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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "cccccc" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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09:37 pm
[Link] | So I've not had much time to update this thing. Sorry to you all who read this (all 2+ of you!). I'm not abandoning this project, just putting it on the backburner until I have time to make a good update. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter and check out my blog about my college http://www.lclark.us.
<3
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10:56 pm
[Link] |
will you persist even after i bet you a billion dollars that i'll never love you?
Things have been pretty normal, you know. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that has changed lately is that I finally started my LC Blog project. After doing the "Real Life" blog last year, I realized our school has basically no online resources/outlets for students or prospies to talk about the school without being filtered or censored. One can generally assume that anything on the school's official website is going to be positive, and one can assume that anything on websites like Princeton Review is going to be relatively polarized, because people aren't going to seek out and submit to Princeton Review unless they either really like or really hate the school. So, with this blog, hopefully there will be more room to just talk, good or bad, about the school. The site is still in its infancy, and I know next to nothing about administrating a successful blog, so it'll be a fun learning experience. If nothing else, I get to practice some CSS.
On the topic of my site, I was contacted by the head of LC's PR department about 2 days after the site went live, so that was interesting. It wasn't even indexed by Google yet. It wasn't to tell me to take it down, but rather inviting me to meet and discuss what online resources would be good for LC to pursue, and just sort of swap ideas about where my blog could go, and where LC's website could go. It was actually a really cool chat. I feel like the public-relations practices (at least of the admissions department) were more preventative than reactive, to the detriment of their credibility. We discussed this at the meeting. Basically, if it weren't for my less-than-favorable experience with "Real Life," I probably wouldn't be making any websites now. That's not to say that "Real Life" should serve the purpose that this new blog will–I'm sure it shouldn't–but the upshot is that if you censor people on the internet, they're only going to find trickier ways to circumvent you. From a PR perspective, it's better to remain hands-off and amiable than to micromanage and cause a backlash (this is not just in relation to "Real Life," but the College, and life, in general). Dig?
I've been poking around on WoW a bit lately since the new patch (3.2) dropped. Seems a bit like I've been there and done that.
Wanna see maximum efficiency in org-chart form? BOOM here's the IT department at LC:
I have darling kittycats.
http://cheezburger.com/View.aspx?ciid=4901530&g=1
What? You like photos of kittens? No, I don't have any of those. Go away.
Current Mood: goodish
Current Music: "Backstabber" by The Dresden Dolls
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04:05 pm
[Link] |
my head
Okay, so if I tell you "fill out this form" and give you a URL to a webform, do you not agree that you should then type information into little boxes and hit "Submit?" This is pretty universally accepted as the proper way to go about handling webforms. NOT SO AT LC! What I am about to show you is, I have decided, one of two possible things; 1. A firm testament to some boomers' deep misunderstanding of the internet or 2. The most boldly 'hipster' action that has ever been taken at this college.
In the campus snail-mail today, IT received this gem, which I have scanned for your viewing pleasure:
What you are looking at--A person printed out a web-form, filled it out using a TYPEWRITER, and then submitted it to us via inter-departmental mail.
(for an added level of meta, I have once again converted it to a digital format by scanning it).
(violence/gore in vid)
Current Mood: alrighty
Current Music: "Svefn g englar" by Sigur Ros
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01:36 pm
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a toast to the last of a dying breed; they're crawling back to bed; they're falling back to sleep
Independence Day was pretty sweet. Jess and I went to Fox Island to celebrate with my family. In the afternoon/evening, we went to Ari's mom's for some socilaizing with my high school peeps (Sam, David, Sarah, Dana, Matt). I got to ride the jet ski, which was fun (duh).
Lots of explosives, lots of questionable safety practices.
Chris came back to Portland with me and spent the week at my house. He climbed with us and played lots of video games and pet our kittens.
I can't think of much to say.
I beat Bioshock. Man that's a depressing ending if you don't save the Little Sisters (hey, I wanted that ADAM!).
Finally on what and waffles. Only a few years since OiNK shut down. Oh well, late to the party.
I still regret going to day 2 of Model United Nations senior year instead of seeing Vendetta Red's last show. Oh well, at least I was lucky enough to see them at all.
I got tired of iPhone programming and have decided to teach myself C++ instead. So far so good.
p79
I bought Greg Graffin's book of correspondence between himself and a Christian professor. I love getting things in the mail!
I saw Away We Go and enjoyed it mostly. It was a little too optimistic/positive for my tastes, but the acting was great and I was never bored. It was really, really hyped for me, so I think that might be why I didn't find it quite meeting my expectations. Oh well.
I saw Brüno and I did enjoy it, despite the reviews. I really hope that we'll be able to look back at Sacha Baron Cohen's work in like 30 or 40 years and just be like "look how ridiculous we were." Regardless of how forced some of the scenes were, the message of the film was important and, in my opinion, delivered very masterfully. I'm sure there are films that have done a better job, but they also weren't huge Summer blockbusters.
DUAL KERNEL PANICS!
Fred Meyer's stirring tribute to the King of Pop:
MILLENNIUM FALCON!
nu-metal marketing?
I wish these were mine
Dunno what's going on with this van, but I'm a fan.
O RLY? (bathroom at Lewis & Clark)
Current Music: "American Dream" by Bad Religion
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08:27 pm
[Link] |
every day i'm hustlin'
Here're some images that I've had sitting on my cell phone for way too long. Some are serious, some are silly, some don't make sense. Here you go:
Jess
LC Health Center
Wonder about the story behind this one. I found this book in one of the bins at The Bins. Did the kid and the parents have a falling-out? Was this a passive-aggressive present? Is it in the Bins because the owner thought it could help someone else? I'm really curious about how and why it found its way from its owner's shelf to the Goodwill Outlet. I think the implications of this book, with this inscription, in this place, sort of exemplify the spiritual experience of students at L&C (and perhaps liberal arts schools in general?)
Hidey
on a walk in PDX
LC Health Center's doorstop
at Valley Lanes bowling alley
programming at the Fireside for Peter's class
Knhik's goggles
friends
Current Mood: alrighty
Current Music: "Fixies & Ferraris" by Super Mash Bros.
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10:19 pm
[Link] |
who reads it?
After mowing our lawn, we found that we have an extension cord in the backyard that goes into the ground. The weirdest part is that it's the male end. We have no idea what it does, and aren't quite sure what it would power.
The kittens are well. I like them. They're both healthy now (Voxel knows how to drink)! They spend all their time together, either wrestling or sleeping.
Or being cuddled by humans like Jess:
Here's a little taste; more to come when I decide to shoot and edit some stuff:
Last weekend I went with Jess and our pal Kiya, who transfered from LC after our Sophomore year, to go see the touring production of RENT, starring Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. I'd never seen the live show, only the movie, so this was pretty awesome for me. The play makes *so* much more sense. I never knew how much exposition they cut for the film. Oh, well. Both are pretty epic. In a conversation with Kathryn, I had the epiphany that I probably like RENT so much because its music meshes together so well. The whole show is basically one giant mash-up. And I love mash-ups!
The play was great, but what was even cooler was afterwards, we booked it to the stage door and I met Anthony Rapp, who was signing things for fans. Anthony is one of my most favorite actors of all, so it was really cool to be able to see him.
I picked up skateboarding again. It's not too bad, but apparently my shoes were too loose and now I have a pretty great blister on my foot. Here it is so you can be disgusted by it:
Last week, Super Mash Bros. released a new album, "All About The Scrilions." They're a mash-up duo from California, but I heard about them because one of them goes to LC. It's one of the best mash-up albums I've heard in a long time; they're getting all sorts of internet hype for it.
DOWNLOAD IT NOW!!!!!! http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mwxzbjv2imj
Current Music: "Still Bleeding" by Super Mash Bros
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09:20 pm
[Link] |
puttin' on the ritz
Well, since I last posted, some things have changed for me.
Most importantly, we got 2 kitties (at least for the time being, depending on $$$).
Meet Leia and Voxel (and Lillie Mae and Amy):
So, as you know, we planned to get a cat once we settled in. Well, a few days ago, we started talking cats and, serendipitously, the neighbors came by asking if we would adopt kittens. So, we said yes, like ya' do. We intend to keep both of them, but if it works out that we can't afford the pet deposit and stuff, which we're still working out, they are fully returnable. We hope it doesn't come to that, though. I'm thinking it won't. So, we have Leia (named by Nick) and Kenneth Voxel Dongle Smith, who goes by Voxel (named Voxel by Sam, the rest of the name is a long, boring story). This is what voxel means. Voxel is a bit under the weather currently. The house transition and food changes (we feed them kitten food, the neighbors had been feeding them cat food) haven't been kind to poor Voxel's tummy. We are, however, able to exercise our creativity by finding ways to trick Vox into drinking water. So far, she like licking it off of our fingers, nibbling on ice cubes, and eating her food as kitty-kibble soup. I think I'm gonna post a video of them this weekend. They go to the vet on Tuesday!
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LC's President, Tom Hochstettler, announced today that he's leaving in a month, rather than in a year and a month like he had originally planned. It's unfortunate... he seems like a pretty great administrator. It's what I've come to expect, though, honestly... after seeing the likes of Robbie, Houston, Faith (oh no I didn't!), and others decide to check out as soon as they make the decision to leave. Can't anyone finish a job around here? Why must my school be the couch everyone crashes at on the way to bigger and better things?
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Perhaps the only thing cooler than the lclark.edu search server that we extricated from the Law School machine room
is its specs.
Oh, and it has a RAID array of six 250GB hard drives.
DEDICATED I.T. TEAM FORTRESS 2 SERVER, HERE WE COME!
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During 'splorin' in the Law School today, we also ran into this little peculiarity, a stairway to nowhere:
Apparently, it actually did lead somewhere at some point, but after a remodel, they decided to put a ceiling there instead. So now it's just stairs up to a ceiling. Cool?
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LC just had its website redesigned basically from scratch. It launched earlier this week, to mixed reviews. I think the layout is certainly improved, and the MyLC feature has potential to be extremely helpful, but there are a *lot* of bugs right now that make it pretty frustrating. The Search function is pretty broken, and there are all sorts of broken links on pages. Basic navigation is pretty difficult (perhaps just because no one knows where anything is yet). I'm willing to give it some time... a launch like that is inevitably going to be a little sketchy. In the meantime, you can access the LC's old, stable-but-ugly website at http://legacy.lclark.edu. Knowing first-hand how impatient some of the college's staff can be with IT, I truly feel for the people on the website team right now.
Speaking of people being unnecessarily unhelpful, I gots an anecdote for you! The other day I was instructed to go to the Law School to write down some phone extensions in one of the buildings. We wanted to make sure our master list was still accurate, so this involved physically going to the offices and checking the extension of the phone. I got to one professor's office (he shall remain nameless, both because that's how I roll and because I forgot his name), explained my project and that I was with IT, and asked what his extension was. He demanded that I identify myself. I did so, and he, still skeptical of my motives, hesitated. I showed him my clipboard, with like 30 other office's extensions written on it, but that didn't seem to make much of an impact either. Finally, I explained that if he prefered, I would just look up online what his number *should* be, stand in his doorway, and call from my cell to see if his phone would ring. Realizing that just telling me the four numbers written on the front of his goddamn phone would get rid of me faster, he opted for the expedient solution. But seriously, guy... why? What mischief could I even possibly cause with his phone extension? Anyone in the world can find it with one search of the LC website. It's not like I'm asking for a friggin' password.
