Er, that is to say, I am going to be changing the focus of this here blog. Right now, I just kinda rant about anything I feel like, which is great therapy for me, but probably a crapshoot for everyone else.

I’ve decided to blog about art. WAIT LET ME EXPLAIN: That doesn’t mean this blog is going to degrade into a state of pretentious incomprehensiveness (though I guess you can argue it’s already there, to which I would reply: oh YEAH?!), it just means that I’m going to be talking more about the stuff I make and random funny art things I hear about and posting the usual level of drivel on that. Yes, I’m going to give up that fake tech/science blogger schtick… there are already plenty of good blogs in those areas (however, a half-assed Google search revealed that there are NOT enough good blogs by dumbass artists).

Of course, I’m going to worm in a bit about tech and science ANYWAY… because I’m a huge geek.

In any case, if you actually kinda tolerate or even enjoy the stuff I usually write about, you won’t be disappointed by the change… unless you really really hate it when people talk about awesome things.

David Klinghoffer is a Brown alum and as conservative as they get: he’s an editor of the National Review, a senior fellow of the intelligent design advocating Discovery Institute, and the author of such tomes as How Would God Vote? Why the Bible Commands You to be a Conservative. And in case you didn’t know, Brown has this reputation of being the uber-liberal Ivy League school that throws notorious naked parties (proudly featured on the O’Reilly Factor in 2005) and has unusually joyous students. The curriculum is all about getting students to think for themselves (liberally), and most students don’t even realize there is a Republican club at Brown (whereas the Brown Democrats are quite the boisterous gang). The last thing a person expects is for Brown to cause someone to become a hardcore conservative.

So what the heck did Brown do to Klinghoffer (who was actually a self-proclaimed hippie socialist when he entered Brown)? After reading the article, it seems Brown did… very little.

Klinghoffer had a crush on a very liberal semiotics major (pseudonym: Tamara) who was, paradoxically, an Orthodox Jew (in a strange way, that makes sense… semiotics seems to be all about stuffing an undue amount of sense into a space that didn’t have or need it before). She astutely ridiculed his extreme hippie ways as a private rebellion against conformism, and further blew his mind by taking him to the Hillel (okay, I can imagine a few better places to have one’s mind blown) for some rousing Jewish songs.

Somewhere in between, Klinghoffer suddenly became a conservative. I do not know the exact mechanism because he doesn’t actually describe it in much detail. Maybe a group of kids got together, pointed their rings to the sky, and suddenly, a superbly-mulleted conservative superhero was born. I’d like to think so. Anyway, this is as close as he gets to an explanation:

The theme of the most fashionable humanities scholarship was to indict the patriarchy by accusing the great fathers of literature—the classic authors—of racism, sexism, and homophobia. This may sound like a cartoon, but at Brown in the mid-1980s, it was commonplace. Yes, I delighted in all this craziness. What I most value in it now is that it provoked me, arousing my suspicion. If so many people were so intent on decrying the patriarchy, on insisting that every traditional meaning transmitted by Western tradition was arbitrary and meaningless, then maybe the precise opposite was true. The more I was told that there was no singular Truth to be obtained from the great tradition that went before us, the more I was inspired to seek out the forbidden.

So I guess he realized he was a little TOO ridiculous and decided to reassess his beliefs. Okay, I’m all for that. Don’t agree with the hidden assumptions in his statements, but we’ll let that slide in order to talk about this OTHER thing that was totally important to Klinghoffer’s college career: he got everyone to hate him because he wrote a spirited piece on campus racism against whites (he and the crush were turned away from a meeting between the college president and minority students because they were white). By that time, he was already THE flamebait conservative of the Brown Daily Herald. His article basically made him an outcast in the overwhelmingly liberal community.

Luckily, Judaism accepted him! He found a place where he belonged… and lived happily ever after. Yes, this is basically how the article ends (Klinghoffer uses more words, though). He also gives quite the argument FOR sending kids from a conservative family to a very liberal school:

I believe that a traditionalist father or mother should consider the advantage that Abraham saw for his son Isaac in being challenged by neighbors holding views diametrically opposed to those of his parents. There is a danger in this, of course. But so too is there a risk in subjecting your child to a monotonous upbringing surrounded by mirror images of his parents. The risk is boredom. The risk is also the possibility that the child will never learn how to defend his tradition. When he finds it challenged after formal education is over, he may find that he lacks any intellectual armor to ward off blows from hostile secularists.

For my children, I hope for a firm commitment to their tradition, but grounded in independent thought and strong enough to answer critics.

Well, this is what I like about what Klinghoffer says: he trusts the younger generations enough to figure out their own beliefs and actually advocates understanding “the other side” (in this case: secularists).

But in the end, I think the article is more the story of a boy who was looking for a place to belong, accepting a familiar comfort, then looking back with nostalgia on a lively college career. In the end, I think he is merely saying “Let your kids run around in the liberal secularist playground. Once they’re back out of that fantasy world, they’ll see that the real world is conservative and will have to figure out how to fit in… and chances are, the tried and true methods of yore have firmer feet than whatever craziness the young believe.”

Well first, I’d like to address the hidden assumption all throughout Klinghoffer’s article: that liberal secularists believe in something so new and “diametrically opposed” to the Western tradition passed down from the ages. Ever faithful to the Discovery Institute’s branch of reasoning, Klinghoffer briefly mentions Darwin (and “other influences” I take to be something like science) as something that drew people from “the truth of religion” and that “Western tradition” (the Discovery Institute so loves to criticize Darwin). I’m not sure Klinghoffer realizes, but science* can thank the likes of Socrates (470-399 BCE, teacher of Plato, who in turn taught Aristotle, whom many of the major religions can point to as a great influence on their theology) for a little thing called the Socratic method (forefather of the scientific method), without which no one would have thought to question the established tradition in favor of using one’s own reason. I guess it’s comforting for the religious, conservative crowd to think that secularists and liberals don’t have a big, firm WESTERN TRADITION to stand on in the wild, wild world… except that’s just cherry-picking the history they want to read.

