E-mail frustration

This is a tale of two e-mail accounts. I have one for personal use and one (from my university) for academic use. I use their corresponding POP accounts with Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.16 on Ubuntu. The server settings are identical. Thunderbird is set to download new messages whenever there are any new ones. But starting a few days ago, Thunderbird started telling me I had no new messages in my personal account even though I could log in to the web interface and see that I did. Thunderbird still connects to the server quickly and successfully, but it has been saying “There are no new messages on the server” when there are.

Since Thunderbird is getting mail from my school account just fine, I have to assume that it’s a server problem. But I’ve exhausted just about every option that I can think of. Well, I’ve run Thunderbird in safe mode, compacted my folders (hey, you never know), and deleted all the mail from the server, but Thunderbird still doesn’t acknowledge any new mail. The only thing I can really think of, except for some esoteric e-mail server bug that I’d never understand, is that the port might have changed. But port 110 (the default for POP) has worked fine for me for years, and I don’t feel like making thousands of guesses in the unlikely event that they suddenly switched ports.

Possibly useful note: I have Thunderbird set to leave old messages on the server for 90 days. The ones it has downloaded are marked as read on the web interface, while the ones it hasn’t are marked as unread (unless I read them online, in which case Thunderbird will still download them at the next opportunity). When I checked my inbox on the web yesterday, the first three or so e-mails that Thunderbird hadn’t downloaded were marked as read. The subsequent messages were all marked as unread, as they should have been. I think Thunderbird might have choked on them, but shouldn’t it be unchoked now? Is there some file in the profile that I could delete that would regenerate itself and fix everything?

I sent a support request to my e-mail provider last night, but they haven’t replied yet. They’d better soon, since I pay for their service. Maybe I should point out how much money I’ve given them for their quality service over the years.

And yes, I still put the hyphen in “e-mail.” Always.

[Edit Tue Aug 5, 2008 7:52 UTC -5: This problem has fixed itself, lending further evidence that it was an issue with the server. I haven't received a reply from my mail provider.]

Speaking of problems, I tried the pidgin-facebookchat plugin for the Pidgin IM client. It allows you to use the Facebook chat feature from within Pidgin. It was pretty cool except that you couldn’t get your whole buddy list (friends list) at once; they would simply appear as they signed on. And if you deleted someone from your buddy list, it would defriend that person on Facebook. I found that one out the hard way. Imagine my surprise when I eventually discovered that I had 90 friends missing. Luckily, I was able to add them back quickly, and I think some of them didn’t even know what happened.

The price of first-class postage in the US is going up more and more often these days, and the USPS claims that they’re just following inflation. It turns out that they’re right. Here’s a chart of the US first-class postage rate from 1885 to 2008, adjusted for inflation. Although the nominal cost of a stamp has more than doubled since 1981, the actual cost in 2008 dollars has remained between $0.40 and $0.45. By comparison, it has varied between $0.20 and over $0.50 in the past.

Typographers are responsible for making the fonts that we see all around us in our daily lives. Some guy wondered: what does a typographers’ handwriting look like? Of the typographers he asked, all have pretty cool handwriting. One guy’s handwriting looks like a familiar font because he made a font out of his handwriting.

Summertime blues

It’s summertime in The World of Colleges. All of my friends are either taking summer classes, traveling Europe, pursuing research opportunities at national laboratories, getting married, or working. Yes, working. I’m home for three months, so I figure I’d try to get a job that’s close enough to walk to and that I could work at, say, most days of the week. I could always use the money.

I searched the Internet for extremely local job listings and found a place close by that was looking for someone to do easy but tedious work on their web site. As it happens, I love doing easy but tedious things, and I have experience with web sites. I got the resume ready (thanks Kirsten), wrote a cover letter, and shot them an e-mail. Response: “I have found someone for that position. Thank you.” I told her to take the ad off the freaking web site so other people wouldn’t make my unfortunate mistake of wasting time trying to apply. I did not use the words “freaking” or “wasting,” but that’s how I felt.