Oh, well.
KITTENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Current Music: "Sound of the Republic" by Raised Fist
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11:20 am
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a fast-food breakfast could cost up to $5 a person
Work has been going very well. The Summer IT gig is great... just hang out until something breaks, then go fix it and carry on. There's plenty of downtime in between periods of work, so I've caught up on a lot of shows, played a lot of WoW, and started watching the Stanford podcast about iPhone development. Speaking of WoW, I quit for the time being. I got kind of tired of doing the same things over and over. Since we're basically at the end of the current content, we just kill the same guys every week. It gets pretty time-consuming to keep a character up to the raiding standards (gotta raise gold for repairs, new enchantments, flasks, food, etc.). Furthermore, I was getting sorta flaky on the raids because more and more real-life things started to happen, and I much prefer real-life to WoW, so there was also that. I'm done for now... I might take a peek at what the next patch looks like.
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Life at home has also been pretty good. We've all been getting along quite nicely, and Sam has been cooking us all sorts of very tasty, very delicious meals. We now have seven video game systems here: NES, SNES, Genesis, Playstation 2, GameCube, X-Box, Wii. This is not including the handhelds or gaming PCs. It's not a bad place for a videogame junkie. Speaking of which, I finally started playing BioShock only what... 3 years after it was cool? Anyway, that's a pretty amazing game. It also has a pretty great opening monologue:
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Been watching a few TV shows lately... namely Chuck and True Blood. My friends, some of whom are way into the whole vampire thing, coaxed me into watching it. Much to my surprise, it's pretty good so far. The first 5 minutes of the first episode are great. You should watch this and if you're intrigued, definitely check out the first few episodes (strong language):
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Ari, Kathryn, Emma, Denali, Sam, and Ari's friend from college came down to Portland to celebrate Kathryn's 21st birthday. We went to the waterfront and looked at the river, then went back to my house and ate a chilli dinner that Ari had prepared. We went to a bar in Northeast where the Shoemaker Brothers, the band Ari manages, were playing a gig. They're extremely talented musicians and it was quite nice to finally see them play after seeing and hearing so much about them from my friends. After the show, which lasted until around midnight, Sam, Kathryn, Emma, and I decided to go on an exploratory adventure while Ari took care of some business stuff with the band. We all ended up having a dance party in the parking lot of an office building. After growing weary of that scene, we hit up Banning's for some 3am breakfast, then everyone crashed in the upstairs of my house. It was a pretty great evening.
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I went home for Katie's graduation from CWA. It was a pretty cool ceremony, if not a tad on the long side. She was one of the speakers, so that was cool. Afterwards, I hung out with a bunch of teachers and my classmates who were there (something like 1/8 of her class has siblings in my class). I was very surprised to see Mr. Middlebrooks, my 10th grade European History teacher. He moved to the East Coast to continue his studies after my class graduated. He came back to see this class graduate, as it was the last one with anyone he taught. He came back to Kathryn's house with us and we continued to visit. It was great to see him again.
I said goodbye to Kathryn; I won't see her again until Christmas. That makes me very sad.
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Mr Middlebrooks actually came down to Portland last Monday to hang out with me and Erin some more. We took him to the Original Hotcake House for food and conversation, then Erin took him to see our campus and some art while I went back to work. Mr Middlebrooks is always welcome, I have decided. Also, his class was still the hardest one I've ever taken.
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My brother has been in town this week. We've done a few cool things together; eating at restaurants, skateboarding, saw Star Trek, etc. mostly he's just been chilling at home, though. I work all day, so it's not really conducive to entertaining a 13-year-old. Oh well, give him Team Fortress, Pop-Tarts, and Eggos and he seems to be fine. Easier than a puppy, really.
We went to the skatepark that I discovered is about 2 miles down the street from my house. He got bored of it pretty fast, but I thought it was a lot of fun. It's been a long time since I've skated at a park, and I'm pretty much back to square 1. That's about where I'm at with bouldering, too (which we do at least 3 times a week).
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Jess is going to Boseman, MT for five days. I shall miss her very much.
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Sam, Nick, and I are working on learning to program for the iPhone. I'll let you know how that goes.
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Third Eye Blind and The Jesus Lizard are touring again (not together). Something is amiss.
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assorted photos:
(Professor Drake's office)
Sam free-climbing a building downtown.
Current Mood: not too bad
Current Music: "The Crash" by Kavinsky
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01:07 am
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a beautiful house built by masons
I really hope this is her actual birthname, or at least a name she married into:
I start work again tomorrow. That should be a lot of fun I think.
I watched a few episodes of Firefly, which is a pretty good show so far.
No More Heroes for Wii is an amazing game. Nick bought it on a whim and I pretty much can't stop playing it. I know I'm years behind on this one, but wow... it's so much fun! Excessive violence, excessive gore, excessive swearing, etc. So much fun.
Current Mood:  sleepy
Current Music: "Fiori Neri" by Atrox
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01:22 am
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faster than a rollercoaster
Today was a very productive day.
I woke up at the "Rat House," where Jess lives with a few other girls from school. It's also called the "Flag House" because it has flags in front of it. Most people call it the "Rat House" though. That's because it had rats a long time ago. I don't think it does now.
Jess, Annie, and I went downtown and got some food and drink at Floyd's, then I dropped them off to go shopping in the Pearl District.
I headed home and met up with Amy, who had already planned out some fun errands to run. We went to the Play-N-Trade (aka the "not GameStop") down the street and inquired regarding the possible repair of Nick's Playstation 2. We also browsed for a really long time and Amy ended up buying Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee for our X-Box.
Then we went to Fred Meyer and bought all sorts of cleaning supplies!
Then we went to ReBuilding Center, which is basically the Goodwill of hardware stores. They're a nonprofit that sells used building supplies, cabinets, doors, appliances, and other cool crap for remodeling or furnishing a home. Basically, people donate their leftover scraps and unwanted furnishings, then the ReBuilding Center sells it for hardly anything. We bought a cabinet and a shelf for fashioning a pantry sort of setup, since for some reason our house doesn't have a pantry.
Between there, the Bins, and the generosity of friends/strangers, we've spent a surprisingly small amount of money ( certainly <$100 altogether) on couches, mattresses, chairs, tables, shelves, etc. Considering we just filled a house with them, that's pretty good.
Anyway, I'm going to vandalize a few Wikipedia articles then I'm off to bed.
Current Mood: fine
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04:13 pm
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who would you rather have waiting for you when you get home tonight: johnny depp or oj simpson?
Driving to my new house (which you will have photos of once I decide we're organized enough to merit photographing everything), there's a sign that a local mechanic likes to coat with inspirational phrases and tidbits of that sort of 'cute' philosophy. Usually it's pretty wretched, but this week's message goes above and beyond logic and rationality. The grammar doesn't help anything, either.
First and foremost, there is *no* reason to even attempt to drag the subjunctive out for the purpose of this message. Not only is it wrong, it's like using the wrong tool to accomplish a really simple task. There are so many ways that quotation could have been phrased; the mechanic ignored them, though, and decided to employ incorrect and unnecessarily complicated grammar to accomplish the task. Maybe it has something to do with being a mechanic?
Anyway, I'm no grammarian, but come on....
Second there's the quite impressive oversight of, you know, basic logic. Mull this over–Is a task a moment? I have driven past this sign many times, and therefore have given the subject a lot of thought. No. A task *could* be construed as something that is quantifiable in terms of time (for example, we could feasibly consider the "task" of playing a game of soccer to be equivalent to 90 minutes). In most cases, however, I think we would not equate a task with the corresponding amount of time it might take. Furthermore, most tasks take a variable amount of time to complete. For example, the task of cleaning my house may take me considerably longer than it would take someone who is trained or more knowledgeable. All of this is largely irrelevant, however, because a "moment" is, by definition, an infinitesimally small point of time. It is not a duration. It denotes the point of transition between one period to another. To equate a "task" with a "moment" makes absolutely no sense.
Finally, let's ignore all of those semantics and just analyze the intended message (I interpret it to mean "Approach every task as if its undertaking is the moment that will define you"). Really? I don't think I'd like to be defined by driving to work, or by washing the dishes, or pooping. Most of the tasks we undertake each day are not ones that we would want to define us. Furthermore, how would one even approach something like a single instance of pooping as a moment that would define a life? Basically, my point is that the sign really irritates me.
Current Music: "Bamboleo" by Gipsy Kings
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10:24 pm
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oh look, a sailboat
It's been a busy week; Finals happened, moving happened, I acquired loads and loads of slightly-used, unwanted crap, and I've spent a lot of time staying awake into the wee hours of the evening. Work starts in a week.
My finals went pretty well. My two computer science finals were exceptionally good. I got an A- on one and an A on the other: Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence, respectively. Those were also my overall grades. No complaining there. The Statistics test was really hard, I thought, and I didn't have enough time to finish everything. I'm a bit worried about that class. I am, however, making an appointment with Student Support to see if I have some sort of reading/learning disability ("difference"). Even if I don't, it's a good thing to know.
I downloaded plenty of mashup albums. I haven't found one I have really fallen in love with, or anything, but there are a few pretty awesome tracks I've been digging as of late:
"Make It Clap Clap Clap Clap Clap" by Ghetto Sunrise <-this one is pretty epic
"Paper Rump (Wreckx-N-Effect vs. M.I.A.)" by DJ Tripp
"We Goin' Down" by Phoenix Jukebox
"I Want You D.A.N.C.E. (Justice vs. Jackson 5)" by ComaR
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So, about that free crap... I got plenty of cool stuff. After hall closing, there's always a lot of stuff left over in the lounges and halls that people leave behind. This stuff, after long enough time has passed that it's clear it's abandoned, is pretty much free-for-the-taking if you're still on campus that late. Of the abandoned goods, I made off with a guitar, lots of drawers, a little rolling shelf, a longboard deck, two blankets, a nice fridge, 2 comfy chairs, four Nintendo 64 controllers, and Nick found a snowboard (w/boots & bindings!) that fits me. So, that's not a bad haul at all. Obviously, if the owners show up, I'd give it back, but until then, yay!
Went to Star Trek on opening night with Nick, Lillie Mae, Sam B., Angela, and Zeb. I had fun, but really I didn't think it was all that great. Entertaining, but entirely predictable, with hokey CGI, plot holes, and somewhat disappointing writing for a JJ Abrams production (I know some of these elements were intentionally included, but I think they either overdid it or made some of the same sorts of gaffes to which they intended to pay homage. Don't get me wrong, it was much, much better than it would have been if it were in the hands of someone who isn't Abrams, but I really don't think it lived up to all the hype.
Today Jess and I went to a performance at Portland Community College. LC alum (and Jess' Cuba-buddy) Emily Henke was performing with Jess' guitar teacher and a few other talented musicians. The performance was really good, but the sound guy from PCC was awful, to the detriment of the show. Oh, well. I am kinda glad that I don't go to a place like PCC. As aggravating as LC can be for me, at least everyone is, for the most part, rational and conscientious. Not at all so at PCC Sylvania, as I experienced it today. It was still fun though!
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Our house is coming together nicely. Here's what our living room looked like yesterday:
Jess' house has a cat. It is a cute cat. It's male, but it lives in a house with girls so his name is Cher. At least I call him Mr. Cher. I don't know if that's better or worse.
