The Fortress of Nerditude

My grandmother passed away this morning around 4:30 a.m. She was 85. Unlike most people who die today in the United States, she elected to die at home, surrounded by family, instead of in a hospital, surrounded by strangers.

The words, "rest in peace" seem especially applicable here. She had been suffering for many years, and I had even written about her ailments for my Death and Dying Class 2 years ago. But while I am saddened to lose someone I've known my entire life, I am also greatly relieved - at long last, her spirit has gone to God, free of suffering.

I was given the privilege of typing her memoirs when I was a freshman in high school. These memoirs gave me a look into the extraordinary woman who was my Lola, a woman who defied Japanese divebombers and had to live with my domineering grandfather. She was a person of sheer willpower, who even defied death for sometime; no easy feat.

Death in all its ugliness and inevitability, does teach us one thing - hold onto life, and the people you love, as tight as you can. This is what my grandmother did, until the very end.

Rest in Peace, Gilda Cual. Mahal Kita.

As I pointed out in my previous post, life is full of innumerable possibilities. It also appears to be full of innumberable amounts of tasks that must be completed.

What must be done within the next month:

-Study extensively for LSAT
-Complete 2 750 word book reviews
-Complete 1 movie review (likely "Power Trip" which is on Instant Netflix) for Biz Law
-Research holiday ideas for Pioneer column
-Research holiday ideas for myself
-Register for spring semester classes (which includes meet with advisor, finalize schedule)

Every action which has ever taken place - every thought, every emotion - has taken place only once, at one moment in time and place. "I love you," "I rejoice," "I suffer," have been said and felt many billions of times, and never twice the same. Every person who has ever lived has lived an unbroken succession of unique occasions.

-Thornton Wilder

Ever have an "ugh" day? It might start off innocently enough - you do something wrong, make a mistake, or something negative happens etc. It may leave you feeling a little off-kilter, but what happens if two or more "ugh moments" happen in a short period of time? Then you have an "ugh day."

In my case, ugh days tend to happen when technology really gets on my nerves.

For me, it started when I found out that Windows 7 had erased my file sharing and printer settings. This meant I had to research and then figure them out.

When that was solved, I soon after discovered that my iPod was malfunctioning and had to be restarted 3 times or so before it would be recognizied. I then had to do a bunch of authorizing/deauthorizing stuff, which basically boils down to: iTunes really has no idea whose music is whose.

After I finally dealt with both issues, I then switched gears and started studying for the LSAT. I finished 1 chapter and started another of the Logical Reasoning Bible - and got annihilated. In one section I got only 1 question right in a section that's generally considered one of the "easier parts."

With that still on my mind, I tried to relax by playing my relatively new game, Jade Empire. Only to discover that the Steam client had exploded when I upgraded to 7 and would now have to be reinstalled - which means I have do download the bloody game over again and hope that my backup of the saved games work.

So basically, things can be summed up as such:

Today, I turned on my computer and realized that "upgrading to a new operating system" is a direct challenge to the technology gods. Simplicity isn't in their vocabulary. FML.

"In many areas of life you need to be a long-term optimist but a short-term realist." - Captain Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger

A student at my high school suffered cardiac arrest while playing in a basketball game. He couldn't be saved. You would think I've heard enough of these stories to be jaded, but sometimes it makes you wonder, why does this happen? Hm.

22.

Spoke to the grad school counselor today about law school. It sounds like my GPA and resume will be an excellent selling point, but it seems that the LSAT, alas will still be a major issue.

It would seem that taking the LSAT in December is disadvantageous because then I can't shoot for the early admission programs that some schools would offer. While I still can get in, it will be a lot more competitive because I am essentially waiting until last minute to apply, with the LSAT.

The reality check was good, but I still will have to do more thinking on whether or not I want to definitely go to law school immediately next year, or wait a year and work to finance it.

Reminder: Google Boston range finder, to check acceptance benchmarks.

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In other news:

-Around school, someone posted a flier about demanding free tampons. As my friend said, "But we don't get soap for free either!"

-The website is going well. I have uploaded all English essays, and now must do the same for topics like econ, etc.

-This food coma is rather something. Who would have thought a subway sandwich could do this?!

We begin again!

( Have you ever just thought maaayyyyybeeeee you belong with meeeeeee? )

So it's finally over.

My internship with Net Impact finished yesterday, and it's hard to believe. It feels kinda funny, that I won't be going back next week, but will instead be relaxing.

Anyway, for the most part it was a positive experience, and definitely a resume booster (I'm going to have to update the bugger once I'm done with vacation). I wrote 3 pages of "suggestions/improvements" for my boss so she can help make the experience even better for the next intern.

When my Guide is published next week, I will post a link here and on Facebook, so you can see what I produced this summer.

Some more thoughts soon...