Second, I am skeptical of Brown’s actual ability to force its students to critically question their beliefs in a healthy way. I’m going to be fighting one personal anecdote with another one here, so bear with me and take it with however much salt you want. Certainly, Brown puts together a lot of open-minded young liberals, and that is a great atmosphere for thoughtful questioning. However, Brown’s open curriculum and everyone’s openness to accept has another side to it: you get to choose what courses you want to take, so only the most adventurous and open-minded choose courses dramatically outside of their own personal experience, and your friends don’t really want to argue with you about your beliefs because they are more eager to accept you for who you are. I am in my last semester of my senior year, and it was this current semester that—for the first time in my Brown career—I was told in a class to be skeptical of data and to be on the look-out for underlying assumptions. No other class that I have taken here has ever called me out on my critical reasoning (I may not have taken any philosophy classes, but I think all of the social science classes I have taken should have really driven that point home).

My friends are also in no position to question my beliefs like the firey Tamara that Klinghoffer described. I am definitely a minority in my beliefs among my friends: skeptical and atheist, I trust a belief as far as the scientific method can prove it. My close friends here are made up of either agnostics or Christians, and only one of them (she definitely believes in a God, and I would hazard to say the Christian God, but she does not follow any established religion) has ever seriously argued about ANYTHING with me (we get on each other’s nerves like NOTHING else when we go at it, but we still manage to get along very well when we’re done with the debating). My other friends are completely (even disappointingly) non-confrontational. Two of my friends have even completely ignored me (with eyes glued to some lame infomercial on TV at the time) when I asked their opinion during a rousing debate with my One Friend Who Argues With Me. There is the idea that friends are supposed to support and justify your beliefs, so no one wants to be a “bad” friend and argue or question their friends’ beliefs… but if there is no push to become more aware and a better thinker among one’s friends, who the hell ELSE cares about how well you think?

So despite my disagreements with Klinghoffer, I think he has hit upon an arguably unfortunate truth: Brown will probably never be able to turn someone like an Orthodox Jew into an atheist (or vice versa), but it certainly provides a person with the tools to justify his/her own beliefs. I would even say that all of my close friends came in with the exact same religious beliefs that they are preparing to leave with. I am the only exception: I came in agnostic—leaning towards deist—but am leaving an atheist and secular humanist… and it wasn’t because the Brown curriculum or the people I’ve met here pushed me to think outside of the box. It was because I downloaded a podcast while avoiding schoolwork.

I guess my mind is done being boggled for now.

* I have switched “Darwin” out for “science” here because in the Discovery Institute’s strange world, modern science = belief in Every Single Thing Darwin Has Ever Said (which is ridiculous, since Darwin’s ideas are 200 years old and and good scientist would be wary to trust data from 10 years ago).

I never thought I’d say this, but I just came back from a career fair and it was actually extremely helpful. I’m saying this as an Education Studies and Visual Art major, mind you… and education and art are fields notorious for low-paying, dead-end-dom. Perhaps that’s why it’s even more important for us social sciences / humanities / arts majors to go to these career fairs and see where people go with these supposedly laughable degrees. Read on after the break if you’re interested in this bunk.

Anyway, what I went to today was not exactly the traditional career fair. It was billed as a roundtable discussion between Brown alums in various fields and students. …Of course, I knew none of this, because my mail program has determined by my habit of instantly deleting e-mails from the Career Office that all e-mails advertising such things were spam. Luckily, I met with a mentor who happened to be one of the alums at the event today, so I followed her in (with jeans and serious winter boots… good thing there were tables with tablecloths and no one was looking down) and ended up staying for 4 hours (despite all the work I have to do today!).

And I learned quite a lot. I first sat down at the “Design and performance art” table. Right away, one of the alums (and a seasoned career counselor) gave us undergrads a great lesson: networking is important, so collect as many business cards as you can, take notes, and contact people! They don’t teach you this in art class, kids! Then, going around the table, each alum talked about her own Brown experience and how she got into the career she is pursuing. As an art major who has kind of resigned to studying art as a hobby and relying on my other major as a crutch, it was really inspiring to hear about all the different kinds of fields available in art. Right next to me was a museum exhibit designer who talked about how she helps turn the sometimes incomprehensible knowledge of academics into a layman-friendly exhibit… AND she got here after following a similar path as me in visual arts at Brown (she took a class with one of my favorite art professors and named him as a great influence). As someone who is all about making information available to all, what she said really struck me. Then someone else brought up the job of building those exhibits and containers for artworks, which was something I had never heard of (and as somewhat of a tool-nut, I don’t think I’d mind building boxes for busts all day). At that point, it was pretty clear that I had been seriously underestimating the art field.

Well, after that, I sat down at the “Education” table. Looking around at the tags on the alums, I realized I was surrounded by education policy majors. I’m actually studying education theories and human development, which I hope will lead to a job as a researcher… there’s just a HUGE blank area between now and research. Here too, talking with the alums definitely helped, and again, the most important part was probably the networking opportunities they offered. After I had explained my own interests, one of the alums who was involved in research right away suggested I contact her about how to pursue research. It was also great to just talk with professionals who were in “that other education track” and find out where that actually leads… and if the two education tracks at Brown are doomed to separate forever (quick background: the Education Studies concentration at Brown has two tracks: Human Development, and History and Policy, as well as other programs for those who are actually looking for teaching certification). It was definitely an interesting conversation, and we went WAY over the time limit for the talk.

