San Francisco II

As promised, I got my photos from my 35mm developed. Surprisingly, I put them in the shop the very next day. I usually sit on them for like 3 months and then pay extra for rush developing. Here are a few that I liked (as you can tell, I put a lot of thought into the titles):



Crash



Driftwood & Footprints



Flood




Log & Surf

San Francisco I

Today was a beautiful day. After meeting my former roommates for brunch, I hopped on my bike and rode to Baker Beach. Despite the many times that I've been to Baker Beach since arriving in San Francisco, I have never taken my camera with me. I took both cameras with me today: the 35mm and the digital. Below are a few pictures taken with my digital camera. I quickly realized that digital cameras, well at least my digital camera, aren't very useful in very sunny conditions. Given the lack of a viewfinder on my model, it's almost impossible to see what you're about to shoot when intense sunlight is bouncing off of the display screen. Therefore, most of my shots from today were taken with my 35mm, which I'll try to get developed later this week. One upside to the digital, however, is that I can turn color pictures into black & white, which is what I've done here:



Golden Gate Bridge I B&W-- this is the very first picture of the GG Bridge that I've ever taken.




Golden Gate Bridge II B&W




Sea Foam B&W




Man and Kite B&W

Chicago

I love taking photos of nature. Now that I have a digital camera, I'm going to start posting some of my favorites that I take from now on. To kick things off, here are a couple that I took in Chicago late last year.




Autumn in Chicago




Caution: Geese X-ing




Lonely Tree with Airplane (although you can't really see the airplane in this post)

Just Sitting Back and Waiting for the Decision Letters

Whew! All done. Over a month later, I've finally finished with the whole grad school application process. This process was a lot more arduous than I was expecting. I knew that it was going to take a while, but it was making sure that all of the little pieces were in place that proved to be most challenging. I suppose, however, that applying to eight(!) separate schools didn't really help matters. As if I didn't already have enough to worry wbout, for Georgetown, I even had to convince some generous native German speaker to fill out a form attesting to my language ability as part of the application process. What's the point of that? Do they honestly expect you to think that they aren't just going to re-test you once you get to campus? And if you don't already speak a language, it's a university. You can just learn it when you get there. That is the purpose of the university, isn't it? To teach you stuff. If I'm supposed to already know everything before I get there, why am I paying you 40 grand a year?

Now that my applications are all in, I don't really know what to do with myself. Before there was always some preparation that needed to be done. There was always a form to fill out, an essay to revise, or statistics homework to do, but that's all done now. So after work, I find myself with all of this free time on my hands. Part of me says that I should use that time to take on noble and enriching endeavors such as volunteer work or French classes or visiting museums or staying a little later at work to get ahead. However, that's only part of me. A very small part. The other, and more influential, part of me says that my free time would best be spent out drinking and partying with my friends. I, of course, chose the latter of the two options.

Afterall, I'm only human.

Graduate School

What's the deal with applying to grad school? Why is it such a pain in the ass? Why do I need to send you a check for 75 bucks just for the honor of you rejecting my application? It's all a big conspiracy as far as I'm concerned, and the conspiracy is global.

Today marks my entry into the grad school race. While I've been in preparation for at least the last 6 months (or maybe even 4 years, depending on how you look at it), the first recommendation on my behalf was sent in this morning. It's official. I'm a certified candidate for graduate school. There's no turning back now.

In all honesty, my undergraduate performance was rather underwhelming. I was comfortably positioned smack dab in the middle of most of my classes, about equidistant from the top performers and the underachievers. While there are definitely worse positions to be in, unfettered academic mediocrity is not exactly the quality most sought after by university admissions counselors. As a result, I'm trying to de-emphasize the academic stuff (it was over 5 years ago afterall) and talk up all of the cool stuff I've done since graduation. I don't know if that's actually a winning stategy, but let's face, it's the best I got.

So after spending a great deal of time (and money) visiting schools, attending grad school fairs, taking classes, and sucking up to professors via email, I'm just now at the point that I'm actually filling out the applications. It's been a long process, but hopefully in the end it'll pay off. If not, I'm really going to have to cut somebody.

Assuming that some school out there wants me, I still have to figure out how I'm going to pay for it. It seems that after all of the crap you have to go through to get in the door, the least they could do is pick up the tab.

But, alas, this is America. The only person you can expect to pick up the tab for anything is you.

In the same vein as the mid-life crisis, we 20-somethings out there have come to realize our own quarter-life crises. While the quarter-life crisis is arguably not as cool as it's mid-life cousin because we generally don't get a brand new convertible out of the deal, it's no less angst-inducing.

We've all seen our friends from high school and college going on to start great things and venture down exciting new paths only to realize that we don't know what the hell we're doing ourselves. Are my comrades from school starting to leave me behind? Am I beginning to languish in this dead- end, yet surprisingly comfortable, job? Why do I feel like I'm the only one that doesn't have his life together? Nobody really knows, but let's talk about it, shall we?