Being Positive

I have rightly been accused of being cynical and negative about many things in life. A small experience yesterday brought home to me just what kind of a sad item people think I am. I can’t pretend not being secretly glad when I know people talk about me, but being talked about and being a subject of discussion and analysis are two slightly different things. The second smacks of being treated as a specimen, and that’s not an appetizing thought.

Anyway, I have decided to list out all the nice things I can think of about my various gripes.

My department (CS):

1) Fast internet access (through proxy), esp compared to aam junta that has no access at all.
2) Free afternoons, fewer classes, sometimes relaxed attention criteria, no labs.
3) A cool email account on my department server; it certainly beats the telnet email id. I can even have robertfrust@... unlike on telnet where I must be forever known by my number. It’s another matter that I haven’t set an alias yet, but the knowledge that I could is empowering.
4) Respect among people who look suitably impressed at the enormity of my burden when they realize I am in CS.
5) A bigger ftp account, but I neither need nor use it, but as in #3, it’s not what I do with it that counts. The power is in knowing I can.
6) Lastly, if I must have a low GPA, I might as well have it here where it is somewhat defensible.

On second thoughts, since I don’t want to extend this article beyond today, I’ll end with showing the silver lining to my pet gripe alone. Extending this to finding good things about Life etc will make this pretentious and fraudy.

PS: Among the several things that I come up with now and then, there’s one particularly cool thought, which also happens to fit this situation: Worse things happen to better people.
Now if only we could make that sink into our subconscious.