Let there be light

So, like, at 11:55 am, the power went off. And I'm sitting at my computer - mid-memo, mind you - and I'm thinking, oh this will be a brief thing, 10-15 minutes. But no. It was 3 hours. A full three hours. Do you know how boring three hours without electricity is?
After taking a brief nap, I decided that I should go back to school and hang out there. I figured, Big Major University must have its own power supply, yes? So off I went blithely. And voila - nearly met my death a block away from my apartment. All of the traffic lights were out.

There are seven four-way intersections between me and school. I had to take a left turn at the first one. There are 40,000 18-year olds at this school in SUVs. Driving here is a hazard on a good day, forget when all of the traffic lights go out. So I inched along (bopping, btw, to music in my car) and finally, there was a police officer at the second to last interesection - the one with the train tracks. So that was much better.

As I was heading into the academic building, I saw a classmate and he said, "Nope, no power, go home." But I had class at 2:30 and I figured I could either sit and stare at my fingernails at home or at school. I opted for school. Our academic building is state-of-the-art. It's actually rather crazy when you consider some of the buildings on campus are in a state of disrepair. Anyhow, the emergency lighting was on and as I walked in, I saw some undergrads taking a test in the pagoda that's just outside of our building. Considering it was a windy (but hot) day, I thought, "Gah, that's gotta suck." Inside, the main lobby was light enough but the rest of the building was fairly dark - though there were emergency lights on. I heard rumors that there were people stuck in the elevator. Now that would be really sucky.

It was around 1:30 and I just meandered. Talked to a few people but most of my fellow partners-in-crimes had already headed off (including to the pool, which sounded darn good to me), and I finally went to the masters lounge where I settled down to go through my surveys (n=120) and realized what a badly written survey we had. ::Sigh:: And then J came in and we talked about how the power was out throughout the county and actually even all the way to the Infamous City to the Northwest. Time, btw, creeps by very slowly when there is no light.

Anyway, I went down to my classroom at 2 and saw my classmates assembled outside. Verdict was in: we were going to have class. One classmate fretted about the $90 worth of groceries she had bought at 11:30 pm the night before, I wondered if I had a flashlight because, you know, bedtime at eight o'clock was just not appealing. And then I was trying to figure out how I would finish the ballots - whether the power would even come on long enough for me to get them done before 8 tonight. And if not, how would I let someone know that I was going to be late?

Then the professor showed up and voila, we had class. Right. There. In. The. Hall. I kid you not. There is an alcove with a study table and chairs and since we're a small class - 14 (only 8 showed today) - we crowded around this table - kicking out a poor undergrad in the process. The power came back at 3 pm, just when we were all becoming reconciled that there would be no "American Idol" for us tonight.

And now, I must eat, as my plans for lunch were thwarted by the blackout.

It's a gorgeous day out and I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go. On a positive note, I had quiche. Quiche is yummy. I should make it more often. But before I can really celebrate the wonder of quiche or of this wonderful day, I must finish studying for my HR exam. I've gotten through "training and development" and ::groan:: "compensation management" is next. It's much less material in terms of chapters than the last exam, but at this point, I'm so ready to not study that it's aggravating me that I have to do work - lots of it - on this lovely Sunday afternoon. I haven't even started going through the survey results yet (n=220) and that's going to be tons of fun. Not. Hmmm, maybe we should just go out for ice-cream now and not wait until tonight...

You say it best, when you say nothing at all

I've discovered Alison Krauss. I'm in heaven. Absolute heaven. I downloaded a few of her songs and lovely voice, lovely songs, and really, just really happy to have new music.

I finally finished with the site reorganization. Note that I didn't say site redesign. There's nothing new to see - it's all background stuff that's purely for my benefit, not yours. Well, I did geek and create a custom 404 page that's so much more user-friendly than the server's default 404 page. It took me forever to figure out how to get the 404 page to work. I thought about calling The Brother for help, but in the end, I took the time-honored tradition of RTFM and figured it out on my own. So very pleased I am about that. At least, if a link is broken, the new page should give an idea of where to go from there next. Thanks to the Eighth Wonder of the World, I also fixed a massive amount of broken links that had absolutely nothing to do with my reorganization. I also updated all of my library items so navigation and disclaimers are now up to date on every single page. In addition, bad HTML and javascript either re-coded or removed completely. Go me.

I made the mistake of deciding to move a few files around in my website. And now, I have a full blown project in front of me. Broken links galore and everything. This means I can't update my site or anything until I've fixed everything. A good thing is that I'm discovering all of my bad coding from 1997 and 1998 when I was still learning HTML and not closing all of my tags etc. So I have been slowed down by re-coding as well. I've been doing a little bit every night and hope to be finished by the end of April.

It's been pretty busy at school and even though all of my classes have been cancelled for tomorrow, I still have the same long Thursday schedule as usual, between the research project (which should take up a chunk of the day) and a quick meeting with the debate team. I'm hoping we get a lot of the research done tomorrow because we already have Friday scheduled as well. Our focus group is scheduled for the 18th. So we really need to get this done so we can figure out just what the heck we're doing...

This weird, weird life

So I have this interview and it's coming to an end. Interviewer casually mentions that he came from St. Louis. He is a recent MBA grad. I say oh, I have a cousin in St. Louis. He has his MBA too. Interviewer and my cousin are friends. How crazy? Good enough friends that interviewer knows my niece's name, has seen my niece, has played with her. Utterly bizarre. I'm going to call St. Louis this weekend.

Not that, mind you, I think the connection will help me. But it's still interesting.

Our MBA program rankings have fallen once again. It's been a steady decline since I entered in the fall of 2001. Before, I didn't really care too much. What were rankings all about? But that was easy to think when you were enrolled in what was considered one of the top 50 programs in the country and in the top 70 internationally. The Dean of the business school has emailed us all about this latest decline. This is not good news for us. Rankings drive recruiting. And the lower our rankings go, the less attractive we seem to recruiters and the less they will visit us and prefer our students to others.

On a positive note, I was called by the MARCOM manager for a large corporation in the Big City to the East. I can't believe I was contacted. I have a telephone interview scheduled for 4:30 today. Cross your fingers for me.

My kingdom for a horse

I promised jemima I'd compose a list of good historical reading from the 1400s and 1500s. I've already raved about The Sunne in Splendour which is perhaps the best novel on Richard III out there. For general overview of Tudor times, I recommend Lara Eakins' site, Tudor History. Lara's site is a must-visit for anyone interested in Tudors because she has compiled all of the information in one place and I was pleased to find some portraits there that I hadn't seen before (BTW, a highlight of my trip to Spain was finding the portrait of Mary I in the Prado).

For those of you wondering, I appreciate both good writing and accuracy. If a book isn't accurate, then no matter how good the writing is, I won't like it. I'm rather anal on this point. Which surprises me in that I liked "Anne of the Thousand Days," a movie starring Richard Burton and Genevive Bujold (yes, that Genevive Bujold), which had several major inaccuracies.

Without further ado, here is the list:

• The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers: A Novel by Margaret George. I also recommend Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by the same author. I own the latter and could not put it down. The writing can be clumsy, but unlike many historical writers, Margaret George doesn't leave the reader high and dry when it comes ot explaining the intricate and complex dynastic rivalries and the ties that bind. She does a terrific job of moving the action along, of incorporating smoothly history with her own - often sympathetic - interpretation of those events.
  
  
• The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir. I have my issues with Alison Weir, but not in this book. I picked this one up when I was in England and it's possibly the best biography of the three children of Henry VIII. What I like is that this book isn't so much of this happened and than that happened, but focuses on the interactions between the siblings. The initial focus is on Edward and Mary, then focuses on the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth. I also recommend The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Weir. I took this book out of the library so many times, I finally ended up purchasing my own copy. This book is a good example of Weir spinning her rather outlandish theories and her bias isn't that far below the surface, but in terms of historical accuracies and readability, this is one of the better biographies.
  
  
• The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser is not the most readable book out there. Fraser has a way of just giving facts in a dry manner - a massive info dump of dates and names, so to speak. Fraser's Mary Queen of Scots is pretty much the most exhaustive biography of Mary Stewart and The Warrior Queens is compelling, covering from Boadecia (who fought against the Romans) to more modern figures like Margaret Thatcher. Fraser is not a good 'entry level' author but if you're someone who already has a good grounding in the time period and the personalities, then I'd recommend Fraser over Weir as Fraser doesn't go out of her way to create new theories, but instead provides validation for the mostly commonly accepted ones.
  