So I went around to some local businesses to see which were hiring. Then I went home and called them to see what positions were available. The pizza place wanted a chef, and the Thai restaurant wanted a delivery boy. Nope and nope. I haven’t tried calling the others because I can’t decide which one I would want to work at the least.

Ah, getting a job. It’s totally worthwhile, even necessary. It can bring you security and happiness. But finding one is tough. You will get burned a lot, especially if you have little to no experience. And the longer you wait, the harder it gets. Good thing nothing else in life is just like that.

I need to come up with a clever idea to make money. One that doesn’t involve writing a cover letter. Something really stupid yet clever that no one has thought of yet. Maybe I could just play the guitar on a street corner. Maybe I can start a business and Be My Own Boss™. I also need an outlet for my near-constant frustration. I mean, besides this blog. Something that doesn’t involve complaining. I wish I could make art. Angry art. Sad art. Luckily, anything can pass for art these days, so I guess I could throw paint on a wall and call it art. But art isn’t really my thing. I want to smash things or blow stuff up in a field. And I want to not clean up after it.

Maybe I can make a business out of smashing things. Send me $50 or the iPhone gets it.

On a completely random note, no one has ever bought anything from the World of Stuff Store.

By the way: Justin is in Rome for one of his classes, Adam is going to pursue a research opportunity at a national laboratory, and Jennipher is apparently engaged. I don’t know her that well, but we’re friends on Facebook.

This is cool if you’re an independent artist: TuneCore distributes your music and videos to Internet music stores. You keep the rights to your songs and and all the money they make.

Big-time Jeopardy! winner Ken Jennings has interviewed a former Jeopardy! writer. Carlo Panno reveals all the secrets about how the show was made, as well as some amusing anecdotes. Here’s the interview: parts 1, 2, and 3.

Because you’ve always wondered: The Stories Behind 10 Famous Product Placements.

Where was I?

A lot has happened in the past week.

I had a physics test on Tuesday. I needed to study a lot for it, because I got only 12 out of 20 right on the first test. Luckily, my physics professors know how hard their class is, so a 60% is only a C+ (at my junior high it would have been a solid F). Still, I don’t like C’s or even B’s. (Maybe I should mention here that you’re allowed to have a handwritten cheat sheet for each test. I got a 60 with a cheat sheet.) So all the time I spent copying formulas and the answers to common problems paid off, because I got a 15 out of 20 – a B. I now have a B in the class. Yay.

I had a date planned for two Fridays ago, but it got postponed. A few minutes after sending off my last post, I rescheduled. We agreed Friday night.

On Wednesday, I did the whole “Are we still on for Friday?” thing. You know, where you… ask if you’re still on for Friday. She said yeah, and that she’d like to bring a friend along. Oh crap. I try so hard to make my intentions made clear without looking like a jerk or a fool, but apparently I don’t try hard enough. So I’m like, well, I think it should be just you and me… And she’s all, oh, so it’s like a date? And I’m, well, yeah… And she goes, oh, sorry, I’m not… whatever whatever. So I’m like, that’s cool, you can bring your friend. And she’s all, okay.

I was very disappointed about that. I’ve been trying all year, and I’ve still never been on a date. I talked about it to my friend Daniel, and he sent me some e-books on how to pick up girls and communicate with people and things like that. The one about girls caught my interest. It was from a guy in the seduction community, which I had only ever heard of on Wikipedia. Basically, it’s a loosely-knit group of people who practice the art of picking up women. This one guy’s recommendation was that you stand out and play hard to get. Well, everybody tells you to do that, but he explained it in detail. According to him, you have to say something crazy to get her attention, tell lots of interesting stories, and then act like you don’t give a care about her. I mean, there’s more to it than that, but that’s basically it. If you do it like he says, then she’s supposed to be begging for your phone number as you come up with excuse after excuse not to give it to her, only to divulge it finally after she’s practically grabbing your arm. Or whatever.

