Interrogation

 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/12/09/131209fa_fact_starr

The most terrifying thing that happened to me last semester had nothing to do with school.

I was interrogated for 2 hours by the university police as a suspect in a laptop/iPad theft from the summer. No matter that I had also had my wallet stolen around the same time -- since I was one of the roommates and I just happened to work at MGH (where a wifi signal was apparently traced to),  there was reason enough to consider me as a particularly juicy suspect for the case.

At first they were reasonable. I had chatted with them over the phone during the summer regarding the case, so I figured this meeting was simply a follow-up to make sure they had the details straight.

Oh, but was I mistaken.

After some not-so-pleasant pleasantries, the lead interrogator promptly whipped out a voice recorder and a massive 50 page stack of documents, presumably all "proof" that I was the criminal. In retrospect, I should have realized that this whole thing was a massive farce; in the 5-10 seconds that I was able to sneak a glimpse at the stack of papers, all I could see was complete gibberish.

But I was too frightened to be rational. In truth, I was shitting bricks.

See, I had always thought it would be easy to prove your innocence if you were, in fact, innocent. There's that saying "if you're innocent, then you have nothing to fear," and I'd say in many situations, that's probably true.

But when you're dealing with a duo of supremely biased "investigators" with the tunnel vision of an earthworm digging in a dung pile, you would be surprised how difficult of a task it can become. Correlation and coincidence is their energy source, and if you gather the courage to point that out, they invariably exclaim that "you're hiding something from them."

I have to admit, they were so insistent on saying that I was responsible that at one point, I almost started to believe them. They were winning this game of psychological intimidation, and I was terrified.

Yet, they began to slip. Their questions became less and less specific. When I asked to know precisely what "all of this evidence" actually was that they kept referring to, they said "knowledge of that evidence is not necessary." And when I kept denying that I was the thief and that their entire case was built on circumstantial evidence that they couldn't even produce to show me, they asked If not you, then who?

I didn't have an answer to that idiotic question. Of course I don't fucking know who did it. Did it ever occur to you two monkeyheads that if I knew the answer to that question, no one would still be missing their wallet/laptop/iPad?

I was still shaken at that point, though. What really did those two interrogators in was what they asked next:

"Would you say that you usually walk up the stairs pretty quickly?"

Uh....what the actual fuck did you just ask me?

"Because we know that on the night of the theft, you climbed 3 flights of stairs in a very short amount of time. Why were you in such a hurry?"

Okay then, this interrogation is probably going to end in five minutes, tops.

Having lost a major chunk of their credibility, I almost caught myself scoffing when they closed the interrogation with "We'll be in touch, Ryan. Here's my card if there's anything you want to tell us. Remember that it will look favorable for you in court if you cooperated with us now."

Yeah, and after I cooperate with you two, let me tell you about this one time my pet cow flew to the moon and back..

Mentees and mentors

I may have hit a new milestone in my natural progression towards old age.

Said my 4th grade mentee: "Clearly, you've never been a kid."

Well then.

The Antlers - Stairs to the Attic

Reminds me a bit of the yearbook post I wrote during senior year.

Jelly Belly

I recently learned that a lot of people actually like the Juicy Pear flavored jelly beans. Apparently, a friend of mine used to buy entire bags of nothing but purified, uncontaminated Juicy Pears from the Jelly Belly factory and munch away while doing her homework.

Now personally, I find them more or less equivalent to artificially colored pills of shit. (pvalue = 0.051)

But no matter. As the next logical course of action, I then turned to Yahoo! Answers to get a definitive and accurate survey on this pressing matter from the best and brightest minds of our generation.

The results rolled in, and it turned out that Juicy Pear was incredibly polarizing. Of course, I found more than a few of my fellow Juicy Pear haters on those sacred Yahoo! threads. Yet I also discovered a shocking number of Juicy Pear maniacs lurking amongst the rest of us. Just what, I asked myself, did such intelligent people perceive in these jelly beans that I did not?




 (Yes, this is a metaphor for our political opinions).

Basketball

Somehow, without my knowledge, I've turned into a basketball player.

I used to entertain a tremendous variety of activities and outlets. But that's no longer the case. Outside of class and friends, my life has slowly grown to revolve entirely around research. I think I might be becoming obsessed.

It's a strange feeling, having a very clearly defined goal for once -- a basket -- just sitting there, waiting for me to take a shot. I don't think I've ever been this confident in what I plan to do.

I guess I better practice my free throws some more.

Summer

I'd say it was a summer well-spent.

1. I met tons of people, as I had hoped
2. I became friends with said people
3. I guess I kind of started dancing again, and want to keep dancing now
4. I started playing ukulele for people
5. I realized that tennis is really meant to be a social tool, not a competitive ritual to establish dominance (hahaha)
6. I didn't worry about girls
7. I finally had the time to goof around Boston, and I learned that it's a damn good walking city
8. I went to a lot of the activities, instead of camping out in my room
9. I let myself loose (see comic below)
10. I pretty much didn't write anything on the blog, which meant that I was keeping myself busy


So here I am writing some filler blog post because I still have too much energy from not having done anything interesting during the day.

 

Throwing stones at the sky

"It's like you're playing the piano for ten years and you still can't play 'Chopsticks,' and the only thing you have to keep you going is the belief that one day you'll wake up and play like Rachmaninoff."

There you were -- a wide-eyed freshman with goals and dreams just like everyone else. Of course, some were genuine while others were externally imposed. But no matter. You were here now, and the world was yours for the taking.

You told yourself that this was your one shot at reinventing yourself to become someone else, and so you did. As the semester continued, you slowly realized that everybody had bought your new personality. But you never really bought it. No, too bad you didn't realize that until you met...well, him. 

You soon met your soon-to-be best friend "Mike" through a service group, and fell into a fever. You wouldn't dare admit to anyone that you had a crush on him since that would make you seem shallow and far too injudicious with your heart. So you allowed yourself to secretly fall for him. Whenever he needed someone to talk to, you enthusiastically obliged. Whenever he wanted to go out to eat, you made sure you were available. And so naturally, you would grow to reciprocate his requests.

But even though you both were asking the same questions on the surface, you knew that behind each invitation to dinner, you were always hoping for something more. And hope you did. You carefully tried to give more signs. He kept spending time with you. You started joking about being a couple someday. He kept doing nearly everything with you.

So one night, you couldn't help but ask -- is there something more between us?

He said no, not right now.

That is your story. And though you're too embarrassed to admit it, that's essentially the singular source of everything you ask me about.

And you keep asking because I'm not giving you the answer you want to hear.

That's why you keep saying that you're screwed and that nobody likes you. Of course, we both know that's a blatant lie. Sure, you make it sound as if you just want somebody to say that they like/love you so that you know you're not a total failure. But in truth, you don't want just somebody. You want him.

So you keep torturing yourself, beating yourself up over your inability to play something as simple as "Chopsticks" on the piano. Yet you still won't give up and pick up a different instrument. No, you've already set your mind on hammering out the same two blasted notes on the piano over and over until the steel strings snap.

All this so that you can continue to believe that somehow, someday, you'll wake up and suddenly be able to play like Rachmaninoff.

Call me a pessimist, but I don't think that day is coming.

All you're doing is throwing stones at the sky and expecting them to come back as diamonds.