And to close it, here are some weird photos I've taken on my cell phone:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/rev4n/badboy.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v291/rev4n/creepy.jpg
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: "One Foot On The Gas, One Foot In The Grave" by Streetlight Manifesto
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01:07 am
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industry rule number 4080
Well, how's that for seven months' worth of content in about 2 hours? As you may have noticed, I all but forgot about my LiveJournal this school year. The reason being that I was busy writing a blog for the college's admissions department. So, today, for the sake of preserving the content (under my control) and to prove to you all that I didn't fall off the face of the earth, I posted the entirety of my LC blog to this journal.
I am *so* glad I'm done with that project. It was a learning experience for me. Mainly, I learned that I am not cut our for a job in admissions (or sales, for that matter. They're basically the same thing). Many weeks, after I'd post an entry, I'd get an e-mail or two from superiors asking me to modify sections to "put a more positive spin" on things. Even if they were, in my perception, perfectly honest.
To be fair, this certainly an issue of pressure-from-way-above for even my superiors and I don't harbor any ill-will towards them whatsoever. They were great to work with and gave me a lot of cool ideas throughout the school year. I just can't get over the fact that the blog is called "Real Life at Lewis and Clark" and most weeks I have to redact the crap out of it because it's too offensive or too unappealing or too not-perfect. Oh, well. That's how it things are sometimes. It was an enlightening experience, and it was kind of nice to be required to spend time every week reflecting on what happened. I think it's probably just not for me, though.
So, just FYI, for the sake of posterity, I did not un-edit my posts when I added them to the LJ. What you see here is what you'd see there, only it's flashier there.
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I GOT A HOUSE WITH MY FRIENDS! Nick, Amy, and I have been searching for a house to rent for months, and we finally got accepted; we're paying the security deposit tomorrow! It's a really big house about 5.5 miles from school. If all goes to plan, we move in on the 8th.
Here's a picture:
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This week is finals. I have my Statistics final tomorrow at 1.
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Last night, Jess and I went to Thai Peacock and then saw Adventureland. It's got a very life-is-finite existential feel to it, much like Garden State, or perhaps more aptly, Dazed and Confused. It's a great movie, much more substantial than Superbad, which happens to share a director. It's also a great example of how marketing execs will take a well-made movie and, via trailers and posters, make it into something that it was never meant to be. All of the advertising bills it as the new Superbad, but it's so far from being a raunchy gross-out comedy. Perhaps, in this case, that's a good thing. I'd really be disappointed if it were able to attain the dreaded Juno status of being a great movie that got pushed way further into the limelight than it was made to handle. I'm fine with this one being passed over by y'all. Highly, highly recommended.
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12:33 am
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"Real [Idealized/Outright Fake] Life" Blog Posts #3
now, where was i? - 1 may 2009
students dancing to/watching the band Fruition play by the reflecting pool
Peeps painting at the outdoor show.
D&D in the Forest office
Happy belated video blog update! So, I finally got my skateboarding video, though it is still relatively shaky and not altogether my finest work. I figured it might still be useful just to give an idea of the size of the campus and give you a *bit* of a feel of what it's like around here. Sorry about the Cloverfield-style camera-work.
I think this is going to be my last post of the year (unless I'm mistaken). It has been fun keeping a log of my activities, and I hope at least one or two of you found something useful here at some point. If you want to keep tabs on me, follow my Twitter.
Last weekend, I spent most of my free time working on my final project for my Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence Classes. Since my programming partner/friend/future housemate Nick and I are in both classes together, and they're taught by the same professor, so we, with his consent, decided to write one larger final project that would count for both classes. Earlier in the year, there was an assignment in Algorithms to create a game called "Anagrams." It's a relatively simple game that involves finding words from a pool of communal letters, and then stealing and adding onto your opponent's words. The original assignment was very rudimentary and completely text-based. Our final project was to create an (efficient, difficult) AI player and to completely redo the user interface graphically, with options for more customization than was allowed in the original program. We spent a solid week of free time developing and refining it, finally turning it in today. I'm the first to admit that it's not a very impressive accomplishment, but I'm still pretty proud of it; in the process I rememberd how enfuriating the Swing toolkit can be (lack of thread-safety FTL), as well as discovered a pretty neat layout that I didn't know about before, GraphPaperLayout, which was far easier to use for us than the beast that is GridBagLayout.
Anyway, if you want to download and play our game* (or check out our code), we decided to release it under the BSD license. You can download our project here (requires at least Java 5.0). There's a readme file that explains how to play.
*–we only tested it on Mac OSX 10.5 at screen resolution 1680 x 1050. As far as I can tell, *should* conform to Java 5.0 conventions and is likely to run properly on similar Mac systems. I see no immediate reason why it wouldn't run on Windows or the flavors of Linux, but I can make no promises.
Last weekend I went to the Bridgetown Comedy Festival with my friend Angela. She won free tickets on the internet and, since I'm 21, decided to take me along. We saw live podcasts of You Look Nice Today, with special guest John Roderick of The Long Winters, as well as Jordan, Jesse, Go, with special guest David Koechner (of The Office and Anchorman fame). Those were both hilarious shows, made even better by the pizza and root beer at the Bagdad Theater. After the second podcast, we went outside to wander around and ended up running into Mr. Koechner on the street. That was pretty cool. After a brief encounter with him, we went on our way. We ended up wandering into the Mt. Tabor Legacy Lounge to catch some standup. I think we saw at least ten performers, one of whom was a mildly disappointing Bill Dwyer, who is much better as a TV personality than he is an edgy comic. We actually saw him perform twice, and both times I sort of wished I hadn't. I was, however, blown away by Hannibal Buress. I'd never heard of him before the show, but his act was basically perfect. His timing was dead-on and his dry wit played very well to the Portland audience. He reminded me very much of Mitch Hedberg, but he made the cadence and posture much more his own that most Hedberg-esque comedians are able to accomplish. Buress' act was definitely the highlight of the evening for me. But he was not even the headliner! We were there, after all, to see SNL alum Janeane Garofalo and she pretty funny. If nothing else, it was really cool to see a celebrity comedian perform in such a small venue; there were probably only 150 people there, at most. Overall, it was a great experience, I can't wait for the 2010 comedy festival!
Amy, Nick, and I have still been house-hunting. We've got an application in for another house, but it's rather difficult to rent when you haven't rented before. I promise we'll be good tenants!
Last afternoon, the band Fruition played a concert on the lawn; the show was really fun, but then it started raining and now all of our PA equipment is drying. I *really* hope nothing is broken; it was completely drenched... I mean like...when I turned the speakers, water poured out from inside of them. Regardless, it was a fun show >_>.
Tonight, I watched a performance in Council Chambers of the Upright Citizens Brigade Touring Company. They were brought here by our Improv Club ("The Serious Club"). It was a hilarious show and I got called up and was interviewed as part of their sketch. Definitely a fun evening!
Tomorrow's a thank-you pizza party for all of the IT department. Can't wait to eat some good food and play games on a huge screen.
That all's good, but It's not all great; I'm quite stressed by work and house-searching. Finals should be fine, though.
Anyway, off to study for finals and such.
If you end up coming here, you can find me next year. I'll be the IT-worker/soundboard-operator/possible student-government-member/rock-show-planner/ex-RA/senior CS major.
And one final note of nerdiness... if you're an incoming student and you play World of Warcraft, send me an e-mail. The LC WoW guild ("That secret club that meets on Saturdays" when we're in the company of non-Azerothians) plays Alliance on the Silver Hand server and (occasionally) Horde on The Scryers server, and would love to have you; if you want, you can just roll a Death Knight and feel it out.
It sure has been fun! Thanks for reading!
now playing in my ears: "15 Stepz" by Amplive ft. Codany Holiday
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i think my favorite logical gate is NAND - 23 April 2009
Working on a new video. Apparently skateboarding around campus with a video camera doesn't work too well unless you jury-rig a steadicam, which I plan to do later today. If that doesn't work, I guess it's back to the drawing board. Are there any particular video topics you want to see?
I just finished my statistics project that my friend Sam and I have been working on for about a month. We presented it yesterday in class and it went a lot better than I was expecting (I guess I'm just pessimistic that way). We culled a bunch of information from sourceforge.net in an effort to see if there was a correlation between a software project's popularity and its code's adherence to program formatting conventions (comment things, don't swear, don't use goto, etc.). Our results were somewhat disappointing. Based on our sample of sixty projects, we could find no correlation. Regardless, we performed the statistics tests on the data, so as far as the coursework is concerned, we're set. I would have liked to have observed something definitive, though.
Course registration is in effect; currently I've got spots in International Affairs, an English Class (this one is a tentative backup), and Computer Network Security ("hacking class," which I'm hoping will be really cool) I'm a bit miffed that I'm on so many waitlists for courses I want to take (as I'm going to be a Senior, I'm running out of time). I've been trying to get into the Introduction to Electronic Music course every semester since Freshman year (yes, this is my sixth time on this particular waitlist). It's a relatively small elective class and everyone wants to take it. They work hard to accomodate the demand, but it's always overflowing. Perhaps I'll just give up on my (not-terribly-serious) dream of learning how to make beep-boop music. I'm also on the waitlist for Introduction to World Music, which I would very much like to be the class that fulfulls one of my general education requirements. Here's to hoping that a bunch of people decide to drop those courses. If not, it'll work out some other way I'm sure.
A few days ago, Portland comedian/monologuist Rick Huddle came to Council Chambers and performed his "Spent" show. He plainly and humourously told the story of the "current financial situation" (I love that euphemism), explaining sub-prime mortgages, credit default swaps, government bailouts, executive bonuses, and some of the governmental intricacies that had to do with all of it. As someone who didn't really take the time to understand all of this economics business, I found his performance very informative. Definitely catch him if you get a chance (I also see on Rick's website that he has an endorsement from the hilarious and insightful Mike Daisey, another brilliant monologuist who has performed at LC).
I enjoy this time of the semester especially, because it is professor-evaluation time. It combines my loves of spending filling in Scantron bubbles, voicing my opinions, and carrying manilla envilopes to the Dean of the College's office. The Dean's Office, every semester, polls all students in all courses about the effectiveness of the course and the professor. Some people don't take them seriously, but as the professors will attest, these results have an effect on little things like tenure and raises, so it's actually pretty important. I like that students have an institutionalized venue for voicing criticisms or praises and that it seems to be an effective catalyst for any necessary changes.
Anyway, I think it's time for me to go back to work on my Computer Science project. It's larger than normal because Nick (programming buddy) and I convinced our professor to let us do one project for both of the classes we take from him. So, yeah... more on that endeavor when we actually get somewhere worth mentioning.
Still searching for a house for the Summer, which is approaching quite quickly.
Now playing in my ears: "The Cold Swedish Winter" by Jens Lekman
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OK stop DoTs! - 16 April 2009
Hey pals, how are you? I am well. Finals are approaching, that's good-ish.
I've been house-hunting with my friends Nick and Amy. We plan to live in Portland over the summer and live off campus next year (they're graduating, so I guess they don't really have a choice). That, school projects, and work are basically all I do right now. The last few weeks of the year are always really busy for events because all the clubs and organizations who procrastinated on their event planning try to have one more big event before the semester ends. The sound techs have lots of work coming up.
Campus has been pretty sunny lately. I recommend you come for a prospective student tour soon if you're planning to. The closer to finals, the less every-day-life the place becomes. Regardless, even if you do end up touring during finals or the Summer, it'll still be worth it to come look.
