Self-Indulgence

As part of my application for the Summer for Undergraduates Program at FSU I had to send in a Personal Statement. After some thinking, I decided to post that Personal Statement here.

If I can ever get it uploaded.

Ah, here it is: Personal Statement. The link will open another window where you will have to click the Download File box and then wait for the actual link to the file to load. Free file hosting. Yeah.

My Summer Plans?

This being the first post in a while, I figured I'd try to bring y'all up to speed with the main enigma that I'm facing right now: what am I going to do with my summer?

Many of you probably remember my excitement in January of being accepted into an internship with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service for the entire summer. Even cooler than the acceptance was the fact that they would be sponsoring me - paying for my room and board, my textbooks and other school stuff, my transportation to the internship site from my housing, my transportation to Washington, DC, and a weekly stipend for miscellaneous stuff. You bet I was excited!! That internship was my entire plan for the summer, nicely packaged and conveniently affordable.

Unfortunately, the internship really will not do very much to enhance my opportunities with law. I would be working within the Training and Development Department of USCIS, hardly a position meant to enhance law school-ish opportunities. After a long talk with my dad (aka Wise Man) I decided that I should seek out other options for the summer that would lead me closer to law school or music.

Yes, music. I have realized that my odd ability to sing very high (like a woman) can actually earn me some major bucks down the road if I choose to capitalize on it. Countertenors are paid very highly to perform in early operas. Who knew? So I've been looking for programs this summer that can emphasize either of those two career paths.

And this is what I have so far.


I've been "accepted" into the Crittenden Opera Studio for this summer, a 2-week long workshop for opera performance held in Washington, DC. One of the voice faculty at BYU swears by this program, and I figured if I ever was serious about countertenor I would probably need to know a bit about opera performance. Accepted is a bit of a stretch...the same voice professor managed to get an acceptance email from Mr. Crittenden so that I could apply for a grant to help pay for the workshop, even though applications aren't even accepted until May (hehe). The workshop will take place during the middle of July.

I've also applied for an undergraduate law program at Florida State University, called the Summer for Undergraduates Program. This is a 4-week long program that teaches about the American legal system, teaches writing courses, explores careers in law, etc. Only 60 students are accepted each summer, and I have applied with great faith and hope (charity and love can enter the picture when I get accepted). This is the kind of program that, if you get accepted, pays for everything except your travel to and from Tallahassee, FL! You can imagine how much I want to go and enjoy FSU for 4 weeks for free!!!



I also have the goal of staying here at BYU during my "not-traveling-times" and working at the Library. My supervisor at the library right now wants me to be trained in an archival database project along with a few other employees, and I certainly want to take advantage of that. BUT - I cannot make a commitment for this summer with the library until I know what else I'll be doing and when.

And then, on top of all of these things, I still have not written my internship sponsor (USCIS) to tell them that I will have to withdraw my internship. I'm not really looking forward to it to be quite honest. I hate having to back out of any kind of commitment that I've made, especially in this type of situation where I was chosen after an interview process. However, the truth of the whole matter is that USCIS will not help me that much in either of my career aspirations.

So the question is: can I do everything I want this summer and not be overwhelmed, emotionally or financially? First I will need to know whether I'm accepted into the law program, if I get the grant to help pay for Crittenden, and when I'll be here to work at the library. And those three things are out of my hands right now.

I hate having to wait on people. ;-)

Spam. A lot.

I hate spam.

I'm not just talking about the pink meat wannabe, which I don't like anyway. Who doesn't notice their spam folder exponentially increasing in girth, or unsolicited email scum polluting their inbox, without disgust? Whatever hellions concocted the scheme of emitting mass emails to unsuspecting and unentreating innocents for the sole purpose of force-feeding their products should be flogged, verbally abused, whipped, and tickle-tortured. Then followed up with a nice round beating.

Perhaps I should ask for forgiveness for the strength of my declamation. I'm normally not an angry person (...I think I've said that before...), but sometimes my patience with a practice reaches a breaking point. Not only does my spam folder routinely break the 400-email mark, but the admittance into my Inbox of scandalous emails from people I have never known is becoming more common. So many times I want to reply to the emails that I find, but I know that by so doing I would only be confirming that my address is, indeed, connected to a real living, breathing, consuming individual.

