And with this entry, the side panel expansion of all 37 entries in the month of July, 2021 gets hidden altogether. It's a psychological clean slate of some sort---a new month begins, a new phase begins; a simple one-to-one correspondence.
The day is starting a little less crazy, heat-wise, as the skies outside are filled with the cumulo-nimbus clouds that herald a downpour of sorts. Of course, it could just be a tease as it is wont to do, but having hope is one of those things that allow us to function in this world where everything that can go wrong will go wrong, possibly at the worst time possible.
...
Ah it did decide to rain. But we'll see if it's a short duration drizzle or something more... substantial. One can always hope, can't we?
I had a weird dream last night [that I remembered]. I was somewhere in Pittsburgh, somehow enrolled again in a place that based on a mish-mash of my memories of CMU and UIUC, with a building interior that is some combination of those places' buildings and Serangoon NEX. I was going about, doing actions similar to what one would do at college, with two small problems: somehow I hadn't gotten my living arrangements sorted out(!), and I didn't transfer enough cash to myself beforehand for expenditures(!!).
Could this be related to my annual donation to the CMU alumni fund, and more importantly, the fact that it is almost time to do so and I need to make the appropriate arrangements? You'll be the judge.
I enjoy donating to the CMU alumni fund. I don't actually donate to the UIUC one. There are two big reasons: CMU was really where, for the first time in a long time, I felt at home socially. Don't get me wrong, I had a decent time in primary school, and junior college wasn't too bad, but CMU was where I was among those whom I had only read/dreamt of but never met---geeks who weren't beneath expressing themselves. Yes, some of them were a little too arrogant, but then again, who wouldn't be if they actually had some skill in that department---the trick is to keep it under control and not be a dick about it. The sad thing is that for some people, that is hard to do, and they do end up beign a dick about it, but usually all is fine.
As for UIUC... well... it's a mixed bag. In some ways, it was a successful extension of my list of credentials, but in other ways a cold, sober look at things made me realise that perhaps that Masters (from a PhD) didn't really yield as big of a margin as compared to CMU's Bachelor's. Socially, of course, I did much better in UIUC as compared to CMU, but that's because the graduate life is much different from the undergraduate one. I just didn't feel that UIUC has actually done any good to me the way CMU did.
I only had/have enough funds to donate to one of the two, and so I chose to donate to CMU instead. Remembering one's roots are quite important, especially for those who helped one find their way in this messed up world. In some sense, I should also thank my secondary school, since I did acknowledge that a lot of my present character was shaped by my time there, but read a little deeper and you'll find that all that was largely borne out of surviving the persecution, and not some kind of active nurturing aspect.
Also, SIN city schools are already supported by the government monetarily, particularly those that aren't classified as being ``independent''. Chucking a chunk of money at them isn't going to do much other than ego-stroking, which I suppose can be an important thing if one wants to take the game of social hierarchies very seriously.
That all said, I am well aware of how loyalty works though. Corporations, no matter how benign they may be, have no soul---``loyalty'' is not commutative with respect to corporations. So, one can be loyal to a corporation, but do not expect the corporation to be loyal back to one---it just doesn't happen. This whole ``humane'' aspect of things is hard to quantify, and is often ignored when some corporation claims to be ``meritocratic'' or ``technocratic''---those are short-hand for declaring that they will use properties that can be easily quantified, and are likely to exclude other important properties that cannot be easily quantified in the name of being ``fair''.
Is that true fairness/justice? You decide.
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Going back to my previous post featuring 乙女解剖, it seems that the original version by DECO*27 is in C♯-minor, while Nekomata Okayu's cover is in G-minor. Just a quick note to myself as I transcribe it into something that I can play on some instrument---not sure if I want it for concert flute, alto flute, some saxophone, some recorder, or even ye olde dizi.
Alright, time to put this away and enjoy the rest of the day. Till the next update.
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