  
• Mistress Anne by Carolly Erickson is the best biography of Anne Boleyn out there, hands down. Anne is probably my favorite of the Six Wives and so I hungrily devour anything out there about her. I wish Erickson was still writing biographies, as her knowledge about this time is unparalleled. I also enjoyed Bloody Mary by Erickson and I also own a copy of this book since I felt it was the fairest and most sympathetic look at a very unhappy woman who was singleminded on her desire to bring England back into the fold of the Catholic Church. Erickson is similar to Fraser in that she relates facts and doesn't necessarily tell a story. "Mistress Anne," however, is more accessible than "Bloody Mary," but both are noteworthy and should be considered accurate and fair.
  
  
• I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Jean Plaidy. I selected The Lady in the Tower as an example of Plaidy's work, but this author has written literally hundreds of novels about royals - from all time periods and all dynastics. From the fires of the Spanish Inquisition to the 'morality' of Victoria's court, Plaidy covers it all and very accurately too, but without sacrificing good storytelling. I think it's a mark of a good historical writer that you can take what's in Plaidy's books as pretty much fact. Plaidy's books are not easy to find - most of them are out of print and royal buffs usually hoard their copies, but you can usually find them in libraries or order them from other libraries.
  
  

I do not recommend using Shakespeare as a basis for learning about Tudor times. Shakespeare was a product of his times and his writing reflects that. "Henry VIII" and "Richard III" form a cornerstone of popular propaganda and while "Richard III" makes for good drama, it should be remembered that Elizabeth I was the reigning monarch while Shakespeare was writing, and incidentally, the last of the Tudor monarchs. I also do not consider the Anne Boleyn novels by Robin Maxwell to be either accurate or quality writing (that's $11 I will never get back!) and the buzz about "The Other Boleyn Girl" by Phillipa Gregory makes me decidedly unhappy as the historical inaccuracies (ie Mary Boleyn being married at 14, being the older sister etc) are blatant and unexcusable.

Help your fellow man

I don't have 3 million metric tons of steel just lying around but maybe you do.

Dear Sir or Madam,
Presently, I am looking for a large quantity of Number 1 & Number 2
Heavy Melting Steel (HMS1) steel scrap including and not limited to
plates, beams, rods, structural steel and used rails. I could use 3
million metric tons if the price is $100.00 USD Per Metric Ton .We would like
this price FOB .Please send any and all quotes and questions to
pmilea@twcny.rr.com immediately. Do not fax quotes at this time.This
deal is as real as they come so please do not hesitate.We have letters of
credit in hand for these amounts.

If we have reached you by mistake ,please send an email to
pmilea@twcny.rr.com with the word remove in the subject line and I will
remove you from any future emails.

Thank you,
Paul J. Milea jr
Wing N' A Prayer Telecommunications
3504 James Street
Syracuse,New York ,USA 13206

cell (315) 374-1560

We go shopping

This drill saw would make a perfect dining room table. For a mere $1150, it can be mine. Contact the Inimitable Miss Barr to contribute to the "Buy Seema a Drill Saw" fund.

You don't mess with coffee

Or a girl's morning routine, no matter the date is. I mean, c'mon, Tejano music? At 6:45 in the morning? What happened to my ABC news headlines? My weather report? My 30-second headline round-up of the local area? So yes, funny for the first 5 to 10 minutes but then... accordions. Lots of accordions. I'm a girl of routine. I wake up at the same time, do the same thing every morning, and even though the alarm goes off at 6:45, I like to snuggle in bed until 7:30. Today, all out whack. Had to roll out at 10 after 7. Couldn't take the Tejano music. Well, the Selena medley of "Amor Prohibido" and "Como la Flor" was very nice and appreciated, but the rest of it...

Other amusement here.

Nothing to see here, move along

Wow, it's been a long time since I've updated here. I think I'm losing the urge to blog. Or at any rate, nothing has happened that I need to blog about. The computer situation is still sketchy and I'm counting down the days to May when I can turn the machine over to my brother and say, "Fix it!" I could do it now, but knowing me, I'd spend more time than ever putting it back together and I really don't have the time to do that right now.

Today I got rid of lots of paper, except my stats notes. I'm rather regretting I sold my big stats book last summer. I own several stats books (that's what will happen when you've had 16 hours worth of stats) and I thought it would be easy cash. But... it was the best book ever and I wish I kept it because...

I have an interview.

Yes, you heard me right. I have an interview. With the US Census Department. As a statistician and survey-designer. It's completely up my alley. I had lunch with my former co-worker on Saturday and he thought it sounded really dull but I see it as a great way to get into market research -- which is where I eventually want to end up. So cross your fingers, your toes, your legs - everything you can - for me. This is a really great opportunity for me and I'd love to have a shot at it.

I reinstalled Windows. Consider this a test to see if I can update the blog from home... in other words, is IE working again?

Vote for me, my name is Luke

I had good bus karma today. I walked out of my apartment and boom, there was a bus. I didn't even have time to check my mailbox (which is usually what I do when I'm waiting). And then, I waited maybe thirty seconds for bus number two. Though I didn't mind the wait because today is a lovely day. Buses always come on time on beautiful days; they're only late when it's unusually bone-chillingly miserable and wet out. So I got to school pretty quickly, though I wasn't quite sure I'd make it at first -- bus driver number two was more intent on changing the radio station and being horribly afraid of taking left turns that I was sure I was going to be stuck on that intersection forever and ever.

Anyway, it's election season here at the U. Who knew? I mean, seriously, I didn't. I had to swing by the campus center to pick up my cap and gown and order my hood (which I still don't know what that is) and on the way in, I had to pass a gauntlet of perky undergrads handing out colorful leaflets and mints. They all looked so nice and friendly and all I could think was, "I'm on a schedule and you're in my way." Yes, I'm a horrible, horrible, insensitive, uncivic minded person.

There are two major events going on here - one is for yell leader (we don't have cheerleaders) and the other is for student body president or the student body or whatever. I didn't know we had a student body organization. If it doesn't appear on the MBA-FYI list or the MBA-03 one, I'm not particularly interested. Heck, I'm not particularly in most of the things that usually show up on either of those lists sooo...

But anyway, all of these kids are standing around, trying to convince me in the 30 seconds between the time I see them and then pass them why I should vote for their Candidate of Choice. These are real productions. They have t-shirts emblazoned with the name of their candidiates, they have posters, they have chants, they have Rice Krispy treats. One girl was pulling around a little wagon with a cardboard cutout of her candidate on it. They all smiled, told me it was so nice to meet me and would I vote for them? At this point, I've promised to vote for five people. I think there's something not legal about that, but I can never say no to people who ask.

And besides, I'm graduating in five weeks. I'll be long gone before any funny business is discovered.

The Eighth Wonder of the World

I used to be a hand-coder. I used to write my own javascript. Somewhere along the line, I lost the ability to do so. Or rather, I can still handcode; it's the javascript that befuddles me. My metamorphesis from handcoder to Dreamweaver begin about 3 years ago. I was given responsibility to develop and maintain our department's website. The site was huge and when I left the company, it numbered over 700 pages. I knew from the beginning of the project that handcoding was an impossible task. Along came FrontPage.

FrontPage, MS's HTML editor, is seriously the work of the devil. With its proprietary tags and crazy templates, the program made me nuts. I went back to handcoding. And then came Dreamweaver. I fell madly and totally in love with the program. Mostly because it allowed me to use both the WYSIWYG and the notepad view at the same time. The handcoder in me loved the idea of being able to tinker with code when the tough got going and I didn't feel like reading Dreamweaver's manual to figure out how to open up a pop-up window measuring 450 by 450 with no scrollbar or menus. It was ideal. And in addition, because I didn't have browser compatibility issues at work, I got to play with DHTML, which is rather like a javascript-enabled HTML on crack. It was a lovely, lovely thing. Unfortunately, my mostly computer-illiterate, non-web surfing coworkers did not appreciate the idea of adding a bookmark to their favorites with a click of a link or the fact that the pages were dynamically generated based on login information.

Feeling completely unappreciated for my efforts, I was amazed to learn tht Dreamweaver could write javascript for me. How wonderful is that? I stopped writing my own javascript. It was quicker, given the fact that the company website was not my only responsibility, to just have Dreamweaver do it.

The other day, I was trying to set up a browser-check/redirect script based on a script I'd written way back when. It didn't work. I'm still trying to figure it out. The old me would have been able to see the problems immediately and be able to figure out what was going on. I think I was a bit cocky in installing the script and so it's now paying me back for being absolutely blinded by my own reliance on the Eighth Wonder of the World.

I woke up this morning and the first thing I checked was whether we were at war yet or not. Thankfully, not yet. But now Bush is being highly inconsistent - what do you want, President Bush? Do you want Saddam gone or do you want Saddam to disarm? Because it's highly contradictatory terms. I'm cynical enough to think that this is just Bush flexing his muscle in order to ignore other more pressing problems, and the fact that he's already pissed off half the world with his unilateral verbage. I'm not one of those who believes in unilateral action nor do I believe that the US is prepared to accept the consequences of acting alone.

Because, you know, there will be consequences.