No thank you, but I would not like to modify any body parts, whether naturally or artificially, mine or anybody else's. I'm afraid I would only get prescription drugs from my own trusted physician, not from your internet store, and certainly not for a condition that I do not have. I also have no desire for a Rolex knockoff, I do not want a relationship with an unknown (and most likely imaginary) young lady, and I would have no need whatsoever for Hannah Montana tickets.

Thank you Internet, but no thank you. Take your crap somewhere else.

My (Hel)LSAT Experience

I spent the entirety of Saturday morning in a cocoon of quiet chaos. Saturday morning I took my first practice LSAT ever. As in, I haven't even looked at a real section of the test before. I knew that it was supposed to be a difficult thing to do, but I've been able to conquer a number of difficult things in the past. I figured: "Hey, I'm a smart guy. I can keep a good GPA. The LSAT is a fear only to lesser mortals."

I wish I could describe to you the horror that I felt about 50 minutes into the test when I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. My entire framework of confidence and perceived ability crashed around me, not so much like a house of cards as a house of African Elephants. On a foundation of mines. I was completely taken by surprise by the difficulty of the exam, and I was dismayed at my obvious lack of preparation.

Dismayed is a poor choice of words. In fact, I would call it hyperbole. I suppose horrified is a better word, or maybe aghast or thunderstruck.

In all truth, I think the best adjective to describe my experience with the LSAT is humiliating. I was severely humbled and innerly embarrassed by my presumptuous approach to the exam and its level of difficulty. This is not an easy test. Granted, it isn't impossible either, but I am not of the caliber of scholar to waltz into the exam room and polka out of it with top marks. I know there are some people that can and have done that; I, however, am not of that crowd.

BUT - do not think that this means that I will cower before the might that is the LSAT. I've only just begun, and now that I know my enemy I know how to defeat it. This test has not seen the last of me, no siree. I will make this test rue the day it ever set its beady little scanner on my social security number. And when the time comes when I shall poke it in its sleeping eye for real, only one of us will leave the exam room triumphant.

And on that future day - that bright, beautiful, future day - I will emerge from the bowels of hell bloody, but unbowed.

His Dark Materials

This being my first real post for the class, I figured I'd go ahead and take my freebie and write about what I want. ;-)

When I saw the preview for the upcoming movie The Golden Compass, I realized two things: I wanted to see the movie, and that would require reading the book first. I learned from Amazon.com that there were three books together in the series. So, $13.50 and a couple of days later, I had the three books in a set and a week to go before school started.

I devoured the first book, The Golden Compass (The Northern Lights outside the US). It was a different experience than my normal Orson Scott Card-infused literary journeys, but it was very refreshing. The second book The Subtle Knife wasn't quite as good as the first, and the last book The Amber Spyglass was the hardest to follow. Pullman takes his (sweet) time to introduce the plot and main characters. You're halfway through the second book before the plot starts moving of its own accord without you having to help by turning the pages. However, the story was excellent and absorbing, even though the trilogy ended with a number of loose ends dangling into space.

I don't like to give plots away and such, but I do feel that I need to say something about the trilogy. Honestly, I don't know how the movies will be received since the United States is still a religious country, despite what many ACLU groupies tell us. The Golden Compass (and the corresponding movie, I assume) is innocent enough, but The Subtle Knife unfolds the central plot to the trilogy that drives the decisions of the characters. In a nutshell: Pullman is an atheist, and his trilogy is anti-organized religion, if not anti-God. It will be interesting to see how the entire story plays out on the big screen.

My recommendation: Read the books! They are enjoyable, witty, and leave you wondering almost to the very end which characters are with or against the protagonist. I'll end with my favorite passage...

Will said to his [father], "You said I was a warrior. You told me that was my nature, and I shouldn't argue with it. Father, you were wrong. I fought because I had to. I can't choose my nature, but I can choose what I do. And I will choose, because now I'm free."

His father's smile was full of pride and tenderness. "Well done, my boy. Well done indeed," he said.
-The Amber Spyglass