originally posted march 10, 2001

and that's the half

So ends the first half of the Spring 2001 semester. Things aren't going too badly so far, all things considered: I'm keeping up in classes, I haven't had to pull any more all-nighters, and I'm keeping busy with other activities as well. Start this update off with a recent anecdote:

but I didn't DO anything!

Today is the first day of our four-day mid-semester break weekend. Some students have gone home, but many others have stayed on campus. Still, the overall atmosphere seems to be "dead," or at least "asleep," particularly at 9:30 AM. I got on the 67A bus out to Monroeville Mall to perform two simple tasks: exchanging my shoulder-type bag for a new one, and spending a $50 gift card at Circuit City. First, I arrive at 10:30 AM, and in a disturbingly quiet mall setting I exchange my bag without incident. For reasons that are completely alien to me, they put my replacement bag in a shopping bag, as both cashier and customer fail to realize that I can simply carry the new item on my shoulder out of the store.

The 67A runs about once an hour on weekdays, so I kill some time wandering around the mall before catching the next bus out. Circuit City is about a half-mile away from the mall, but it's down a divided highway with almost no provision for foot travel. Circuit City, as it turns out, is also relatively empty at 11:15 AM, and so I begin mentally calculating how I can best spend $50. I first wander over to the TV's -- nah, not worth taking $50 off one -- then find my way over to the racks of DVD's and CD's. A few catch my eye. As I start to price some video game cartridges, a friendly sales clerk comes up to me and asks if I'm looking for something. "No," I answer. "Just looking around." Seeing that I have just used a very standard line, I assume that he will stop bothering me and look for a commission elsewhere.

As I round a corner, I notice that the salesman who approached me is now consulting with two of his co-workers. One of them, who is apparently an assistant-manager-type, starts following me. After a couple more aisles of browsing, he asks me to walk with him over to the customer service desk to check my bag with them. Over a fair amount of nervous laughter, he explains that my carrying a bag around small items like that was arousing some suspicion. I comply without putting up a fight -- I want to spend this money, and I don't want to get thrown out. Consider that:

If you've ever seen me in person, I do not like anything even remotely resembling a criminal (maybe a white-collar criminal, but anyway);
The items I were looking at were all encased in very big plastic cases with radio transmitters and dye tags and all sorts of other anti-theft gizmotry;
There are cameras everywhere in that store, so instead of walking near me to make me feel like a criminal, they could just have followed me around on camera to make the stalking less obvious.

Anyway, I wound up buying a Game Boy game and a couple of CD's anyway, I got my shopping bag back without any fuss (and a knowing smile from another customer service clerk) and that was that.

chicks dig uncoordinated pale scrawny guys

he said, she said

On March 10, 2001, Sandy provided a response to my original posting about this whole story. Here it is, reproduced verbatim:

So here I was in the land of CMU, where email rules our lives and meeting decent guys is seemingly impossible. Anyway, one dull afternoon, in the midst of skipping classes, I was going through the misc.market, and read a somewhat interesting email from a guy named Jason Weill. "Oh look, a link to his homepage," said I, and after a click, there I was in his online realm. "Hey, I've seen this guy before..." thought I, and just continued on browsing through without much thought.

Then last weekend, there I was sitting in front of my computer at midnight on a Friday night, being rather bored with the lack of things to do. After persuading an xbf turned friend to come over and check out the DDR scene here in West Wing, off we went to WW 370 to find that DDR was over and was moving to Morewood 3E instead. Oh look, but who do I see there in the suite? Is it not a big plush Pikachu? If you've been to my room, you'd know that I'm somewhat a Pikachu fan, and I simply cannot resist to pick up that cute fuzzy wuzzy being and do all sorts of cute-cuddly-female things to it. Only then, did I found out that the owner of the Pikachu is Jason Weill, the guy whom I was not stalking, but merely have glanced upon his homepage before. Interesting way to meet someone, especially when you introduce yourself as his stalker.

The next morning, just out of curiousity, I did a finger jweill on Andrew, and found all the details I'd need to get hold of him. So, why not? Add to Buddy List, and 3 secondds later, he magically appears on my buddy list. And so I IMmed him, got a response and thus began our conversation. Later in that conversation, we were talking about movies and a frat party and asked whether he'd like to go. Would this be me asking him out on a date? I don't know. I don't think so, but other people seem to have different opinions. But anyways, to the movie we went, and mind you, we met the rest of my friends there, then to the O to get food, and next to the frat party, which I agreed was somewhat lame, but we went anyways because I told a friend who's a pledge there that I'd go. So there we sat and talk and after a while, got bored. So, off we went to Morewood instead to see what happening there and since nothing was, I decided to call it a night and went back to WW and that was that.

I don't understand how "things got more abstract from there". I just saw it as 2 people being friends. The stalking thing was just a joke, an inside joke that involves CS freshmens girls and other upperclassmens.