I'm sure we've been inundating you with literature and phone calls and who-knows-what about how sweet LC is, so I'll spare that here and offer this: here are some tips I have for you guys as you decide where to go to college (whether it's at LC or elsewhere):
1. Tour the campus. You'll get the spiel about how great the place is, but even better, you'll still be able to assess for yourself if it's the kind of place you'd want to spend 4 years. Take things you hear on a tour with a small grain of salt. I know nothing you hear on the L&C tour will be a lie, but I also know that some things are different than they're portrayed.
2. If you know which area of studies you're interested in, attend a class in that discipline during a campus visit. If you don't know, attend one of the larger 101 classes so you can get a feel for what a "normal" lecture is like at that school. Furthermore, if you do know what you want to study, it can be helpful to contact a professor or two from that department and ask any questions you may have about studies in that particular field.
3. Do not break college policy during a campus visit. Just don't, please. If you're caught, it will at least lead to an embarrassing conversation and at most can get you trespassed, un-admitted, and/or arrested.
4. Contact random students on Facebook or via e-mail. While I'd like to think (and I do think) that anyone you contact, college-selected or otherwise, will tell you the truth about the campus, it was very useful during my college search to circumvent the usual channels for contacting "real" students at the school and just just did a Facebook search for students at L&C. You'll get varied responses, and some people will be more willing to help you than others, but it's a good way to get unfiltered information about life on campus.
5. Negotiate financial aid. This is not to say that you should play hardball with your aid, but rather that if money is the thing stopping you from enrolling at your first choice, contact their Financial Aid department, explain the situation, and ask for an appeal. Some places are more willing than others to talk, but it never hurts to ask. I know L&C's Student Financial Services department has been willing to hear out my family during times that my Financial Aid package wasn't meeting our needs. I would assume that most colleges of similar size and type to L&C would be similar. Most people don't know that a financial aid package is not always automatically final.
6. READ THE STUDENT HANDBOOK. You can almost always find the college's handbook by searching its website. Sometimes it's a bit hard to track down, but it's definitely worth looking at. Luckily, L&C's is right out in the open. Regardless what you hear about life on a campus, it's good to know what the school's rules *actually* are. You don't need to become extremely familiar with all aspects of the college's policies, but I highly recommend at least reading the Drug and Alcohol Policy (even if you are entirely substance-free, this policy will likely affect you directly or indirectly in some way while you're at college). Some other policies that may be of interest: Parental Notification Policy, Search and Seizure Policy, Smoking Policy, Technology Policy (aka "what does the college do when they get a Cease and Desist from the MPAA because you're a media pirate" policy), Skateboarding Policy, Parking policy. While there certainly are policies that exist but are not as enforced as others (I am not referring to our Drug & Alcohol policy, by the way), it is good to know the rules by which you're agreeing to abide upon enrolling.
7. (once you've selected a school) Be HONEST on your housing/roommate application (and turn it in quickly!). I can't speak for all schools, but I know that at L&C, the only people who see that sheet are the staff in the Student Life department who are responsible for pairing up roommates (usually the RDs do this). If you smoke, say so. If you're messy, say so. If you like to stay up until three AM, say so. If you intend to "party," say so. Furthermore, if you have an aversion (even a politically incorrect aversion) to interacting with a certain type of person, it can be beneficial for you to volunteer that information on your roommate selection sheet (and note that you are volunteering it solely for the purpose of housing selection). At L&C, That information stays private and will not be used against you in any way. The more the Residence staff know about your habits and personality, the better fit they can find for you.
Hope that post helps.
now playing in my ears: "Attack On Tir Asleen" by Kane Hodder
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lots of concerts - 9 April 2009
Many apologies for the later-than-normal entry, but life seems to keep throwing me back into the hospital....
It's finally sunny and warm out, which is awesome. The un-awesome part for me and a few other lucky individuals is that the sun and warmth also means seasonal allergies! So I've been rather miserable lately fighting off the symptoms of that. It all culminated last night with a visit to the ER when my wheezing turned less from wheezing and more into "I'm having trouble breathing." So, Seth and Jess were kind enough to accompany me to the hospital, where I got hooked to all sorts of cool machines and was given plenty of Albuterol. They decided to keep me overnight to make sure I didn't have any health complications that would affect my still-healing spleen. So, I didn't really get any sleep last night. My pal Amy came and got me around noon, and I basically got back to my room and fell asleep immediately after (which is why I'm only getting around to posting now that it's 2am the next day).
Aside from that fun rehashing of past events, the week went pretty well. Last weekend, LC was rocked by the likes of Church and Portland electronica juggernaut Starf***er. As usual, I helped set up and prepare for the show. Both bands were exceptionally nice and courteous and everything went very smoothly... a welcome change of pace from the Minus The Bear headache of a few months ago (which, once again, was mostly caused by stuff on our end, not theirs). It was an evening full of dancing and good times.
Saturday night, Amy and I went to the Portland bar/venue Holocene to see a concert which I had won tickets to via a promotion on Holocene's facebook page.We saw impressive sets from Portland's Swim Swam Swum and The Shaky Hands. As well as an I-don't-know-what-to-make-of-this jam session/collaboration between The Shaky Hands and bluesy guitarist Sigmund Henry. Overall, it was a pleasant evening with some great rock 'n' roll and people-watching opportunities.
Oh, but the concertgoing isn't over yet... on Monday, Amy, Nick, Lillie Mae, and I headed downtown to the all-ages punk club Satyricon to catch folk-punk gods Defiance, Ohio. The show was $7 and featured 4 openers, including Drunken Boat, a well-calibrated Portland pop-punk group. Defiance, Ohio basically blew us away. It was definitely one of the best, most exuberant concerts I've attended. It also beats Gogol Bordello as the smelliest, but I eventually got over that. Defiance, OH are way into the DIY punk thing, so they attract a motley crowd of people from all sorts of unwashed Portland subcultures. It also means, however, that all their merchandise is especially cheap. I bought 5 full-length CDs at that show (3 Defiance, OH and 2 Drunken Boat) for under $25.
Long story short: PORTLAND HAS SO MANY COOL VENUES WITH SO MANY COOL BANDS.
Since last Wednesday, academics have been picking up. Many seniors are turning in their theses, which means it's both stressful and relieving time for much of the student body. My classes are gearing up for final projects/finals. There are also a *lot* of events occurring. The last month or so of every semester is packed with events that clubs and groups want to have before the break, so there's usually something going on every evening (and day). Perhaps most notable this week is LC's annual International Affairs Symposium, which is a multi-day event full of guest speakers, lectures, and debates. Not everyone attends, but it's one of our biggest events each year, so everyone at least knows about it. Sometimes the most anticipated portions of the symposium attract crowds that fill up Council Chambers. It's safe to say that students from all academic disciplines pay attention to the symposium and scour its schedule for interesting speakers.
In Computer Science, we've been working on writing programs that implement hash tables (Algorithms) and genetic algorithms (Artificial Intelligence). There's been a lot of coding lately, which I particularly enjoy. There's nothing like working on a project and getting your program to run as intended. I really enjoy the collaborative focus that many of the LC Computer Science courses allow students to have. That's not to say that we do all of our work together all the time, but in most of my CS courses, the professors allow people to work as teams on assignments rather than as an individual (not unlike software development in the real world). I particularly enjoy that approach to teaching computer science.
I can't wait to be allowed to skateboard again (still can't from the spleen thing).
It's class-selection time for Fall '09! I don't know when the incoming freshmen get to select courses, but for the returners that time is now. I signed up to take an International Affairs course. It's always good to choose first the class that's most likely to fill. I'm also looking at taking Introduction to World Music, Introduction to Electronic Music (this one will be sweet), and Computer Network Security (commonly known among the students as "hacking class"). Still mulling over some options to round out the schedule. Anyone got ideas?
If you're coming on a campus visit anytime soon, make sure you stop by the Hoffman Art Gallery on campus (next to/down the hill from the library) and look at all the senior art majors' projects currently on display. I don't think the tour goes into the gallery, so you'll have to do it on your own time, but it's definitely worth it!
Now playing in my ears: "The Things We Won't Let Settle But Let Set" by Defiance, Ohio
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my recycling bin is so impressively full that i feel it would be a cop-out to empty it now - 2 April 2009
Ratatat performing at Crystal Ballroom. Photo credit: David M. Nelson
Hi Real Life readers!
Video is incoming. I'm having some technical difficulties (misplaced an important cable), so in the morning, I'll track down an SD reader, cut my footage together, and hopefully have the video posted by the afternoon.
VIDEO POSTED!
This week's video topic is the game "Ninja," which an increasingly large group of students play by the reflecting pool every Saturday at midnight. More info on that when I stop failing at technology.
Spring Break came and went. It was pretty enjoyable for me; I hung around on campus for a few days, just sort of chillin'—like you do—then on Monday I went to the hospital for a followup with my doctors from my little spleen debacle. Good news (if you like me): I am recovering as expected and will almost definitely be fine! After the appointment, I packed up my laptop and a huge pile of dirty clothes and headed back to the greater-Tacoma area. Laundry at LC costs money (like it does at most colleges, except Whitman *shakes fist*), so I find that it's worth it to lug my clothes back home with me if I'm planning on making the trip. It really only saves like $1.75, but it makes me feel like I'm beating the system so I do it anyway. So, I spent the rest of the week hanging out at my house, loving my family's many pets (3 cats: Hidey, Cleocatra, and Quatriéme; 2 dogs: Wilbur and Padmé Queen of Naboo Young [nerd alert]; and 1 Netherland dwarf rabbit: Bootsie). On Sunday, I waited at home until around 11:00pm, at which point I picked up my pal Angela from the Sea-Tac airport and we drove back to school with another friend, Dylan; we arrived at around 3 AM. So, that's how my week started!
That evening, my friend Jess and I went downtown for some füd at Noodles and Company, located across the street from Powell's Books. After the slurping, we attended the Ratatat concert at the Crystal Ballroom. I had never seen them perform, and I had a great time. Others who remembered seeing them play smaller venues were less impressed. Oh, well. Perhaps the most entertaining part of the evening was that I ended up giving 9 people rides back to school in my station wagon... five of whom I'd never met. So, that was cool (for an interesting tidbit of Oregon traffic law, check out ORS 811.215.5).
Since then, I've mostly been studyin'.
There was a debate/information session for the candidates of the upcoming student government election tonight. It had a pretty nice attendance, and there were a lot of great questions, many directed to candidates of the only contested office: Chief Justice of Peer Review Authority (a group of students who, in lieu of an administrator, have the authority to hear cases regarding policy violations and assign appropriate sanctions). The most hotly contested topic of the evening was the issue of whether or not to allow RAs to run for—or be appointed to—positions on PRA. I'll leave the political opinions out of this post, since it's ultimately up to student vote, but I'll just say that there were many arguments made for and against such a stipulation.
Gearing up for some busy times ahead!
Credit where credit's due: the Ratatat photo used in this post was taken by Eugene-based photographer David M. Nelson. Check out his Flickr.
Now playing in my ears: "The Refrain" by Extra Life
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a function of more than two inputs is linearly separable if a hyperplane separates the true cases from the false cases. - 22 March 2009
Hello, internet.