Besides being awfully manipulative, it requires you to act like someone you’re not, which is not only dishonest but also a lot of work. Although, I have to say, acting like myself isn’t working well at all. There’s got to be some sort of middle way where I can still be myself, but in a better way. I hope I can gleam some valuable information from the other e-books, which I haven’t read too much of yet. The other one I’ve read most of is about body language. I find it interesting because I can’t read body language at all. I’m hardly ever aware that someone may be using body language to convey feelings other than what they’re expressing verbally.

There’s just so much I have to think about. I could probably follow that one book to the letter and take a girl home every night, but I wouldn’t like it. I probably should make a habit of approaching random girls — I’m sure not meeting many as it is — but how do I go about it? Should I continue to act the way I am even though it frustrates me in ways you can’t possibly imagine? Should I pretend to be something I’m not? Should I actually change? Why should I even have to read these books anyway? It makes me feel like less of a man that I can’t do these things myself. It’s like I was born not knowing how to engage in social interaction.

Once I read an article or something that said how smart children are treated differently by adults. They don’t spend as much time fostering the children’s emotional and social development as much as they do with other kids because they think that the smart kids are just so precocious that they don’t need their help. But it’s not true. The result is that you have smart, neglected kids who can’t do anything. So the article went. I wonder if I can find it.

So, maybe I need to practice reading body language and doing things like that. Actually, while I’m at it, why don’t I go off on this tangent: Kissing sucks. Actually, I don’t know whether it sucks, but here’s what sucks about it. Being a good kisser is a great thing, and if you’re not, everyone you ever love will hate you. That’s a given. There are good kissers, and there are bad kissers (so I hear). But the thing is, you can’t practice. I’ve never slipped anyone the tongue. How will I know what to do? Oh, easy, just read a book about it. Okay, but I’m thinking of the stereotypical comparison of learning to ride a bike. Imagine that you only learn how to ride a bike by reading a book. Then one day, the local volcano erupts, and you need to use your bike to make a speedy escape. You’d better make damn sure you read that book thoroughly.

Okay, so, I decided to go on the non-date which we still had scheduled. I got to restaurant in about half the time I thought it would take, so I was just sitting at a street corner for a while watching the cars and people go by. Behind me was the university, and across the street was the Outside World. A car came out of the university and slowed down as it passed me. The car was full of girls, about four of them. It looked like they were going to ask me for directions, so I got ready to point.

The one in the back on the passenger side spoke: “Excuse me, which way is UF?”

“…It’s right behind you,” I said, pointing backwards, but they didn’t want to hear. They just kept going. Then I said something that they definitely wouldn’t have wanted to hear.

Girls, man.

What is it about me that makes me like a human punching bag?

So, anyway, tonight we went to Tijuana Flats — a “fast casual” Mexican place that I love — for dinner, with the girl’s friend, who I had seen around. We ordered, ate, and had some light conversation. It was rather uneventful, and I had a good feeling that I could have pulled off a nice evening without the extra friend there.

They said they were going to go to a concert afterward, and I didn’t really want to do that, but when they said it was on campus, I figured I’d go along. It was at the student union, where there’s an amphitheater in front of a lake. It’s pretty nice. The first guy had a loud guitar, and he played drums with foot pedals. Other than his singing, he sounded like the White Stripes. The next guy was a little more talented; he played the acoustic guitar and was very rhythmic with it. Finally, there was the headliner: she was the woman who did a lot of the soundtrack for Juno, a movie I actually saw. So some of the songs, sung with her distinctive voice, were familiar. But they were all captivating and entertaining. Her name was Kimya Dawson.

She was very funny, and it turned out that the tour was a family affair: the first guy playing was her husband, and the second was a good friend who got a namecheck in one of the songs in Juno (which prompted his local newspaper to publish a story saying that an area songwriter’s name would be mentioned in a song in an upcoming movie). At one point, she had people in the audience raise their hands to request songs. A big group of people raised their hands together, and they requested a song of hers and asked if they could go down and dance to it. She let them. There were about twelve of them, and as she did this moderate-tempo acousting number, they were swing dancing and generally flailing about randomly. Then she asked anybody who had ever dreamed of auditioning for Annie to come down and sing “Tomorrow” with her a cappella. A lot of people did. Finally, a huge number of people came down to dance to her final number, and they continued to swarm around her and give her hugs long after her set ended.

