “is the job chill?”, expect responses like, “nope we’re all lazy and none of us like to work hard, if that’s you you’d fit right in”

Do: ask what sort of coursework/past experience may be relevant to the position at hand

Don’t: ask what sort of GPA they ask for, and when they reply saying it doesn’t really matter, don’t further ask, “what if it’s not that good?”

Do: look your decent in business casual clothing or more,  showing you put forth some sort of effort while appearing at the career fair

Don’t: wear boardshorts, skateboarding gear, flip flops, or talk to a prospective employer with your stunna shades on

More do’s:

-send a good follow-up e-mail, specifically addressing the person/people you talked to, and maybe a random tidbit to make you remember them. Keep in mind they’ve met dozens upon dozens of people that day, so any thing to make you stand out and memorable in any way helps big time

-bonus points to those who research the company beforehand. With a lot of companies attending the fair we were especially impressed by those who went to our website and actually had a clue of what we did, as we don’t expect everyone to know what we do at a career fair involving a boatload of companies

-don’t be afraid to talk to anyone or pester them with lots of questions. All employers attending the job fair are there to look for prospective employees, and want to meet as many hungry, eager students as possible. We will talk to you, and will be able to detect your enthusiasm levels, and answer any question you have.

-be relaxed, you’re as important to the employer as they are to you. You’re meeting/talking to dozens of companies and each company is meeting dozens of potential employees. It’s a mutual/symbiotic affair. We want you/you want us. There’s plenty of fish out there and if you don’t get an e-mail/phone reply don’t take it personally, go on to your next prospective employer and treat it as a numbers game.

Certainly they’re more efficient.

I’m currently still carless, leaving Bike to jump out to a still commanding lead that’ll continue to grow for a while.

In light of my car being on the shop, (yet again), I will use this opportunity to take advantage of my trusty two-wheeled friend, who, unlike the gas-guzzling Explorer, is much lighter, nimbler, and has never let me down.

As a hipster in the making it will be my goal over the next 30 days at least, to log more miles on the bike than I will in my fat four-wheeled beast.

I will have a decent headstart since my friend Rujii (it’s red and is a Fuji) is currently much more accessible at 5 ft away from me right now, while the fatso is a few miles away under the care of Dr. Mechanical House.

Here will be my partners in crime:

Let’s begin then:

It’s appropriate enough that this movie came out during NBA All-Star weekend, as the recipe for this movie was basically to throw in a bunch of good looking people together for fun entertainment, and not necessarily to satisfy the purists.

Below then is how they ranked, females first:

1)

Obvious choice.

2)

I squealed every time she came on, stunning performance by her.
3)

Next few choices were tough.

4)

Sentimental favorite, she’ll be moving down this list in a few years.

5)
6)

How old is she again?

7)

HELL yeah

Cougar representin’

9)

Sorry Julia.

Most importantly then, here are the guys:

1)

Yum.

2)

How original, he plays a super hot doctor in this movie.

3)

Grey’s goes 2 of the top 3, monopolizing the list

4)

HE JUST TURNED 18!!!
5)

He turned 18 a while ago.

6)

Too many pretty boys already in this movie.

7)

Lovable.

Foxxy.

9)

This kid brought it hard. “I don’t usually like girls my own age”.

10)

Not funny or good looking.

Candidate: “Yeah I was a management science major, which is what it sounds like, the science of management.”

Q: “Can you tell about the investment club you’re in?”

C: “Oh I’m not really involved in it much anymore…did you want to know something spceific about it?”

Q: “What made you specifically apply to our position?”

C: “I’m just looking for experience”

Q: “Did you get a chance to look at our website?”

C: “No I haven’t…what do you guys do?”

clicky

And this too.

My cousin who’s just a year older than I am (I’m 26 he 27), and someone I’ve always viewed as a peer is soon getting married and has just bought a house in suburbia California.

On the other side of things I’m enjoying single life, go out every weekend, and am renting a place in an area filled with frat boys and people reliving the college life on a daily basis.

He’s on track at his company to move up the ladder once/twice a year and steadily grow his income, I’m at a startup with friends in which we all quit our jobs for to pursue, something none of us had had any experience in doing so before.

In short, in 5, even 10 years my cousin can pretty knows exactly where he’ll be at in life: at the same house, same job, with the same girl.

For me, other than (hopefully) being at the same job–though our company will likely be drastically different than where it is today–probably living in a different place, with my relationship status up in the air (insert spider joke here) in probably less than a year.

In fact I can hardly predict where I’ll be in 1-2 months, much less the next decade.

And I cannot possibly imagine it any other way.

It scares the heck out of me to have my life planned out to the point that in a year I’ll know where I am, to the point that I really don’t want to buy property of any sort or even sign a year long lease.

I have other friends who I went to high school with who are in Ph.D/MDother graduate programs as well as being engaged, which is just baffling to me, to know that you can point to a calendar sometime in the future, pick out a date, and accurately describe that day for them.

The question is then, at what point does/did life become predictable to you, and is it intended to be intended to be this way? When do you know you’re ready, and do you wish that you had waited further?