It is finally Spring break! It sure took its time getting here, though. This last week, I spent *almost* every free moment I had studying for my Computer Science midterms on Friday. I think I probably spent 15-20 hours forcing myself to understand, among other concepts, the likes of Sigmoid Units, Red-Black Trees, and the (worst, average, and best case) efficiencies of about 6 or 7 different sorting algorithms, plus how to implement them (upshot: use quick sort if you're me, use merge sort if you're smarter than me, avoid bubble sort unless you're doing something trivial). In the end, both tests were significantly less complicated than I had been preparing for. I'll take that, but it was actually a little frustrating because I spent so much time studying the harder concepts that I think I got tricked by some really easy questions that I just wasn't expecting. Oh well, I'm gonna just try not to think about it until I get the grades back.
Midterms weren't the only thing we had to worry about finishing in the Computer Science classes this week, there was also a pretty cool assignment involving programming Lego robots. My group pretty much rocked it and got some extra credit, so that's about as good as it can get, I think; an A+ for playing with Legos... not bad.
This week I'm probably not gonna be great at letting you know what sort of stuff happened on campus recently; I spent almost no time doing fun things, just a lot of library-camping.
Yesterday, there was one cool event; at 9pm, a group of interested parties gathered in Council Chambers to watch the series finale of Battlestar Galactica on the huge screen. We had a very good time, and it was great to watch the best show on televesion ever in the history of the world on what basically amounts to be a movie theater screen. It was bittersweet and epic. Oh well, nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy.
Wow there's a lot of nerd in this post....
I'm gonna see Ratatat in a week and Defiance, Ohio in two... does that make up for anything?
Now playing in my ears: "Not Fair" by Lily Allen
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pop - 12 March 2009
Hangin' at OHSU
computer in the ICU
First meal in 2.5 days
So, I haven't posted in a little while, but I have a pretty good reason. Two weeks ago, my spleen ruptured (pitiful hospital cellphone-photos to the right)! I woke up on Tuesday morning (March 3rd), with some pretty significant pain in my side, so after passing out, I went to the LC Health Center. They looked me over and told me to get to the hospital. LC generally sends its students to OHSU, which is the closest hospital to campus (and is one of the best in the area, anyway). My roommate Seth drove me and after waiting zero minutes in the ER waiting room (yeah, I guess there aren't many emergencies at 8AM on a Tuesday?), I was seen. After a number of cool medical tests and another episode of passing out, the CT Scan confirmed that I had a very large, very ruptured spleen. I was checked into the ICU in the afternoon and my parents showed up that evening, having driven down from Tacoma. I spent the next 3 days in bed, getting my vital signs monitored and having blood tests every few hours. Once it was apparent that I was healing and not hemmorhaging, I was moved to the less-strict trauma ward, where I spent 3 more days in bed, but with bathroom and shower privileges. I was released last Sunday, and ever since then I have been basically doing homework in all of my free time, trying to catch up. I didn't do much work in the hospital, both because I didn't have my textbooks and because many of my assignments were group projects. Anyway, I'm generally recovered, though I have some cool restrictions, for example, I am forbidden from lifting things heavier than a textbook for 6 weeks. So that's kinda sweet, until I realized that one generally lifts a lot of things throughout the day. Oh well, it turned out significantly better than it could have; I healed on my own and I still have my spleen (even though it's apparently angry at me for something).
Since (or because of) that whole ordeal, I've come to realize a few things:
-OHSU is a really great hospital, and it's nice to have a great hospital 10 minutes from your college. It also has fast wifi.
-Lots of people like me. Well, not just me, I think this would have been the case for everyone, which means that LC has a pretty good support network for incidents like this: Not only did my friends constantly visit me during my week in the hospital, but some of the CLCs showed up, and I got periodic phone calls from the Health and Counseling Centers, as well as supportive e-mails from my professors, on-campus employers, and Student Support Services.
-Professors are generally very accommodating in times of a student's illness, especially if the student maintains contact with the professor and keeps them in the loop and have an open dialogue about what length of time should be a realistic expectation to get late work in.
So, like I said before, I've been pretty much constantly working on school stuff since getting back from the hospital. I'm almost caught up, but there are still 2 computer science programs I'm not quite done writing. Hopefully by the end of the week!
In non-splenic news, there are some pretty significant changes coming to LC next year. Some are good, some are bad, but I'm relatively convinced that they're all necessary given the financial situation of the institution (and everything else).
Still, for full disclosure, because I don't know what all the cool LC literature says right now:
-Our free shuttle to the Sellwood neighborhood will not exist next year (this affects Freshmen hardly at all. Sellwood's cool, but there are other ways to get there, and most people never take that shuttle).
-Our free shuttle to downtown will still run during the mornings, evenings, and on weekends , but will not run during mid-day (this one is slightly inconvenient; In the time I've been a student here, I've used the shuttle 3 times during those hours. There is always the #39 metro bus, though).
-More money for financial aid (financial aid is actually going up, not down)!
-No pay increases for administrators (sucky for them, but certainly a sign of solidarity).
-Staff/faculty computer replacement now on 5-year cycle instead of 4-year (doesn't really affect students at all, just means that some staff might get stuck with an old computer for a year longer than before).
Our new Student Government Constitution was voted in, so that's also cool. Hopefully the student government we have next year will be a lot more effective and transparent than it has recently (though, to be honest, we've done a pretty okay job this year, if I do say so myself).
I promise that a cool video is incoming... I just need to get a handle on my backed-up schoolwork and upcoming midterms first.
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achy and sleepy and bored - 28 February 2009
This past week was a bit difficult for me, mostly because I was sick. By Thursday, I had a 103 degree fever and then spent 2.5 days in bed. It was less than ideal.
On a good note, next weekend is Parents/Family Weekend, and I think some of my family might drive down from Tacoma to visit, so that shall be fun!
Also next weekend, there's performances of The Blue Room (the Spring play) and a showing of the movie Milk in Council Chambers.
Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot of news about this week's happenings, as I spent most of it trying to thwart my illness.
I do know that there's a dance tonight hosted by Black Student Union, with the theme "Divas and Hustlers." Those of us out of the loop were really confused why people weren't getting offended, but apparently it's a reference to a Beyonce song. So, I guess that's okay? I don't think I'm going to attend (I'm socializing in the Forest Hall CLC's apartment, with some friends and the RD's cats and ferret), but it was really well-publicized and the posters looked cool.
The Music Coalition has locked down a pretty popular Portland musician for a show in April. The artist's name is probably not appropriate for the admissions department blog, but here's a hint: Star*****r. From what I've gauged thus far, the LC peeps are pretty psyched for this show. You know a band's good if they can gain a following while having the F-word in their name.
Now playing in my ears: "Estrogen Oxygen Aches In The Teeth Again" by Loudermilk
Current Location: Lewis and Clark College
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"Real [Idealized/Outright Fake] Life" Blog Posts #2
it almost didn’t snow this week - 19 February 2009
New video! I finally gathered enough footage about the student art center to give it a little feature here. It's a really awesome space, and it is one of the many highlights of campus that prospective students see on their tours. Here's a more detailed look around than one might get on the typical campus tour...
(band featured playing at the Platteau is the awe-inspiring Metal Shakespeare Company, which is comprised of LC alums. Catch them on tour and/or buy their CD!)
Had a statistics test, that was fun. The cool thing about statistics test is that afterwards you can argue about how he curved it and why he should do it differently.
On my mind lately is the work I've been doing as part of the student government; we've been meeting to hash out the details of a new Senate-based constitution. Our current student government is organized in a way that many of us feel lacks transparency, accountability, and a logical, businesslike open venue for discussion. Our new draft, if revised and approved by the student body later this Spring, hopes to address a lot of issues that we've had in recent years with budgeting for student groups and maintaining student interest in and support for the student government. We believe that a group of students in charge of allocating hundreds of thousands of dollars and making decisions that literally affect the entire student body should be run as smoothly and honestly as possible. I just hope enough people will care enough to take the time and effort to care about the changes we're proposing.
Today I took a trip to the Bins. For those of you not from Portland, I shall tell you what the bins are. They are a giant warehouse of items that were too broken, weird, unorganized, or overlooked to make it to the shelves of the Goodwill retail locations. Yes, the Bins is Goodwill's outlet store. It gets its nickname from the giant green bins full of disused items that are wheeled around from mob to anxious mob. While I concede that 99% of the stuff there is probably not something I (or anyone?) would want to take home, there are always a few gems. Once I found a relatively pristine vinyl copy of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" in one of the many book bins. Today did not pass without a treasure's discovery. I bought a framed painting of a polar bear for $3 (yes it's a painting, not a print). This place is often where LC students go to buy furniture for dorm rooms or recently rented houses (though we also check craigslist's "free" section); one can generally find armchairs ranging from $3-10 and couches from $5-20. Many of them still work. Mostly. Since the bins full of items are largely unorganized, most things are priced by the pound. Yes, you can buy clothes in bulk like candy at the supermarket. The treasure-hunting aspect, as well as the rummaging and competition to find something cooler than everyone else makes this a great hangout for hipsters, of which we have many in Portland. It's also cool for us regular folks, too, though. At LC, you'll quickly learn that before you make any major purchase, it's wise to first check and see if the Bins has it at 1/20 the cost of retail.
Final tidbit, although probably not interesting to the general population, the LC Gaming Society's World of Warcraft guild grouped up to beat the mean scary dragon at the end of the game (Malygos). We stole his loot and now we are bored.
That's about all for now.
Now playing in my ears: "Rise & Shine: The Mixtape" by Ghetto Sunrise
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board games, concerts, computers, and dr. horrible - 11 February 2009
Quick update this week; I'll have a video post next week for sure. I've been studying and such. It was my 21st birthday on Monday. I felt pretty sick (from actual sickness, not what you think) so I didn't go to class, but I did some low-key visiting with a few friends in the evening. My friends Lillie Mae and Dith baked me a 3-layer rainbow funfetti cake, which was delicious and way too big. In the evening, I went to the bar/arcade ("barcade," if you will) Ground Kontrol with my pals Nick and Amy. Since I don't drink (actually the truth, not just for the sake of the admissions blog), turning 21 basically just means that I can finally go to cool places and watch good concerts without having to worry about age/time restrictions. So, we had a fun time at the arcade for a few hours, playing plenty of classics (classics for me, anyway) like NBA Jam and NFL Blitz and Dance Dance Revolution.
This week on campus, the Slam Poetry club is hosting three events; on Tuesday and Thursday there are student slam competitions, and on Wednesday Lewis and Clark is host to the Spilljoy Ensemble Tour, which promises to be an exciting and well-attended event. It's been getting a lot of positive buzz around campus this week.
I've been working on planning Casino Night. Traditionally, Lewis and Clark has an evening during which professors deal and operate casino games for the students. We gamble with fake money and at the end of the night we can spend the money for raffle tickets for some cool prizes (I think last year the prize was a Playstation with Rock Band). A few years ago, the event would have a dance attached as well, and was a relatively large draw for students. Two years ago, the dance was axed, and last year the event was scaled down even further for a number of reasons that are no longer relevant. This year, we've basically tried to undo all that and go back to having a really awesome evening. We've hired the DJ who did our Homecoming dance (by most accounts, including my own, he's pretty solid) and have got a bunch of cool prizes lined up to be dispersed at the end of the night. The only hangup I can see right now is that we've scheduled it for Valentine's Day (don't ask me). So, assuming the date doesn't ruin us, we should have a really fun party where we can interact with the faculty on a level that isn't normally available for students.