When I was in Europe last summer, I heard a lot of rumbles of anti-Bushism. I hesitate to say anti-Americanism, the phrase the media uses, because it's not the same thing as being against the actions of the current administration. I don't think the world hates Americans but I think they get tired of our superior attitudes, I think they get tired of our "our way or the highway" attitudes. I think we leave them no choice but to resent us greatly.

How is this not a problem? Was not September 11 the result of people not liking us? It's crazy - just think of the people who hate America enough to kill themselves just to prove their point. I'm not sure we need to add more fuel to the fire.

And all you people who are boycotting the Dixie Chicks for expressing their opinions, you've obviously missed the point of the First Amendment which allows people to voice their opinions without fear of reprisals. To me, that's the scariest thing - that the atmosphere has made it impossible to say that you're against the war.

I'm against the war, thankyouverymuch. President Bush, give me a compelling reason why our soldiers need to risk coming home in bodybags. Tell me what you want - Saddam gone or Saddam disarmed. Tell me if it's worth the death of thousands of innocent Iraqis. And tell me, is it worth alienating our traditional allies to engage in nation building? If you can prove this to me, then I'll change my stance. Until then, I remain unconvinced. A pity, because I support our troops, but not what they're doing over there.

It's French fries to you, buster...

Bjorn introduced me to David Sedaris and right now, I'm reading Me Talk Pretty One Day (and you should go out and buy it right now. Why are you still here?). Anyway, this passage from his essay, "See You Again Yesterday," had me on the floor yesterday night simply because I could a) so identify with learning another language and getting syntax wrong and b) it's pretty relevant to today's attitudes towards the French.

Sedaris writes:

My fear has nothing to do with the actual French people. I didn't know any actual French people. What scared me was the idea of French people I'd gotten from movies and situation comedies.

When someone makes a spectacular ass of himself, it's always in a French restaurant, never a Japanese or Italian one. The French are the people who slap one another with gloves and wear scarves to cover their engorged hickies.

My understanding was that, no matter how hard we tried, the French would never like us, and that's confusing to an American raised to believe that the citizens of Europe should be grateful for all the wonderful things we've done. Things like movies that stereotype the people of France as boors and petty snobs, and little remarks such as "We saved your ass in World War II."

Every day we're told that we live in the greatest country on earth. And it's always stated as an undeniable fact: Leos are born between July 23 and August 22, fitted queen-size sheets measure sixty by eighty inches, and America is the greatest country on earth. Having grown up with this in our ears, it's startling to realize that other countries have nationalistic slogans of their own, none of which are "We're number two!"

The French have decided to ignore our self-proclaimed superiority and this is translated as arrogance. To my knowledge, they've never said that they're better than us; they've just never said that we're the best.

Odds and Ends

I've been wait-listed at the Masters of International Affairs program. Which is both and good. I'm rather disappointed that I didn't just get in, but at the same time I understood the odds - there were 100 applicants, 45 of us made the second cut, where we got to hang out at the school for two days, all expenses paid, and they told us that just 20 of us would be admitted into the program. So, I'm on the waiting list for the International Economics track.

It was a back-up plan and not the end all and be all, and I'm not necessarily sure I want to spend another 2 years studying. So maybe this is the best thing. Maybe it's the best way to assuage my guilt over potentially taking a spot in the class from someone who wants it a lot more than I do. Of course, this doesn't mean I won't get in. I was wait-listed at the University of Virginia almost 8 years ago, and a week or two later, they called to say that I was officially "in." (One day, I'm going to have to share my UVA story with all of y'all).

Watch this space. I'll keep you informed.

In other news, I had a nightmare. I dreamed that I called a high school friend and I said something and she hung up on me. And I woke up this morning with a headache and a pounding heart. I really hate that I still have this dream and I really can't believe that after ten years, I'm still thinking about these people and trying to make amends for something that was never my fault. When Lynn was here a couple weeks ago, she was like, "Let it go already," but she also understood that it was really hard. After all, Lynn had her own issues with these individuals that took years to resolve and my relationship with them was even closer than Lynn's.

The headache could always be for another reason. I was also fretting about Iraq and this blog last night. Like, composing an opinion on Iraq in my sleep. How crazy is that? For some reason, I kept editing/writing in my sleep and occasionally yelling at Blogger.

I'm getting job advice from Sarah on AIM. Sarah was laid-off a couple years ago when things started to go sour in the Big City to the West and she was out of work for about 4 months. She pounded the pavement pretty hard and so I've been looking to her for some hints and tips on what to do. She just told me to give up on the company in the Big City to the East, because face it - the interview was in December and by now, the company has already hired someone or isn't hiring or whatever. It's a hard pill to swallow, but Sarah's right. So, next search...

So, anyone want to hire me?

My taxes are done! Yeah! Being poor means that H&R Block allowed me to do it online for free using their software. Which is a Very Good Thing because I had some complications with this year's taxes and I had no idea what was what. But it's all done, and now there's just the mailing to do. Despite using the software, I chose to mail my taxes in and have the refund sent to me as a check. I'm old-fashioned that way, but I am also satisfied that that particular method works just fine. And direct deposit always freaks me out if I'm not actually giving the party a voided check. Those routing numbers at the bottom? I just don't trust myself to type them in properly. I'd much prefer to hand my check to the banker and get the receipt in my hand that says the check has been deposited.

But whew, that was quick. Usually it takes me several hours to do them. I think this took about 90 minutes and most of that was me trying to figure out why Adobe Acrobat wasn't working.

Blogger lost my archives. Grrrr....

Blogging goes mainstream.

A spammer tried to sell me a vending machine today. Still, nothing ever beats the guy trying to find parts for his time-machine or the one wanting to sell me a six-bullet firing knives. They don't make spam like they used to.

Chelsea Clinton nabs a six-figure salary. With an International Affairs degree. Masters, that is. Which is the same second Masters I'm going after. But not at Oxford. But still, perhaps it's not a complete wash of a program. But then again, my name isn't Chelsea Clinton either.

So before we go to war with Iraq (does anyone really believe that W is going to back down from his irrational escalation of committment of US troops in the Persian Gulf?), I thought that this report issued by the War Crimes Tribunal in the aftermath of the Gulf War to be very interesting. I was actually surprised to learn that the first George Bush et al were actually found guilty. Who knew? And I thought this article on the US conspiracy to commit war against Iraq to be revealing. Deja vu, anyone?

Who's Hiring? Who's Firing?

1 hour, 31 minutes until spring break.... I think this could down in history as the dullest couple of blogs ever.

1 hour, 35 minutes until spring break...

The paper is finished. As of 8:30 this morning. Pretty decent, huh? I didn't stay up all night (Mom!) to write it. I actually finished the rough draft by 6 pm last night (it took me about 90 minutes) and then went out to hang out for dinner with some friends. I was gratified to learn at dinner that I wasn't the only one who had a late start. Other people were just starting their paper after dinner. I just did a bit of editing until about 11 pm. We had a six-page limit and my paper was about seven so I made creative use of margins, font and trying to cut out extraneous material. I'm happy to report that I eliminated all but a few uses of the word 'that'. However, my writing was more passive than usual - I just couldn't be bothered to eliminate 'to be' from my writing this time around as the entire assignment aggravated me to no end.

I found out that a lot of people were getting their paper professionally bound. Yet another thing I really didn't want to be bothered doing. Even though Copy Corner is right around the corner from my place. But since someone said she'd emailed Cheerleader Prof to ask about binding, I figured I couldn't overlook this new bit of intelligence. Luckily, I had a vinyl folder hanging around and I used that, even it was obviously made for a two-hole punch paper, not three-hole punch. But there is a white strip that goes over the holes anyway, so I figure I'm good. I do think binding is a waste of money, especially for a six-page paper that is basically useless; unlike other papers and projects I've done over the last two years, this isn't one that could really go into the portfolio because it really doesn't demonstrate anything that could be useful to a future employer.

Bad attitude much? Yeah, pretty much so.

I'm more calm now. And the course of action has been determined. One of my fellow MBAs said, on his own, that he would write a letter to Cheerleader Prof on my behalf, along with suggestions for change in the way she runs the class. This way, I remain anonymous, but she still knows that something is wrong. I just got to read the letter that was sent and it was beautifully written. Much better than anything I can do. In the meantime, stressing over this incident this morning has given me a headache. On a positive note, our study session for the HR exam was very productive AND I participated in a prof's research study - for which I earned $10 - which is about 10 times more than I made in February - and cookies. And now, I must go and take the exam.

Grrrrr...

I'm spitting mad. I've never been this mad before. Some of you have heard me complain about Cheerleader Prof and just how crazily she runs her class. One of the weirdest things is that she only counts class participation on case days - which are approximately once a month. We had two cases due today. I read both and wrote up both. I wrote five pages of single-spaced text last night. I could have watched "Married By America," I could have studied for my HR test, but no, I was writing and preparing for today's class.

