Sneezing

This will be a quick post, but I have to say something.

You know how people say "God Bless You" or other variations when we sneeze? That all came from way back when people thought sneezing meant you had demons in you, so they would say things to try and get the demons out, right? So now let me ask - why the hell do we still say it? It's pretty apparent that sneezing doesn't mean a person is possessed, right? If you do believe that, please, do all you can to get the demon out of me, but otherwise you don't need to say anything.

What's the difference between sneezing and say, hiccuping? Burping? Flatulating? People aren't expected to say things to us after we do any of those things, but it's almost rude to not say something after a sneeze.

Just another example of things that we do everyday that don't make any sense, and yet people never question them.

God bless you.

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Computer Lab Thoughts

I've got like 10 minutes before class, but there have been a couple things that have happened today that I feel like writing about.

First of all let me reiterate what I have said in the past. While we as humans do not want to believe this is true, it remains something that far too few people understand. People generally care only about themselves. While some are better at faking it than others, most people are primarily conscious of their own lives, and the only reason they'd really have an interest in your life is if you can do something to help them. That's human nature, and there is no reason to be upset about it. In fact, you can use such knowledge for your own good, but people fail to do so because they fail to realize how to take advantage of it. Nobody likes the guy who takes every opportunity he gets to talk about himself. He's that guy that challenges everything you do and say, trying to make himself appear superior. If dude would just realize that his attempts are only painting a negative picture of himself in the eyes of everyone he encounters, he could change his ways and start taking advantage of people that are like himself to get ahead.

See, I've learned in college that the best way to get ahead is to convince people to help you get ahead. You can't do everything by yourself, you need help. How do you get people to help you? Show an interest in them, play to their ego and do your best to convince them that they actually are more important than you, and then they'll be more than happy to help your inferior ass with whatever you're looking for help in. Belittling someone may make you feel better about yourself for a short time, but it's never a good thing to have someone resent you. The person who is liked and respected by his peers is the person who gets ahead, and stays ahead.

The other thing I want to say is that if you're like a 5th string player on a football team who wins a share of a crappy division 3 conference championship, it's questionable at best to be proud enough of your accomplishment to where you wear your championship ring around campus. But hey, different strokes for different folks. Whatever makes it easier for you to sleep at night, right?

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For the thrill of it

It has been far too long since I've written on here, and I can say I've got quite a bit to say this morning.

Let me start with some good news. Last week I was offered a full-time job as an entry-level database administrator. The job is in the North Shore of Pittsburgh, an absolutely perfect location for me, and I am very excited about starting work there and seeing how far I can go. Now that's a good story right? A college kid getting starting a full-time job in his field days after he receives his diploma? Sure it is. What I'm about to tell you is probably going to make that story much less inspiring.

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People always say that if you work really hard, you can be successful, but you have to work really hard. Well I've never really worked hard at much of anything in my life, especially school. And look at me now, one of the only Waynesburg University seniors with a full-time job offer before graduation. People that busted their ass for 4 years of college and have been on the Dean's List every semester don't have jobs. I half-assed assignments, skipped classes, made more jokes than correct answers in discussion, and I'm doing just fine, in fact I'm doing better than almost every else around me. I can attribute that to my major, frankly there are a ton of jobs and anybody with a degree and the ability to communicate effectively can get a job right out of school (there just aren't a whole lot of people that can do that). If I were a bio-chem major or whatever and I didn't work really hard in school, I might not be doing as well. But for now I'm here to say that you don't always have to work really hard to get somewhere in life. It's certainly beneficial to put in the work, but not always completely necessary. I say pick the things that you know will have a direct impact on your future, and work really hard on those things. There's no need to waste entire weekends on research papers for general education classes, just get them done and don't worry about getting A's on everything. Enjoy your time in college and learn to deal with people, because those skills are infinitely more important than knowing how to balance a chemical equation or derive a function in 3-dimensional space.

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The rest of this has to deal with romantic relationships, because I just keep getting more and more ideas about those things. Let me drop a disclaimer in here and say that I fully realize that someone that's not in a relationship and hasn't been in one may not have the most objective views of things. Relationships are driven by emotion, so taking advice about them from someone that hasn't experienced that emotion in a good amount of time probably isn't in your best interest. So just consider this me giving my opinion; I'm not pushing it on anybody. This opinion could change very quickly - I do realize that.

Through high school and college you see more dysfunctional relationships than you see functional ones. That's because our generation is maturing very slowly and we let emotions put a big nasty cloud over a beautiful little thing that is logic and reason. People stay in abusive relationships, they put up with being cheated on, and more crap like that. Then they want people to feel bad for them for being treated poorly. Here's my theory. You only deserve what you choose to put up with. If you don't value yourself enough to get out of a relationship that isn't treating you well, then maybe you don't actually deserve to be treated well. Is that ridiculous? Nah.

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Lots of people have been getting engaged recently around Waynesburg. That's expected, since this our last semester here and people are going to move away from here, where they've been living for four years. People fall in love with other people I guess... I don't know I wouldn't know anything about that. But when they do, they want nothing but to be with that person for the rest of their life. That's good, I have no problem with that at all. What I don't really understand is the apparent rush that everybody feels to get a ring on the girl's finger. What's so bad about dating for a few years until both of you are out of school and have jobs and can actually start thinking about paying back some student loans before being bombarded with the cost of a wedding and everything that goes with it? I suppose you can be engaged for awhile without having to actually get married, but I feel like not a lot of people do that. There's a couple here where the girl is a junior and the guy is a sophomore, and they just got engaged. That seems ridiculous. At least wait until ONE of you is close to graduating or whatever. Anyways I'll just quit talking, because again I'm not in the position to accurately judge this, and I'll probably just end up pissing off someone who is engaged and in college and reading this. If you are one of those people, just take this opportunity to belittle me in your head and feel above me.