All in all, I think I just really needed to hear what the alums had to say. I’d become used to the idea that both of my majors are not really going to bring me anywhere amazing, but that was definitely just plain ignorance. Just the other day, I was reading an extensive internet forum debate on how useful humanities degrees are in getting a job. While it was all I could do to keep myself from joining the forum right then and there and throwing in my own hasty pennies, I now can see that I was similarly jaded about the state of the humanities in the job market. Really, we can’t give into the idea that our majors are worthless and so we don’t need to go schmooze the right people for jobs. Networking is every bit as important for us, because we get real jobs too.

So now, I’ve got my little pile of business cards and I’m thinking of where to go from here. I definitely need to find other options if JET doesn’t pan out. Maybe I’ll make myself some business cards for the heck of it. I should definitely whip this website into shape and turn it into a real resource for information on myself, though. I gotta market myself well to the purveyors of my dream jobs.

Well, consider the myth of the grueling, inhuman, near-impossible JET interview debunked… mostly. There are still stories of some very tricky questions, but the general consensus on forums seems to be that you can still get in even if you mess up on the tough questions… just save your nervous breakdowns for home. Anyway, this post is going to get long, so click past the break for the rest.

Okay, let’s go step-by-step through all the rumors I’ve heard about the interview, and what my actual interview was like in comparison. Bolded titles are JET myths and the rest is what happened in my experience.

1. You MUST be at least 20 minutes early, or it’s strikes against you for being an unpunctual jackass. So I got to the Japanese Consulate in Boston a mere 5 minutes ahead of my scheduled interview time (goddamned traffic and curling iron). I had read that they actually keep tabs on when you arrive to the interview site, but to my knowledge, the nice woman at the check-in desk just highlighted my name on the list… maybe she made a note of the time, but I doubt it. Happily, they were also running late on the actual interviewing that day, so I still had to sit around for 15-20 minutes before they called me in. I wouldn’t risk it and show up as late as I did, though.
2. They take notes on how nervous you seem in the waiting room and quiz you on the informational video they show. This seemed pretty unlikely to me, and sure enough, it couldn’t be farther from the truth. The former JET participants who lounged around with us bright-faced recruits just wanted to make us feel comfortable, and we all chatted most amiably… well, as amiably as a bunch of nervous-as-hell college seniors and grads could get as they faced this supposedly horrific interview. I’d do everything short of gnawing off my own foot to ease nerve-wracking tension, so I tried to keep the conversation light-hearted and going. Ten minutes in, one of the former participants mentioned that oh yeah, there was a video and perhaps she should show it. She asked if we’d like to see it, but admitted that she only mentioned it because it showed the school where she worked in one part of it. So much for memorizing the video.
3. The interview is designed to make you nervous to see how well you work under pressure. I’ve read that you had to basically stalk interviewees as they came out for tips, that you had to memorize interviewers’ names, that interviewers will grill people on recent Japanese news and trivia, and even that the interviewing room was set up to make you as nervous as possible (e.g. one lone chair in the middle of an empty room, with the interviewers seated comfortably behind a desk with bottles of water to drink). None of that happened. Unless the interviewing location has many extra rooms to set up as private torture chambers, you’re probably going to be interviewed in a very normal room, like a comfy office, conference room, or library. I think I was in a room that served all those purposes, which actually made the room quite cozy. The interviewers offered their hands and introduced themselves, except one old Japanese gentleman (from his non-business attire, I’d guess he was a professor) who said with a laugh that he normally would shake my hand, but he had a cut on his finger and hadn’t washed his hands since replacing the bandage. I kept an I’m-happy-to-be-here smile on my face and tried to pace my speaking during the whole thing (great tips for interviews in general, by the way). Overall, the three interviewers were very encouraging and would tell me not to worry if I seemed unsure about my response. So what about the questions themselves? Well…
4. They ask impossible questions designed to make you squirm. I was pretty worried that they’d ask me about recent Japanese events or do a whole “Name that prefecture!” bit. It’s a good day if I know what’s going on in the US, much less Japan, and everything I knew about prefectures I learned that morning on Wikipedia. A poster on some JET-related discussion board made a good observation: you probably won’t get these sorts of questions if you’ve sufficiently explained your interest in and knowledge about Japan in your application. Personally, I’ve gone through the whole anime/J-pop obsession bit, taken classes relating to Japanese history and language, and have actually lived in Japan for a summer, and I made that all clear to some extent in my written application. Unless you really applied to JET on a whim and have never taken classes or expressed other interests in Japanese culture, the interviewers will probably just leave concerns about your lack of knowledge of Japanese prefectures to your distraught Japanese instructors (and for you, there is help).
5. The interviewers will ask A, B, and C during the interview and you should respond with D, E, F. Everyone always wants to know what sorts of questions JET interviewers ask and how they should respond. Frankly, I’m amazed that people can remember all the questions they were asked. It’s all highly personalized… the interviewers are mostly just coming up with questions as the interview rolls along. If you can’t answer a question really, perfectly well (which was me in most cases), just answer in a way that shows you’re genuine in your intentions, though you may not be a Shakespeare with words. I just emphasized some key words as I spoke and made some pseudo-emphatic Hilary Clinton-esque hand gestures. If you’re really unsure if you’d done a good job responding, just politely ask “Does that answer the question? Should I clarify?” or something to that effect.
6. Wait… you haven’t mentioned any of the questions YOU were asked! Okay, okay fine. I’ll share a few questions I got that I haven’t seen elsewhere and stuck out to me.

