A Great Update!

I received a few emails this week. I have been accepted to the masters in electrical engineering program at Long Beach.

First, I got an email saying "Thank you for choosing 'The Beach'" which contained instructions on how to register for classes. Next, I looked online and it seemed I had already accepted the offer of admission I was never offered and was listed as a masters student. Then, I got another email today with an official acceptance letter.

My professor came through. He got my application reconsidered and had me admitted. He must have been pleased with my performance in the class I took from him in the fall and the one I finished last month (despite my disaster of a presentation).

This is exciting! I feel like I am on track to do something great.

I remember how horrible I felt two years ago. I felt I was wasting my life. I can remember sitting in a park in San Francisco with my Associate two years ago, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life. After talking with him and thinking about the life I wanted, I knew I had to make some changes.

A month later I started taking a control systems class at UCI during the summer. I was still unsure if I wanted to do electrical or mechanical engineering. However, my jovial professor and the ways I saw electricity interact with motors convinced me electrical engineering was were it was at. Then I decided to take more electrical engineering classes at Long Beach. My plan was to continue to investigate electrical engineering and Long Beach as a school while raising my GPA for graduate school. After two semesters and five classes, my GPA was above their minimum. However, by the time I got my grades in May they had closed applications for the fall. Disappointed, I planned to apply for the spring semester. I took one class in the fall, with the intention of getting to know the professor who was the graduate adviser for the program, who I wanted to impress. While I got off to a slow start, I finished the class strong. Then, I discovered they were not accepting applications for the spring semester. None of the Cal States were, citing budget cuts. So I took one more class in the spring. However, the class was only one day a week. Most of the time I forgot about it the other six days. I did not put the time and effort into the homework, midterm, or final project that I should have.

Now I am happy. The work I have been doing the past two years was to get into graduate school. Now I am in.

I want to start things anew. I expect it will take two years for me to finish a masters degree and I want to be the kind of student I never was. I want to do very well in all of my classes, I want to be aggressive about getting to know professors, and I want to get to know some of the people in my classes. I want to avoid all the mistakes I made before. I am already on track to do all of this.

I have ideas about how I want to remake my life, and it looks like they are within reach.

Hiro Protagonist in Snow Crash

On Wednesday I finished the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. It was great.

The story of why I read this book starts in April. I was going to Fresno for Juliette's wedding. I was carpooling with Justin, who was driving up from San Diego. I do not know Justin very well, his first semester at Berkeley was my last. However, we know a lot of the same people (53 mutual friends according to facebook) and were involved in similar activities. He explained the book and I was interested in reading it.

The main character, aptly named Hiro Protagonist, is a hacker and a great swordsman. His business card from the book is below. His dad was in the army when he was growing up (like me) and he graduated from Berkeley (like me). He mentioned meeting another character in his freshman physics lab section.



I enjoyed the universe Stephenson created. It had a slight dystopian feel. Everything is owned by a franchise of a massive corporation. Some things that are easy for us to imagine today would have been more fanciful when the book was published in 1992. For example, in the book there is a metaverse. It is a vast virtual reality world where people around the world can connect and interact with each other.

I don't want to give away too much of the story. Our hacker and swordfigher Hiro has to save the day. Some hackers are being infected by a virus and people are trying to figure out what it is. The investigation brings in Sumerian mythology, ideas about information, and even some glossolalia (speaking in tongues).

A lot of the book takes place in Southern California, so there are references to freeways around Los Angeles. However, the references were not imbued with a personal experience of living here. For example, the indefinite article the was left off when referring to "the 405." If the "the" is not there, it is wrong.

If you like science fiction, you should check out Snow Crash. If you like the world Stephenson creates in the first few pages, you should enjoy the book.

Everything falls apart?

On Friday I got an email. I was rejected from the masters in electrical engineering program at Long Beach.