Anyway, our write-ups are 10 points, our participation in the cases are 15 - for a total of 25 points per case. Class starts at 9:30. I raised my hand at 9:40, for the first question. At 10:20, my arm was aching. Both people on either side of me - my teammates, incidentally - had been called on already, one of them twice. At 10:21, I put my arm down. At 10:35, I decided to give it another shot. I mean, 15 points for participation is nothing to sneeze at. It could be the difference between an A and B. I want an A, but I hate this class so much, I'm willing to take a B. Heck, I'd take a B today if I never had to go to class again.

How horrible that?

Anyway, I never did get called on. And so now, next to my name, I will not have any participation points. I plan to email her today or tomorrow, when I'm more calm, and tell her that I was prepared and willing to participate, but I never had the opportunity to do so. Am I making a big mistake? Am I shooting myself in the foot? Should I say nothing? I don't trust myself to have a face to face confrontation. I get angry so rarely that I get overly emotional when I do get angry and the last time I was angry at a prof, I had a complete meltdown. So I really don't trust myself to say anything to her.

If this was "Survivor," I'd be so willing to get voted off the island at this point.

As winners write history

I finally finished my second read of Sharon Kay Pennman's The Sunne in Splendor. My foray into Plantagenet history is fairly recent, compared to my studies of the Tudors, Romanovs and Stewarts. My fascination with Plantagenets began in the summer of 1999, when I was living in Bloomington and I went to see the community theater's dramatization of Shakespeare's "Richard III." I was fascinated. Geneology dictated that the Tudors and Plantagenets were intricately interwoven with each other and since then, I've been trying to track down the 'real' Richard III.

I've had some help from the Richard III Society, a UK-based organization bent on redeeming Richard Plantagenet (aka Gloucester) for the various crimes attributed to him. For a bit of background, Richard III was only king for just over two years. I found this to be a very readable biography of Richard III.

I haven't yet had the opportunity to read the original source material from that time period yet. That's a project for this summer. Right now, I'm depending on various source materials - from my own collection of history books - to try to figure out what the truth about Richard III really is. Most of my background material for this time period comes from acclaimed biographer Alison Weir's The War of the Roses (aka known as The Hundred Years War) and her Princes in the Tower. The latter biography I do not recommend as Weir has a tendency to be biased, regardless of her subject and "The Princes in the Tower" is possibly the most flagrant abuse of that bias. (Alison Weir has a way of inserting her own theories, not necessarily based on any historical evidence, into her biographies. She advanced some theories about Anne Boleyn's health in The Six Wives of Henry VIII that has never before appeared in any other text. That being said, I do consider Weir's "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" to be one of the best book on the subject).

Anyway, back to Richard III. I'm a shameless apologist for the man. Evidence before his reign as king does not show any noticeable desire for power. Rather, it shows him as a highly loyal subject to his brother, Edward VI, and a good, competent governor for the North of England. In addition, unlike many men of the time, there is evidence that Richard III was faithful to his wife (his two illegitimate children were born prior to his marriage to Anne Neville, aka Anne of Warwick. There is little information based on Anne, but Jean Plaidy's The Reluctant Queen is a good Anne-centric novel). Based on the first 30 years of his life, it's so hard to think that Richard would step completely out of character and become the tyrant that Tudor historians portrayed him.

It could be my own tendencies to redeem Richard III based on his character that I enjoy "The Sunne in Splendor" so much that I decided I needed to purchase my own copy of it. It is a highly accurate novel - possibly the most accurate portrayal of the time and attitudes out there. Frankly, the late 1400s were little documented at the time or rather, there is not that much documentation extant today. So a lot of what has survived to this day has been the work of latter-day historians, such as Sir Thomas More, Croyland and de Commynes. Here is a reading list of some of the sources and evaluations from that time period.

Sir Thomas More is possibly the best known 'biographer.' I use the term loosely as much as of what More has written regarding the character of Richard III, both in terms of physical and mental description, does not match up with contemporary chronicles. Note that Sir Thomas More was around 7 years old when Richard III reigned; More's history was written well after Richard's death. In addition, this history was never formally published during the reign of Henry VII - the man who defeated Richard at Redmore Plain (aka Bosworth Field) - as some of the allegations made were damning to members of Henry VII's court. More was the one who advanced the idea of Richard's deformaties - possibly helped out by Edward Rous (who contended that Richard was in the womb for 2 years!). Shakespeare based his Richard III on much of what Rous and More put forth as an accurate history.

Pennman manages to deflect all allegations regarding Richard's later life and activities skillfully. She doesn't completely absolve him from guilt, but she also makes it clear that he wasn't a tyrant. He was a man in love with his wife, deeply devoted to his brother, and wanted only what was best for England. I'm a hopeless romantic so I prefer this version of history than the one that became prevalent during the reign of Henry VII.

The explanations Pennman offers - for the death of Richard III's nephews, the reason why Richard took the crown, where Anne Neville disappeared to, why Richard and Anne no longer seemed to be together towards the end of Anne's life, Richard's attraction to his niece Bess (Elizabeth of York, later on Queen of England, as she married Henry VII and was the mother of Henry VIII). All of this is explained - but without a subversion of contemporary history. Consider this a solid recommendation for a well-written historical fiction that can also be taken as a history lesson - but one that goes down a heck of lot easier than most texts.

I'm thinking on rescuing the Blog Wars participants from Gilligan's Island (or the Blue Lagoon - I forget where everyone is now) to alleviate some of the boredom and tension people are feeling lately. It seems like people are down in the dumps and are feeling uncommonly ill-willed toward their fellow fen. It could be a case of just winter blahs (because, face it, the weather has sucked big time) or it could be disillusion with fandom or generally a lack of inspiration or motivation to be fannish in general. Whatever it is, fandom just feels... different. Not to mention RL stuff is rather freaky right now - all with random terrorism alerts, war with Ira, and economy that is clearly ailing. All of this contributes to a not-so-good feeling in fandom or in general, online stuffage.

The Blog Wars, I think, are a good way of curing what ails us all. That and staying away from incoherence and pettiness online. Though, sometimes that's easier said than done. If the urge to be just plain mean strikes, just invoke the Jerie!Principle: "No, no, no."

I was able to witness southern behavior once again through the eyes of my friend. She was amazed at some of the things - how doors were constantly being held open, how everyone addressed us as "ma'am," how friendly everyone in the stores was. She was really impressed - slightly freaked - but impressed. I was thinking of that this morning when I got on the bus. It was the 8:50 am bus, so pretty crowded but I managed to get a seat (the last time I was on this bus, I had to stand and actually fell when the bus turned a corner, as my grip on the pole was weakened by someone leaning against my arm. I have a nice black and blue bruise on the back of my shin from that). Anyway, my bus stop is the second to last stop from campus, so on the last stop before campus, more people got on. About six or seven guys stood up from their seats and immediately moved into the aisle so that the women could sit. I've seen that so many times - unless the bus is very empty, most of the guys don't sit unless the women have.

Our current Supreme Court make-up scares the heck out of me. Of course, it's not something we think about everyday. Heck, I didn't even think about it until today's ruling re anti-abortion protests. Granted, they looked at an interpretation of the anti-racketeering law, which in theory makes sense to me. If you don't fall under the definition of the law then you can't possibly be convicted of it. So, yes, disappointed I am, but I'm no legal scholar re this particular point of law. But to me, it's dismaying that the right to choose is being eroded over time and I can only see more problems in the future if we don't take more notice. If this issue means something to you, then the next election should mean a lot to you as well.

And I'd like to clarify here, for the record, that the right to choose does not mean that one is pro-abortion. Abortion takes life - I understand this. I'm not, in anyway, an advocate of the practice and I am personally opposed to abortion. What I do support, however, is the right for women, for men, for families, to make the right choices for them. I do not believe that either state or federal governments or Joe Bob down the road has any right to tell me what I can and cannot do when it comes to my body. Nor do I feel that I have the right to tell Joe Bob what he can do with his body.

Mind you, this stance is a belief, not an opinion. As such, I'm unlikely to change my views on this subject.

It's a cold, cold, cold day here. Apparently, 30 degrees F with a windchill factor that makes it feel like 21 F. Gotta love those bursts of "wintery weather mix", but I bet the Northerners are laughing at us. I've seen a distressing number of people here wearing only hooded sweatshirts - really, most people don't have the clothes here to cope with that kind of weather. My car is still iced over - I was too lazy to defrost this morning so I hopped the bus instead and since the busses are running on schedule, I figured I'd just let my car thaw out when it was good and ready to thaw out.

Due to the rain, I have a bit of free time on my hands. A little too much free time. So if you're free, AIM me.