   Right off the bat, someone remarked that I had put “semi-advanced” as my speaking/reading levels (I totally do not remember if I did this and had a mild freakout in my mind) and asked why I did not apply for the CIR position. I definitely did not reply in an ideal way for this. Basically, I sort of harped on the fact that I don’t recall putting down semi-advanced as my level, which prompted someone to suggest that I try speaking a little Japanese, which ended in a similarly fail-tastic manner. Of course, I even answered the question in my application: I wanted to actually experience a foreign teaching method first-hand. Stupid me, how hard was that to say?

   A particularly good question I got went something like this: “Suppose a young Japanese student came up to you and said ‘You’re not white, are you really American?’ How would you respond?” I’m Chinese by birth, so most Japanese people just figure I’m Japanese if I’m walking around in Japan. I don’t even think I fully answered this question, but I mentioned one thing that made the interviewers say “Oh, that’s a really good point”: we currently have a black man running for president. I then said some other things that it’s really important to me to make it clear that we’re an immigrant nation, and I would try to get it through somehow but would depend on the situation, etc. But basically, my man Barack helped me out there (and is still impressing the Japanese).

   Then I was asked what I hoped to get out of the program. I didn’t want to fall into the standard interview trap of having overly high expectations, so I just said that I wasn’t expecting to become an expert in Japanese or anything about it by the end of one year, but I would hopefully feel like it was a start to something else, whether that be staying for another year or going to grad school or attempting to get a research grant.

   Speaking of the research grant, in my application, I mentioned that I was thinking about applying for a Fullbright to do research in Japan and someone asked me about it, apparently concerned that it would interfere with JET. I thought it showed that I was interested in continuing relations with Japan, but whatever… I assured them that I had not, in fact, applied to the Fullbright and it was still just a thought in the back of my mind (seriously, it’s hard).

After a while, the interviewers just basically said “Well, I’m all set” and the interview ended… I didn’t even realize it had gone on for 15 minutes already. It was definitely much easier than I had imagined.

Outside, I talked a bit with another girl who was applying. It was apparently her second year applying and interviewing, and she coincidentally got the exact same interviewer as last year. Well, I guess it’s good luck to the both of us and everyone else.

Decisions come out in April. Which is scarily close. For more info, check out the hive-like knowledge base of IThinkImLost.

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these and I’ve actually gotten rid of a lot of the redundant apps on my computer (it was freezing up Finder!), but let’s give another go at this, shall we?

So the other day, AppDelete spots AppZapper with his girlfriend… AND he’s a fan of the opposing sports team. Oh snap!

Icons. It’s hard to win in the style department when you’re a bucket full of crumpled paper… even when the opponent is an unattractive ray-gun. Both sides threw on what was on the floor of their bedroom after a hangover… but AppZapper’s unwashed filth looks less like it came from the Salvation Army (that’s good, sparky).

Ease of Use. Neither of the apps is smart enough to stump a grade-schooler, since they both operate on the mind-numbingly simple idea of “drag-and-drop” (you drag what you don’t want on to ‘em, and they take care of ‘em for ya… capice?). Both roll up their sleeves and prepare for a bloody fist fight.

Speed. Yanno, deletion apps get no respect, since everyone thinks it’s so easy just whacking the unneeded scum of the Applications Folder. Well, it takes finesse… and AppZapper has a little more of that, since he gets it done quick—badabing-badaboom. AppDelete needs to sit around and ruminate… much like some posing schmuck trying to fake Mafia-speak for no good reason. AppZapper socks one to AppDelete before he knows what’s up… the author falls over with sympathy pains.

Entertainment. Nowadays, it’s not enough to just work, you’ve got to be a showman as well. AppZapper really knows how to play to the crowd’s love of bright flashes and fancy zapping noises. AppDelete… well, let’s just let him recover from the last blow for now. AppZapper dances circles around AppDelete.

Price. Of course, none of this means nothing if all you get for your money are some useless bozos. AppDelete makes it easy for you, though… he works for free, that sadistic bastard. AppZapper charges $12.95 for his services. For the same job, it’s a no-brainer. AppDelete sucker-punches AppZapper.

Straight up bias. I gotta go with AppZapper on this one. I spent negligible amounts of money on it because of the MacHeist bundle, but that and the sheer fun of it make me want to use it over AppDelete. Now I see how they could justify its $12.95 price. AppZapper recovers quickly and deals AppDelete a crushing knee in the gut.

Winner of this Streetfight: AppZapper

If neither of the above floats your boat or you are totally against the idea of drag and drop, there’s also AppCleaner, which preloads itself with a list of all your apps and allows the uninstallation of Preference Panes. And it’s free.

WE INTERRUPT THIS POST FOR A CANDY BREAK! …Because I just got handed a baggie full of candy. Okay, end of break.

Anyway, did anyone catch those really insulting commercials from SalesGenie? There was the tale of Ramesh, the horrible sales rep, and Lingling, the furniture-mongering panda, both sporting respectively stereotypical FOB accents. The funny thing here is that Vin Gupta, the CEO of the parent company of SalesGenie, approved similarly embarrassing ads last year and is still asserting that these ads are successful. He even wrote the copy for at least the Ramesh ad this year. Does that even make the ads less racist?

In other news, the Massachusetts state primaries are tomorrow (along with a lot of other state primaries), so I’ll be going home for the evening to cast my vote for… well, I haven’t decided yet, actually, but I’m a registered democrat, so it’s either Hillary or Obama. And while we’re on that subject, the New York Times had this rather useless article today likening Obama to Macs and Hillary to PCs. I don’t think they really meant to draw parallels to John Hodgeman and Justin Long (PC and Mac in the Apple commercials), since, first of all, that makes no sense, and second of all, that makes no sense. It seems like they just wanted to point out that Obama has quite the swank website (because, really, it is quite swank). Well, anyway, I’m not going to be basing my political loyalties on web design (I don’t think I’ve wasted away to that point yet), but it’s always fun to needlessly psychoanalyze websites… so long as you know that it’s probably not relevant.