During the set, my non-date and her friend had gotten about four other people to meet up with them, so I was now in a large group. There were a lot of things going on at the student union (they have a whole program of things to do on Friday nights to keep kids from going to parties, I guess), so a few people decided they wanted wax hands. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them, but it’s where they dip your hand in wax and then it hardens and you buy it for ten dollars. After waiting in line for an hour even though I didn’t want a wax hand, I realized that the night was winding down, so I decided to leave right then. My non-date seemed to understand.

Cautious optimism

On Sunday, I asked a girl out to dinner. It was not the first time. I always get blown off, so the date never happens. Tonight, the tradition continues. Yesterday this girl said she couldn’t have dinner Friday night because her ride was picking her up for spring break on Thursday afternoon. She offered to reschedule. We will reschedule later.

I want to have a normal love life so nobody thinks I’m a retard. Seriously, 18 and I’m going on my first date? And then I shout it from the mountaintops to all my friends, and they’re all, “Congratulations, Jordan, for finally doing something we managed to do at the age of 13!” And my parents would be all, “We met in high school and got married a few years later!” If I weren’t embarrassed enough before, now I have to tell everyone that I’ve gotten worked up for nothing. Yeah, moping in seclusion till Saturday sounds good.

Tomorrow is the last day before spring break, and unlike people who have already left, I shall be going to all of my classes as usual.

In other news, what’s up with selling out? One of the things that attracted me to the No S Diet was its noncommercial nature — one average Joe came up with this extremely simple diet plan (14 words long) and made a web page about it to promote it to other like-minded Joes and Janes. The site says, “You wouldn’t take diet advice from a fat person, why take it from a fat book?” Well, the guy accepted a book deal that fell into his lap, and perhaps we can say that he has “sold out.” His 14-word diet has become a 208-page book with some random nutrition expert for a co-author. If I hadn’t been happily practicing the No S Diet, I might be turned off by this. What is the deal?

I sure hope I’m not a sellout because that’s not cool. If there’s anything sellouty about this site, it might be the store. But since no one’s ever bought anything from it, I’m not sure whether it counts. On the other hand, today I rejected the umpteenth advertising offer to come my way (actually, it’s probably closer to the umpth). I hate advertising, so the last place I would want to see ads would be my own site. Hooray for principles?

Okay, I want to ask you something, so I’m going to resurrect Jordon Asks You. This is a question I’ve been thinking about quite a bit, and I’m not sure how I would answer it myself. The question is: Would you date someone with different religious beliefs from you? Why or why not?

This might be of use to someone: this Reverse IP Domain Check shows web sites hosted on the same server as a given site.

Here’s a video with a tip for shutterbugs: how to make a $1 image stabilizer for any camera.

Another one of those videos: Are Americans Really That Stupid? (Answer: It’s probably just selective editing.)

VD

I’m still alive, really. I’ve been busy. I present to you a post I started working on yesterday but didn’t have time to finish.

Tuesday was Free Pancake Day at IHOP, and my sister really wanted to go. We went with our friend Amanda. The pancakes were good. They tasted really free. Since man cannot live on pancakes alone, I also had some eggs Benedict. The point of letting everyone have a free short stack was to raise money for charity, so we did our part. In that sense, the pancakes weren’t really free.

They still tasted free, though.

Also Tuesday, I had my first test in my programming class. I think I got an A. It helps when you already know some basic programming concepts. Today in programming discussion, we were doing exercises with loops (which were just taught yesterday). The hardest one was to implement Leibniz’s calculation of pi. I got it, and I’ve been playing around with it. It turns out that it converges to pi extremely slowly. With 1 billion terms, it’s accurate only to 8 decimal places.