I just purchased Windows XP ($15), Windows XP upgrade ($5) and FrontPage2002 ($5) from the University software program. XP is for me, FrontPage for a former coworker who is taking advantage of the reorg to start his own business. I was originally going to go with Windows 2000 as per the Brother's recommendation, but then he just bought a new laptop for himself that runs XP. He approves so that's all I needed. Plus, I was sold when I saw this version - academic - comes with a full copy of Office 2002. Nothing can possibly rock more than that.

Jerie says that wiping the hard drive is easy. I'm rather frightened myself. But she gave me her phone number and said to call her if there are problems. I just might do that... so now you know what I'm trying to do on Thursday night. If it fails miserably, at least I have this weekend to haul the computer to the Brother and have him work his magic.

Confessions

I'm such a dork. I've already programmed my VCR for tomorrow's "Little House on the Prairie." I happened to check the schedule and found that it was yet another episode I haven't seen. Which, btw, is a rare occurance. I've been watching "Little House" forever. We even got it in Germany (before our television went kaput). I think that there are just a few eps I haven't seen and "Days of Sunshine, Days of Shadow" is one of them.

I'm in negotiations with the Brother on where to go for dinner Saturday night. Now that he's employed again, he wants to go to this new restaurant in the South, on the river, and I just looked it up. Prices range from $20 to $50 for an entree. We have to go Italian because my friend is a pretty picky eater and doesn't like spicy food - hence the usual Tex Mex eateries are out. I'll keep you posted on this issue of vital importance.

I just found out that in March, there will be a sci-fi convention here. A friend of mine is coming down for it. Or rather, her husband is attending and Sarah is only coming if I'm free to hang out. I asked her about Trek and she said that there was no Trek at the con. So, we'll be doing a long, leisurely lunch at the burrito place and generally just hanging out. So yet another attempt to attend a con has been thwarted.

It's All Jemima's Fault

Jemima convinced me to enter the Awesome Author Award contest once again. Two of my fics are already-rans, due to my non-prolific J/C writing. After the "Die J/C Die!" debacle, I'm really suspicious of contests that are not ASC and are most definitely based on things other than quality. That is the only explanation why fics, which obviously haven't even been spell-checked, can win. Jemima thinks alien voters. I'm inclined to agree with her. After all, what else could possibly explain the unforgiveable neglect of authors like Penny and monkee?

Sour grapes? Not entirely. As recent conversation with Tori made clear to me - just because someone wins 'shiny' JPGs doesn't mean that their writing is any good. And that goes for me too. I fully acknowledge that my fic might be substandard to some people, but I take pride in the fact that regardless of anything else, I always use spell-check.

I Heart Me My PC

I've been geeky today, trying to track down the source of my computer problems. I lost Yet Another Email to the dreaded kernel32.dll error - which basically means one of my programs is doing something that it shouldn't be doing.

In my search for help, I found this site which is made 'specially for those of us with the Microsoft love going on. I spent some time trolling the message boards. I see a lot of the same issues going on - and most people agree that the ME O/S is basically crap and to either upgrade or downgrade. Which makes me feel comfortable in my decision to upgrade to Windows 2000 Pro. Yes, it's probably overkill for my needs, but I'm not going the XP route and I'm most certainly not buying a Mac (if someone sends me $2000, then I may consider a Mac but until then...).

Some of you may be amused by the Microsoft Humor section, especially the Top Ten Things Likely to be Overhead From a Klingon Programmer.

The last reminds me of when I was working in Corporate on a major software project and every day, I got a list of new software bugs. In our venacular, they weren't bugs, but "undocumentated extra features." Uh-huh. There were enough "undocumented extra features" that the project was killed a mere 6 months after I finished my assignment. My co-workers always blamed me for killing a $80 million project. It's not my fault that many of the "undocumentated extra features" happened on my watch.

I was just the business analyst, ya know, not the programmer. (The programmers were fun too - we had four vendors, including home grown and they all blamed each other for everything that went wrong. No, I wasn't sad when the project was killed, but then I went two months without a project and that was rather dull).

Is Google buying the 'net?

Check this out. Pretty wild, huh? I'm not sure what it all means and I certainly don't have an opinion worth a penny at the moment. It's a definite 'wait and see' thing for me.

Though, I must be one of the few people online who doesn't care that yahoo has basically bought everything. It makes sense to me. You've got a new industry - ie the Internet - that starts out as fragmented with many, many players. A highly fragmented industry with high competition will eventually lead to consolidation. The early days of the Internet had way too much competition due to low barriers to entry. There were a lot of suppliers in those days, and the buyers - ie you and me - were weak and without power. The shake-out and consolidation have ended up turning the table - theoretically, we the buyers have more power than before, though the real winners in the Internet game are the advertisers. Before, they were at the mercy of the online companies. These days, the suppliers are practically giving away their advertisement in an attempt to move excess 'inventory.'

So back to the yahoo thing. As far as I could tell, with the exception of that webring things, Yahoo's gobbling up of the internet was nothing but positive for me. Suddenly, I only needed one username and password for the majority of my online activities. In addition, my clunky geocities URL became a nice and pretty URL, thanks to Yahoo.

I also don't really care if Yahoo is spying on me. I did object to their TOS from a few years back when they claimed to own the content on Geocities websites indefinitely. But in general, Yahoo's 'watching' of me doesn't bother me in any way.

I'm a marketer, so it could be that my view on this subject is skewed. I believe that better information leads to better marketing and better products. After all, if Yahoo doesn't know what I'm doing and how I'm doing, how is it going to make itself better for me?

In addition, Yahoo provides me services for free. I'm not paying for either of my two Geocities websites nor for any of a myriad of Yahoo email accounts of Yahoogroups. I play Literati for free and I get to check my television listings and get airfares for absolutely no charge. So Yahoo wants to put a cookie on my computer to see what I do and where I go, so really, why should I complain? Especially when it's information in aggregate?

I think I give up a reasonable amount of privacy when I get online. I mask a bunch of information about yours truly to the best of my ability, but I also know that I'm tracked regardless of where I go. I could prevent that by using a proxy service and by turning off the cookies in my browser. The first I tried and it worked to an extent, and the second is too much work - cookies, I have to say, make my life a heck of a lot easier.

Of course, I don't want to see advertisements online and I definitely don't need any more spam or direct mail and that's another rant entirely, and I've already gone way off topic as it is.

But what I really meant to say is, can anyone else see the Internet being run entirely by Google one day?

Love me, hire me

The round-table conferences went exceptionally well this morning. I went last year and sat down with a car manufacturer and wasn't too impressed. So this year, I didn't exactly jump when the notice came around that the conference was back. But then there was an empty spot for a marketing position with a pharmecutical company and I figured I'd be an idiot not to go. Plus, the event was business casual and not business dress. So I really had no excuse not to go (sometimes, the idea of stuffing myself into pantyhose is enough to keep me at home). As Lin put it, "It's a lose/lose situation. You feel bad if you go, you feel bad if you don't go."

The pharmecutical company (Eli Lilly) was really looking for sales reps. I managed to get one question in about their training program and then cornered the recruiter to give him my resume even though I'm pretty sure that sales and I are not a good fit. But beggers can't necessarily be choosers and he did promise to send my resume up to the company's headquarters. I understand it's a long shot, but at least I got my resume in, and a contact name.

The second chat was really by chance. Lunch was provided and I saw an empty seat next to Lin so I went there and turned out, I was sitting right next to the recruiter from Dell. At first I was like, "Uh oh, how did I end up next to the recruiter? What am I going to say" But then I remembered a recent news item on Dell, re their leasing of floor space from malls and Sears and I asked about that. Once the ice was broken, I found it easy to keep talking. I know I have to be aggressive about this, so the recruiter was trying to slip out, but I managed to grab him just before he walked out and handed him my resume. He gave me his email address as well.

It's too much to hope that anything will come out of it, but the truth is, I've been entirely too passive about the whole job search. In four months, I'm going to be out there on the street with very few options. There's always the other academic program but I'm so tired of reading and of studying. I'm ready to be out there again and be an employee, a corporate drone once again. Anyway, in terms of getting my resume to the recruiters and being aggressive with the questions, I did much better than I usually do at these kinds of things. So, cross your fingers for me. May isn't so far away.

Blog Rerun

Once again, in honor of February 14, I present my annual essay on the topic. It's a day early, I know, but I won't be on campus again until Monday and I can't update the blog from home atm, due to the demise of IE. The formatting on the essay is currently messed up; I'll fix it when I get home.

I talked to the people at the International Affairs program. I've been invited to Interview Weekend- which is next week. Lynn is coming next weekend. And she's not flying here. I have to drive 2 hours to go pick her up. So this is a minor problem. So the people were very nice and have agreed to let me just do half a day on Saturday so I can leave by 1 pm to pick Lynn up. I still slightly dishonest for even feigning interesting in this program because really, what I want is a job, not another 2 years in academia.