And now for a much-needed nap…

My Google senses tell me that the interview will either be a carefully designed hell meant to stamp fear into the very fabric of your being, or it is completely unpredictable and only your unabashed will to be a ninja of ass-kissing will get you by… so I think my answer is to declare Yasuo Fukuda my one true love and learn me enough Japanese language, culture, and recent events to impress even the 91st Prime Minister of Japan (though Junichiro Koizumi will always be my hero…).

Plan B is to do the same thing without declaring my love for old Japanese gentlemen. Plan C involves Samuel L. Jackson, but I will hopefully not need to resort to that plan. In any case, I’ll be documenting my preparations until Interview Day (towards the end of February). If anyone’s in the same boat as I am, drop me a note… we’ll freak out together and it’ll be awesome.

And before I forget, let me pimp out Dan Wasyluk’s answer to Kelly’s unwillingly abandoned dream of a network of college blogs: The College Blog Network. It looks promising, so I’ve joined in support. Check out my page there with the totally on-the-spot blog title (I never actually thought to give this blog a title).

So I’ve had 4 whole days of “classes”, and I’m feelin’ pretty chipper about my last semester. I only have 3 real classes, but they’re all easy and fun (this is what happens when you leave all your electives to the last semester). Then I have two independent studies that have no real class times, and I’ve got this other thing going that’s just me showing up and speaking bad Japanese (like usual), but the registrar doesn’t hear about it because I’m technically supposed to collapse into an incomprehensible blob of overloaded gray matter if I take another class.

To the layman who calculates worth based on days free: I have my Wednesdays and Fridays ostensibly dedicated to nothing (but really, they’re dedicated to not getting my ass kicked by all the things that could go wrong this semester… like me not graduating).

Other things going on this semester:

• I have not one, but two exhibits to plan and carry out. One is during the week of Commencement (because if there is a good time to show art, it is when the rich Brown parents and alums are wandering campus).
• I am hoping I can get outside funding for one of these exhibits, because I am as poor as heck.
• I am going to try to actually draw my own children’s story. It might not have words, because I am kind of lazy and kind of go insane when writing only simple sentences.
• I am going to try to actually write and draw my own comic… not for children. I’ve been all talk and no do about this for years and years, but I finally got an idea that doesn’t involve anthropomorphic bats and epic battles, so I think it’ll be easier this time around.
• And this website is finally going to get its art section. Yes, the day of reckoning foretold in my colophon is near.

From how last semester was going, I had the sinking feeling that this semester was going to be like getting urinated on after being stun by jellyfish (which, by the way, worsens the burning sensation of the jellyfish sting), but it’s actually looking to be pretty good which means I’m actually excited about it.

I’ve also made a deal with myself: if I don’t get to go to do the exciting go-abroad-and-not-really-work schtick, I’ll get a dog and stick with the research project I’ve been working on since last January (with the professor I’ve been working with since freshman year). It sounds like I’m settling for mom’s basement and my student job, but it might actually help more with getting into grad school and getting a career in research started. So we’ll see. It’s all in the hands of the Japanese Embassy.

First, why not try looking at the world differently? I love the look of crazily decrepit, abandoned buildings. I have a lot of reasons why, but I’m going to sound like an artsy kook whether or not I list said reasons, so I’m just going to link this collection of abandoned building photographs. The website’s not a looker, but neither are the buildings. I used to have this link to a Japanese website full of pictures from abandoned amusement parks, buildings, and even this whole abandoned island (which was REALLY creepy, because there were shots of abandoned elementary school classrooms with all the furniture and old books stacked in a corner). I have no idea where that link went or if the site is still around. If anyone knows of it, I’d certainly like a re-link.

Well, after you find that perfect picture of an abandoned building, why not Photoshop it into something nice? Oh, that’s right, you can’t use Photoshop. Luckily, Donnie Hoyle is here to help you suck less at Photoshop… because there is obviously nothing else in his meaningless life. Not only are the screencasts very informative, but they are also hilarious and incredibly well-done. The internets should definitely be more like what Donnie has done.

But what if you have no Photoshop? Well, I mentioned Pixelmator earlier as maybe a half-decent substitute for the money-eating CS3, and that still stands. It has some functions similar to Photoshop, so some Photoshop tutorials will still apply. And just so you know, you can get Pixelmator with a bunch of other random apps on the cheap between now and tomorrow from MacHeist.

And while I’m at it, I might as well plug this Flickr tourism site I came across the other day. One of my random shots of the Boston Dragon Boat Festival got on their short list for the next issue (I don’t know how- it’s not really a good photo), so that’s how I found out about it. Seems pretty cool, though.

Okay, that’s it for now. Let’s hope I make it through this [albeit short] week.

My financial situation can be described thusly: 1) I go to a damned expensive school. 2) I gots no money.

This does not jive well with my incurable fondness for dressing snappy and carrying around a [somewhat arguably] healthy load of tech. So when that new sexy gadget sha-shays around with its come-hither touch features and enormous, um, wireless range, it’s all I can do to keep my quivering self-control from piddling its panties.

Luckily, my Cheap Asian Instinct is one big-ass mother trucker who will beat up the piddling self-control before it can do anything rash like collapse completely (note to self: stop metaphors before they cease to make sense).

…Which is all a long-winded way of saying, this is a nice little article from Putting Things Off on keeping that tech-lust out of your wallet. I pretty much follow all those rules, anyway, but it really helps to know other people are fighting the good fight against impulse buys.

