Micron Told Me to Print Something for Them

1/27/25

This week, I said one of the most profound things that I have ever said in my entire life, ever: "Most people will say they have their lives together when they get married and have kids. I will have my life together when I find a haircut that I can ask for more than once."

I believe this to be a true statement. What should I do? Buzz it all off again? Grow it out? Something else entirely? I don't know the answer to my own question. For now, I'm just ignoring it. It looks like I just don't do my hair in the mornings, which is true, but I'm simply stating here that I'm aware of it. I also realize that my ability to dress myself well is absolutely minimal. 90% sure picking your clothes and telling you how to style your hair is what significant others are for.

What has gone on in these last few weeks? Well, I learned more crazy physics. To those of you who wanted a copy of my light/space/time/mass theory, hold on. I'm working on it. Maybe physics/cosmology is what I'll go to grad school for. Then I can go see Stephen Hawking's stuff at Cambridge. I'd stand where he sat. It would be so cool. 

I'm learning proofs in my math class; as it turns out, they aren't so bad. I hated them until now, but it's kind of cool to say, "Yeah, what I said is absolutely true and you can't deny it because I explained it so undeniably thoroughly." They are easier than I thought they would be. I'm gonna get humbled for that. Note that I'm proving simple statements like, "if x and y are integers, then 33x+132y does not equal 57." You may find yourself wondering why that is important. I don't know. Ask my British teacher.

My abs hurt from intramural inner tube water polo. All I do is kick my legs, flail my arms, and do a plank for 45 minutes. It's great exercise, and entertaining too. I include this fact just in case you were wondering about the current state of my abdominal myocytes.

Work is good, same old story there. I'm looking to potentially do an internship this summer, but I'm not sure where I want to go yet. I'm definitely gonna apply to the super big ones like Apple and NASA, on the very slight chance that they want my limited skill set.

I'm currently working on a question document that contains all the questions that I've thought of while going through my day to day. I'll put a link to it here when I'm done. That way, if you're ever bored and want to know, "I wonder what that weirdo thinks about all day," you can glimpse through your computer window and into my mind. If you've got any ideas, shoot.

I applied to write for an undisclosed satirical group on campus. I'll update you with who it is (maybe) and what I'm writing when I hear back from them.

This week I learned that the keyboard shortcuts for accents are actually super easy. It's just alt/option and another key to make the accent, then you can put whatever letter you want underneath it.. How did I live without them before? I was adding special characters to everything. It was awful.

 Film photography is a go: I'm 2/3 of the way through my first roll, and it is actually so fun. If I develop them anytime soon, I'll send them out.

As far as I can remember, that's probably it. I'm a wee bit tired, so I'm going to go to sleep and ponder whether or not I should tell you about my blog next week. Sorry that I didn't have anything deep to say. I'll do better next week.

Toodles!

Will Ott

The Curse of BYU Info

1/22/25

It's Wednesday. Sue me.

The last week or so has been pretty crazy, like, 1300$ in pizza crazy (I'll explain). But first, apparently I have to clarify a few things that I've heard through the grapevine.

No, to those concerned, I am not depressed. A few people think that my love for Mac Miller implies that I am very sad. I am not. When I talked about putting on a face for people, I didn't mean that I was doing that. I was simply saying that I can relate to that because at some point over the course of my life, I have felt that before. I'm sure most people have. I did not intend to imply that I was currently going through said state of being. Hope that clears things up.

If you don't study at the library with me, I wasn't calling you out. Consider this statement as evidence for my remorse.

Mac Miller's new album came out! I listened to it the moment it dropped, and some of it wasn't super incredible, but a couple songs were really good. My favorite one was called Funny Papers, and I've probably listened to it 100 times this week. It's really, really good. Mac Miller asks rhetorical questions that are thoughtful and sincere. Everything's quiet but the music. Do you love silence? If you don't listen to it, you won't know what to think of that statement/question pair. The song is emotional and the lyrics are very suave. Yes, Mom, I know what that word means. I'm intentionally using it here to communicate a nuanced perspective. Another good song is called Manakins [sic], and Rick's Piano is alright. They swear more than the other one that barely does, so don't say I didn't warn you.

I went country dancing. With a girl. Be proud of me. It was a double date that my friend put me up to, so don't get any ideas.

My talent for spotting someone and asking if they went to some school 7+ years ago is getting a lot of use this week. I don't know why, but faces and names together don't leave my mind. It's quite funny to ask and watch their face change from confusion to disbelief to horror to understanding. I call it "the 4 Stages of Disbelief," trademark pending.

