I can barely walk. A little flap of folded-over canvas in my Chucks has caused a huge amount of swelling and pain in the big toe that it rubbed against. Haven't worn the shoes in a couple of days, and the pain just won't quit.
The honorarium thing was yesterday evening at the Westin downtown. I went early, hoping to find on-street parking; a difficult task with the Star Wars convention. The garages were charging $15-20. Meh. Got on-street on Capitol right in front of the Westin and Hyatt by sheer luck. Go me.
Had an hour to kill, so I tried to walk off some of the pain (limbered my foot up a bit, so it was a good idea). Went to Circle Center and doubled back, using the skyways to get to the Westin. People-watched, costume-watched. Hordes of stormtroopers, a few Vaders. Some dude dressed like Obi-Wan carrying a Yoda puppet, which he talked to me with. "With the Star Wars committee, you are?" "No, I'm just going to the Westin..." "Go into the skyway, you cannot! For Star Wars personnel only, hmmmm?" I shoved past him to continue on my way, and some skinny kid acting as "security" ran up to stop me. Following him were some 'troopers, who menacingly aimed their plastic replica guns at me as the kid tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to use the skyway. I asked if they were going to shoot me; since they were stormtroopers, they'd surely miss by a mile, and I'd be on my merry way. The kid laughed and let me through... so I've decided that if I go back tomorrow and try to kill George Lucas, I can get past his security by making a lame Star-Wars joke.
...
The honors thing was both anticlimactic and a huge deal. A few hundred people were inducted into a couple of honors societies- both of which only accept full-time students, which I'm not. Then a dozen or so were given big scholarships- big as in all undergraduate expenses as well as four years of full-time graduate expenses paid for.
Then there were the Chancellor's scholars; four of us. We were the only ones to actually get personal intros, had mini-biographies read out, etc. Yet the amounts we received were trivial; I'll be paying about 20% of my car insurance bill with the award. Whee. The most prominent in the programs handed out, the most prominent in the ceremonies, but the least when it came to awards. Weird.
Everyone had their families there. I was alone. As we were brought up to the stage individually, they'd have families and friends stand and get applause from the crowd. No one stood when I went up. Suddenly I felt really awkward about not really having a family.
Before the ceremony, I'd begun talking to a woman who turned out to be a dean of one of the IUPUI schools; once she found out I was one of the Chancellor's kids, she was making a huge deal about the honor it was, oh-my-God-have-they-gotten-your-photo-yet? and stuff... I was just... meh. She commented on my humbleness, but it wasn't quite that... it just didn't seem like a big deal. I thought the whole idea of going to school was to learn and do well- that I'm doing so shouldn't be a surprise.
Schmoozing was the main reason I went, and that went over like gangbusters. Wrangled an invitation from the dean of the School of Informatics to meet Al Alcorn (created Pong and a co-founder of Atari) next week; met the dean of the Purdue School of Science, who was utterly pleased at my mathematics major... and met the head of the math department at IUPUI, who asked me to see him sometime the next few weeks. Said he had a lot to talk to me about, and he wanted to go far deeper than the hand-shaking and introductions going on then...
...so I asked when he had office hours, and mentioned that working 3rd shift, it'd be a while before I could arrange my schedule. His response: "It's important that I get to talk to you; if I have to get up at 2 in the morning to meet with you, let me know, and I'll do that. I want to discuss your future plans with us..."
Holy shit.
The honorarium thing was yesterday evening at the Westin downtown. I went early, hoping to find on-street parking; a difficult task with the Star Wars convention. The garages were charging $15-20. Meh. Got on-street on Capitol right in front of the Westin and Hyatt by sheer luck. Go me.
Had an hour to kill, so I tried to walk off some of the pain (limbered my foot up a bit, so it was a good idea). Went to Circle Center and doubled back, using the skyways to get to the Westin. People-watched, costume-watched. Hordes of stormtroopers, a few Vaders. Some dude dressed like Obi-Wan carrying a Yoda puppet, which he talked to me with. "With the Star Wars committee, you are?" "No, I'm just going to the Westin..." "Go into the skyway, you cannot! For Star Wars personnel only, hmmmm?" I shoved past him to continue on my way, and some skinny kid acting as "security" ran up to stop me. Following him were some 'troopers, who menacingly aimed their plastic replica guns at me as the kid tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to use the skyway. I asked if they were going to shoot me; since they were stormtroopers, they'd surely miss by a mile, and I'd be on my merry way. The kid laughed and let me through... so I've decided that if I go back tomorrow and try to kill George Lucas, I can get past his security by making a lame Star-Wars joke.
...
The honors thing was both anticlimactic and a huge deal. A few hundred people were inducted into a couple of honors societies- both of which only accept full-time students, which I'm not. Then a dozen or so were given big scholarships- big as in all undergraduate expenses as well as four years of full-time graduate expenses paid for.
Then there were the Chancellor's scholars; four of us. We were the only ones to actually get personal intros, had mini-biographies read out, etc. Yet the amounts we received were trivial; I'll be paying about 20% of my car insurance bill with the award. Whee. The most prominent in the programs handed out, the most prominent in the ceremonies, but the least when it came to awards. Weird.
Everyone had their families there. I was alone. As we were brought up to the stage individually, they'd have families and friends stand and get applause from the crowd. No one stood when I went up. Suddenly I felt really awkward about not really having a family.
Before the ceremony, I'd begun talking to a woman who turned out to be a dean of one of the IUPUI schools; once she found out I was one of the Chancellor's kids, she was making a huge deal about the honor it was, oh-my-God-have-they-gotten-your-photo-yet? and stuff... I was just... meh. She commented on my humbleness, but it wasn't quite that... it just didn't seem like a big deal. I thought the whole idea of going to school was to learn and do well- that I'm doing so shouldn't be a surprise.
Schmoozing was the main reason I went, and that went over like gangbusters. Wrangled an invitation from the dean of the School of Informatics to meet Al Alcorn (created Pong and a co-founder of Atari) next week; met the dean of the Purdue School of Science, who was utterly pleased at my mathematics major... and met the head of the math department at IUPUI, who asked me to see him sometime the next few weeks. Said he had a lot to talk to me about, and he wanted to go far deeper than the hand-shaking and introductions going on then...
...so I asked when he had office hours, and mentioned that working 3rd shift, it'd be a while before I could arrange my schedule. His response: "It's important that I get to talk to you; if I have to get up at 2 in the morning to meet with you, let me know, and I'll do that. I want to discuss your future plans with us..."
Holy shit.