When I leave Net Impact, I will leave behind the wonderful InDesign, and will have to go back to Pagemaker, its stunted, obsolete cousin. However, InDesign has taught me a few things to make my newspaper editing days go by much quicker:

1) Always use templates - To manually recreate the page, as we have been doing this past year is utter madness and a waste of time.

2) The case of the magical resizing box.
To resize a frame in Pagemaker:
1) Element-> Frame -> Frame Options -> Size Frame to content
2) Place picture -> Frame will auto resize!!! (In this mode, just readjusting the box without using crop tool will autocrop pic)



More to come! Perhaps Collegian needs to see a...demonstration.

I'm mulling an idea and wanted some input.

I'm thinking about linking the Manuscripts to Facebook - basically when I update the site, Facebook would show the blog entry as a note. The idea is interesting because it would (potentially) get more people to read my articles. I have several questions though:

1) Let's say I write 1-2 Collegian articles a week and then upload them on time. Would people be annoyed by seeing these notes?

2) Should I restrict the notes to appear to a group of friends and family, or let everyone on my Facebook see them? On the one hand, I'd rather not annoy people with too many notes, but on the other, it would give me additional exposure - people who know me are already knowledgeable about my work.

3) There are often times when I will get lazy and get a backlog on entries. This means I may upload as many as 4 articles in one day - which would mean 4 Facebook notes. What should I do in situations like this?

A blonde suspects her boyfriend is cheating on her. She goes out and buys a gun. When she goes to his apartment unexpectedly, sure enough, she finds him in the arms of a redhead.

Angry, the blonde reaches into her purse and takes out the gun. At that moment though, she is overcome by grief and puts it up to her head.

"No honey, don't do it," her boyfriend says.

The blonde replies, "Shut up, you're next."

Rest in Peace, King of Pop.

There's a lot that's been said on this already, and as someone on the radio said, what more can be said? How interesting that the last song I purchased five days ago was his song "Man in the Mirror."

I think celebrity deaths are particularly shocking because they remind everyone of their mortality. While we may experience the deaths of individuals, those passings do not usually have a ripple effect beyond our immediate circles. But the death of a celebrity, especially the shocking death of a celebrity, is a reminder to the world that life is finite, that a mundane day at the office is actually a gift. As Perez Hilton said, it's a moment to hug your family.

Well, I've started my new job at Net Impact, and if you want to hear more about my editing duties in the city (which is rather...chilly) drop me a line. Besides that, I have more amusing fish to fry: The Jonas Brothers.

Recently, their mom gave an interview with Good Keeping magazine> and was addressing the criticism of the brothers' decision to wear purity rings:

"They've been criticized for proclaiming things they never proclaimed. And what's the criticism?" she asks. "They don't want to go out there giving everyone an STD? What's so terrible about that?"

Oh Mamma Jonas, if you read your statement carefully you may have answered your own question.

Well who'da thunk it, I'm less than 24 hours away from ending my junior year of college. Wait, what, I've been at it for 3 years already? This has got to be some sort of dream. You mean I'm not a sophomore in high school?

( Uh oh its an lj-cut. Now this entry's really getting huge! I hope your body can take it )

Sometimes you can't go wrong with a simple picnic in the park.

Essay topic 1: Explain John Maynard Keynes' theory of investment

In the 1930's there was this dude named John Maynard Keynes. And he saw that some bad stuff was going down in the economy. Keynes was all, omgwtfbbq (Keynes General Theory Chapter 17) and suggested that people who get elected should, like do something about this.

So basically, Keynes said that people like to throw their money at stuff because they will hope to get more money in return. But in reality, their decision to throw money is based upon whether or not they had their daily dose of Prozac. Keynes, who did not take his Prozac that morning, said that people without their happy pills will not be happy investors (General Theory Chapter 15).

But THEN, Keynes was all - lol, lets throw money from sky when people don't invest. But the companies, while bathing in the free money, don't do this because they are all um, "dude, we are getting money for free why should we lose it?" and then the bad stuff continues.

So in order to fix all this, Keynes suggests that the government go to Amazon.com and fill its shopping cart to the brim with stuff like statues and parks and nuclear warheads and bridges that lead to nowhere and they had better select the free 2-day shipping option. "Free two day shipping is the only way for us to achieve necessary economic prosperity," Keynes said.

There were some dudes who came after Keynes was d3d and who dared to question his lofty principles. However, they were wrong (General Theory Epilogue). Scientific evidence shows that Keynes had actually predicted the arrival of quantum mechanics, which is stuff that is far more advanced and will be continued in long, unnecessary footnotes accompanied by sexy graphs (which Keynes was not too fond of).

In conclusion, Keynes declared that when people expect bad stuff, bad stuff happens. "You all fail and I win forever," Keynes said.

At long last, the thesis is done. I have printed the bugger and submit it tomorrow. It's still hard to believe that it's finally over.*

*Well except for the presentation part...

The amount of caffeine and sugar surging through my veins likely means I will ultimately sleep at 2am...on Friday.

Frappuccino + Oreo Milk Shake = WOO WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO