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A barber

I realized today that I’ve become an impromptu barber - the only one in town who bikes to your house at 9 o’clock in the evening to give you a trim. I slice, I dice! I even do sideburns!

It’s a really happy thought - a really good feeling to be biking around the city at night. Despite it being 91F at 10 at night, it’s still a gorgeous night. Stars shining, beautiful city noises, the feeling that takes your breath away. It’s the whole freedom thing - definitely not overrated.

Tomorrow J and I are going to the art museum. This is something I’ve been looking forward to for a month. I love looking at the art in museums - I feel like you’ve got to go more than once or even twice to get the full effect of all the art. You’ve got to go slowly to absorb it all, too. It’s inspiring and I hope to discover things for my own art.

Then starts the big move-in. I hope to take a lot of pictures so I’ll have a bunch to post. I’m nervous, but excited. We’ll see how it goes.

July 31, 2008 @ 10:22 pm . Comments (1)

General — Tags: apartment, real life, relaxing

Why I Hate Digg

Okay, hate is a little harsh. I can sometimes find one or two good articles in the first fifteen or so pages. But everything beyond that is often trash and the users are even worse. There is no method to the comments being thumbs up or down. Funny, informative comments may be worshiped or condemned, depending on whether it’s something that Diggers agree with. Even if it’s well-written, it’s dugg down if, for example, you doubt Obama. Or dislike Apple. Or think a popular article is a tad silly.

I used to be alright with Digg, but I’m starting to get tired of the ridiculous articles I’m seeing there. Diggers love drama as I’m finding out, and I don’t like it one bit. I like the science articles, the sociology articles, the design articles. But excessive politics? Tracking every single tiny thing Apple does? Posting articles about completely insignificant things such as the top 10 downloaded TV shows? I’m really getting tired of it.

Obviously there are people who really like reading these things. I guess these articles just don’t jive with my cares or beliefs. It’s fine for others to like Digg, but it’s not for me. Time to move on and find another source for interesting articles, I guess.

July 30, 2008 @ 8:36 pm . Comments (2)

Technology — Tags: internet, trends

Hot, Busy Day

Today’s been busy and fun. Here’s what I did:

1. Faced with our bed dilemma, we went to Ikea this morning to purchase a bed. We found a sofabed - I like it because it folds up, giving me more room, or I can just keep it open too.
2. I headed back to J’s and snoogled the cat, Augustus. He’s not quite nine months and a little terror. I love him so much.
3. I payed rent for the new apartment. This is the first time I’ve ever paid rent. It was kind of scary.
4. I dropped my other major. A few hours ago, I was a computer science and Chinese major. Now I’m only a lowly computer science major. My plan is to continue working on my Chinese and brush up on some French in the hopes I can do some traveling for any job I might get. Majoring in Chinese, though, is overkill. It would require me to take another year to graduate, and frankly that’s another year I just can’t afford.
5. I visited my computer science counselor. After this coming semester I just need four more classes to graduate. Thank goodness.
6. It is HOT outside. The temperature is 97F. So all of this stuff I just listed I did on my bike. I came home drenched in sweat and heat.

Now I’m going to play some more Mass Effect. I think I’m going to take J out for dinner tonight. Don’t tell him, though. It’s a secret.

July 28, 2008 @ 3:09 pm . Comments (2)

General — Tags: apartment, computer science, real life

Disorganized

I’m moving out in less than a week.

I still don’t have a bed.

July 27, 2008 @ 6:02 pm . Comments (2)

General — Tags: apartment

Rest

Thank you everyone for your birthday wishes. I had a really, really good birthday. There was actually no liquor involved - I’m probably one of the few who celebrated my 21st birthday alcohol-free. Instead there was lots of video games and cream puffs for dessert, and J even spent part of the weekend. It was all-in-all a great birthday, even though I’ve spent WAY too much time playing Mass Effect now. I can’t help it - it’s an amazing game.

Those who know me know I’m a huge gamer and honestly I’m shocked at how far this technology has come. I’ve played Oblivion and seen Crysis (and want to play Crysis) and I LOVE Team Fortress 2. But when I fired up Mass Effect all I could think was, these graphics are AMAZING. I’m rarely overwhelmed by graphics, but Mass Effect overwhelmed me. It’s gorgeous.