Speaking of which, last weekend was Chinese Food and German Board Games night at my Computer Science professor's house. I think I've blogged about this before a bit, but he hosts a board game party for all of his students (and really, the entire math department) once a semester. I attended with some of my computer science buddies and was pleasantly entertained by the likes of Galaxy Trucker, Settlers of Catan and 24/7. One recommendation I have for you, regardless where you attend (or will attend) college: go to your professors' social gatherings if you're invited. Not only is it usually a really fun time, it really strengthens the student-teacher relationship, plus I'm sure it doesn't hurt for recommendations and such for a professor to know you in a capacity that's not just as a student in the classroom.
I'm pretty excited about a plethora of good Portland concerts coming up: MDC, Defiance Ohio, Cave Singers, Boy Eats Drum Machine, Four Tet, and plenty more. Being 21 means I can now get into venues like the Doug Fir, Holocene, Berbati's Pan and Someday Lounge. There are plenty of good all-ages venues in Portland, but, to be honest, there are a lot of 21+ shows here, and sometimes that can be frustrating for the younger LC students.
Now playing in my ears: "Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
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getting back in the routine - 29 January 2009
Board Games!
Snow as seen from Manzanita
So, I'm back at school. We started classes last Tuesday (though I think most of us skipped our morning classes to watch the inauguration on the huge screen in Council Chambers). This semester I'm taking quite a few computer-y courses, plus two others: Artificial Intelligence (CS 369), Algorithms (CS 383), Statistics (Math 255), Seminar: Biblical Studies–Jesus (RELS 450) and Bowling (PE 101-10). So far they've all been really fun and interesting (though the Religious Studies one is going to be a lot of work, I can already tell).
I made a short video about the apartment where I'll be living this semester:
I really like that I'm able to, as a Computer Science major, take high-level courses in other fields (like Religious Studies), without having to worry that it might affect my graduation date and such. There are certainly advantages to studies more directed in one area, but, in my opinion, it's nice to be able to dabble liberal arts style.
It's been snowing a lot (for here) this winter. Not only was our finals schedule all messed up because of snow closures, but we've had a fair amount of snow since returning from break. Tuesday, I was supposed to have my first Bowling class, but once I got to the bowling alley, we found out that the coach had called and canceled for the day (yeah, it would have been nice to know *before* I risked life and limb to get there, but it was okay–we bowled a few games since we were there anyway).
I'm sure I'll have more to note when things pick up in the coming weeks. Right now I'm just sort of settling and getting used to the changes that come with a new semester.
now playing in my ears: "Thank You For The Music" by ABBA
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woke up to this - 14 December 2008
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That is all.
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winding down, eventually - 10 December 2008
Sign on a bulletin board in the student center
Well, finals are around the corner and most people are a bit stressed. That being said, the next few days are designated "reading days," which basically means they're free days meant for studying, meeting with professors, finishing up class projects or papers, etc. Some people treat them as free party-before-finals days, though, so I'm sure Thursday and Friday will be interesting. It's always an interesting situation, seeing some people having a great time all day and night, and then others with no choice but to study for 2 days straight. Anyway, I hope everyone gets done whatever they need in order to have a successful semester.
I'm really looking forward to going home. I definitely want a break from LC for awhile (I like Portland, but I miss my cats, family, and home friends). I'm just ready to be done until January. I've decided to stop being a CLA (RA) for the Spring, and I'll be living in the apartments with my Computer Science/World of Warcraft buddy Seth. I haven't lived with a roommate since early November of 2006, so I'll have to get used to some changes. I'm expecting it to be awesome, though.
There is a crazy amount of last-minute-of-the-semester events going on. Tonight is when 24-hour quiet hours start in the dorms (and technically the whole campus), so there can't really be any loud events after today. Since that's the case, there are Directing class final scenes, an a capella show, an improv show, a student concert, a metal show, and (I think) one or two other events all happening tonight at roughly the same time. It is going to be hectic!
See you all in January!
now playing in my ears: "Pennyroyal Tea" by Nirvana
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it’s finally cold enough that I’m comfortable. - 3 December 2008
I haven’t got a video ready for this week, mainly because “this week” has only been 3 days so far.
Yesterday, there was a CLA-facilitated presentation of the Disney film Wall-E. After the screening, LC Computer Science Professor Peter Drake spoke about Artificial Intelligence (which is his specific field of Computer Science study). There was a pretty long discussion about what is possible with computers (and what is not), what we might be able to expect in the future (and how similar or different the technology might be from that represented in Wall-E). It took the better part of an hour and it was a really interesting talk, especially because there were so many interested people there, and most of them do not study computer science at all.
We also talked quite a bit about the Chinese game Go. Due to the large number of possible moves each turn, Go is much harder to "solve" with a computer than a game like Checkers or even Chess, making it somewhat of a "holy grail" for some AI programmers. Professor Drake has been fascinated by the AI challenges of Go and has made it the subject of his personal research to attempt the development of a program that might eventually be capable of beating the current frontrunning Go algorithms (or even more ideally, the best humans). This Summer he spent time with a few LC Computer Science students, as well as some computer scientists and Go experts from elsewhere in the US, collaborating in making his program more effective. Drake's project has been dubbed "Orego," and is freely distributed on his website under the GNU General Public License.
Today I went to a student concert at the Co-Op in Forest. Chill peeps Jonah Geil-Neufeld ('11) and Ariana Lenarsky ('09) played sets consisting of their own music and a few covers. They're both very talented musicians and I had a great time. Check out their respective websites for some awesome tunes (my personal favorites: "Carrot Song" by Jonah and "Sun and the Moon" by Ariana).
Class-wise, I've been messing around with the Google Web Toolkit (which we're learning about in my Networks class) I won't bore you with the details, but it basically makes it way easier to design quality web applications and I like it.
Finals are coming way too quickly....
Now playing in my ears: "Speakers Push The Air" by Pretty Girls Make Graves
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downside to no sales tax in OR: when you go home everything is expensive - 27 November 2008
Anna Spackman in the Platteau
Ben Bateman in the Platteau
art outside JR Howard Hall. I don't know why it's there, what it means, or who made it
minus the bear
I'm typing this from my rocking chair at home in Tacoma, with my cat by my side (it is Thanksgiving break).
Classes all seem to be gearing up for finals. I know I was hammered with assignments before Thanksgiving Break; it's too early to start reviewing, but there's not much class time left to learn much more new material, so that basically means it's time for projects and papers! I just turned in an essay in International Affairs, and the Old Testament class has been hard at work on a multi-stage 20-page research paper/project. In Networks, we just chose the topics for our final projects. I think I'm going to be working solo on a networked tic-tac-toe game. I feel like it's going to be pretty simple, so that means I'm probably going to have to spend a bunch of time on it because it will inevitably become complicated.
Last weekend, the band Minus the Bear played on campus. It was a really good concert; on the logistical and planning side of things, it was kind of a fiasco, but the band were all really cool and nice to me, so that was good. It could have been a lot more stressful than it was. And the music was great, so there's that.
Also last weekend, the Platteau Student Art Center in Platt West residence hall held its monthly open-mic night. Student performers from all over campus (and some who live off-campus in houses or apartments) come to share their performance art (mostly music, but some poetry, dance, stand-up, personal essays, and many other things) or to try out new things that they may be working on perfecting. It's a really cool experience every time it happens, and many people here look forward to it every month. This year we had to extend it to 3 hours because the normal 2-hours we'd allotted were just not long enough to include all of the people who want to perform. The really cool part is that most people stay through the evening, even if they just came to watch a specific friend (and most performers stick around for the duration, too).
After the show, some friends and I stuck around in the Platteau and jammed (I guess "experimented with sound" is more correct). We just brought some of our instruments there and tried to make weird noises and play off each other, it was pretty cool (if you have the means, go turn the gain way up on an electric guitar and try singing into the pickups!).
Only a few weeks left in the semester... so much to do!
now playing in my ears: "Untitled 5" by Tera Melos
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my favorite hot chocolate machine is the one in the IT office. - 20 November 2008
Dith in a box
Someone sitting on a stuffed dog chair in the Bon
Me [poorly] DJing a dance party
I have a new video up!
As usual, I have been busy. This past weekend was Fall Ball, the re-imagined homecoming dance. It went extremely smoothly. The Crystal Ballroom staff were so helpful and I think almost everyone had a good time. The food was also amazing, at least for what it was.
Due to stress (me? stressed?), quite a few of my various advisors/mentors/friends and I decided that I should drop one of my classes, so I did that. I'm no longer enrolled in the Old Testament course; there was a lot of work that I just couldn't handle at this point in time. I worked out with the professor that I can still attend and participate in class, so that's really good. I just don't have to worry about getting the papers done; I can just focus on learning cool stuff and spending the hard study time on some of my more important (as far as requirements are concerned) classes. I'm just really glad that my prof is letting me attend the lectures still. I love that class!
Thanksgiving is coming up, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't looking forward to going home to see my cats/family/friends. That being said, I am a little bit bummed that I'm going to have to pass up eating a big dinner here on campus with some of my really close LC friends. I'm sure we'll all manage, though. There's plenty to do on campus during the short breaks.
On Friday, rock group Minus The Bear is playing a show on campus. I intend for that to be a great time.
There has been a bit of skateboarding weather lately. For the most part during the school year, the ground is damp and therefor not terribly great for skating. Although there are plenty of leaves on the ground, there has been a recent dry spell, so I got to longboard around a little bit, which is always peaceful for me. It was a nice change from trudging through puddles.
Now playing in my ears: "Precious" by Depeche Mode
Current Location: Lewis and Clark College
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"Real [Idealized/Outright Fake] Life" Blog Posts #1
rain, rain, rain - 12 November 2008
Platt-Howard staff retreat group photo
Nintendo on the P-H retreat
This past weekend I went with my fellow Platt-Howard CLAs to a retreat in a cabin near Hood River. We did a little bit of work, but we mostly spent the time eating, sleeping, and visiting by the fireplace. It was a much-needed break from the hectic weeks I've been having in my classes.
Back at LC, Activities Congress is scrambling to get the Fall Ball dance to go smoothly. Historically, we've had a Homecoming dance that coincided with Homecoming week. This year, for a number of reasons (the most pertinent being that the venue we wanted–McMenamin's Crystal Ballroom–wasn't available until this late in the fall) We've been selling tickets at lunch and dinner, and have been in frequent contact with the venue, the student volunteers, the staff volunteers, the security, the bus company, etc. It's going to be a huge logistical marvel if/when it all comes together smoothly.
Tomorrow is a student art contest in the Platteau art center in Platt West. There's gonna be live student music, student art, refreshments, and all sorts of good times.
Midterms are mostly done, so that's a good thing. It has begun to rain every day, though. I actually really like it, but I think some people are getting a bit stir-crazy after about a week of pretty solid precipitation.
now playing in my ears: "Illinois" by Sufjan Stevens
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pretty good - 5 November 2008
Door in Platt West
Platt on Election Day
Platt on Election Day
Finally a video! My original idea for this week's video was foiled by the rain, so I decided sort of last-minute to abandon the actual project and focus on something else for this week, so I apologize if if seems a little un-polished; this isn't the video I intended to make on, oh, say... Tuesday morning. That being said, I think it turned out alright.
I would have had more time to work on things like video blogs, but, as usual, I'm pretty swamped. Although my midterms are done, that just means it's time to gear up for term papers and finals that are actually not terribly far away.
