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The Greatest Entry in the World

Hi there, Scott from 2018 writing here. This is from my old Xanga account. I mostly post these because it makes me laugh at myself. I have no idea why you’d be reading this, but enjoy yourself. -SP

So I’ve been sitting on this Xanga thing for a nice long time, trying to come up with the perfect topic for the first entry. Xanga politely reminds me that I’ve been a member for 85 days and haven’t done anything yet. Thanks, Xanga.

I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I’m going to try and get involved with Purdue Improv. One of the things I realized over the summer was that I really missed my minimal high school involvement with theatre, and my favorite parts of that were always the sketches and other silliness we came up with. We’ll see how it goes I guess. I’m really jazzed about the idea now, but it’s anyone’s guess if I’ll have the courage to attend their meeting on Friday. (Yes, their meetings are on Friday evenings, eww.) Part of my hesitation comes from the fact that I had been convinced for a nice long time that I wasn’t all that funny. Not that my impression of myself has really changed all that dramatically, but there’s room for improvement. Another part of my hesitation comes from the fact that most college improv groups I’ve seen are simply not all that entertaining. It seems like most of them are still stuck on sex and penis jokes that I don’t recall ever finding funny. (Aren’t I snooty? You bet!) So if I do make it there, what does that say about me?

The kicker though is that I officially know absolutely no one here at Purdue. Before you say “Aww, you poor thing,” let me explain that’s kind of a good thing. (Incidentally, the person I thought I knew here also graduated when I did and, while I went from Missouri to Indiana for grad school, it turns out she did just the opposite. I keep wondering “What does Jamie know that I don’t,” the same thing I wonder about when someone randomly slows down on the interstate. In other news, I think too much). The knowledge that no one here knows who I am will let me be whoever I’d like to be. That’s part of what I liked so much about Austin; I was able to go bald and become little Sherman Socialite for a summer. So while I always thought about doing improv while at Mizzou, I guess I never felt entirely free to take that chance.

So then here’s a problem. This would bring the number of organizations I want to get involved with to four:

• Computer Science Graduate Student Board (Been doing that kind of crap for almost 8 years now, can’t resist)
• Tae Kwon Do (Did it for a semester back in the day, ran out of time to practice)
• Ballroom Dance (I’ve wanted to do it for a long time, but other than one or two lessons never did)
• Purdue Improv (refer to entire rest of entry)

That’s a lot of time to be spending, in addition to this whole “getting a PhD” thing. So right now the plan is to do it all while I can, and then make cuts as I have to. Oddly enough, I think the GSB would be the first to go. This is odd because I’ve been doing that kind of thing for years, and that’s why I think I would drop it and not be too sad about it. However, it doesn’t seem like it will be much of a time commitment, so then there wouldn’t be much to gain from dropping it.

Oooh, in other news today, I’m an official account-holder at the Purdue Employees’ Federal Credit Union. Despite the questionable entertainment value and security wisdom of discussing my bank in a public forum, I’m oddly excited about the whole thing. I even get a little wallet-sized account ledger, to keep track of the money in my account. This was by far the most amazing thing I’ve seen in a while other than some cool graphics software that would be far too boring to describe, and the account manager was noticeably amused at my delight in the trinket. I even asked if I could get a couple extra for when I fill it up. Now watch me put them in a drawer and forget I ever had them.

Okay, sooooooo, first entry, not all that interesting. Oh well, too bad. To paraphrase Mitch Hedberg, I’ll someday edit this entry, take out all the words, and add new interesting ones instead.