Reading the list over has pretty much strengthened my resolve to not upgrade my personal computer (a 1.5GHz 12″ PowerBook G4) until at least summer 2009 (when it will be 4 years old). The $2000 I will be saving can now go towards delicious food and my dream of making elaborate bento boxes… mmmmmm.

Oh, and in other news, I made a bunch of little minor updates to the website last night. Namely: the status updates on the splash page are now direct Tweets from Twitter, the post categories and tags now get their own page (scroll all the way to the bottom for the link), there is also a new links page (also at the very bottom), and there’s also a few minor layout changes you will probably not notice. I’d meant to get the art section up, but all the dinky updates took so long that I just gave up on that last night. Maybe it’ll be up this week, but don’t hold me to it! (School starts in 2 days!)

Like Kelly, I once wrote a letter to my future self… then hid it somewhere. But I forgot the password to that folder, so can only offer you some bad teenager poetry. Don’t worry, it’s still pretty funny. But bad. You have been warned.

I’ll just post these alphabetically (according to whatever random filename I gave them), with a short explanation for each (because I am at a loss to offer any more than a short explanation).

This first one was apparently written while the clock struck 12 on a new day, hence the title. Other than that… it rhymes and describes something baffling (like feelings or what). Maybe it’s autobiographical, because I went through some minor life epiphany during junior year of high school (when this was written). Anthropologists may ponder.

“Between Two Days”

May 19, 2003

This creature I know
has thorns like a rose.
The air hardly stirs
when she strikes a pose.

These markings I’ve seen,
these elusive scrawls,
fleeting impressions
that grace page and wall.

These whispers I’ve heard
were never for her–
sideline spectator
of life’s crazy blur.

This creature I know
loved to sing, alone.
But today, she says,
this disguise is blown.

May 20, 2003

This next one was probably written right after the last one, or as late as the night right after. I don’t know what it’s about. I think I had just read a bunch of melancholic song lyrics or something. Here’s a good question: why did I write like a dude talking about a chick?

At night

You wanted the wind’s silk folds to wrap
about your arms.
You tried, was surprised by the chill,
and returned your arms to their
warm shirt sleeves.

You wanted to count the stars with
arms outstretched.
You strained, but the streetlights outshone the stars
and you admired those instead,
without seeing many stars.

You wanted to embrace the whole night, or at least
all that you can.
You danced, laughed at your own antics,
and succeeded in becoming all the more better
with the attempt.

Okay, this next one… I REALLY wish I could say I was tripping on some serious Mary Juana at the time, but alas, I needed no drugs to write some bat-shit insane stuff. I think this was suppose to be lyrics to a song meant to be yelled in a really incomprehensible manner (I <3′d those). I don’t know if I was taking myself seriously or not. And just so you know, this was written two months after the above poems.

Untitled

Some death weasels are hanging off my neck
Could you please take the time check check
Check my tempurature, I think I’m hallucinating,
With my wild wild moods doing their wild wild swinging.
Take down a letter for me, my Hermes,
And

Out of the window, now and forever,
Your right-turned eyes stare in wonder,
In the photograph that so well captured
The image of a heart not yet fractured.

I think I’m making fun of emo in this next one. Written the day after the last one.

Listen

Oh my god, the world is gnawing at my ankles again.
It’s only a matter of time before I’m legless and
Royally screwed, as you run out before covering up your birthday suit.
Piss on the lawn of your neighbor, it’s the only thing a naked man
Needs to do you over, that’s the job description of the universe.
But what does it matter? Just sit back and listen.

And this last one, I actually don’t mind so much. I was watching a dance class with little girls, doing a sketch here and there and thinking about how I used to be one of those little girls in the dance class. Funnily, this is the oldest poem of the bunch here (written in January, 2003).

Untitled

The form of the girls dancing in the gallery
is a sight I have not seen in years and years.
The pictures on the walls kept us occupied
as we practiced what the teacher told us
quite mechanically. But with grace. Grace.

And there you have it. Why I no longer write poetry. I also had all these random short stories (one of which featured Ethiopian lip plates, of all things), but I think my prose was even more awful and pretentious than my poetry.

Here’s to 5 more years of bad writing!

First, I woke up at the crack of dawn. If that doesn’t get one cantankerous, I don’t know what does. Oh wait, yes I do: a 2-hour commute out of state via public transportation in freezing weather after waking up at the crack of dawn. Even more special: there was a Nor’easter yesterday that made today’s commutes extra slow.

Then at work, while I was viciously wasting time online, I was suddenly confronted with this billing fiasco on my DreamHost account. Luckily, I learned my lesson about half-assed checking practices previously and keep my debit card well away from the internets. And now I have automatically billing turned OFF.

And then there was Macworld. Since when did typing on a wafer-thin lappy become synonymous with being good for the road? After using my laptop in squished train seating and on a plane while the person in front of me was reclining like it was his goal in life, I personally find a smaller footprint more important than thinness. The most important part of a portable laptop is having the screen folded out in a usable manner in a small space. I mean, newspapers are REALLY thin, but they’re still inconvenient to read in cramped quarters.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t think the MacBook Air is the hottest little slanty lappy on the market. I can just see all the designers in Sony’s VAIO notebook department hitting themselves over the heads about all their past tapered notebooks.

And lastly, I am sad to say that Will Smith has let me down. I just hope Posh and Becks’ 25-ft tall penis aren’t the next victims of this looney belief.