Speaking of jobs, there is a career fair going on in the business school now. I'm debating, but probably won't go. I may consider tomorrow - I'm just so anti, well, I went to the career fair last semester and most of them were not hiring, especially not MBAs. They were just here to make sure they maintained their relationship with the university. Which I understand, no problems there. It's just really hard to have to go to these people and ask them for a job when they don't have one. I am going to a conference on Friday afternoon and sitting down with a major pharmecutical company. Hopefully that will go well.

I did email S. this morning and ask her for some email addresses of people I worked with in Corporate. Unfortunately, I hadn't brought them with me. One of them tried to recruit me the spring before I came here. I didn't interview then because I'd gotten admission here, but now, I can look into it. We'll see. I haven't got that many non-techie contacts. But there are signs that people are hiring again. People are starting to get interviews, more companies are coming... that kind of thing. I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best!

The pest people came by today. The apartment was a complete wreck, especially by the computer. At any rate, they came back and I was kind like, "Huh?" Turns out my building is officially "infested" with these non-stinging wasps (you were right, Sara!). Apparently, they feed off cricket larvae - which is odd. There is no cricket larvae in January. Since the exterior of the apartments is stucco, it's also not a question of wood-burrowing insects. In addition, the exterminator noted that it was only the first floor units that had this problem - the second floor units seemed to be immune. He speculates that the bugs live between floors. So he blocked off my vents today with paper to see if that stops it. He'll be back in two weeks, I guess, to see what the deal is.

My computer most definitely has the Chernobyl virus. I just got it in the last two days or so. If you sent me an attachment or if I sent you one, please scan your computer for any potential viruses. This one has basically infected all of my exe files which means I've basically got to uninstall everything and reinstall. I'm hoping to keep it fairly stable for another two weeks and then have my brother look at it. On a positive note, I cleaned this afternoon instead of playing on the computer like I usually do. So the vaccuming is done, part of the bathroom cleaned and all of the kitchen done. I really do like the place to be clean - I just can't be bothered to clean it when there are pictures to diddle, fic to write, blogs/LJs to read, chats to attend...

McAfee responded to my cry for help. Amazingly fast. I haven't absorbed their instructions yet, but I'm going to. When I'm awake. Right now, I'm thinking, I might get away without a reload of the machine. Only a bit of my software works - McAfee deleted the executables for MS Office, Photoshop, Real Player, etc., to name a few. IE is also acting funky so I'm going ot have to reload that. I still haven't figured out where the virus came from. I suspect Photoshop, but it's really hard to tell. It could also be from Kazaa. At any rate, Kazaa and I need to part company. I've been having ethical qualms about the program from day one and the reason I downloaded it no longer exists. So I can't justify having it on my machine - especially since it is a good source for viruses.

I

I think I have a computer virus or some other catastrophic problem with my computer at home. My brother recommends a hard drive wipe. Since he's not here, and I won't be seeing him for weeks, I may be doing it myself. This could be scary. If you don't hear from me (don't fret, Liz!), that's why. And now, I'm going home, with my newly burned copy of virus software and seeing if I can do combat. Wish me luck, kids.

The Best Movie Blurbs of the year. Do you remember any of these movies? Some of the might ring a bell, but really...

In other news, I've cut my hair. I'm going back to my 'professional' look. So it's just above the shoulders in the back and chin length in front. It's hard getting used to my hair not being tied back from my face anymore. But at the same time, I'm intensely relieved that I won't have to comb it 80 million times a day either. However, this also means that the flat iron, curling iron and hair dryer are back in my life after a nearly 18 month absence. ::sigh:: At some point, I also have to retouch my highlights. I'm thinking that March will be a good time to do that. My hair, regardless of length, takes way too much time.

I watched the Columbia memorial service today instead of working on my paper. This was an ungood idea, and Liz rightly pointed out to me that I need to avoid these kinds of things. But the service was beautifully done. Thirty-three counties in this state have debris. I find it amazing and horrifying all at the same time. And I can't even begin to fathom at horrible it must have been, how terrifying it must have been for those astronauts. I can't get that out of my head.

And so now, I'm going to listen to Liz. Because I have a paper due tomorrow.

Advance warning for Lori: Michael Jackson on television this week.

Today's marketing class blew in a big way. A really, really big way. Made me wonder why I had woken up. I hate that. I mean, I'm paying for a seat and so obviously, I should go there and get something out of the class. But today, nope, nada. Our prof talks too much. Gets off track. Gets distracted. And then, nothing happens. She has even forgotten her own syllabus - graded our class notes which we turned in last week even though the syllabus clearly says that they won't be graded (I oughtn't complain - I got full credit, but it's the principle of the matter). Grrrrr...

I'm so half-hearted about everything. I really need to get my act together.

C. was thinking he'd get the flu. A. has the flu and he spent the weekend taking care of her. I'm rather terrified if the flu is coming this way. It's a particularly virulant strain and schools have been closing down because of it. My cousin had it a couple weeks ago and was out from work for eight days. I haven't had the flu in years and really, other than my chronic headache problem, I haven't been seriously ill since my horrible, horrible case of the roto virus in 1999.

I just sent a follow-up email for the interview I had in December. I still haven't heard back from the company, so I figured that I have nothing to lose. I want to remind them that I am interested in the job - my friend who got laid off about 18 months ago and found a job less than 3 months later, said that she followed up extensively with everyone. My problem is that I'm not a 'nagger.' That's not the right word, but I hate bothering anyone to do anything and I invariably get tongue-tied when I get on the phone to get after someone (though, when I was working, I managed to get through most of my 'confrontation' type things with minimal stress). I had a meeting with the director of the GBCS - rumor has it that he's been given 3 months to turn the results around. He asked me what he could do to help me find a job and I really had no idea. It was really pathetic.

I talked to Dr. P outside of the business school yesterday. He apparently let class out early (so we get out early on Wednesday as well, yes!) about my terrible negotiation. I asked him about having extra practice or tips on how to stop the downward slide. He told me it was okay to say 'no.' He said, "Just practice saying 'no', but make sure you're saying 'no' for the right reasons." Apparently my personality profile is "people pleaser" which means I just want everyone except for me to be happy. Which is possibly one of the reasons why I'm such an ungood negoatiator.

The parentals have reached safely. It's weird not having them here. I probably won't realize that they're out of the country until Thursday night at 10 pm, which is when I usually call them. I'm going to have to find someone else to call at 10 pm on Thursday night. It'll be very weird not to be on the phone at that time.

It bugs me, absolutely bugs me, when people make statements about war and military without any evidence to back it up with. Ack. See here.

This and That

I have my "Why I prefer het to slash" manifesto written up but LJ and I are not on clicking terms as of late and I despair of it ever letting me update. But perhaps it's LJ's friendly way of preventing flame wars? "Only 404 errors can stop flame wars." Yup, that must be it.

In other news, the GAO finally found my cheque. Grrr. So everything is good now. Except I'm very tempted to write a letter and negotiate my application fee back based on the transcript below. I really should have gotten that woman's name - maybe I'll call again. But with my luck, Pollyanna will be on the phone and everything will be just fine, mah dear. Things always work out that way.

My negotiation today was less than stellar. I got taken. At least I tried to be a good sport about it. My opponent gloated and I made jokes. My friends were supportive. After all, this is why I'm in the class, yes? To learn? And I learned a lot today. Somehow, I never have learned the value of saying 'no.' I've not learned to be firm and stay firm. I blame it on flakiness, but I hate confrontation and when push comes to shove, I'd rather have the other person be happy. My saving grace is that at least I didn't pay over the reservation point like someone in another section did. I guess I have a lot of work ahead of me. But I have a feeling this is a class that will have much practical application in the future.

The Career Services Office called me. Apparently the dean has given them 3 months to turn it around so now the career people want to interview every MBA to find out what we're thinking. I'm graduating in May. Does it sound a bit bitter if I say that they should have talked to us a year ago? I did start getting to know S, but she left in December for another job in DC. So all of that work went to waste. We'll see how Monday's meeting go.

I'm just really tired right now. I had a great workout at the gym today. The negotiation made me mad. Not mad at my opponent - she did good - but me, for having had her where I wanted her to be and then giving in. So I had a lot of energy and it all get spent at the gym. I love that feeling, when all my muscles are just so tired but so very relaxed. It makes falling into bed that much easier.

I got an email from L. today. She has booked her ticket. She will be here in February. I can't believe it. I haven't seen her since 1998. She's only coming for 2 days. It's a long way to fly - all from Vermont here - just for 2 days, but that's what she has time for. Doesn't matter. I'm just thrilled she's coming. It's really brightened the last few days as it's been rather depressing in these here parts. Her phone call on Saturday saying she was coming was the best thing ever.

You have a very bad Graduate Admissions Office, part deux

Next phone call:

Me: Hi, I'm calling on the status of my application. You say you haven't received my application fee yet and I mailed it over a week ago.

