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golf, decisions, and hiking

i just enjoyed watching rich beam (beem?) win the pga golf tourney. he's a nobody in the golf world and has just gone from the shadows of basically normal life to fame and riches. good luck to him. tiger woods came in second by one stroke after birdying the last four holes.

for the first time, as i struggle to figure out what classes to take at stanford, i am asking myself if i made a mistake going to stanford. maybe i should have gone to mit or gt. these are the questions i have been trying very hard not to ask myself or to think about. i hate looking back on decisions and second-guessing myself. this, however, was one of the most difficult decisions i've ever had to make (though there have been worse) and so is one of the easiest to second-guess. erg - i need someone to tell me i made the right choice! i do know that i would rather live in palo alto than atlanta or boston.

(june 6, 2002)

well, the past couple of days have been, not surprisingly, eventful and exhausting. yesterday we hiked over the mountain, mt. brandon that is. it was a long, stepp and boggy hike to the top. there really was no view because of the clouds and mist (the top was above the cloud line). however, we felt a great sense of accomplishment when we reached the top. we also saw an ogham (pronounced om) stone, which had an ancient celtic carving of a cross shape on it. it was amazing to find such an ancient thing on top of the mountain. the trip down was extremely boggy, torturous and treacherous. it is beyond my comprehension how there can be that much water on top of a mountain. i guess it's because it's rainy and misty basically all the time up there. i fell down in the mud more times than i can count, though of course i had on my waterproofs. so far, i think my favorite town has been dunquin. dingle (an dangean) was nice as well. anyway, today we hiked to castlegregory, though the others insisted on taking a massive shortcut. i was really mad. finally john appeased me in the end. sometimes i just get so angry i feel like i'm going to explode. often it's over stupid things, though in my defense, it wasn't that stupid this time. well, i just started coughing and now i'm starting to wheeze. i hope i survive this trip.

i don't think tommy's ever going to make a move on liz (or vice versa). oh well, it's their loss.

we had a nice dinner at the pub tonight. we shared a starter of prawns, and i had seafood chowder and a pint of bulmers. it was lovely and warm in there. i've noticed i sometimes wheeze after drinking, so hopefully that's the problem.

(later)

we just saw a band play in the pub we're staying over in castlegregory. they were really good. john bought me a drink. anyway, we played kablooey and i won, which was nice. it was a come-from-behind victory.

7:33 p.m. - 2002-08-18