Category: Thoughtful Reflection

When we last left, our heroine (yours truly) was downloading Windows updates.

Conquering the monstrous file sizes, she moved on to install eight additional drivers for the machine. That’s right. Eight. Additional. Drivers.

One obstacle remained: the correct audio driver. After installing four different ones, her sound still wasn’t working. Exhausted, emotionally drained, and mentally distraught, “This is bullsh*t.” she declared.

Then, she looked up. Her fist shot in the air, shaking. “You may have won this time, Lenovo.” She paused. Dramatically. Very dramatically. In fact, the pause was so long, a casual observer would have felt she was done speaking. But, the casual observer would have been INCORRECT! She continued, “I will have my way!”

Well, that was Thursday night, and the sound still wasn’t working Friday morning, and I didn’t really have time to look at it. “Uh…but you had time to start writing a post?” you ask. My response: “Who made you the Time Management Police? Look. I don’t need this kind of criticism from you. I get enough of it from my conscience.”

Where were we? Oh yes. My audio driver not working is a big problem. Some people can get by without music or a soundtrack running in the background, but did you see my stop-motion? (plug!) Obviously, I have awesome taste in music. In fact, I recently made a compilation.

The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. It takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick it off with a killer to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch. But you don’t want to blow your wad. So then you gotta cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules (High Fidelity 2000).

I did it. I kicked it off with a killer: “Daylight,” by Matt and Kim. Then, I took it up a notch, a la “New In Town,” by Littles Boots. Then, I cooled it with “Sugar, Sugar,” by The Archies – an oldie but goodie. Then, I ended with a bang: “Embers,” by Just Jack.

(inspired)…it’s time to get the sound working.

Have you seen the summer stop-motion? I want to make sure you saw it.

Did you?

I’ll wait in case you want to watch it again. Go on! All you have to do is scroll down a little.

Now, on to today’s topic.

As an outstanding student, I hang on my professor’s every word. Then, after inscribing the professor’s golden bits of wisdom onto my very core, I scribble the words in my notebook, so that I may read them, again and again and again.

Well, today in class we were in a classroom with chairs that have desks attached to them. These chairs are really uncomfortable. Plus, they are hard to write in, because I’m left-handed, and they are designed for the right-handed. The desk portion is slanted, to the right, so I have to prop up my notebook with my right hand and then write with my left.

I figured out the best way to leverage my right hand was to put my right fist on the top right of the notebook, with my right elbow supporting the right side of the notebook. I could then concentrate on writing with my left hand, if I hunched over juuuuust right.

After a while, it dawned on me that the casual, right-handed observer may perceive my note-taking stance to be rather protective. Because I was all hunched over, I took on a form akin to one who suspects others of cheating.

Well it’s a seminar, so there’s no reason to cheat or be protective of anything, so at some point I started worrying that the student next to me thought I thought she was trying to copy my notes. I sat around and brainstormed how to go about rectifying this potential confusion.

Plan A: Turn to her and say, “It’s hard to write in these desks, huh. We have to sit all funny, don’tcha know?”

Plan B: Sit up straight and push my notebook in the other student’s direction, as if to indicate I am fine with anyone looking at my notes, coincidentally written entirely in Haiku format.

Plan C: Just go with it. Remain hunched over, and glare at the students around me. Accuse the student next to me of copying my notes. “You are trying to copy how I interpret what the professor just said. Well the jig is up.”

I decided to go with Plan B.

In other news, I hate hate hate installing operating systems because you have to get all the updates and re-download drivers. I hate it. It’s almost 2am, and I see no end in sight.

So, today I am going to talk about text messaging. I hate text messaging because every text costs me something like $0.15 to send OR receive. So, needless to say, when I am about to text, I craft my messages carefully, trying to maximize the amount of information I can get in one text to convey my message and elicit a response. For example, David just landed, so he sent me a text that reads, “Landed!”

This is good. It is informative and necessary. $0.15 well spent.

So, I text back. I could just text back a smiley, but that would only tell him I have received his text, and I am happy he is alive. That’s not worth $0.15. Instead, I text back with a question. A question demonstrates I have received his text and plan to celebrate his continued living. That’s worth something. Here’s my question: “Great! What do you want to do tonight?”

*Beep beep beep* He responds! Good! I know he has received my text. Let’s see what I have paid $0.15 to receive: “Hmmm….What do you want to do night?”

Uh oh. This is a frivolous response, and there’s a typo. I will not justify it with a reply. It’s totally unacceptable.