Just helped W. out with the paper again, after he informed me this morning that he had made an impromptu decision to submit it to an Asia-Pacific workshop, submissions for which closed this very evening. It was fun and gratifying to work at the lab last semester. Hopefully I will get the chance to keep working there in the fall. The corporate environment is something that I grew unused to after the uncommonly long gap between this and my last internship. My dad, who's been in the corporate business for longer than I've been alive, is something of a virtuoso in matters of corporate affairs. I can only say that a virtuoso I am not. Something about the mind games you have to play in your daily interactions with your coworkers and boss is more than a little odious to me. The buzzwords don't have so much as a redeeming whiff of the artistic about them. Customers, being people, suck by birth. And so on. My gravamina against corporate culture are endless. But I suppose it's something I can manage, much as one manages an illness. The people at the company are, at any rate, sterling, which is nice.
I have been wondering, though, why is humility considered a virtue? Not being a douchebag is certainly a desideratum, but I don't see anything inherently attractive about humility otherwise. Especially when the people who are most impressed by your "humility" are typically those who like to have their egos stroked - which is to say people who would do well to go fuck themselves. I think this has inspired me to check the tendencies to humility that I've lately been showing and return to Kaiserhood, as is only meet.
With the election coming to a head, I thought I would dwell on it for a minute. Obama's presidency has been fantastic. Veteran readers of my blog will remember the post I made as an enthusiastic youth of fifteen when Obama won the presidency in November 2008. (Yes, I am that old, and my blog is almost as old as a two-term presidency.) My feelings about his presidency today are not quite so foaming-at-the-mouth as they were back then, but the sentiment is the same, notwithstanding the little interlude during which I had become a devout follower of Tsarina Ayn Rand. That was foolish. Obama has been much reviled in his time, mostly by the red-faced and red-necked ones, but I think history will be kind to him and he will be remembered as one our great presidents. Interested readers may want to take a look at the post I made during Obama's inauguration in January 2009.
The present election is a circus show. I don't know whether to feel thrilled that I am alive to witness it or to lament what the country has come to. Hillary "Hot Sauce" Clinton will almost certainly get the democratic nomination, as much as I wanted Bernie Sanders to be President. And on the Republican side we have... Donald Trump? There are no words. They are just not there. I only wish Gore Vidal had been alive to sum up this election in his inimitable mordant words. Speaking of G. V., who has over the years become one of my favorite writers of fiction and nonfiction alike, I've started reading the novel Kalki. Those conversant with the Vedas and with Hindu mythology will immediately recognize the name. And indeed, it is the Kalki of Hindu mythology that the title refers to. Maybe G. V. will help me out of the writer's block that has cast a pall over my plans of writing fan fiction again, as I do every summer.
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