As you can see, my summer is lazy. I’m glad for it - I can use a break for sure before classes start up again. It’s weird how you don’t realize just how much you’re craving “me-time” until you actually get it. I’ve been so busy this year so far, but I felt like everything was normal. Now that I have time to play video games, I’m going crazy with them. I feel like my brain just needs a huge rest, and video games are perfect.

Those who know me also know that I’m not a big fan of movies or TV. I rarely watch movies and I never watch TV. Video games and books ARE my TV/movies. They’re my “sit around and do nothing for long stretches of time” methods. They’re my brain-resting activities. And I’m feeling much more relaxed with them.

What do you do to rest your brain? What sorts of things do you watch or do?

July 26, 2008 @ 7:58 pm . Comments (3)

General, Technology — Tags: real life, relaxing, video games

Birthday

Tomorrow is my birthday at last. The last year has been rocky at best. Twenty has been filled with a bit too much drama for my taste and I’m glad to see the year go. I was really happy to turn twenty, actually. Most people consider it to be sort of a nothing-birthday - there’s no major milestone involved with it. But I’m pleased with turning twenty-one.

I feel like I’m more me than I ever have been. I’m completely happy with J and I feel like I’ve done everything right with him. I’m happy with school and I’m facing some of the best years of my life. I’m finding out what I like and don’t like. I’m discovering that I like who I am and I don’t want to force myself to be the person I think others want me to be. I know this seems really obvious but it’s amazing how frequently we as people can get insecure. I tend to get insecure about two big things: my accomplishments and experience in my major, and how other people perceive me. I’m getting much better, though.

I’m realizing that I like design and managing people better than programming. I also care about other people being comfortable around me, which used to stress me out endlessly, trying to ensure that everyone liked me. Now I feel better about myself and I don’t stress about other people’s opinion of me as much.

I feel like in the next year I’m going to find myself even more. I’m planning a trip to Montreal for next summer. I’m also moving out next week, which will be a challenge. I have to begin looking for jobs and focus on graduating from school. It’s going to be a busy year but I think I’ll be up for it.

For now, though, I’m going to relax and enjoy my twenty-first.

July 24, 2008 @ 7:41 pm . Comments (3)

General — Tags: Future, insecurities

Moving

I’m in the process of moving from my boyfriend’s flat to a flat of my own. No, we didn’t break up. No, there’s nothing wrong. It’s just that it’s not my place - J has a roommate and I’m just renting for the summer. It’s complicated, as you can see.

Regardless, I’m moving. It’s a struggle. My parents’ house, which I continue to think of as home, is thirty minutes away. I have furniture there AND here. Without a real place of my own (I just have a bedroom here - J already has furniture so there’s not really room for mine), I’m stuck swimming in furniture that’s stuck in the hallway and random rooms.

Two weeks, I have to keep telling myself. Two weeks.

On the plus side, today I got a settee. It’s goldish green and really a lot more beautiful than the color would lead you to believe. It’s modern and traditional all rolled into one and I feel like it’s really me. Fortunately, my new roommate is kind enough to let me keep the settee at the new place even though I don’t live there yet. I’m really, really, REALLY happy about that. It would be ridiculous if I couldn’t put it there, as J lives on the second floor and Mum wouldn’t let me take it home.

Getting all this stuff is both overwhelming and liberating all at the same time. I’m developing my own style and preferences, something I couldn’t do in my parents’ house because I didn’t have a living room to decorate. I’m finding out what I like and don’t like and all the things it really takes to have a home. I’m trying to be really careful as to not buy more than what I need.

By the end of this I may be in a looney bin. I feel the sanity slipping away already. Moving out… is HARD.

July 22, 2008 @ 5:53 pm . Comments (0)

General — Tags: apartment, Future, real life

Lessons and questions from playing a video game

Last night I played so much Final Fantasy VII. It’s a game from my childhood - I used to play it in elementary school, when we got our first Playstation One. We didn’t have a memory card at that point, because we were so used to Nintendo cartridges, so I would play FFVII for hours and hours and then have to quit and start all over from the beginning again. My best friend and I played pretend as Final Fantasy VII characters. I was Cloud, and Cid, and Tifa. She was Aeris, and Yuffie, and Red XIII. Nobody was Cait Sith. It was extraordinarily fun.

So now I feel like I’ve come full circle. In just a few days I’ll be twenty-one. This is the year that I’m going to be getting out of school, having to make big decisions, and this is the year that I’m revisiting my childhood games. It’s silly for a girl like me to say, and even sillier for you to hear if you’re not a gamer, but that game affected me in ways I can’t even begin to understand. For me it was like a good book. It changed my life.