I had not applied to any other schools because I thought I had the best chance of getting into Long Beach. I also had a ridiculously busy April. I have taken 7 classes at Long Beach in the last 2 years with a 3.4 GPA. I figured, if they do not want me what other school would. Immediately I looked online and called another school to confirm they are still accepting applications for their electrical engineering program. I then ordered all of my transcripts to be sent there. I started working on the application. Since it is a Cal State, the application is the same. The only change I need to make is removing the Long Beach specific references from my personal statement.

I am still shocked by their decision. I could site a half dozen reasons why they are wrong. They include the classes I got better grades in than students that were admitted to the program, my undergraduate school being a lot better than anyone else's (Berkeley > USC or any Cal State), my volunteer work experience (anyone else a lead test engineer?), my GRE scores (790 in math anyone?), the recommendations of the Long Beach professors I listed they probably did not talk to (one of the best students in class), my dedication to Long Beach (taking classes there for two years), or my friend who is in the program saying "I am 100% sure you are going to get in, you are better than me."

My biggest disappointment about not getting in is the friends I have made at Long Beach. I met a lot of great people at the Catholic Newman group and was looking forward to doing stuff with them this year.

I emailed my professor earlier today. He said he is trying to get my application reconsidered and get me admitted.

Now for something happier. Yesterday my neighbor told me I should apply to an internship at her company. She said they interviewed a lot of people, but none of them were qualified. I sent her my resume yesterday and today someone from their HR department called me to set up an interview tomorrow. I do not know too much about the internship, just that it is in Irvine and the company does a lot of optics related stuff. I will avoid telling them my worst and most despised area in physics was optics. A big reason I did not like optics was because I was bad at it. I have kept all of my physics textbooks (including a class I dropped after two weeks) except for my optics book. However, my experience with a CO2 laser is pretty good stuff for the opportunity.

Last week and s'mores cookies

I have not had a lot to do for the last several days. This has been great.

On Tuesday I fixed a friend's computer. It was running slow, so I disabled a lot of processes that loaded at startup. Then I went home to finish baking some s'mores cookies. I am not sure where I originally found the recipe online, but it is the same as the recipe from Ice Cream Before Dinner. With 11 tablespoons of butter this is a sure winner.

S'mores Cookies

11 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temp
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 cup mini marshmallows
4 Hershey bars, broken into pieces
1 package graham crackers, broken into squares

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.
2. In another bowl, cream butter with both sugars until light and fluffy.
3. Add egg and vanilla. Then add the flour mixture. Keep mixing.
4. Fold in chips and marshmallows. Chill dough in refrigerator for 1 hour (or even overnight).
5. Preheat oven to 375 F.
6. Line baking pans with parchment paper. Lay out graham crackers side by side on the pans as close as possible (they should be touching).
7. Place a heaping tablespoon of chilled dough on each of the graham crackers. Press down slightly with fingertips.
8. Bake for 5 minutes then remove from oven and put a piece of Hershey bar on top of each of them.
9. Bake for 5 – 7 more minutes or until dough is beginning to turn golden brown at the edges. Cool on a wire rack.

The way I did the cookies was to break the graham crackers in half (so they were almost squares). I then put a scoop of dough on top of each of these squares. When they were finished, each graham square had a cookie and chocolate on top, which was my original image when I heard s'mores cookies. However, looking at the pictures and recipes online, the way they are usually made is to get the dough to evenly bake over all the crackers and then cut them up so they are more like bars instead of cookies.

I made 46 cookies with this recipe. A box of graham crackers usually has 54 pieces when the rectangular ones are broken in half.

While I like baking cookies and giving them to people, I was inspired to share them at a Beach Newman event because of the following exchange on facebook a few weeks ago. Instead of paraphrasing, I will share the entire conversation. The sister below is a lot like Juliette from Berkeley.