Of course, the proverbial elephant in the room is that it’s Valentine’s Day. You know what that means: it’s my anniversary… of switching to Linux. You probably know how I feel about Valentine’s Day, or you can probably guess. After reading this, you will be able to guess.

I went to a Gator Freethought meeting last night. To make things interesting, the topic of discussion was how your religious beliefs affect your views on love, sex, dating, and the like. To make things more interesting, “stoplight” dress code was made optional: wear green if you’re single, red if you’re taken, and yellow if you’re “It’s Complicated.” While the people there spent the entire time debating the definition of love, I couldn’t help but wonder: Why cant everyone dress this way all the time then we wouldn’t have any problems or rather I wouldn’t have any problems. Seriously the last 3 girls I asked out or wanted to ask out were already taken and I didn’t know it at the time WTF. I hate this. I really do. And it’s only getting worse. I’m just going to make this clear:

I can’t get a date.

There. I said it, for everyone to hear. It’s hard to exude coolness and confidence with a track record like the one I have.

However, I do have some joy in my life by volunteering for Get Carded, which gives out organ donor cards. Today we gave out cards with a Valentine’s twist: “Have a heart, sign a donor card” was the slogan, and the idea drew some people. The chocolates also drew some people, no doubt. It was a productive day, though, and that’s good. I like knowing that I’m helping to save lives.

Time for Ask Jordon:

Brian: Is Justin secretly Stephen Rea?

Your IP address indicates that you sent this from the University of Oregon. Is Brian secretly my friend Luke?

Dan in Japan: Did you ever read Pulp Novels? If so, did you have a favorite hero? (Example – The Spider, the Shadow.. etc.)

No, Dan the Man in Japan, I’ve never read those kinds of things. I think they were before my time. I thought Pulp Fiction was okay, though. By the way, your IP address indicates that you are in Japan. Good job.

Just to fit into the theme we’ve got going here, here are 50 Very Simple Ways to Be Romantic.

And this probably fits in too: Your Eyes Don’t Lie – Reading Thoughts By Eye Movements.

Shovelglove, Part II

When you call someone, isn’t it considered polite for them to, say… call you back?

I count this as number four. Time to move on. What does the world have against Jordon Kalilich?

Just before I left home on Monday, I decided on a whim to take up the shovelglove again. I briefly took up this form of sledgehammer exercise two years ago but stopped after I overexerted myself. Since then I’ve been lazy/trying to forget it/afraid of exercising. But for some reason, I remembered it and decided to give it another try.

I brought my 4-kg sledgehammer and have started doing some movements with it in the morning. A 14-minute session is recommended, but I think I’ll work up to it this time. Last time, I tried to do the whole 14 minutes too soon, and I couldn’t move my arms for a few days. I’m doing the same movements I did last time: shoveling, churning butter, chopping wood, and flipping the lever. I think I’ll try the Ab Killer as well.

Do check out my online HabitCal (habit calendar) on which I’ll mark my successes and failures. (The color code is: green = success, red = failure, yellow = exempt day.) Right now I’ll count doing the movements as a success, but when I can do the full 14 minutes, I’ll be tougher with the definition.

I am Jordon. People ask me things. I answer them.

Michael : I would like to know the truth about the Beatles 1964 coin that is resurficeing,. Who made it, Why and Who were they given to. I Thank you, Mike

Hm. I know about the Beatles, and I know about coins, but I don’t know about Beatle coins. A quick Google search suggests that some bronze coins were made to commemorate a visit they made to the United States in 1964. Since I didn’t bother to go past page one of the Google search results, I don’t know who would have issued them, and it’s possible that some or all of them were made years after the fact.

Tim: How much does it need to go to Ameryca one time?

Tim, thankses, to ask to me over a travel towards the Ameryca. It is a beautiful station of job, that the sure one is that estimated. The Ameryca, For Your Information must once be a lot. I hope that you he find it valid.

Here’s a fine example of stop-motion animation with real people: Tony vs. Paul.

