RobbyRamdin.com

With graduating from school, going through a short limbo where I was neither a student or a “real person,” and then starting work, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about who I am, who I was, and who I will be. I’ve been talking to Pete at length about “transcendence”–reaching a new level of interacting with both the outside world and ourselves. We’ve come to the unsurprising conclusion that everybody is at their own stage of intellectual, emotional, and physical development, and as you grow you realize what really matters in life–what you want to get out of life. You also realize what doesn’t matter and what you can sacrifice without batting an eye.

I had a talk with Nate about materialism, another major aspect of life. It is a longtime staple of religions to denounce the importance of material possession. From Christianity to Buddhism, a major tenet is that when we die we take nothing with us. The most devout in both religions live their lives without owning anything, because there is no spirituality in possessions. Our talk consisted balancing rejection of the significance of “things” with our common personalities of “power-users.” We both derive happiness from having things that work exactly how we want (like Macs, iPods, etc.). We invest in expensive things not to communicate status, but to enable us to work efficiently and happily. I haven’t concluded whether this is the right way to look at it, though.

I have realized that I spend almost no time alone in my life. I spend all day at work surrounded by other people; I go out after work to coffee with friends; I come home to a house full of roommates. Barring all those interactions, I spend a lot of time using the computer, dicking around on facebook and IMing friends. Between all of this, the only time spent alone is my half hour reading before bed and my commute to or from work (during the latter I get to enjoy the delightful presence of the other drivers, as well as the less than intelligent banter of various radio personalities). When I came to this realization (which happened sitting at my desk at work), I decided to take off for lunch looking for something to do while I simply enjoy my thoughts. I happened up a grave yard about a mile from where I work. Walking around there was an enlightening experience, because a graveyard is the ultimate expression of solitude: you are surrounded by monuments to people who can never provide companionship. What caught me off guard, however, was how graveyards are also the ultimate expression of eternal companionship. So many of the graves, as is normal, were for couples who were buried side by side. Sometimes entire families. It made me consider how much security one would have, knowing that even though their spouse had died ten years earlier, they would still be buried side by side and physically (and thus metaphorically) be near each other forever.

A few weeks ago, I decided to take on the incredible task of cleaning my inbox. This meant categorizing around 1000 e-mails, most of which have absolutely no relevance to my life anymore. However, since I do have some things in common with Nixon, I had to keep all of them. Since about two weeks my inbox has been pristine.

As life changing experiences go, cleaning your inbox is pretty low on the list, but it is on the list. I not only have found that I am now more careful about responding to e-mails, but I am also more meticulous about getting the most of each e-mail. I now watch most of the videos and visit the links presented to me. If your inbox is not clean, I would certainly recommend tending to it.I am also planning for the fast approaching school year.

My first semester is looking like it will a busy one. I am going to begin work for my honors thesis, in addition to my four other classes. Exactly how much work this will entail has yet to be seen. I’m excited for my classes. It’s nice to again be at the point in my education where each class is essentially an elective (a luxury I haven’t enjoyed since senior year of high school). I’m taking Abstract Algebra, Machine Learning, Modern Physics, and Japanese Architecture.

I’ll also be doing research through Tufts’ Computing Undergraduate Scholar Program (CUSP) under Professor Souvaine. The research is in data mining, or, more specifically, Proximity-Graph-Based Data Measures. I’m psyched about this research, as it covers a bunch of my interests–graph theory and data mining (the money doesn’t hurt either). I’m also going to be a TA for Comp 15 again, so I should be rolling in dough this semester :-).

My honors thesis will be even more exciting. I think most of the people who do them are building upon previously completed research, like something they did over a previous school year or Summer Scholars or something like that. I haven’t done research at Tufts yet, so I’m not entirely sure that a thesis is feasible, but my advisor assured me otherwise. I’m beginning to investigate what I might want to do so that I can get a start on it now. One possibility is to find a topic related to my CUSP research that I can elaborate on and do something interesting with. The other option is extending the gait research I did last year by rewriting the code, collecting data, and data mining it. There will definitely be more to come on this subject.

Most importantly, I’m highly anticipating my living situation. I think it will be awesome to live with Bennett, Pete, and Steve. It will be a nonstop, intellectually stimulating party. Our apartment is awesome in every way conceivable. I’ll even have a car which is an unexpected luxury. So much fun.