It's not all work, though, I did manage to spend a fair amount of time this weekend just doing absolutely nothing, which was a welcome change. It was too wet to skateboard, so that was a bit disappointing, but I'll live. I do love the late Fall and Winter (I like the feeling of being cold), but it does mean that longboard is no longer a reliable method of transportation as it is during the summer. Sure, one CAN skate in any climate, but when one is not-very-good like me, one bites it pretty hard on the way to class too many times during one's freshman and sophomore years, so this year one rethinks one's usage of the longboard as a primary mode of transportation after late-September.
Who cares about skateboards, it was election day! The video covers the evening pretty thoroughly, but I thought I might post a bit about what I did earlier in the evening; a friend here had a problem with her ballot, so she needed to go down to the headquarters and vote in person (Oregon is an absentee-only state). I drove her around Portland as we tried to find the elections headquarters, but before arriving, we found a stray L&C student also looking for the elections office. The three of us arrived there and waited in line for one and a half hours (not much by some standards, I am aware). After my two pals successfully voted, we went for a celebratory dinner meal at the Roxy cafe downtown.
Another bit of politics at Lewis and Clark, I wanted to make sure to link the video of a performance that various members of the LC a capella groups made last year, uniting under the name "Barackapella." It has had moderate viral success on the internet, and it is, if I may, a solid rendition/arrangement of Will.i.am's "Yes We Can" song.
This weekend I'm going to a house with the other people on my Campus Living (CLA/RA) staff. Hopefully I'll be able to relax and get caught up on the rest I'm already missing! There's just so much to do here that isn't sleep, sometimes I forget that I really should go to bed at a vaguely decent hour every once in awhile.
now playing in my ears: "Moving On" by Kimya Dawson
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now i am better at the library of congress classification system - 29 October 2008
Midterms midterms midterms.
This is just going to be a quick update because I am mid-study and have been all week. Tomorrow I've got tests in my Computer Graphics class and my International Affairs class, plus a paper for Old Testament due on Friday.
The weekend should be pretty nice though; not only will I be done with my tests, but there're some Halloween festivities planned for the 31st and 1st. There's a (hopefully awesome) dance party/costume contest in the Trail Room, there are scary movies shown in Tamarack, and Hartzfeld is going to turn the dorm into a haunted house. I think the latter part will be really tricky, but I have faith that they can pull it off. I'm in charge of the playlist for the dance party. Not so certain that I can make that work, but we'll see. I hope the attendees share my opinion that Electric Light Orchestra belongs on every playlist, no matter the context >_>.
On Saturday, LC Music Coalition is hosting Portland bands Alpaca! and NIAYH for an evening concert.
I'd love to dwell on the weekend, but I think I'll dwell on the next 36 hours first.
I'm working on a quick video, in all honesty my studies are top on my mind right now though... it'll get up ASAP, perhaps Saturday at the latest.
currently playing in my ears: "The Revolution Is Never Coming" by The Red Paintings
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for(int midterm=3;midterm>0;midterm-=1){cary.studyALot();} - 22 October 2008
Sam programming
Portland’s Mayor-elect Sam Adams speaking at LC
Blue Scholars performing at LC
LCMC with Blue Scholars and Common Market
It is midterm time. I am still waiting for a professor to come into class and announce "Just kidding, guys!" So far there haven't been many prospects of that sort of thing happening. Once in 10th grade, my teacher was a few minutes late to class. We turned off the lights and closed the door (and the blinds on the classroom windows) and he walked past, figured that since the lights were off that we had no class, and left. I kind of keep hoping that something similar could happen in relation to midterms. I am wholeheartedly behind trying this tactic out on midterm day.
Today I had a midterm in my Hebrew Bible class. The class centers around studying the Old Testament and learning about the different hypotheses regarding its original creation and compilation. It is perhaps my most interesting class, and I never would have taken it, but I needed one more class to fill out my schedule. Since my original scheduling plans fell through at the last minute, it was either this class or World Music (sorry world music). So, I enrolled in Old Testament, thinking it would just be something through which I'd grit my teeth. Nope, it is extremely interesting (although pretty rigorous). To give you an example of the kind of stuff we're learning, here's an excerpt from the 3-page exam study guide our professor made for us (thankfully):
Know: the historical background for understanding the Book of Deuteronomy (including questions of Judean or Israelite provenance, role of northern Levites, portions related to Josiah's reform movement); relationship to previous religious traditions (Ezekiel and aristoratic empires; David-Zion traditions, family piety, exodus traditions, prophetic traditions, wisdom traditions); importance of "diaspora" populations in understanding the proposals made in Deuteronomy; relationship of Deuteronomy to the rest of the Deuteronomic Collection and to the Tetrateuch; "religion of Deuteronomy (election and bilateral covenant; hierarchy, ethics in cult, society, and culture; relationship between religious phenomena and "the state;" and exclusivity of commitment); the relationship between Deuteronomy as secondary religion and primary religion of exiles.
So, yeah, not the easiest test in the world. If you come here (or go here), take a class from Professor Robert Kugler.
Midterms aside, I had a pretty fun weekend. On Friday night there was a hip hop concert on campus. As a member of Music Coalition, the concert-planning committee here, I arrived about 5 hours before the show to help set up. My friends on LCMC and I set up the dressing room, manned the doors, and most of the other non-musical concert-related jobs you can think of. The show went very smoothly. The openers, EmpyrSays and Common Market, were both notably good. Before the show I wasn't really familiar with either of their music, so that was a welcome surprise. Blue Scholars rocked it just like they did last year. All said and done, about 1/3 of the student body was at this concert. It's a pretty good feeling to put on an event that 33% of the student body attends.
Saturday afternoon, I went to a professor's house to play board games. Once a semester, he hosts a "Chinese Food and German Board Games" event at his house where we, you guessed it, play board games and eat Chinese food. He's a Computer Science professor, so most of the people who attend are math or computer science students, so it's basically a fun way to get to know the math department kids outside of class. The event was very fun; I played a rousing game of Settlers of Catan with some of my friends. I'd never played Settlers before (yeah, I'm a poseur nerd), so I didn't do very well, but I had a great time with it; I think I'll probably purchase that one soon.
In the coming week: 2 midterms, 1 essay, 3 nights of duty in Platt-Howard (RA stuff), and plenty of work and class. I'm glad I've got a retreat planned for the 7th of November... I'm pretty much counting down the days.
now playing in my ears: "Again & Again" by The Bird and the Bee
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hypertext transfer protocol - 16 October 2008
[ORIGINAL POST INCLUDED A LINK TO THIS VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ_4-j9DX_4]
Eric telling a story at Platteu Open Mic
Allison in the Bon
Cary holding SMYRC's money
Disclaimer—I happen to be a fan of parenthetical commentary and use it way too much in my writing. I apologize in advance.
Here's some coverage of an event that happened quite awhile ago, but it's deserving of mention: The Platt-Howard Drag Show (I've got some snippets about it in the video section as well). Lewis and Clark has an annual drag show, planned and executed by the staff of the Platt-Howard residence hall. Aside from being a fun, awesome event, we raise money for SMYRC, the Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center. It's an organization in Portland (Sadly, the only organization of its kind in Oregon) that caters to the needs and hardships of sexual minority youth. It's a great resource for people and if you're interested in helping them out or giving them some money, check out their site. Enough with that plug. DRAG SHOW. So, as a CLA on the Platt-Howard staff, I spent a good portion of September gearing up for this event. We got some help with money and planning from Unisex, the Dean of Students, and the Office for Multicultural Affairs. One of the great things about this campus (I guess it might be like this elsewhere, but I can only really speak for my experience at LC) is that if you have an event you want to plan, you CAN find a way to get it to happen. There are so many departments with money that are generally willing to help students who approach them. Many of our bigger events here are the product of extreme collaboration, and that just makes them even more awesome. We ended up having the show in the Trail Room, a cafeteria downstairs in our student center. Tired of the more traditional drag show format of years past (yeah, I did just use "traditional" as an adjective for "drag show"), we decided to make it into a dance party as well. Liv, our CLC (aka "RD") asked her talented DJ friend K-Money to MC the show and provide some tunes. It ended up being a really successful event–I think we raised around $550 for SMYRC, plus it was extremely fun. It's always good when your events don't flop.
In the week leading up to fall break, I was lucky enough to attend three concerts (and for a total of $10!). Portland is a pretty great city for shows, as they are generally pretty inexpensive. One problem you might run into is that there are a lot of 21+ venues (and some bands ONLY play 21+ venues in Portland—I’m looking at you, !!!), but most of the larger acts make sure to have all-ages shows. On Monday, I serendipitously scored tickets to the sold-out-for-months Sigur Rós concert. A friend of a friend was going to see the concert, but ended up not being able to go, so I was offered the tickets as a birthday-and-Christmas present. That concert was amazing (and I got the setlist!). Probably the second or third greatest concert I’ve ever experienced. So, anyway, went to that with some friends from school. On my way back to the car (raining, of course), I realized that I had parted with my keys at some point in the evening. That is a pretty awful feeling, by the way. I went back to the venue with my friends, begged some bouncers to let me in, then scrounged around on the floor, sifted through inches of confetti (part of the encore), and eventually gave up. From there, I called my good friend Lillie Mae who, with the help of the CLA on duty, acquired my extra car keys from my room and then drove them down to me. In the meantime, my friends and I waited in the lobby of the 4-star Heathman Hotel. We played the “movie game” (where you connect two movies together via common actors) for about 20 minutes until the security guard kicked us out for loitering. That was fine, though, because by the time we were back on the sidewalk, Lillie Mae pulled up with my keys. As I was trudging back to my car once again, I had an epiphany. I had slipped in a mud puddle earlier in the evening. With nothing to lose, I managed to locate the mud puddle (by the way, it is pretty hard to find a specific mud puddle in a large park when it’s raining) and sifted through it with my hands. Sitting at the bottom, waiting for me and probably shooting me an anthropomorphic “HAHA,” were my keys. Having found my keys, I am able to assess that I had a great night at the concert of one of my favorite bands... and have great friends who went way out of their way to help me at midnight on a school night. That made me feel pretty good. Thanks L&C.
Tuesday started out with a midterm in Introduction to International Affairs. I’m not planning to study abroad, so I need to fulfill my IA requirement by taking courses here. It’s an interesting enough subject, but I don’t really like it. Just not for me. Anyway, that midterm went pretty well-ish, I think. I had studied, but there was still one question that I felt was pretty ‘iffy’. Oh well, it’s only 15% of the grade. Hey: What’s the perfect way to celebrate the successful completion of a midterm? Punk rock with friends. Well, gypsy-punk, to be more specific. Earlier in the week, my friend/concertbuddy Dith and I won tickets from KLC, the Lewis and Clark pseudo-radio station (though it’s cool none the less), to see Gogol Bordello. The concert was loud, crazy, and a great way to unwind from a day packed with academia. It was also the worst-smelling concert audience of which I have ever been a part. I think that added to the overall ambiance of the night, though. Afterwards, my friends and I hit up The Roxy, an awesome diner on 11th and Stark downtown. It is one of the three favorite 24-hour diners of Lewis and Clark students (the other two being Banning’s Restaurant and Pie House and The Original Hotcake House across the Ross Island Bridge). The Roxy is probably the best because it has great decorations (life-size plaster Jesus with a neon halo, for example), the best Jukebox, and they serve Voodoo Doughnuts, not to mention they have a sassy waitstaff.