20 Things You Didn’t Know About… Nothing.

Here’s a list of most common nicknames for first names based on 1990 US Census data.

Oh dear, what can I do?

All right, I’ll admit it: I wear clothes. Inevitably, those clothes get dirty. Ordinarily, it’s simple to wash them, dry them, and go on your way. But things aren’t very ordinary right now. I’ve been in college for a few weeks, and after taking my laundry back home to be washed, I came to the realization that I’d eventually have to do it myself. The realization came on Saturday when a simple squeeze of a ketchup packet went awry. It went awry on my pants.

After leaving detergent to soak on the stain for a few days, I finally had some time to do some laundry today. I wouldn’t have even known where my dorm’s laundry room was if I hadn’t passed it while exiting the building when the fire alarm went off. When I got there with my laundry, some detergent, and my homework, I realized that I needed quarters. So I had to go all the way back to the dorm for quarters. I left my keys in there, so when I got back to the laundry room, I couldn’t open the door. So I had to go back to my room with all my stuff again. The third time was the charm.

The washers and dryers were pretty simple to use, so that was good. The atmosphere was pretty conducive to doing homework (even though I’m apparently one of the slowest homework-doers in the world). And the ketchup stain on my shorts went away completely. I couldn’t even identify the pair of shorts that had been stained. (I wear jean shorts all the time. I have hundreds or thousands of pairs.) Holy stain-fighting action, Batman! This laundry detergent stuff really works. And that’s why I think doing laundry will be a (mostly) pleasant experience in the future.

Apparently, someone recently noted how nice it is that I never seem to be lonely. I’m an introvert by nature. I like people, but in smaller doses. I like being alone sometimes. I’m not always lonely when I’m alone, and I’m not always alone when I’m lonely. I’ve been feeling somewhat lonely in spite of having people to hang out with. I can be with someone, but it’s not the same as being with someone. I’m in need of a special kind of company, the kind that… oh, I know what you’re thinking. Jordon tried to talk to a girl — again — and she didn’t give him the time of day — again! If that was your guess, you’re correct.

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a good looking guy. The face is “eh” at best. No muscles or anything. Lousy sideburns too. (Do the ladies even dig those?) But what do I give off besides being terribly physically unattractive? Or is it just my luck that every girl I want to get to know better is preoccupied with some other guy? What the hell?

Darn it, the Beatles, you’ve said it for me again. And with that, I’d like to turn our attention to Thoughts of a crazy RedHead, a blog that consists of the thoughts of a 20-something woman in New York City. I’ve been reading it for a while because it’s interesting to climb into the mind of an average (?) woman, and that’s exactly what blogs allow for. What’s also interesting about this blog is that I’m on “Red”‘s blogroll. That’s how I found out about her blog, in fact. I wonder why she finds my blog interesting when her blogroll is otherwise populated with names like “Charming but Single,” “Persona of a Princess,” “New York Moments,” “Tired of Men,” and “Bridget Jones Has Nothing On Me.” If I had to guess, I’d say that she probably feels the same way about me: that it’s interesting to see the way a high-schooler-turned-college-student-type-guy thinks. I’ve tried e-mailing her, but I’ve gotten no response. Maybe, if she reads this, she can leave a comment here.

Take that: Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia.

liek, omgz, only 74 days til my birthday!!!

This is how the world works:

You are born. You go to school. You move away and go to school some more. You get married and maybe have kids. You work for a few decades and then you die.

That’s just the way things happen. It doesn’t matter if you want to do it, or if you want to skip or rearrange the steps. As the robots say, “YOU HAVE TO GO TO COL-LEGE.” (Robots know that syllables break at double letters.) It may seem like I’m trivializing the whole thing (going to college, I mean), but it’s anything but trivial to me. Over the past few days or weeks — I don’t know — I’ve become increasingly and consumingly worried about money. I’m trying not to spend any money from now until indefinitely. It’s all going into the bank, where I can’t touch it until I’m 18 (a few months from now). College costs a hell of a lot of money. I’m fortunate to be smart and poor enough to have tuition paid for, but more basic needs such as food and shelter are still up to me.