GAO: Hmmm... what's your social security number:

Me: 123-45-6789

GAO: Nope, we haven't gotten it yet.

Me: I mailed it over a week ago. When should I panic?

GAO: Don't panic yet. And if you need help, you should call the GAO.

Me: Aren't you the GAO?

Not!GAO: No, we're Fees.

Me: GAO told me to call you.

Not!GAO: They shouldn't have. They shouldn't be giving you this phone number.

Me: I'm sorry for bothering you. I thought this was the number to call.

Not!GAO: No, not your fault.

Me: Okay, thanks so much.

::click::

You have a very bad Graduate Admissions Office

So I received an email today from the program I'm applying to that says my application is incomplete. Which of course, makes me worried because for once, I had my act together and sent everything in ahead of time. In fact, it's been over a week since I sent the essays, application fee, resumes etc. So I do what any good girl would do. I call. This, I swear, is the verbatim transcript:

Me: I'm calling about an email I received saying that you hadn't received my application fee.

GAO: I don't know what email you're talking about.

Me: I'm talking about the email that was sent to me saying that you didn't have my application fee. I mailed it a week ago.

GAO: Who are you calling?

Me: The Graduate Admissions Office. I sent you an application fee last week and I want to know if you received it or not.

GAO: I don't know, ma'am.

Me: Can you please check?

GAO: I can only look at it online.

Me: Do you mind checking for me? I mailed it over a week ago and so you should have it by now.

GAO: We receive thousands of applications. I have no idea whether we received yours or not.

Me: Is there someone I can talk to? Someone who might know how to check whether you received it?

GAO: I'm telling you I don't have it.

Me: But is there someone else there I can talk to?

GAO: Okay. I'm transferring you now.

Me: Thank you.

GAO: The phone number I'm transferring you to is 555-1048.

Me: Thank you.

::click:: ::dialtone::

Excuse me while I go find a brick wall to bash my head against.

The Bugs

I've got a remake of Hitchcock's famous movie, "The Birds", right here in my apartment. Apparently, my building is the latest to be infested with this black insect - it's about the size of a wasp, black, I think has three thoraic segments, and is generally big and annoying enough to require a flight plan every time it emerges from God only knows where. So anyway, I had the exterminators come last week to rid me of these bugs. I'm convinced they are blind because every now and then, they dive bomb me. I hear them coming - zzzzzzz! - and then pow!, right into my cheek.

I stalk the bugs when I see them with a copy of the Wall Street Journal. Now, these are hardy little buggers and usually take about 80 million whacks before they surrender to oblivion. They could be missing limbs and wings and other buggy parts and yet, they can still fly! They can still zzzzzzzzzz! My apartment manager said that the bugs have short lives and they are attracted to the light. I didn't ask, but I was thinking that maybe from now on I should sit in the dark?

Anyway, things came to a head last night. Whatever the exterminator did last week didn't work. I still have the bugs. We're not talking mass infestation, just one or two of them flying around, but it's enough to drive an already batty girl absolutely buggy. So anyway, I killed one last night during the eggplant cooking (see below entry) and then felt good. And then I saw another one on the blinds. So my thought was that the blind was a good thing and I'd leave it alone to commit suicide against the window like they usually do (I have a buggy morgue by the sliding glass door that I have to clean up every other week or so).

But was my good-hearted generosity rewarded? No. The bug refused -absolutely refused! - to die peacefully by the sliding glass door. Instead, in the middle of the night, while I was reading (Virgin Atlantic Airways case study), it dive bombed my cheek. So then of course I had to get up and look for the bug. Could not find the bug. So I figured it had flown off and perhaps had discovered something else to go crash against. At any rate, one truth I held dear: the bug would be dead by morning.

And that's when I moved slightly. And heard that zzzzz sound. The bug was near my ear. Actually entangled in my hair. For those of you haven't seen me recently (or not at all, for that matter), I have a lot of hair. Lots and lots of thick black hair. I could only hear the zzzzzs. I had no idea where the bug was. So I started jumping up and down and shaking my head. Still no bug. In a panic, I ran into the bathroom to comb my hair out. Still no bug (but no tangles either!). Then I shook out my pajama top and then the tanktop I was wearing below it. And then shoook my legs. Still no bug.

I went back into the bedroom and ah ha! Bug located. Crawling, I might add, happily on the carpet. I went after my Wall Street Journal and smacked it good. Once, twice, three, four times... and the thing would not die. Finally, I got a paper towel and crunched it (I *hate*) doing that and tossed it into the wastebasket. Finally I could sleep. But then I got all angsty. What if I was going to get attacked by insects? What if this was only the beginning and I was doomed to have black bugs crawling all over my walls? Now I see black spots all over the place, even though I've only killed one of the bugs today. I keep thinking that there are more and they're all just waiting to attack en masse.

If you don't hear from me, you know why.

In the Kitchen With Seema

Tonight's excitement was my oven mitts catching on fire. Bjorn tells me that this has never happened to him, but I insist, it must have happened to someone somewhere, yes? So I'm standing there, baking dish in hand and I'm smelling smoke. I look down and I swear, it doesn't register that my mitts are on fire. At some point I think, "Wow, I really ought to do something about that." So I put the dish back in the oven - my mitts are still on fire (little fire, btw) - and then start banging my hands against the stove top. You know, taking the mitts off would have been smart, but nooo, I didn't do that. Finally, I take the mitts off when the little flames are out. So now I have some black spots on the thumb part of my mitts - so proof, that yes, I do cook, but apparently, not with much skill.

Has this ever happened to anyone before? Please...

At any rate, I made eggplant parmesan, recipe given below, with my changes (for Rocky's amusement) in italics.

• 2 medium eggplants (about 7 inches long). I only had one and I think it was 9 or 10 inches long. I can't find my ruler, so I don't know for sure
  
• 3/4 cup milk (more, as needed) I used soy milk and I didn't measure it - I went with the "more, as needed" measurement
  
• 2 cups fine bread crumbs or wheat germ (or a combination) I made my own breadcrumbs. Yes, yes, I did. I took two pieces of bread, crumbled them up, soaked them in olive oil, put them in the oven to toast, and they were just fine, thankyouverymuch.
  
• 1 tsp. basil
  
• 1/2 tsp. each: oregano and thyme
  
• 1 batch Italian Tomato Sauce The recipe suggested making your own tomato sauce, but a girl has her limits. I used Classico brand, Spicy Tomato and Basil. Maybe next time I will make my own sauce.
  
• 1 lb mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced or grated
  
• parmesan cheese ~ about 1/2 cup (amount = flexible)
  

1. Preheat oven to 375 F (I did mine just to 300 - everything burns if I turn it much higher than that). Lightly oil a baking tray (oops) and a 9 x 13 inch pan. (I had a smaller pan than this - I was just making a single portion, or in this case, a double portion)
   
2. Cut the eggplants incircles, 1/2 inch thick. (I might have been off here - remember, ruler was missing) Place the milk in a shallow bowl; combin bread crumbs (wheat germ) with herbs on a plate. Dip each eggplant slice in the milk, moistening both sides, then coat is throughly with the crumb mixture. (Okay, this sooo didn't happen. Is there a trick to getting the breadcrumbs to actually stick?) Spread the prepared slices on the baking tray and the pan and bake until tender (about 20 to 30 minutes). Remove from oven and pile them gently into the baking tray.
   
3. Without cleaning the 9 x 13 inch pan, ladle some tomato sauce into the bottom. Add a layer of eggplant sliced, and cover with more sauce. Arrange some mozzarella over the sauce, then repeat the layering until you run out ofsomething or you run out of room, whichever comes first. Generously sprinkle the top with parmesan.
   
4. Bake uncovered at 375 F for about 40 minutes or until heated through and bubbly around the edges. Remove from the oven (this is when my oven mitts caught on fire). Remove from oven and let sit about 10 minutes before service. Serve hot (Recommended!) or warm.
   

It is bitterly cold here. Not quite as miserable as Jemima's day but it's still cold. North Carolina at least gets snow but we get nothing but windchill of 20 degrees. Brrr. I was lucky - I didn't arrive on campus until 9 am this morning and apparently it was in the teens this morning when some people arrived around 7:30 or 8. I did schlep around campus for about an hour to get some errands done - buy another textbook ($68!), turn some paperwork into the career center and take care of mail at the post office. I was one cold tootsie when all was said and done.

The Worst Act Ever?

What Famous Painter ARE YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla

From the mouths o' babes

I was talking to the four-year old on the phone the other night and she said she was having dinner. So I asked what was for dinner and could I join her? Her response was, "Come fast and don't get lost in another state."

I'm still ROTFL.

Some linkage:

Afterlife Telegrams falls under the "Say what?" category. I'm still mulling over their fee for 'delivery attempts.'