I’ve got a midterm in my Computer Networks class. We’ll see how that goes. Quick! What’s the HTTP status code for “OK?” If you said “200,” you are right. I could probably talk all day and night about Computer Science, by the way. Now, someone help me understand node objects in a Document Object Model.
now playing in my ears: "The Dead Flag Blues" by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
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Obligatory introduction post - 13 October 2008
My name is Cary. I am from Bonney Lake, WA (but I say Tacoma because it gives me more cred, plus I went to high school there). I am a Junior at Lewis and Clark College. I have been declared as a Mathematics/Computer Science major for two years, but I think I’m going to switch to the more focused Computer Science major. Over the weekend I decided that I think I want to minor in Religious Studies (does it get more “liberal arts” than that juxtaposition of fields?). So, that’s me academically.
Extracurricularly, I’ve got a lot going on this year. I’m a CLA (most of you may know that position as ‘RA,’ Resident Assistant, or any number of derisive nicknames). I like to think of myself as being available as a resource for my peers, but I imagine there are some people who probably just think of me as the person who has to take the beer away and bust up the underwear party. Oh well. I am also the deputy chair (“Vice President”) of Activities Congress (you’re probably noticing that, for whatever reason, LC just can’t conform to otherwise universally-accepted naming conventions. Don’t ask me why). AC plans many of the large events during the school year: homecoming, casino night, concerts, magicians, large-scale dance parties, etc. It is a pretty awesome job. As the deputy chair, I get to sit as a voting member on ASLC Executive Council. Executive Council is pretty much the highest body of our student government here; we manage various subcommittees, control a large budget for student-related use, and listen to the concerns of anyone who wants to bring something before us. It’s pretty much your usual student council gig, except with more money and more power than at a high school.
Perhaps my favorite extracurricular activity is my seat on Music Coalition. This is a subcommittee of Activities Congress that manages a budget in the tens-of-thousands with the sole purpose of putting on pop/rock/rap concerts. I’ve been doing it since my freshman year and have personally had a role booking, setting up, and/or sound engineering for bands such as Blue Scholars, The Helio Sequence, Schoolyard Heroes, Scissors For Lefty, The National, The Shaky Hands, Langhorne Slim, Jason Webley, The Dimes, Munly, Metal Shakespeare Company, and many others. These are concerts that are entirely student-organized. We contact the bands, we book the spaces on campus, we do the preparations, we run the lights and the sound, we do everything. It’s such an awesome experience.
I do a lot more here, but those are the areas in which I’m currently most active.
If you have questions about a specific group or position here, I can probably find out info, but here’s a short list of other stuff I have done, just so you know where I’m coming from and what I might be able to field questions about if you happen to have any (I apologize if this reads like a résumé, but I don’t know how else to convey the information succinctly):
WORK:
*Campus Living Advisor (aka “RA”) ‘07-present
*Information Technology (Help Desk operator: ‘07-present, Network/Tech Support: ‘08-present)
*Sound Engineer ‘07-present
*Platteau Student Art Center general manager ‘07-‘08
*Platteau Student Art Center web administrator ‘08-present
*Theatre Scenic Technician (building sets) ‘07-‘08
CLUBS/GROUPS:
*Activities Congress
*ASLC Executive Council
*LC Music Coalition
*Improv Club
*Programming Club
*Go (the board game) Club
*Pirates of Palatine Hill (official LC World of Warcraft guild)
*semi-regular contributor to the Pioneer Log student newspaper.
*this blog
I’m hoping this is the only post that I make that will be this uninteresting. In the future I plan to have much more of your typical “blog” format (hopefully with some cool videos… at LEAST some good photos) I figured I’d just get all that information into one post in the beginning. I’ll probably talk about all those things more at some point, so be ready. I’ve already got another post pretty much done, still grabbing photos and videos to make it spiffier!
Feel free to e-mail me at cyoung@lclark.edu or find me on the Facebook.
Current Location: Lewis and Clark College
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12:46 pm
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turing test
So, there was a funny Minus the Bear concert at LC recently. It went pretty sketchily... basically, some people here at LC learned that if you're gonna start being a stickler for the contract, make sure you've actually read the contract. I won't go into all the details, but I will just say that we were lucky that the band still played after all that went down in the hours before the show. I think it's pretty safe to say that Minus the Bear will probably not be performing at Lewis and Clark ever again.
They did leave us some fun to clean up in the dressing room, though:
Not entirely classy, but it's a lot better than what some others might have done in the same situation. In all, they were pretty polite to the students and student-workers at the show, so that was really good. Anyway, fun stories.
Here they are rocking out:
Minus the Bear's opener, Annuals, put on a great show and were exceptionally nice and chill to deal with. I recommend you give them a listen and/or go see them when they come to your area. It looks like they'll be in Seattle on Feb 25.
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The new WoW expansion came out. Since its release, I've hit level 80 and am just sort of poking around doing various quests and probably gonna start raiding with the Lewis and Clark people pretty soon. Hmm.
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I decided to stop being an RA in order to focus on being happier/socializing more, so I hope that goes well next semester. I'm living in Roberts with Seth, my friend from Computer Science classes.
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Working in IT is quite a bit of fun. It doesn't come without its share of frustrations though:
We found this reminder-note taped to the front of a computer we recently serviced. If you can't remember your own 4-digit extension, and you need help remembering the admin password that you set to the very-secure "12345," perhaps you shouldn't use a computer at all.
The other day I had a call to bring a laptop dock to a college employee. When I went over there, I set up the new dock and, since the dock requires a better power cord, I asked to take her old cord back since she didn't need it any more. She hesitated, saying "Well, it's a bit broken, but it still works. I tried to fix it with some tape." I crawled under the desk and found her cord plugged in, sitting on top of some scrap papers. It was most certainly broken. She'd been using it, in this condition, for literally YEARS:
Here's a little tally we've been keeping in the office, mostly for our own sanity:
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School is school-y. Also we have a new president. so that's good.
Current Mood: k
Current Music: "Shatterday" by Vendetta Red
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07:07 pm
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hey cary when are you gonna post to this thing?
A real update is in the works. Sorry it took so long!
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11:15 pm
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ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
The single greatest CNN News ticker I have ever seen:
and for good measure (haha):
Current Mood: good, actually
Current Music: "Motorcycle Drive By" by Third Eye Blind
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12:45 am
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it's always the right time
So, since my last real update, a lot has happened. The economy has crapped its pants, SNL is apparently relevant again, much less importantly, I have been selected by the Admissions department to be a blogger for the 2008-2009 school year. I am already having troubles meeting the impossible standard of blogging "real life" at college when you can't include swearing, innuendo, talk of alcohol/drugs, or complaining. I get a sweet video camera out of it though. My first video blog was deemed to be overly offensive and was removed by the powers that be (I don't mean to sound like I'm terribly irked, that's their prerogative, and they felt they had legitimate concerns since they've gotten in hot water for blogger material in the past). Anyway, it's still on my YouTube if you want to see it. It's honestly not that great though. I'll make my next video when it gets sunny out.
Here's the "offensive" video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ_4-j9DX_4
Speaking of me apparently being offensive, I have recently been contributing to the PioLog, our student newspaper. Here is some context for the following story: I write for the back page of the paper. Historically, the back page has been a comedy section with satire, comics, and various "edgy" material. Some examples from the past: "Sacagawea's Drink of the Week" and "Bible Mad Libs." So, when my writing partner had a passing epiphany that it would be exponentially more effective to sleep with someone from the registrar's office for a good grade, I took the idea and ran with it.
In about 15 minutes, I came up with this article. It's by no means "good" writing, nor is it meant to be poignant, meaningful, or, for that matter, hurtful. Back Page = we're all agreeing this is in jest, right?
(I don't have a copy of the paper it was in right now, so here is the text reproduced):
Good Grades from Old Maids by Humphrey Rollins
We know that if you sleep with your professors, you will get better grades. While this may be true, you are all mistaken if you think the aforementioned plan is the best path to academic success. Hold on, now, I'm not advocating that one should study; it's just important to consider that there is a much more efficient way to get a good grade. Who controls your transcripts? The Registrar's office. Why don't more students strike up a fling there? Instead of raising your grade in one class, you could instantly make it to the Dean's List. Talk about more buck for your bang. Furthermore, if you were to secure a recurring guest role in the Registrar's love-life, you could probably convince her to slash the GPAs of your greatest academic rivals. Hello, grad school! So, next time you're about to unzip because the essay grade didn't turn out quite the way you wanted (you need to keep that scholarship somehow), remember that there is an office full of friendly ladies on the garden level of Templeton, just waiting to fulfill all of your (academic) fantasies.
...and all was well.
Mostly, except for the letter we got from the department of Human Resources >_>
(I had nothing to do with the PioLog's response letter, and I am NOT taking responsibility for the grammatical errors throughout)
While I will be the first to say that the article was not meant to attack anyone or make anyone feel uncomfortable, I do just want to say this: Really? No, Really? I'm sorry, I just am sort of shocked that when a student writes a comedy article for the comedy page of the newspaper that is notorious for having little-to-no journalistic integrity, that 1. There is anyone reading to begin with, and then that 2. BREAK OUT THE STATIONERY, IT'S TIME TO BE OFFENDED! I respect your opinion, and I apologize if I caused anyone undue stress or discomfort, but seriously... Really?
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Howard Dean came to our campus at the beginning of September (yearhgggggggggghhhhhhhh!). He basically was just around to promote Obama and Biden's campaign. He was kind of cool, but didn't really say anything overly inspiring or interesting. He came off very much as a "sleazy politician" type. Now I'm kind of glad that he didn't end up the nominee in 2004. He was a pretty abysmal public speaker, stumbling and stuttering over his words, but it was still a pretty cool event. Afterwards, I asked him to record a personal video message for my very Democratic grandparents:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujmguD035NA
Apparently I was also in the background during his interview on the news.
Here is a scan of the documents we were given during RA training when we were supposed to facilitate discussions on diversity. I'll spare the commentary and let you make up your own mind about how this approach can be productive. I'm sure you're all aware of my take on the subject... here you go (click for big):
    
And continuing once more with the "offensive" motif of this post, did you know that "campo" (colloquial term for "Campus Safety"/"Campus Security") is apparently derogatory? I didn't either. Campo. Cammmmmmmmpo.
A few weeks ago, Sam Adams came and spoke at school. He is the first openly mayoral gay in a major metropolitan city. He's the mayor-elect of Portland,OR and is really cool. His speech was the final part of a series of events this week that was facilitated by UniSex and the Gender Studies department. He mostly spoke about being gay in politics and wove it into a humorous overview account of how he came to be mayor of a major city.
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I've seen a some concerts:
sigur rós (Second best concert I've ever been to)
Gogol Bordello
Weezer/Angels and Airwaves/Tokyo Police Club
They were all great. sigur rós, especially. Plus I got a set list:
We also had Blue Scholars come to LC again (and I helped plan it again). That was awesome:
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Wanna know why college is awesome? (not actually. GROSS PHOTOS AHEAD)
( seriously, this is gross )
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For the sake of continuity, I think think I'll begin to post all of my Lewis and Clark blogger posts to this as well, but I will make sure to differentiate them from my LJ-specific posts, since the LC ones probably not reflective of my actual feelings/opinions, necessarily.
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I don't like this school very much right now, I don't think. Hebrew Bible class is really interesting, though.
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Dith dressed up as a hipster for halloween.
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To round it out, here's a photo I took that I just particularly enjoy (I was sound/lights/DJ for a dance party event here):
Current Mood: subpar
Current Music: "Lex" by Ratatat
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