I’ve been consumed by thoughts of living in college an an aglet budget. An aglet is the little thing on the end of a shoestring that holds it together. And here I find myself being (arguably) funny again, after having spent much of the day moping. I guess this is really why I keep blogging. Anyway, if you can still take me seriously, I more and more frequently see scenes of the college life that awaits me: sharing a bedroom with a stranger, dining at Taco Bell, probably having to juggle school and a job, walking down sidewalks to get from place to place, and maybe hitching the bus — which, I think, is free for students. It won’t get me to my aunt in Columbia County, though.

It really is strange. I live a comfortable life, and I don’t have to worry about much. But soon, I will, so I’m getting an early start. I would probably be much more comfortable with this whole thing if I knew what I was going to do with my life. Everyone I know either has great career goals or is at least going to college in exotic and interesting places, but I have neither of those things, and they’re in no position to be able to sympathize. Having career goals might even give me motivation to go to college. But as things are, I don’t want to go because it seems like some huge, life-altering, pocket-draining thing I just have to do for no reason. And anyway, no subject in school has ever struck me as being particularly interesting, which means that I’ll probably resign myself to a job that I don’t care about and live out my days toiling away in misery.

I just wish I had someone to love and understand me. It’s what I’ve always wanted, but it’s times like this that I could really use it the most.

Stop laughing. I’m sad, okay?

Nara Dreamland was a theme park in Japan that was like a rip-off of Disneyland. Some parts were pretty similar, aside from the fact that nobody went there and it looked abandoned.

Whose fault is it anyway?

I put off my application for the University of Florida. I put it off, and I put it off some more. And then, with about a week and a half before the deadline, I was almost done, except that I found out that I needed the school to send my transcript? I had thought that the university would request it themselves, but I guess not. On Monday I filled out a form asking the school to send my transcript, and two days later, I got a hard copy so I could actually see how much credit I was getting for each class I was taking (that was also the last part of the form). Wow! Did you know that I’m getting 1 credit for each class? Apparently they don’t discuss how much credit I’m getting for taking AP Calculus AB in one semester and AP Calculus BC in the next. Nobody knows, actually, so we’re just going to have to see. I made my best guess and fired off that application (online) on Wednesday. Then I got some stuff together, including a recommendation letter I had hastily gotten from Dr. Singkornrat earlier in the day. She had been short on time, so I advised her on what to put down. Then she signed it so that I’d have a copy to send out that very night.

The Early Decision deadline is Monday, October 2, so I was really worried about the envelope not getting there on time. Yesterday my dad went to the post office and made sure it would get to the university overnight, so they should have it now. Maybe I shouldn’t have done the Early Decision thing. It basically requires you to sell your soul to the college; if they accept you, you’re contractually bound to go there. The only advantage (?) is that you find out earlier… and you’re more likely to get in? Oh well. That’s the option I chose, anyway. Everyone else was doing it, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. At least I don’t have to worry about being rejected because of a late application.

When I started back at my old job earlier this month, the last thing that went through my mind was how much I should get paid. I never discussed it with anyone, so when I got the application, I was a little startled to see that I could write down how much I wanted to get paid. Because I had made $7 per hour originally, that’s what I put down. (Was this a mistake? Hint: Why would be writing about it now?)

I got my first paycheck last week. For working 15 hours, I got a gross pay of $105, which was to be expected. My sister, who started working the same job during the same hours, did not get her paycheck. She hadn’t signed an important form, so some dance had to be undertaken with the main office of the company. She got the check today, and it was for $120. She made $8 an hour. I confronted her about it, and she said that she didn’t see any part of the application where you could write down how much you wanted to make. Ergo: she left the field blank, and Accounting or whoever gave her $8. I, who have an extra 15 months of experience at the company under my belt, gave myself $7, and some middle-management screwball grinned an evil grin.

