I would rather be reading, and there is just a ton of work I should be doing instead of writing this. As a matter of fact, I have a paper due on Monday and an oral presentation to give on Tuesday (it's now Friday night). However, my core constituency has been after me to get my web pages done, and out of deference to her, here's some sort of an attempt at some sort of selected biographical information about me. You may well want to hit "BACK" now, O accidental tourist, or just try going here instead.

     I had a typically sucky childhood. Parents divorced when I was six, Dad's still hostile to Mom (20 years later), wasn't particularly popular in high school, sucked at every sport I've ever tried, etc.. That's enough of that, though. Ere you think, O reader, that I'm some bitter and depressed type, let us fast forward until college or thereabouts, when, like many people, I become more of an actual person and much, much less of a bundle of insecurities, acne, and rebellion. Oh, and on a stylistic note, I think I'm going to make the whole rest of this one big, long paragraph, since I love to ramble. But already I digress. College. In the fall of 1990, I entered the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, naively thinking I could realize my dreams of becoming a sex god, teenage alcoholic, and Nobel Prize-winning biochemist all at the same time. I leave it to you, dear reader, to guess which of these laudable goals fell by the wayside first. In my first semester at UMass, I joined the Delta Chi Fraternity. This was, all in all, a good decision. Not because I'm some psychotic jockboy, but mostly because it allowed me to pursue unhindered by social mores my desire to consume as much cheap, domestic beer as possible in four years. I like to think I'm better now. I usually only drink expensive domestic beer. Digressing again. As you may well be guessing, I did not distinguish myself academically in my first year. Given my high level of philosophical engagement into the world around me, I made plans to change my major away from Biochemistry to something, anything that didn't require three semesters of calculus, 7 chemistry courses, and all that physics. Oh, and after managing to slouch my way to a 1.7 GPA in my second semester, Dad decided he wasn't going to pay for school anymore. Ouch.

     So my second year is already starting out on a bad note. I forget how I paid for this year (I remember that Mom helped a good bit), but I knew that I couldn't afford another without doing something drastic. So I made Dean's List that fall, enlisted in the Army Reserve as a medic, got pretty good grades again in the spring, dated a series of unremarkable women (actually, Alison Pugh, if ever by some chance you read this, I owe you a huge apology. You were really way cool, and I was a 19 year-old drunkard with no class, and I'll buy you a cup of coffee if ever we run into each other), and otherwise muddled through the year. Over the course of that year, though, I realized that Political Science seemed like a much, MUCH easier major than was biochemistry, and kind of fun, too. I mean, people had been reading Plato for 2500 years, right? How difficult could it be? So I took an American government course and managed to get a C+ with no effort at all, and began to make plans to become a PoliSci major. But first, I had to get through seven months of active duty for training in the US Army. I knew it would suck, but I was supremely confident in those days. I was 20, I was in reasonably good shape, and I really, really, REALLY needed the money for college. This driving need made me about as motivated as I could have been, which wasn't very much. Excursus: when I was in 8th grade, my gym teacher (Br. Roy Pinette - he's a douchebag) remarked, "Almeida, you're not a very good team player" he was and is very right. Regardless, I made it through my seven months of fun, getting to experience scenic Rolla, Missouri, balmy San Antonio, TX, and bucolic Washington, DC. It was interesting, to say the least. Until I did some active time, I'd never really met anyone who wasn't a New Englander, and I figured everyone else in the US was like I was. Heh. But I made it home in April of 1993 with minimal psychic scarring and resumed my relationship with a nice, psychotic young woman who once sprayed Windex into my eyes in a fit of pique. The good thing was that after most of a year in the Army, I knew I needed to be back in school like I'd never known anything before. And maybe I picked up a modicum of reponsibility and maturity. Who knows? I had great pecs though, that's for damned sure.

     So I think I'm going to wrap this up for tonight. It groweth late, and there's a young woman waiting for me whom I really oughtn't neglect for too long. I love her, you know, and really have kept her waiting for far too long.