Alright, you wanna know about 1300$ of pizza, I get it. At my work, we host events for employers to connect with students. They tend to bring food, so they order it and have it delivered to wherever they're going to be on campus. I was hosting an info session for a company who already had a bunch of pizza from Costco. A girl shows up with more pizza from Papa John's, and I figured they ordered more. I went to put it in the room, and the people from the company were like, "what? We didn't order that," so I brought it back out into the hallway. I had a nice chat with the girl while we both called our bosses and tried to figure out what was going on. Turned out that an employer with the same room the day after had ordered 30 pizzas and drinks for the wrong day. Obviously, it was nobody but the employer's fault, so they just had to cut their losses. We pawned off 15 pizzas to another company, then went to bring the drinks and pizzas to our office so that we could find something to do with the pizzas and save the drinks for tomorrow. As we were parking near the office, another Papa John's guy comes out and is like, "I've got an order for 40 pizzas that says it's supposed to come here. There is no information on the receipt and it was a cash order. Do you know where these are supposed to go?" The number they left on the receipt was inactive and didn't work, so he had no way of contacting the customer to find anything. I invited him in so we could figure out what was going on. 

We brought in the paid-for pizzas and drinks. The guy got a call from his boss and said that he thought the order was fake and that they were getting pranked, which has apparently happened in the past. His boss was pissed. When my pizza girl delivery friend was on the phone with him, he was like, "no we can't give any refunds sorry they're (RTX) just gonna have to pay for it," which worked out just fine. They still got paid cause it was a credit card order, and RTX knew it was their own fault. This was a totally separate issue. Somehow, I end up on the phone with this manager who demands payment and if not, they'll have to get the police involved. I told him that our office is totally unaffiliated with the orders and we just happened to be running around at the same time. He said, "we're dealing with potential fraud and felony charges here. I need to get paid for the pizzas we just made." I very calmly told him that getting the police involved was probably a good idea, especially if this has happened before, and that I agreed with his frustration and would help however I could. It seemed to take the nerve off a little bit. Then everything kind of died down and the delivery people had to go back to the store. I'm cursed when it comes to info sessions. Something crazy that I have no control over always happens. Such is life, I guess. I don't know why, but dealing with confrontation/mad/upset people doesn't freak me out as much as it should. Or cops. I can't explain it, I just don't have any different reaction to things. 

Anyways, I should probably go. I got 2 boxes of pizza to eat. 

Bye bye,

willards (add me on Minecraft)

Balloonerism

1/15/25

I missed my Monday deadline by 2 days. In the words of Mac Miller, "...I'm aware of it, I know. I got a problem, I'm'a take care of it." If you can name the song, you just gained, like, 50 billion spots on my favorite people list.

Speaking of Mac Miller, I'm reading his biography. His birthday is on Sunday. His new album comes out on Friday. Oh yeah, and he's dead. Somehow his best music came out of his archives after he died, as if he were too scared of judgement to release it. I don't know why, but his music just hits me. There have been a few of his songs where I heard a line and thought, "man, this guy just gets it." It's so reassuring to know someone else knows how you feel so well they can put it into words and sounds better than you can, even for but a moment.

 If you ever want to be blown away (and don't mind some swear words, sorry Mom), then listen to the album Circles. It's emotional, reflective, and a little bit sad, but it has a hopeful tone. The song Circles on the album Circles is 2nd best (it feels like I'm talking in Circles, holy), but my favorite song is Good News. Mac raps about how he has to keep up appearances and seem happy all the time, when in reality his battles with addiction and materialism have plagued him for a long time. He doesn't say that he hopes the sadness would disappear, just that he gets the occasional chance to express it and feel through it. You know that longing feeling where you kind of want something, but you know you can't have it? Additionally, if you were given the chance to have it, you're not even sure if you'd take it? Mac explores this theme in the song: if he was able to drop all of his sadness and worldly cares, would he even do it? Vocally, he states that he would, but the depth of what he says implies otherwise. He is so acquainted with his dull melancholy that he finds it beautiful, and recognizes that the background buzz of sadness is what makes happiness on "the other side" so beautiful. In a last few minutes of reflection, he recognizes that the sadness wasn't so bad anymore because it's over. In the cruel irony of it all, this song hit his listeners ears after he was gone; for family and friends, I'm sure it was incredibly emotional. By the way, the album's final chord is a leading chord that sets up the first chord in the album, so, yeah, the whole album is one big circle that describes a life cycle pretty well. Just in case the lyrical wizardry wasn't enough for you.