Friend (status update): My sister is actually an alien being with magical powers from the planet Soggisandwichonia and she plans on devouring every cookie in our house as soon as I bake some. Her mind powers compel me. I must leave now. Farewell, Earthlings.
Friend: Hacked
Friend's sister: No, she wasn't.
Me: She is an adult; she can bake her own cookies. Also, anyone from Soggisandwichonia should be eating sandwiches.
Friend's sister: But the sandwiches there are all soggy, I want COOKIES!!! And aliens never reach adulthood; that's why we always rely on Earthlings to do our bidding. Do you bake cookies?
Me: Soggy sandwiches? How did civilization ever develop on that planet? I do bake cookies. Growing up, the Cookie Monster was one of my heroes. I often make chocolate chip oatmeal ones, but recently I made some smores cookies that were wonderful. I should bring some to one of the Beach Newman events.
Friend's sister: It's a very moist climate, and yes, you should! S'more cookies?!:)

So I decided to bring cookies to our meeting on Tuesday. While I knew my friend would be there, I did not know her sister would be there as well. I have not seen her since January.

Since I did not have anything pressing to do on Wednesday, I cleaned my room. I found some paperwork I was looking for, threw some stuff out, and did some laundry. It has been a while since I saw this much carpet in my room.

My Cousin's Ordination

A few weeks ago I was in Cleveland for my cousin's ordination. (To be technical, he is my second cousin. However, my mom is an only child so I do not have any first cousins on her side. That means all of my second cousins are not actually second to anyone.)



Tuesday night (the 14th) was the final for my non-linear control systems class. However, my class was not finished. I still had a written report due on Saturday. I had to do well on the report, because the presentation I gave the week before was a complete disaster. So after I got home from the final around 10:30, I had to install MATLAB on my laptop and collect all the files and papers I needed. Then I had to pack for a six day trip. I got around an hour and a half of sleep before leaving for a 6:30 flight out of LAX.

When we got to Cleveland, we visited my dad's cousin and his family. They live around 20 miles west of the city. Then my grandparents drove in (they live about 3 hours away) and visited with us until the next morning. That was all my dad's family.

Later on Thursday we had dinner with my mom's cousin, whose son was being being ordained. I enjoyed the special of wild boar at the Blue Canyon Restaurant.

On Friday more family stated rolling in. There were people from Georgia, Wisconsin, New York, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. I saw a few of these people last year because a few of them had a small reunion in New York (which happened to be the same weekend I was there). Otherwise, the last time I saw all of them was at Annie's wedding in Detroit in 2011. All 28 of us had dinner at the family's house. That night I got less than two hours of sleep, since I was having trouble with the graphs for my project.

The ordination was on Saturday morning. Complicating things was the Cleveland 5k which was being run that morning that we had to pass through. Five people were being ordained priests for the diocese. The front half of the church had assigned seating and required tickets. I was in row ten with some assorted cousins.



There were over 100 priests there. I put a big collection of pictures on Facebook. The main points of the ordination were promising obedience to the bishop and laying of hands on the ordained.



After the ordination, the family had a reception at The Harp Restaurant. I enjoyed a crab cake burger. One of my cousins had a vegetarian boxty with bacon added.

Then we went back to the hotel. I finished and submitted the report for my electrical engineering project. I think there was divine intervention to help me get the graphs correct. After watching the Preakness Stakes on TV, we headed off to the reception. It was in a church hall; the nicest church hall I have ever been in. The reception was a lot like a wedding reception, except there was no bride.

I decided I should take pictures will all of my cousins. I have no idea when I will see them again. So my project at the reception and the following day was to get pictures with all dozen of them.

On Sunday there was a brunch at the family's house. They had a great breakfast casserole, waffles with real strawberries, bagels, and other good things. More family drove in just for the brunch.

That afternoon was Fr. Ryan's first mass. He gave a great homily for Pentecost. Fr. Ryan talked about how everyone must respond to the call of the Holy Spirit. He made some good jokes and managed to pick on his little sister. I had a good seat for the first mass. The two people in front of my are Fr. Ryan's parents.



The church was packed with people. He did a lot of work with the teens in the parish and they were excited to be there for his mass. I am glad he did a good job saying mass. It would be embarrassing if I was related to a mass murderer. Below is the bulletin and program for his first mass.



Afterwards the parish had a reception for him. There were a lot of people at the reception, around 400. They had a great spread of food. There were beef sandwiches, pulled pork sandwiches, cake, cookies baked by parishioners, and a lot of good stuff I cannot remember. This is us with Fr. Ryan and his immediate family.