Okay time to go to 24th to last college class ever.

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Sports Idolatry

This isn't really going along with the Pirates life lessons thing, but it really could if I wanted it to.

I'm just going to get straight into it. When you step back and look at Americans and sports it's really not far off from straight up idolatry. Skipping all of the basic ideas that are probably obvious just from that sentence, let me say this.

Doesn't getting happiness or sadness from things that people you don't know do seem wrong? Shouldn't the large majority of your life's time and emotions be about things you do, or things the people that you love do? How did we get to the point where people live to watch other people do things? What does a Pittsburgh Penguin Stanley Cup get any of their fans? Sure, they can be proud of seeing a team that they consistently support beat out all the teams that other fans support, there is some element of warranted pride there, but Americans have taken it entirely too far. Sidney Crosby winning the MVP or whatever they call that award in hockey doesn't help you get good grades, a good job, more friends, more money, or anything. All it does is provide a short term happy feeling that doesn't really get you anywhere.

I understand sports and being a fan of sports, I've been doing it all my life. That said, imagine how much better off we'd be if we took some of the time we dedicate to sports and dedicate to something more productive? What if I would have learned a bunch of stuff about computer science instead of spending the first 21 years of my life worrying about the things the Pirates did? Sure, the Pirates stuff got my name out there, and I'll probably reap some benefits of that for years to come, but honestly if I would have focused more on computer stuff the last four years I would probably be on the fast track to having a very successful and wealthy life (not that I'm just in all this for the money... although, hold up, yeah I kind of am).

The fact is that we become more passionate about things that other people do than what we do, and that holds us back. Sure, a 6'8'' LeBron James having a 40 inch vertical leap is definitely more interesting than being able to program a computer or manage a database, I'd rather spend more of my time working on me than worrying about people I'll never have a relationship with.

It really all comes down to the fact that the easier life gets, the worse we are at it.

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Pirates Life Lessons - Chapter 1

I have lived to see 23 different years, so my life is like 28% complete. The whole school thing has stopped me from doing too much with my life, but I'm hoping that changes in a hurry now that graduation is just weeks away. Anyways, the first 28% of my life has been filled with a lot of sports stuff and a lot of attempts to be funny. It has also involved me trying to establish myself as an individual, someone who doesn't think like, act like, or talk like most of the people around me. You guys can be the judge on how I've done at that.

I dedicated a huge part of my college life to writing and talking about the Pittsburgh Pirates, which I can't say was a bad idea, although it didn't turn out the way I had originally hoped it would, but I'm okay with that. For right now, I'm done with that being a main focus in my life and I'm moving on to try and make a name for myself in another field. Despite that, the Pirates will always be a big part of my youth, and I can say that I've learned a lot from being a fan of the team. I want to share some of that with everyone who is wiling to read in a two to thirty-seven post series called "Pirates Life Lessons".

There's no doubt that this is a good idea. However, what I should probably do is stop right here and plan things out so it has some kind of flow and progression to it, but that's not really how I like to do my writing, especially in this non-formal blog. I'm just going to let the unorganized ideas in my mind spill out and see what we end up with. So here goes PART 1.

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While there are a ton of small lessons I can say I've learned (or at least those ideas have been reenforced) from baseball, I think there are one or two that really come through stronger than the rest. The one I'm thinking about right now is the simple fact that life isn't all about being better than the people around you. Over the last 20 years, the Pirates haven't been better than anybody, I mean they have been brutal. But guess what? The Pirates still have fans. They are still in business. I understand that the reason that are still in business is because they are making money and because you don't have to put a winning team on the field to make money in sports, but that's beside the point.

I am probably the least competitive guy I know. Growing up, all my friends and fellow classmates have been so serious about winning every little thing they get into, regardless of its meaningfulness. There really hasn't been a game or competition that I can name in my life that I've been so serious about that I let it get to the point where it changed my mood for more than a matter of minutes. I get over things quickly, and it's easy to get over things that you don't really care about in the first place. Priorities are a big part of life, and a lot of people get held up because their priorities are out of wack.

Being a Pirate fan isn't easy. While I've always wanted to see the team win, I've never gotten to the point where I needed to see the team win to make the experience worthwhile. It's not that I've ever had some special hope that the team will turn it around, it's just that I've never really cared how they ended up doing, I just liked the team because it was a different thing to like, and the game itself interested me. I could be an "expert" about a professional sports team, because nobody else my age really gave them too much of a second thought. Life's easier without expectation or hope for something big. That's an awful way to live in certain facets of life, but it works out quite well in sports. The word "apathy" usually has a negative connotation, but if you apply it to the right parts of life, it can be a beautiful thing.

For example, I play tennis at Waynesburg University. I do it because there's literally nothing else to do in the town of Waynesburg and I get all kinds of free stuff for playing. My lack of a competitive drive probably would have hurt me in a lot of sports, but it really helped me in tennis. I came in not caring if I won or lost any match I played, which helped me to stay relaxed and not think too much, which has led to me having a crisp 28-10 record heading into my senior season, which is actually the highest winning percentage for any Waynesburg tennis player since at least 1980 (apparently Waynesburg didn't record much of anything before 1980).

Being a legitimate fan of a team that hasn't won since 1992 is an incredibly telling thing. In my eyes that means you're personality is deep, you care about the finer things in life, and you have one crazy sense of patience. Caring about the Pirates because you have hope that they'll someday win is a noble trait, and sometimes I envy it. But that leads to disappointment. Not really caring about the Pirates results and just following the team for the non-conditional fun and personal gain out of it is the way to go.

I'm gonna stop here for now.

Pirates Life Lesson Number 1: If implemented correctly, apathy can be a beautiful thing.

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