oh wimpy me

I finally sent an e-mail to a professor at the HCI institute at CMU. It was an e-mail that I had carefully drafted over and over for the last month. Basically, the point of the e-mail was to establish contact and hopefully as a result, obtain a research assistantship.

But of course, I underestimated the fact that people don\’t read between the lines.

I sent the e-mail asking about the professor\’s research and for things to read. The implication aws that he should be interested in my attempt and perhaps consider me as a research assistant in the future.

Instead, I just got a reply back with a link to his list of papers. That\’s it. Maybe i should have asked directly about whether i could work for him.

But in other news, there was this informal study group formed for my psychology class (where I have no friends, but many aquaintances). I am doing okay in the class (aka a flatline B), but decided to join the group anyway. The organizer of the group sent out an e-mail assigning two lectures to each person interested. We were supposed to create a study guide for each of those lectures. So I did that, turned it in 30 minutes before the deadline. And then we were supposed to all meet 2 pm today. Of course, on the way to the classrom (by then I was 20 minutes late), I started thinking about how useless the group would be. By the time I arrived at Tolman Hall, I was thinking how the study group would make us all anxious and as a result, I wouldn\’t do any better on the final if I hadn\’t studied with the group. Not to mention, several aquaintances from the class have already asked me to study with them. I shouldn\’t put too much effort in a class that doesn\’t really demand that much effort.

So I enter Tolman Hall, pulling my sunglasses onto my head. I barged in and realized that I didn\’t know the room number. Was it 2316? I remember that there was a 6 but I wasn\’t sure. 2306? Maybe it was 23106. So I peered into each of the classrooms on the 2nd floor looking for familiar faces. I eventually found the room 2306, but I wimped out and turned the other direction. I rationalized it, thinking that I had better stuff to do. And besides, I had to leave at 4 pm so I wouldn\’t get that much done anyway.

But still, my cowardice bothered me. So it goes, right. And here I am, lamenting my own inadequacy outside the hall, using the Berkeley internet wireless. The birds twitter above me as if they had no care at all. And all I feel is that I have not accomplished anything at all.