Apparently I should ask for more money — that is, ask for a raise. Here’s the funny (or funnier) part: Sophia, the office manager who I’ve known since I started working there three years ago, is leaving, and so who will I have to plead to to get a raise? I don’t know! It’ll be somebody I’ve never met before. Way to make a first impression. Here’s this long-haired boy or kid who makes butt at his current job and wants to make twice butt. Would you give him a $1 raise? Why do I have to be the one to suffer for actually reading the application and signing my name where necessary? Why do I have to be the one to suffer for failing to consider important questions and passing off foolish assumptions as answers? Whose fault is it, anyway?

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. It’s a sentence, man. But it raises the question: are there really any Buffalo buffalo?

Youth Against Sudoku. I wonder if crossword puzzles were ever met with this kind of resistance.

Bah! Bah, bah, college, bah bah

Applying to college is a really laborious task. I don’t care what you say. It is. I know I won’t think so years from now, but I won’t be applying to colleges years from now. I was just taking some time to review the only application I’ve started working on so far, and I realized that I need to know how much credit each of my current courses affords me. My sister told me I have to get a copy of my transcript from the Guidance department. There’s a three-day waiting period.

And you know what? If I didn’t have a sibling applying to college at the same time as me, I never would have known that. The thing about applying to colleges is that they make it as hard as possible. Nobody tells you how to do anything, and if you can figure it out, you’re probably smart enough to be approved. So I guess I’m not? Anyway, it’s really frustrating now that I see I really, really need to get busy with these applications. That’s what I get for not knowing anything about applying to colleges? Note to self: the deadline is Monday, October 2! This is really not cool, you guys. The whole rest of my life is at stake due to the things I’ve done (and not done) over the past few weeks. Don’t be like me, kids.

Anyway, it’s that time of year again for BAT testing of the freshmen and sophomores. That means that the rest of us get to do nothing while they test. Well, I can’t say that we’re doing nothing; it’s just that we’re doing nothing educational. In fact, part of this post is being written on a Mac laptop in class. The desktop is littered with saved files, and the computer’s clock is set to Monday, April 19, 1976, but at least it has a working Internet connection, which can’t be said of some of the other laptops here at school.

Also: why would anybody tile a photo for use as their desktop wallpaper? They’d have to be thinking, “I really love this picture, so if I see it on my screen nine times, then I’ll love it nine times more!” Oh well. That’s just a little pet peeve of mine, I guess. It doesn’t harm anybody. Another thing that doesn’t harm anybody is reading lots and lots of Dinosaur Comics. That’s how I spent much of my free time in class.

Yesterday was the first of the two test days, and a lot of juniors and seniors showed up late or didn’t go at all. After all, why should they if they’re going to be doing nothing for half the day? Today there were even fewer people, and some classes were brought to a standstill. Yes, all of the students still have all of their class periods, but most of them are shorter due to the testing. And you might imagine how the teachers have reacted: mixedly. (Is that a word?) Some don’t care if their students skip these rather unimportant days, but others are deeply concerned about losing their teaching time.

But the fun doesn’t end there. Tomorrow is a “professional study day” for the teachers. It’s something they’ve just introduced this year. Every once in a while, the teachers will have to attend workshops during their work hours, so they’ll let the students out early. To compress our schedule, they planned to have 67-minute class periods (instead of 110 minutes), and they were going to let school out at 11:58. I guess there was some criticism about that, so they changed tomorrow’s class periods to 65 minutes, and they’re planning on letting us loose at 11:50 instead. Eight more minutes of weekend!

This is really interesting: Pictures That Lie. It’s a sort of chronicle of notable photographic forgeries, from 19th-century cut-and-paste jobs to, well, 21st-century cut-and-paste jobs.

In Soviet Russia, city abandons YOU!

One year ago: “There are only four more names left on this year’s list of 21 names to be used: Stan, Tammy, Vince, and Wilma.”
Two years ago: “I’ve been told he has quite a sense of humor. He laughs at his own jokes.”