win or fail?

I think I said something about discussing consciousness in my last blog post, but we'll save that for next time since this will just be a quick post about some amusing events that have happened.

Purposeful Depression

Classrooms should be as accommodating as possible right? So as to be conducive to the learning atmosphere. The probability/statistics class I've been taking this summer has been in a typical room. Lit adequately with those fluorescent lights that are so abundant in school and office buildings. It would be a dark room if not for those lights... or so I had thought. The other day, I walked in and noticed something a little different with the room:

Wait, we had windows in the room?! Why oh why weren't they open! Isn't that so depressing? To be robbed of sunlight, when it is a small tug of the curtain away... It's sad isn't it? That we've become used to unnaturally lit classrooms? What if all rooms were brightly lit by the happy rays of natural lighting? Would classes be less boring? Or would there be more daydreaming... Either way, it surprised me that I had never noticed the room actually had windows... but unfortunately, the room is to be kept isolated from the outside world *sigh.

Community is ... Interesting... Amusing... おもしろい ...

Some words are best expressed in another language? Community is both interesting and amusing at the same time. How did I come about this thought? I was headed home on MARTA yesterday and reached my station - end of the line. I got off the train and I saw a ton of GREEEEEEEEEEEEN. It was amazing how many Mexicans were present. I had never seen so many at the MARTA station before. There must be some kind of event going on, were my thoughts. But ... I didn't know of any Hispanic holidays going on... But then I saw the green soccer jerseys and the Mexican flags used as capes and the only reasonable explanation would be a soccer game.

As I left the station for the parking lot, there were even more Mexican families heading to the station. And then I remembered that there was also a Braves baseball game so I thought it would be amusing to try and find those families. I saw one family. I don't know why, but I almost laughed out loud (not to be mistaken with LOLed) when I passed them. It just seemed super amusing - amongst a huge population of the Mexican community was one small family going to see a baseball game. Community is strange indeed.

So when I got home, I looked up with game was going on: Mexico v. Venezuela. But even more interesting was the fact that Team Mexico hadn't been to the southeast since the Olympics. I guess that explains the huge turnout.

ORLY?

And finally, this was on my iGoogle homepage today. And the first thought that popped into my head when reading this title was "No sh*t". Honestly, if you believe that reading/typing does not affect driving, you don't deserve to be on the road. Eyes away from the road = not looking at the road. Not looking at the road = not driving.

Still, I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt - perhaps there was more to this article than the obvious. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. There were some charts and numbers, but ultimately, it's just common sense. Seriously, the things people waste money on for studies... I know there are many more cases of such "No duh." studies, but I can't think of them now. I'm sure you've seen them though...

Anyway, those were my observations of the week. Just random things I felt like I wanted to put down in type. I've been doodling a lot in that probabilty/statistics class... but nothing good ever comes out of it. I've even tried doodling a new blog layout. But they suck. So, don't suck like me, and be cool in life. Til next time!

Oh I forgot, if you haven't listened to Suzumiya Haruhi no Gensou yet, the first track is pure win.

buried in the sand

The ebb of schoolwork is merely accompanied by an anxiety - an uneasiness stemming from being conditioned to the flow. Reflecting, reviewing, trying to recollect what it feels like to be truly relieved of all responsibilities, deadlines, obligations. There is anticipation. After being consumed for so long by the workload, you wonder, When is the next spike in activity?

And as you restlessly sit in the wake of the high tide, the question must be asked, What was the positive duty cycle of the wave? What's the period of oscillation? For these answers will reveal how long this apprehension will last...

wait, what? ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! i went from the beaches to electronic waveforms..... i'm so burnt out. I recently finished a long report on analog electronic relaxation oscillators... I think it's adversely affecting my brainz. I don't believe I've had all that much time in the past week or two to do much of anything aside from coursework. And even though the majority of it is now finished, there's still little things that still need to be done. But I always sit here wondering if I'm forgetting something big. And this continues until something big actually does come along, and the cycle repeats itself.

So on a completely random, and hopefully less depressing note: ice cubes are annoying little buggers. Even though our fridge says "Cubes" it still spits out those rectangular hemisphere type thingies. And then, after they've all populated the glass of water, all they like to do is get all up in your face - quite literally. Ever tried drinking, and then the ice "cube" pretty much blocks off all liquid flow into your mouth? Then you try to raise the glass higher so that water maybe run faster? But in the end you're just freezing your upper lip... sneaky bastards, those ice chunks are.

This morning I woke up and the first thought that came to mind was: consciousness is such a mysterious thing. So maybe next time I'd like to talk about consciousness, especially the relationship between memory and self-awareness... it certainly is an interesting thing to ponder, but whether its worth writing a blog post about is questionable...

Until next time, continue existing! (wtballs does that mean?)

failllllll

This post will be full of fail. It seems occurences in my life recently have been full of fail. But they are the amusing type of fail - not the depressing kind of fail. But maybe it's a little bit of frustrating fail. Also, there's a little bit of lose-faith-in-humanity fail.

So let's start with some complaints about life; more specifically: summer classes. So one of the classes I'm in this summer is International Affairs (requisite for ethics credit). So last Thursday, we were supposed to watch a movie in lecture. But of course, technical difficulties with the VCR (yes, VHS movie) caused it to be delayed to this past Tuesday. So, this past Tuesday, the professor tells us the movie will be shown on a different date for 3 extra credit points. THREE points! She says she'll show it Thursday at 4pm and then asks if there are any conflicts? Of course, there's a conflict on my end (otherwise I wouldn't be sharing right?). But then someone asks if she'll have another showing for those who can't make it. She says no, don't worry about it. It's only extra credit. So what was the point of you asking if there are any conflicts?! So yeah, I don't find this predicament fair at all... but I'm too lazy to complain about it. Situation = Fail.

Fail #2

So this past weekend I needed to download an evaluation version of Cadence OrCAD. Little did I know that such an important product in the engineering world had such a failure of a web/file server. 945Mb download @ 10kbps. I left it to dl for the day, and at night it said 10hours remain. So I tried leaving it overnight. But the next morning when I woke up, it said it still had 8 hours remaining. miniFAIL. Then a couple of hours later, the download failed. I wasn't using a download manager, so I failed there. So I tried downloading it again (not learning from my mistake and still did not use a download manager). This time it downloaded more than it did previously ~800MB and then failed again.

So at this point I gave up on downloading it at home, and decided to test my luck with a campus edu line. The results are disheartening.
YOU FAILLLLLLL

Fail #3

So I had to turn in an application for a joint BS/MS program we have here. One of the applications stated I needed to go to a certain office. So I went to the receptionist/secretary lady person and the conversation went a little like this:

I honestly don't know if she didn't understand that Computer Engineering is an actual major or what. But that conversation was full of fail. At least she was correct in that I really needed to go to the ECE academic office instead. But I can't really say it was my fault since the application indicated the wrong office. Oh well, I still lost a little faith in humanity there too.

Fail #4

I was recently on Facebook (which is rare, because I have a deep aversion to it). But what I saw only added to my list of reasons why I despise Facebook.

Am I the only one who loses faith in humanity when I see a blaring and elementary grammar mistake such as this one? This is a public application. There's only two words that you could screw up... and well, you FAIL.

It's only been half a week and I've encountered so much fail. I hope that next week will bring me lots of win. But the fact that I have tests in every class doesn't provide very good prospects. On a random note, I was writing today's date, and 6+3=9! I'm so clever. If you get it, you are clever too! Continue being clever! Til next time.