The entire weekend had more events than a wedding. I also got some nice swag. The rosaries were made by people at Fr. Ryan's parish. Fr. Ryan wrote a litany just for his family and friends.



On Monday most people went home. However, we stayed an extra day and got to spend some more time with our relatives who lived there.

Differences in Church
From the way people acted and things looked, it seems people take church more seriously there. The reception after the first mass was bigger than anything I would expect at a parish in California. Also, it was filled with people. In California, when there was a goodbye reception for a deacon or a celebration for a priest's anniversary of ordination, there were only a handful of people at that celebration in California. There is also the facilities themselves. The parish hall for the Saturday reception blew away any church hall I have seen in California. The church for the first mass was newer and had a bigger office and meeting space (or at least a vastly superior layout) than what I am used to here. At the sign of peace, everyone shakes hands. Whereas in California, people who know each other hug.

More Sadness
Everything above is how I want to remember it and tell everyone. There were a lot of difficult things on the trip. We almost missed our flight out of LAX because other people in my family were not ready. I learned how pathetic my dad and brother really are. Some days they spent more time napping during the day than I got in sleep the night before. My brother can't even take my grandma to breakfast with him in the hotel lobby. My dad cares more about looking at his computer than getting things ready so we can be on time to where we go. I was close to making a huge scene at the reception and yelling at them how they are all failures. Instead, I decided I was not going to let them ruin my evening. Then I got the idea of getting a picture with all of my cousins. Also, my grandma's memory loss is getting bad. She did not remember my dad's parents. She has known them for 40 years.

On a happier note, here is my with my cousin Fr. Ryan.

My horrible situation

I need to make a big change in my life. Living at home is creating too much anger and stress inside of me.

I was explaining my situation to a couple of friends last night. They were surprised at how horrible my life situation is. It is worse than anything they have ever dealt with. I would recount examples, but that will only make me feel worse.

I have had enough of this bunch of losers. My parents have had 31 years to teach my brother to be an adult. They have failed. My parents have no plan for my grandma. I made a simple suggestion to them months ago and they have not done anything.

I never signed up to be a babysitter for my brother or grandma. However, here I am watching over them while my parents are in Las Vegas and I have a final and written report due on Tuesday. I am not going to spend the next few years of my life doing the work they have chosen to not do. I will help take care of my grandma, but I am not going to do my part and the rest of my family's part. I do not want to be selfish. However, I should not waste my time helping people who are not willing to work themselves.

I do not have enough time in my life for people who waste their lives. I am trying to get my life on track. I am trying to get into graduate school, I am trying to make new friends, I am trying to learn skills that will help me get a career track job, I am trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, I am trying to get a girlfriend, I am trying to improve my health with exercise and by eating better, I am trying to make the most of my life before I die.

My parents are giving me a place to stay and money to do things. The price for this is dealing with a dad who has abdicated his responsibilities as father and head of household, caring for a mom who is physically disabled who no one seems to listen to, dealing with a brother who thinks the family exists to serve him and does not understand how to effectively help around the house, and a 94 year old grandma who cannot remember a conservation from 3 minutes earlier and holds my mom or me personally responsible for the condition of the house that my dad and brother do not clean.

The food my dad makes is unhealthy. If I keep eating it I will end up obese, looking terrible, and have health complications, just like him. I am already two thirds of the way there. In the last six months I have gained ten pounds. I look fat in a lot of my shirts.

Is this money worth the effect on my happiness and health? No.

The day I can move out and be reasonably sure I can support myself financially will be one of the happiest days of my life.

When I was a child, my parents were great. I am afraid if I spend much more time around them their failures over the last few years will destroy all the good impressions I have of them from when I was younger. As it is, I am embarrassed to bring any of my friends to their house. The last time someone was visiting we were out of toilet paper. The glasses in the kitchen look dirty even after they come out of the dishwasher. Many of the chairs in the kitchen are broken. The kitchen sink leaks water. The front door latch is broken. Things are cleaned infrequently if ever.

