INeedAttention.com

Ally and I went to Fiesta Garibaldi near the Palisades Center tonight. It was a lovely dinner, although the food left a little bit to be desired. We ordered chicken quesadillas (they brought us quesadillas made with some kind of pork instead, but it was alright anyway), enchiladas, and chimichangas. Basically, we got three variations of the meat-in-tortilla-with-other-stuff meal. It was very filling. They brought us out a desert made of tortilla chips, chocolate, and whipped cream, and that was probably the best part.

So today was my last day of class. I got some contact infos from some of the cool kids, just in case. “Just in case,” what does that mean? I am strongly, strongly entertaining the possibility of not going back to RPI. I would like to elaborate on this in today’s entry. There have been many instances in which I’ve talked about how much I love RPI. I suppose that I was confusing love with infatuation in alot of respects. I cannot forget how horribly miserable my first year was (nor can I forget how miserable it must have been for some of the people that lived in close proximity of me *cough*Stevenson*cough*). RPI has that effect on people, I suppose. It’s very discouraging. Part of what is most discouraging about it is the incredibly awkward social scene. People have a tendency to simply ignore each other, and I don’t find that this happens in alot of other places. People don’t take of themselves, either. It’s acceptable to skip showers for multiple consecutive days — for both sexes. Some people would say that skipping showers is ‘a guy thing’ and that it’s moderately socially acceptable because guys are ‘dirty’ anyway. I think that skipping out on showers is atrocious, period. That’s why it’s disgusting to see RPI girls neglect themselves just as bad as the worst of the males. I recall an instance in which Professor Reid made a very interesting statement: “Are the girls at Florida State prettier than the girls at RPI? You bet!” Of course his intention was not to be insulting, but rather to be thought provoking in a humorous way. He added, “Girls at Florida State spend plenty of time to look pretty. I don’t really see girls at RPI taking that same kind of time, they’re just as busy as the guys.” It’s true, but it also raises an important question: what the hell are people spending all their time on? RPI is rated lower than plenty of schools in terms of it’s academic quality, yet recieves the 2nd highest rating for “Students Never Stop Studying” according to the Princeton Review.

Are people just stressed out in general? Why do people seem so unhappy? I don’t know the answers to either of those questions. I used to speculate that people at RPI were more introverted than average, but when I was allowed to look at aggregated MBTI scores, it turns out there was a 50/50 split between extroverted and introverted personalities (with the caveat that the MBTI is not an analysis of a person’s ability to be ‘outgoing’). Frankly, I just don’t understand how the people at RPI can be so freaking lame.

Wait, actually, I think I might be able to understand. Think about RPI like this: have you ever seen Elimidate? If you haven’t it’s a reality TV show, and each episode follows a group of five random people along on a date. There will be one person who ‘chooses’ and four people ‘competing’ for the central person. It’s fantastically amusing, because the producers go through elaborate steps to ensure a high degree of drama on every show. Say there is a girl as the central figure in the show — the four guys usually will be the dumbest, horniest muscleheads imaginable, and they will all fanatically compete to ‘win’ the girl. Similarly, if there is one guy on a date with four girls, the four girls will usually be total bombshells, with the most unrealistically catty attitudes possible. They too will compete to win the date. One night I was watching the show and I made a joke that this show got the ratings it did because the competition was hysterical. Now, take that idea and translate it to an RPI frat party. It’s Elimidate — constantly. There are four guys to every girl, and people really do ‘compete’ to ‘win’ the girls. As one would imagine, this is horrible for persons of both genders. Guys constantly feel like they have something to prove, and believe it or not, most of the girls don’t feel like they’re trying to be ‘won’ on a daily basis. This creates intense sexual tension. This tension then spills over into virtually any school-related function. When one sits in class, they had better be completely aware of how they act so as not to appear anything but cool and tough. Then when the class ends, and they walk around on campus, they had better not say anything stupid around a girl, because to say something stupid would not be cool and tough — so they just don’t say anything. Then on the bus ride back to class, they stare out the window. Then when they get home, they stay home and wish for something more. But you know what? It seems like everyone at RPI wants someone else to do something about their lonliness. Forget that — I’m outgoing enough to want to change something like that, but people that are too lame to acknowledge other people around them can go fark themselves. It’s good that kids at RPI aren’t having sex, because it might mean that there would be more lame-o’s around.

I’m out of there as soon as possible. I won’t be able to get in anywhere for the fall semester, and I will probably be set back a semester. But you know what? I’d rather have to do an extra semester than be miserable and live with a bunch of fags — frat loving, Elimidating, introverted fags.

This is one of those ‘speed trailers’ that tell you how fast you’re going as you drive by. In 11th grade, as a project for AP statistics, I wrote an article about these devices — and as one might imagine, I found that the average speed of drivers was not significantly lowered. In fact, however, the proportion of persons ‘racing’ the sign was high enough that it assuredly outweighed any potential safety benefits. Most drivers slowed down to a speed that was reasonable — few drivers actually came down under the speed limit. The 85th percentile speed on the roads in Clarkstown is definitely not 30 miles per hour (and this is the speed at which the speed limits should be set, in theory). Thus, what we have is a conflict of interests — some drivers slow down significantly, and others speed up to spite the sign. What do you think would happen if one of the speed demons came around a bend only to find a driver going much slower than is reasonable? So, that’s basically why I think these speed trailers are not such a good idea. Good intentions pave the road to hell, which, in fact, does not have speed trailers on it, making the road to hell safer than this road.