However, 2 days ago, I got a message from Jason saying that a female friend of his, whom he greatly emphasized, is not his girlfriend, was angry because of the "Sandra is God" comment that he had on his homepage. WTF? Sorry, but that was just a joke, and Jason is a friend, and I don't know, if it makes things better, then maybe Jason should take it off. I don't know.

Anyway, the point is ... I don't know what the point is, I'm just stating my side of the story. It's only fair, right? And yes, Jason, maybe you should find better venues than J-Pop dancing games in which to meet women.

I have recently been introduced to the wonders of Dance Dance Revolution, a PlayStation game from Japan where the object is to step on a directional pad in time to cheesy J-Pop music. It's a lot of fun, and the closest I get to actual exercise on campus. It also provides a unique opportunity to meet people.

Last week, when I was playing in a nearby suite, I decided to bring my large plush Pikachu just to use as a conversation piece. Of course, it got lots of "awww" reactions from the women present, and very surprised/disgusted reactions from the guys. That said, I futzed around on the pads in my usual uncoordinated style for a few hours, and around 1:05 AM we were all politely asked to leave. (Someone in the suite wanted to sleep. Go figure.)

Then they walked in.

He was just Some Guy, who didn't really say much. She was Sandy Gani, a first-year computer science major from Malaysia, who by some matter of circumstance is about a month older than I am. She quickly grabbed the Pikachu and stuffed it under her sweater, refusing to give it back. Fortunately, the guy she arrived with was helpful in getting it out and returning it to me. Sandy recognized me, although I didn't know who she was at all, and attributed it to "stalking." Apparently she already knew my AIM screen name, phone number, and where I live. Anyone who knows the finger command could find this out too, so this didn't shock me; what did shock me was the fact that she actually cared enough to look all of this up.

Next day: I get a message from some unknown screen name, and immediately decide that it's from some woman I had met last night while playing DDR. Sure enough, it's Sandy, and into the buddy list she goes. She is quite aggressive in her socialization: within a relatively short time, I learn that the guy who accompanied her to West Wing 370 was her ex-boyfriend (my emphasis) and that she was wondering if I wanted to go to the movie that night, "The Emperor's New Groove," on campus. I do, we go, I pay, we eat, we go to lame frat party, we talk, we go back to West Wing (she lives downstairs from me), we wave bye-bye, end of "date."

Things get more abstract from there: we talk about all sorts of matters, but just as friends. She answers more relationship-intensive questions, like "Why are you 'stalking' me?" with simple emoticons. I don't know what to make of it. Other people are equally confused, or angry, or jealous. Is Sandy a girlfriend? A friend? Just someone to hang out with? What? The relationship isn't physical at all, nor too deeply emotional. The closest it gets to physical is me trying to wrest my plush Pikachu away from Sandy, and she sometimes cooperates. I really don't understand women.

Maybe I should find better venues than J-Pop dancing games in which to meet women.

class-by-class

At the half, things aren't looking to bad.

15-213, Introduction to Computer Systems. The material is getting very intense, and I have still not yet found a partner for the most recent assignment. I will spend a good-sized chunk of this mid-semester "break" trying to figure out how to program something resembling a garbage collector by Tuesday. Still, I did pretty well on the midterm, a good thing since there is currently no grade-scaling whatsoever going on in this class. Outlook: Good.

21-125, Maple Lab. Still very doable, and light on the schedule. The TA is most helpful, although I now know not to use Windows 2000's Explorer drag-and-drop to turn in assignments. Outlook: Good.

33-224, Stars, Galaxies and the Universe. Uh oh. I had heard bad things about this course before, and they all seem to be coming true. The homework assignments have been getting easier, the lab assignments are still trivially easy, but the midterm just rocked me. Hopefully, the rest of the class did just as lousy as I did. Outlook: Uncertain.

80-242, Conflict and Dispute Resolution. A nice discussion-based class, although the material is sometimes pretty dry. It looks like early returns show me on target for a B in this course, but an A is possible. The correlation between in-class discussion and the recent midterm was pretty spotty, with a few of the questions being straight textbook definitions. Outlook: Neutral.

82-272, Intermediate Japanese II. Still as time-consuming as ever, with the added pressure of a final presentation instead of a final exam. Success on this course looks to be dependent largely on how much time I can invest every day. It can't be secondary to other courses, but sometimes lines have to be drawn. Outlook: Good.

82-273, Introduction to Japanese Language and Culture. The sheer volume of discussion, which revolves around a small subset of the class, has caused us to fall behind schedule. Fortunately, the professor realized this before it was too late, and adjusted the schedule accordingly. Here, we will also need to do a final presentation and paper instead of an exam, but I will have to do some data gathering as well. That ought to make things more tedious, although at the same time more informative. Outlook: Good.

As we play on this crazy game called living...

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