I do not want to do anything with my dad and brother. I actively avoid going to mass with them. I dislike spending holidays with them. Trips with them are infuriating for me. I do not want to share my life with them, probably because I want nothing to do with their lives. I don't like the choices they are making in their lives. I don't like how my dad is dealing with (or ignoring) the problems around him. I don't like how he handles his relationships with friends, family, and neighbors. I don't like my brother's complete lack of critical thinking. I don't like the excuses he makes. I don't like their laziness or habitual tardiness. I don't like the low goals they set for themselves. What they do with their lives is their business, but I do not have to be with them.

It is hard to get certain images out of my mind. Like the time my 90+ year old grandma who was a guest in our house was doing laundry. My dad and brother just sat there in the room next to her. They did not try to help fold the laundry. When my grandma needed help, she walked down the hall to ask me, not my dad or brother who were right there. This shows how little confidence she has in them to help her. There are some times my mom needs help in the other room. Instead of calling her husband (who is sitting on his ass staring at the computer or taking a nap), she calls me to help her.

I want to leave because my dad and brother are failing to take responsibility for taking care of my mom, grandma, and their house. A lot of this work has to be done by me or not at all. However, if I leave it will be my mom and grandma who will suffer.

After all of this, what are my choices?

• Move out ASAP with the money I have saved and figure out a job after that.
• Pick a date (maybe August 1st) to move out and plan some things out before then.
• Spend as little time as possible at home. Be at the library, school, coffee shops, or my volunteer job whenever possible.
• Write my dad a letter saying I am disappointing with him and suggest he make some life changes.
• Stay as long as my grandma is staying with us so at least one person will be there for her.
• Do nothing and have a horrible life.

The best choice seems a combination of 2, 3, and 4. I do not want to abandon my mom and grandma.

What do you think I should do? If you have any ideas let me know. Since I am in the middle of this situation it is hard to evaluate things objectively.

Some people are happy

There are a lot of frustrating things around me. Almost all of them have to do with the failures of my family. There is also the presentation and project I have due on Tuesday for my electrical engineering class. My room is a mess, but better than it was a few hours ago. However, I have explained the frustrating things too much. In emails and over Skype, I have spent more than enough time on them.

There are some good things that need to be covered.

I like how I am getting involved with the Beach Newman club. Last week I went to a joint birthday party for two people in the club. The mother of one of the birthday girls made some great comments. She related how her daughter was in a lot of pain for many years because of an illness. She had a surgery a year and a half ago, and now every day without pain is a blessing for them. They were not even sure she would live this long. Aside from a masquerade theme, there was dancing and playing billiards. I am seeing all the signs of being good friends with these people, and it is exciting.

Last week I saw Andrew. Being the kid that he is, he wants to start a Nerf league. People (adults) will get together and shoot their Nerf guns at each other. We ate at the Lake Forrest location of Slater's 50/50. While I have talked about it before, I will reiterate it is magical place.

Continuing the theme of people I know from political activities, I later saw James. We met at Pop's Cafe. I found it online searching for good breakfast places. However, looking at the pictures, I remembered going there once in high school. It was after doing some stage crew work for a senior musical. It was some kind of work during school hours so we missed class, which was unusual. Back to James; he had some interesting news. Last time I saw him the big news was his admittance to Harvard Law School. This time the shocking news is he has a girlfriend and she is white. In college it was a well know and heavily documented fact he almost exclusively liked Asian girls. However, don't go posting about this on facebook. He is keeping it on the down low because the relationship is against company policy.

Earlier this week the Beach Newman club had elections for officers for next year. It was a whimsical event. They modeled everything after the conclave that elected the last pope. Afterwards, everyone in the club was still friends. No one will be leaving because of resentment over the results, which is a welcome departure from the last club I was in. I was elected the prayer coordinator for the group. The exciting thing is the other people on the board I will be working with. They are all awesome people. After the meeting, we went to 2nd Street in Long Beach to celebrate our new president's 21st birthday.