It makes me think about the future. Will there ever come a point in my life where I get bored to do “childish” things? Will there ever be a time when I get a 9-5 and live in a sprawling town in the United States, too busy at work and too tired when I get home to have fun? I get scared sometimes because other people seem to live these lives every single day. They never go out unless they need to do shopping, and then they hop in a car and drive to the mall. They don’t walk to the grocery store because living in a suburb is cheaper and they can get a bigger house.

What for? Instead of playing or going out or reading, people work and work and work until they can’t work anymore because they need tons of money to buy things they can’t afford, and then they need a big house to put all that stuff in, and to afford this lifestyle they have to keep working. It’s a vicious circle, and I hate it. I’m scared of falling into it. I want to work just enough to support my lifestyle. I want to work to live, not live to work, as cliched as that saying is.

I want to, in five years, still say that I can hit the video games, or go out to see a show, or write and paint and draw. I want to live in a walkable town. I’d like to live overseas for awhile. But everyone tells me I’m too young, too this, too that - they all say that at first I’ve got to work really hard for a few years.

I know I’m really young, and I know it’s naive to think this, but sometimes I feel like by the time I’ve worked really hard, I will have gotten myself so far into it I can’t get out, and it’ll actually be harder to live the life I want.

I just don’t know. I guess time will tell.

July 21, 2008 @ 8:32 am . Comments (3)

Gaming — Tags: Future, real life, video games

Three best friends

The thing that I don’t get is how when you’re watching a girly TV show or movie, the main character always has two best friends. Not one, not three, but two. Always two. Two sidekicks, two trusty best friends to carry them through whatever problems they’re going to encounter. A grand total of three - three musketeers, three’s a crowd, three against the world. How often does this really happen in real life?

I have several best friends to whom I can tell anything. And then beyond that I have a lot of minor friends or acquaintences, and I hang out with these people semi-regularly. I feel like most of the people I know are either in this situation or they’re in the situation where they hang out with ONE person, nearly always their significant other, and everyone else is just an acquaintence. Either way, this isn’t two best friends and no one else.

This has always kind of bugged me. I wonder who came up with it and why the trend has been sticking. I wonder if I’ll ever see a movie or show where there’s just one best friend, or three.

July 20, 2008 @ 11:02 am . Comments (1)

Media — Tags: trends

Bill Gates is rich, but he’s got more than money

As a computer science major, I’m sometimes interested in technology (sometimes :P). Yesterday I read Fortune’s 7 July article “Gates After Microsoft.” It was one of the best articles I’ve read about technology meets real life in a long time. Reading it, I got a good sense of Bill Gates and it made me feel much better about myself and my own beliefs and thoughts.

Bill Gates is an incredible guy. According to the article, “he has pledged to give back to humanity all but a tiny fraction of 1% of that fortune.” He’s rich but generous. His own mother wrote, “‘From those to whom much has been given, much is expected.’” But my favorite part of the article was the emphasis that Bill Gates focuses more on just Microsoft and software. The article states:

“For the first time since he quit Harvard to start Microsoft 33 years ago, Gates is going to have the time to indulge in what his father calls his ‘world-class curiosity.’”

Computer science is filled with a lot of different people, but the one thing I have learned about my major is that most of the people there are single-minded young males. They focus a lot on programming and little on much else. And the thing that gets to me quite often is that they’re good at it - very good. I can program but not as well as they can, and when it comes to experience I’ve got very little because I don’t program outside of class and they do.

So there’s always been this sort of inferiority, this lack of confidence. I get a little nervous about grades and about my future, about my lack of programming experience. But when I read something like this, I get excited. Bill Gates started Microsoft because of ‘world-class curiosity.’ His “greatest pleasure seems to be finding connections among things he’s interested in.” The article doesn’t say his greatest pleasure is programming, or running a business, but finding connections between things he’s interested in.

The article goes on to talk about how he’s curious about everything from law to corn prices to malaria to immunology, and others. Bill Gates doesn’t focus primarily on software - he enjoys learning about everything. It’s a boost - a huge boost - to know that one of the richest men in the world loves learning about a lot of things. I myself am interested in books and creative writing and design and fashion and a million other things, and I feel like that’s okay when I read stuff like this.

Bill Gates has always been a guy I’ve looked up to but now I have even more reason to admire him.

July 18, 2008 @ 5:03 pm . Comments (0)

Technology — Tags: bill gates, computer science

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