I’m looking for something that opens quickly and does some minor resizing and color corrections so I don’t have to open up the clunking Photoshop Cs3 every time I want to upload a photo (I can’t keep Photoshop open all the time per my school’s licensing restrictions and my own scratch disk space restrictions). With Pixelmator being recently unlocked on MacHeist, I thought it’d be a nice replacement for Photoshop when it comes to quick, dirty fixes to photos. So here’s a ONE image comparison, with this image that you may have seen before:

The above was uploaded straight after downloading from my camera (I didn’t edit it and let Flickr handle the resizing). The colors weren’t quite accurate, so for this test, I corrected the colors and resized the photograph. Since speed is important, I timed how long it took to get from launching each app to saving the file to JPEG with Active Timer. Now for the results…
First is Photoshop CS3. I ran the “Auto Colors” filter, did a bicubic resample to 800×600, and finally saved as an “optimized” JPEG on image quality 9 out of 12. The whole thing, from the very moment I launched Photoshop to when the saving dialog closed, took 1 minute and 31 seconds.

That’s a little more orange than I’d like, but in a real situation, I would’ve done some manual corrections anyway. At least the filter made it less green.

And here’s Pixelmator’s result, resized FIRST to 800×600, then with Auto Colors applied and finally saved to a JPEG with the quality slider somewhere towards the high end. It took a total of 1 minute and 15 seconds.

…And it looks like the Auto Colors filter did a whole lot of NOTHING! I should note that the filter actually hung Pixelmator for a while (maybe 10-15 seconds?) and actually CRASHED Pixelmator the first time I tried it on the original image without resizing first. Well, that’s pretty sad, so I gave it another try and MANUALLY corrected the colors via the hue and saturation sliders.

The final result is probably the most true to life… but that’s because I could manually control it. It disappointed me that Pixelmator did NOTHING to the image after hanging up on the Auto Colors filter. However, some things are still in Pixelmator’s favor. For one, the ADDITIONAL software I have to start up in order to run Photoshop CS3 under my school’s license takes 17 seconds to start up and connect to the server (so I also have to be online to use Photoshop). Pixelmator launches in no time… and entertains me with fancy little animations that don’t seem to eat up system processes. I can also keep it open for long periods of time, which will be more convenient. The final file size was also slightly lower than Photoshop’s final (even though Pixelmator’s file quality was set to full and Photoshop’s was not).

So… I guess I’ll just use Pixelmator for these minor image corrections anyway. If I REALLY need something done right, Photoshop’s still there. For drawing lines and stuff, Pixelmator doesn’t do very well at all (brush strokes come out all jaggedy). But I don’t use Photoshop for that EITHER, so it’s a moot point.

Well, I don’t know if this told you anything, but there it is. Pixelmator’s cool, but it’s not AWESOME… and I wouldn’t pay the full price for it. Good thing there’s MacHeist.

In other news, MacHeist is now doing this referral thing for more random apps, so I’m making a vague attempt at pimping my own referral link out. And if anyone is low on Mac friends and needs a referral, I’ll do the first person who asks a favor. They’ve added Speed Download since I last mentioned the bundle, and I have to say that I like this app (I really hate browser download windows and like that the app makes them disappear).

Well, NOW things are getting a little interesting… over here in Geek Land, anyway.

First, the MacHeist bundle has just been revealed. I was one of the many who asked for CSSEdit (only, like, the Best CSS Editor Ever) after last year’s bundle, and sure enough, it’s one of the unlockables! The other ones that make the bundle worth it for me are Cha-Ching (I liked the beta we got last MacHeist… it was just buggy and feature-lacking), Snapz Pro X (I’d like to try some screen-casting), and Pixelmator (I need an image editor that can do all the lighter things in Photoshop without taking several minutes to load). Given how FAST all the apps were unlocked last year and the increased popularity of MacHeist this year, I think it’s a safe bet that we’ll be getting all apps this year as well.

Second, I finally got the old iBook I ordered off eBay (after a little mishap)! If you recall, I’m planning on converting this thing into a digital frame of sorts. For all the geeks in the house, it’s a G3, 600MHz “iceBook” (early 2002, 16MB VRAM model), with a 20GB hard drive and 640MB RAM (512MB added by yours truly). Considering the purpose of this purchase, I got pretty lucky and got one with a PERFECT screen. Show and tell time!

The iBook is on the left, and as you can see, it’s about twice as bright as the PowerBook (both are on their highest brightness settings) and has no pixel defects at all… quite the feat for a computer twice as old. Luckier still, it just happens to be the first model that supports the extended desktop hack, which means I can also run a cheap LCD off it and show two different images (which means two frames instead of one!). Of course, the tradeoff is that the CD drive and battery are both useless and the AirPort Card has been removed already (they’re quite the commodity on eBay!).

Anyway, I installed Tiger on it via firewire from my PowerBook and it runs beautifully (to the surprise of the Windows-grown computer skeptic in me). The 640MB of RAM helps, though I had actually installed it wrong first and used Tiger with only 128MB for a few slow minutes (256MB is the stated minimum for Tiger functionality, according to Apple. It dragged, but it didn’t NOT work). After installing SideTrack (for scrolling and right-clicking via the trackpad) and Quicksilver (for my sanity), I could nary tell it was a 600MHz computer that’s been through the abuses of a public school system.

A lot of people are impressed by the latest hardware from Apple (especially with all the expectations for the upcoming MacWorld Conference), but today, I’m a bit more impressed by how usable this old Mac is. It’s going to be hard for me to tear it apart and possibly damage it beyond repair.