I remember listening to this song in the dark on a couch in Arizona, and I felt like I could see and understand everything so clearly. Sadness is sweet when you're out, and there isn't anything you can do while you're in it but be in it. I think I listened to the song probably 7 times in a row. It's a good one. Enough glazing.

I've completed a full week at BYU. Again. Only 14 more to go in this semester! Still no roommate, which has been really nice. I don't have to worry about waking someone up in the mornings, keeping them up at night, playing music they hate, flashing them after using the communal showers, sharing the sink... the benefits are endless. I dropped a history class because I might be able to double count a GE when I (prospectively) spend a semester abroad to Paris in the fall! My French class is going well. I'm understanding a lot more than I thought I would, and so far I haven't struggled too much.

Math is math, lots of proofs and learning what crazy symbols mean so I can use them when I write proofs. Subsets, existential quantifiers, upper bounds, symbolic logic... these words mean nothing to you, I'm sure. 

French film is incredible. Watch Purple Noon and The Intouchables. They're good. I watched the edited versions, so proceed at your own risk.

Physics is crazy. My teacher is this old guy I've had before who likes to go off topic often, which is very entertaining, but less than ideal when you want to do well on the tests. Fortunately, his tests are very forgiving and as long as you do well on the homework and don't fail every exam, you'll be okay. The class is Modern Physics, and our first week was relativity. Week one. I have no clue what we're gonna get through in 15 weeks.

I actually had a fairly novel idea about the nature of light/relative reference frames, and I presented it to my teacher. He's a fan. I think it might explain a couple of empty sockets in some existing theories and connect a couple gaps between modes of thinking. I like it a lot. I want to go talk to the relativistic researcher - at my professor's suggestion - because I don't know the first thing about proving or writing a paper on any of it. I do know some of the math behind it though, which is probably a good place to start.

Before I forget, I think I've decided on the plan for graduation. I did some digging and talked to some professors and came to the conclusion that BYU's Mechanical Engineering program prepares you incredibly well to go straight into the workforce and work your way up through a company. I want to go to graduate school right(ish) after my bachelor's, and it seems that a math degree would be better for that. It isn't so credit packed, so I can do a bit more outside of just the degree. BYU's applied math program, ACME, just won several national awards this past year, so I think I'm going to do that. They require you to pick an emphasis where you take classes in a certain field so they can list it on your diploma. I might do Machine Learning or Cryptography, but I have a minute to decide on that. Then, the French department has a secondary major program that allows students to double major more easily with a French Studies BA. I also only need 1 more physics class to get a minor in that. In short, the goal is to double major in Applied Computational Mathematics BS and French Studies BA with a minor in Physics and an emphasis in one of 3 fields. If Oxford/Cambridge doesn't take that, I did my best. Hopefully the astronaut program accepts master's degrees from England. Maybe I'll check. Mark my words, I am gonna go somewhere good for grad school.

BYU is good for a lot of things, but this week has been so frustrating, especially at work with permissions and authority structures and people refusing to work together on problems. I'll write more about that next week.

We lost our inner tube water polo game tonight by 1 point. So sad.

I think that's it. If you're on campus and study in the library every day, let me know where you sit. I also do that. I have no friends. Just kidding. Sort of.

That's all from me! Again, sorry for being late. I'll write next time on Mac Miller's new album and my work opp (opposition, grandmother). See you next week!

-will.i.am (not the famous one, the regular one)

I Ain't No Budge Boy

1/7/25

Before you say it, I know, I know.

It's been a while. This last week has been pretty crazy. I am writing this to you from Helaman Halls room 1217. To those who know, I'm a Merrill Man. I apologize for being so absent from your inbox lately. 2 weeks ago was Christmas and last week was New Year's; amidst all the chaos, I didn't write an email. Sue me. Oh, and happy holidays. Hopefully your last couple weeks were enjoyable.

Finding housing was nigh impossible. You would think, "Oh, it's Breed 'Em Young University. Surely someone is getting married and frantically trying to sell their contract." Well, voice in your head, you are correct. Somehow, only girls are getting married. If it's straight as can be BYU, then where are all the boys' contracts that are marrying said girls? It is an unanswerable mystery. If someone can offer an explanation that satisfies me, I will give them a spotlight in my next email.