GOOD THINGS

1. Nice shoulder buttons = less carpal tunnel syndrome. I hate the ones on the Wavebird (they go in about half an inch before registering a push).
2. Analog sticks done RIGHT. I don’t know why Nintendo bothers with 360-degree sticks when they put in that annoying octagonal insert… well, you don’t have to saw it off yourself here! The sticks on the Thrustmaster are also shorter and feel tighter than the ones on the Wavebird or the Nunchuk, which makes small, quick motions easier for me. However, I can imagine the tightness of the sticks might wear off after extended playing… let’s hope these are sturdy in the long-term.
3. Nice ergonomics. The buttons are laid out pretty much exactly like the Classic Controller (except the shoulder buttons), which I think is better suited for VC games than the Wavebird. Also, these feel very nice in the hands. The rubber grips on the sides and a perfectly placed swoop on the back makes for nice, firm grips. On a personal note, I’ve got tiny, child-sized hands and these are more comfortable for me than the bulky Wavebird.

BAD THINGS

1. The wireless receiver dongle is wired. Unlike the compact Wavebird wireless receiver that sits flush with the port, Thrustmaster makes their dongles hang off a 2-inch cord… and puts on a blue LED that flashes crazily (whenever the console is asleep or the controller is not paired) for good measure. Perhaps sensing that owners of the sleek and compact Wii MAY not want an unruly mess of dongles, Thrustmaster has helpfully included stickable velcro bits with each dongle… apparently so that you may velcro them to the side of your Wii in an arrangement not unlike having parasitic alien cyclopses feeding off your console. Chic.
2. Turning controller on/off and opening the battery compartment can be painful. The on/off and rumble switches are Really Stiff and can feel like you’re jabbing your thumb into the eye end of a needle if you don’t use your nails to pry them on or off. And don’t even try to get the battery compartment open if you’ve trimmed your nails too short… you really have to dig your nails in there to pry the compartment open.
3. No manual wireless channel selection. The Wavebird lets you choose manually from 16 different channels so you can play with a bunch of wireless controllers at once. The Thrustmaster controller supports multiple controllers, but you have to pair the controller with the receiver, which takes a few seconds and is about as annoying as pairing Wii remotes by holding the pair button on the Wii console.

OTHER THINGS

1. 3 AAA batteries required. The only reason I didn’t put this under “BAD” is because I happen to buy AAA batteries in packs of 12 or 24… which are happily divisible by 3. The only time this really sucks is when you try to buy rechargeable AAAs, which aren’t usually available in amounts divisible by 3.
2. You can OPTIONALLY tether the controller. There is, inexplicably, a place to tie something off the top of these controllers. Being the crazy Asian girl that I am, I instantly felt the desire to hang 4 pounds of cell phone danglies off the top… but the sensible side of me says that it’d be a nice place to attach some simple identifiers so I could tell my two Thrustmaster controllers apart.

So if you’re interested in these things, they retail for $19.99 (the same price as the Classic Controller), but can be had for cheaper and with free shipping if you look hard enough (I got mine from Dell Business). A nice choice, if you don’t feel like hunting down and paying $30 for a Wavebird (though that gives you more geek cred, I suppose).

Still, it’s a great time of year because people actually make the effort to get together and be cheery, despite the bitterly cold New England weather. So I just wanted to remind people that Christmas isn’t just a Christian-holiday-turned-consumer-extravaganza… it’s about making people happy with your thoughtfulness and being happy in return. That’s non-denominational joy if I ever saw it.

I’ve had ideas for a whole bunch of projects that just needed a few consecutive days of not having readings on film theory due (I am SO glad that’s over). The most technologically ambitious idea is to create some digital artworks (read as: YouTube worthy videos) for display in a digital picture frame. If you’ve ever been in the market for a digital picture frame, you’ve probably seen that there are a LOT of options… almost all of which are low resolution and wide-screen (who the hell takes cinematic wide-screen photos? That’s right, no one). While busy being jaded by all the either crappy or overpriced options (an LCD attached to a card reader is surely not worth more than $150), I suddenly came upon some inspiration: I will just build me my own digital picture frame and it will be awesome.

Now, I’ve seen these hacks to turn old laptops into digital picture frames, but I’d never seen one so… brutally simple. I believe the whole of the instructions involves 1) remove LCD hinge, 2) tape backwards onto back of laptop bottom, 3) matte and frame. And it also uses a Mac, which won’t need any other software to work as a picture frame (just set the screen saver to rotate some photos and set it to automatically sleep and awake). Thusly convinced that I could probably pull this off, I went and purchased an old 12″ G3 iBook off of eBay for $125. A picture frame capable of running Tiger is surely worth the price… now the only thing left to see is if it will be worth the effort. So while all the other kids are dreaming of sugar plums and other such disgustingly festive desserts, I’ll be trolling eBay for some tools and RAM (I actually don’t sleep… not when my future digital picture frames needs juice to run Tiger).

Ahh, Mac hackery… it sure gets me into the holiday spirit!

Also, he is probably the sanest seller I’ve seen on eBay. Or at least he uses punctuation very well and doesn’t seem to have a rock on his caps lock.

I did the stupidest thing when I was returning to campus from home. I forgot to pack my Wii’s AV cables. My suitemate can attest to the bloodcurdling scream I let out upon discovering this horrific fact.

My suitemate is an optimist. First, he laughed at me (see, he was being cheerful). Then, he said at least I will be able to focus on work this week. I foolishly went along with this belief. But reality is cruel.

I have this habit of not being able to do any work at all unless my brain is horribly tired and stressed. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am a loser, but I digress. Anyway, the stress eventually gets too much to handle, so I would have to take a Wii break and do a relaxing round of bowling or some other waggle-filled exercise. It does wonders to the overtaxed mind.

Well now I can’t and that means my brain is grinding to a halt.

In desperation, I ordered Wii component cables and am now eagerly awaiting their arrival (forget that my TV doesn’t even have component inputs… my computer monitor can run it!!1). So until they arrive… I will be the psychotic Wii junkie without a fix, futilely waggling a DS Lite at a growing mound of work…