In my quest to find a room in these Helaman Halls, we were messaged about a house across the street from the BYU Broadcasting building. On a Facebook Group, we had just said that we were looking for a place that was close to campus with a lease ending in April. The house seemed perfect. We messaged the dude who said that it was a good place and the pictures looked legit. We asked him if he was the owner, and he said "yes, I'm." As an English speaker, that contraction shouldn't be used there. I figured it was a typo. We checked the land records and saw that he was not in fact the owner. The owner had just died recently and the house was transferred to her son. We looked at the pictures again and realized that the front window in a bedroom didn't match any on the front of the house. The guy's Facebook profile seemed legit and had pictures from years ago. Apparently, if you see a little clock symbol next to a post date, you can click on it and find when the picture was added to Facebook. He made his account a few days before, and the same 3 people had reacted to each post with the same reactions. We told him we thought he might be running a scam and he blocked us on Messenger. Good thing we didn't fall for that one.

I signed my agreement for Helaman Halls last week. Turns out you have to have a meal plan, but they don't let you use the cheapest one. Rent at Helaman Halls cost 1620$ for the winter semester. That's pretty good. However, the cheapest meal plan cost 1630$. Ten dollars more than the rent. They are convinced I will spend 1630$ on food in 3 months. I signed the agreements at 11:59 pm, just before midnight. BYU Housing told me that I was required to sign the agreements by midnight on the day they notified me that a hold was available. 13 hours to decide seemed a little crazy. I signed them, then got an email that said there had been an error. I got a call the next morning. BYU Housing told me that there was an error and that they would keep the hold open until Sunday at 12 pm (not 12 am). I said okay, thanks for being understanding and went about my weekend. I didn't forget about my hold. I waited until Saturday night to try and accept it in case I found something else. When I tried to sign it, I got an error that said, "There has been an error. Please try again later." It was late, so I figured I'd do it the next morning. I woke up, tried again, and got the same message. 10 am, same thing. 11 am, same thing. 11:30, 11:45, 12 pm hits, and it says "This hold has expired. You can rejoin the waitlist." I immediately called and left a voicemail.

I went into the housing office the next morning at 9 am and told them my netID. The girl said she was familiar with my netID. I signed it at her desk on her computer. Then I went to Helaman Halls to check in. After waiting in line for over an hour (and enduring 2 line splits where I got moved to the back), I got a text from the the girl who helped me at the housing office. She said, "Sorry, I realized we booked you for the 18 year old bedspace rate, not the 19+ rate. We'll have to recontract. I've called Helaman to give them a heads up." I got out of the check-in line, digitally signed two forms, walked to the front counter, and explained the situation. They were so understaffed, so it took forever before she looked me up and saw I had two agreements. I told her "I know, they said they called you, can I get my keys so that I can move my stuff in?" She gave me my keys with many an eye roll and other tics of annoyance. I couldn't move in immediately. I had to go help a friend get their college education underway.

I helped my friend meet with their advisor and pick a couple classes. Their advisor happened to be an English teacher from my days at Dixon Middle School in Provo. He was an opp (opposition, you're welcome boomers) in middle school, but was super chill when I talked to him this time. Something about being around 13 year olds all day must make you a little crabby. Unless you're a certain middle school art teacher. No comment.

I went to move in today at around 3, and guess what? My ID card wouldn't let me in the building. I went to the Cannon Center and asked about getting it fixed. The kid at the desk had a hood on, which normally I would not care in the slightest about, but when you're working front desk reception, that seems like one of the few times you shouldn't have a hood on. He was super unhelpful, but he did give me a temporary key fob and told me he'd email some body (say it how it's spelled) about my problem. I moved my stuff into my room, and noticed that my roommate had absolutely nothing in the room. No clothes, no sheets, nothing. Then I went home. I placed 2nd and 7th in Fortnite with the one and only Chloe Rutter, then came back to Merrill. I met the guys in the hall and they seem pretty lit. Nobody too crazy, but not too tightly wound either. I dodged the mission question pretty well when it went around. Sounds like there's 1 returned missionary in the hall. Everyone else is in their first year.

I have no roommate. He moved out. Alas, I am alone. A lone Merrill Man, just looking for his place in the world... and still scared when 2 X chromosomes are put together. Classes start tomorrow morning at 9 am with a French class that may or may not be way too hard. We'll see tomorrow. Other than that, I'm mostly taking math and science classes, which I like, so hopefully I make it to April. I'm taking way too many credits and working more that I should. I'll reevaluate my position in a week, and write another email. Sorry for being quiet for so long.

I wish I had some deeply philosophical thing to talk about this week. I have some ideas for next week, but I'm simply out of time. It's 11, and for the first time in 8 months, I have school tomorrow. I'm excited and a little bit nervous, but I think I'm gonna like it.

Bye for nowsies,

Will Ott

PS. To the few people that have sent me emails, I'm sorry I haven't replied yet. I've been pretty busy, but I'm hoping to get to them this week(end).