In case you didn't know, You have a very bad hotel.

Mucho gracias to Jerie for not only taping tonight's National championships for me, but also for giving me a running commentary while the event was going on. I tried to predict what was happening based on her comments (I'm a sofa judge), but I missed the mark on Sasha Cohen and Ann-Patrice McDonough - based on past experience, I can see how Sasha was more exciting than Ann-Patrice, but I'll have to actually view the tape myself to understand what the judges were thinking. But Jerie's play-by-play was fun and it was cool getting the news 'live' as it was happening. Ain't the Internet grand?

Have I mentioned how annoying small town cable is? No National ice-skating championships for me. No, not at all, despite having two - two! - ABC stations. One is showing some telethon benefitting the western part of our state (who the heck watches those anyway?) and the other has gone over to the TV guide station. Jerie has come through for me and is taping it for me, but what the heck? I don't have UPN, either, for those of you curious, so my brother has to tape that for me. I get the WB, but only after the FOX programming for the night is done and only then if the network feels like switching over. How crazy is this? I'm currently on hold with the cable company to complain; they keep thanking me for my patience, but patience nothing. They can put the national broadcast on and get rid of the platinum blond country singer, thankyouverymuch.

Frustrated much? Why do you ask?

Worst rejection letter ever

Thank you for forwarding to me your resume through Monster.com for the Editor/Web Producer position in Needham MA I have open.
Unfortunately, I am going to pass on interviewing you for the position. With over 200 resumes to sort through, I have had to make quick decisions on finding the top five or so people to interview. My criteria are very tough, and you didn't make the cut. Thank you for your understanding. Best of luck with your job search.

D****** P******

My understanding, my foot (mind you, I get about 10 to 15 of these a day, this has got to be one of the rudest ones ever. Wish I could remember which company this was so I could put a link to it and point and laugh or something). ::sniffle::

My 'rerun' team (minus one) got blindsided today in class. We're missing A - she isn't taking a marketing class this semester, but the rest of us from last semester's marketing team are in the class together so we agreed to work as a team again this semester - we did quite well last semester as a group. We needed a fourth person for our team, but we really hadn't talked about it much - it was one of those 'non priority items, we'll discuss as the project proposal deadline gets closer' type thing. So I wasn't even really thinking about it when J asked me this morning if I had my team set and I said, I thought so but I needed to talk to the others before I could tell her whether we were set or not. I said very clearly, "I'll get back to you."

I have issues with J. I've never worked with her before but I've heard rumors and stories and she isn't known as a team-player in the program. In fact, I believe her first semester team last year disintegrated because of conflict between her and another team member. So I was trying to get to the other two to talk to them, but got pulled into a conversation with another classmate and so before I knew it, J was asking another one of my teammates re our team status. He said the same thing I had said. Then, as class was ending, she asked the third person on our team. At that point, there wasn't anything that could be said really since none of us had a chance to talk to the other about incorporating J on our team, but we also didn't have a good enough reason to say no to her (other than the obvious "Eh, we're not so sure you play nice."). So at the end of class, we suddenly were a team of four - and one of my teammates has worked with J before and he isn't optimistic. At least the three of us have worked together before and gotten along, so perhaps it will be a different dyanmic and not as scary as I think it might be.

Having an absolutely fantabulous birthday. Literally. Jerie made me a new LJ icon, which I will debut tonight and Rocky wrote a birthday fic (which has the added bonus of starring Tom! Tom!). Thank you everyone for the birthday cards! I'm feeling very warm and fuzzy and generally enjoying the day.

Cooking with Seema

I made this soup - recipe from "The New Moosewood Cookbook" by Mollie Katzen - for dinner yesterday. Very yummy. I'm typing out the original recipe here and my substitutions are in italics.

Hungarian Mushroom Soup

2 tbs. butter
2 cups chopped onion
1 1/2 to 2 lbs mushrooms sliced (mine ended up chopped, ah well)
1 tsp salt (this ended up being 2 or 3 tsps of salt)
2 to 3 tsp. dried dill (or 2 to 3 tbs freshly minced) (I didn't have dill, so I used something called Nature's Seasonings, which is a variety of crushed dried herbs mixed together. It tasted fine)
1 tbs. mild paprika (I didn't have paprika, so I used chili powder instead)
2 tsp fresh lemon juice (no fresh lemon juice, so I used the regular lemon juice from the bottle)
3 tbs flour
2 cups water
1 cup milk (can be lowfat) ~ at room temperature (I used 1/4th cup Half & Half, 3/4th cup low fat milk)
black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup sour cream (can be reduced-fat variety) (I didn't have sour cream so I used low fat yogurt instead)
finely minced fresh parsley, for the top (I skipped this step, I'm not a huge fan of parsley)

1. Melt the butter in a kettle or a Dutch oven. Add onions, and saute over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, salt, dill and paprika. Stir well and cover. Let cook for about 15 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in lemon juice.

2. Gradually sprinkle in the flour, stirring constantly. Cook and stir another 5 minutes or so over medium-low heat. Add water, cover and cook about 10 minutes, stirring often.

3. Stir in milk; add black pepper to taste. Check to see if it needs more salt. Whisk in the sour cream, and heat very gently. Don't boil or cook it after this point. Serve hot, topped with freshly minced parsley.

Confessions of a former hand coder

Back in the day, before web editors, NotePad and WordPad were my best friends. I spent hours, literally, inserting every line break and paragraph break and religiously conformed to the standards set out in my HTML book - HTML 3.2. Somewhere along the line, I think I graduated to version 4, but I've always been more comfortable with 3.2, simply because tags get deprecated and added so quickly and the browser wars continue to this day (but not so bad as it was in Days of Yore). Hand coding was something really cool. It meant I could do something most people back in '97 couldn't do.

I'm not saying it was pretty, because those who have hand coded tables know that there is nothing easy about doing that. I think I had nightmares at the time of tds and trs, with the occasional th to stir things up. And at the time, I was constantly checking out the W3C, the standards organization before I realized that Microsoft and Netscape were simply paying Tim Berners-Lee and friends lip service and I'd still have to serve up two different pages for every one page in order to get my site to render properly. I still have horrors of writing the javascript necessary for browser detection - these days, I can do it easily, but in those days, I was still a wee one online and all of those semi-colons and brackets made my eyes bleed and I cursed Bill Gates (though, I did applaud Microsoft for deprecating the blink tag - thank you. Now if we could just get frames to go away...). I do still look at the W3C on occasion, but I no longer have to be anal-retentive about it, simply because I've sold my hand-coding soul over to Macromedia.

Life with Dreamweaver is, for the lack of a better word, a dream. My pages work (mostly) all of the time. I can set it up to use my favorite HTML version, 3.2 (because, at this point, most of 3.2 is accepted by the most recent browsers) and if I decide to go with funky javascript (which I don't, as now the only code I have is to avoid being "framed" and another little snippet that prevents my windows from being resized when the visitor is using Netscape and not IE), Dreamweaver lets me know which browsers my script is compatible with. So I no longer need to have 80 million different browsers on my computer - I simply use Netscape, occasionally view my site in IE, but usually Dreamweaver catches me if I do something that will render, say, maroon in a lovely puce color (it has happened). I used CSS at work (this site doesn't use CSS, due to browser incompatibility issues, sorry, Jemima) as we all used the same version of IE and I used to write those out as well and alignment used to make my head hurt. Dreamweaver does those for me too. And I use layers now. I could never code layers by hand (not that I tried, but it scares me to even try).

Every now and then, I still hand code. I'm not a hand coder, like say Jemima is, but if I need to, I can get in there and fix it. Dreamweaver is lovely, but every now and then it refuses to do what I command it to do and in that case, the only thing a girl can do is get into the Code Inspector and rewrite the HTML herself. The school computers in the masters' lab lack HTML editors - not even FrontPage Express (bah! Evil!) or Netscape Composer (only slightly less evil than FrontPage) - and so that's where I do most of my hand coding, if at all. These days we have to close tags that we once would have left open because the browsers would have rendered them okay anyway, so inserting paragraphs now takes forever and a day on a 50 or 60 page story. Back in the day when I used to host other people's work on my site, I used to spend a good chunk of every Saturday not only reading the submissions but also hand coding them until I thought my fingers would fall off.

So while I respect the hand coding warriors and was proud to be a member of them at one time (to the point that I actually had a "proud hand coder" button on my site), I can't deny the quickness Dreamweaver provides me in updating, how it auto-updates all of my links for me, dynamically changes consistent parts of my site when I change just one little thing - it's beautiful. The site is over 400 pages now, so it's impossible to keep track of what is where. For that reason, I have to confess, I've gone over to the dark side and given up the proud, true ways of hand coding.

I spent today working on my application for Masters Number Two (someone, stop me). Luckily, I got out of having to order and pay for official transcripts from my current U, thanks to the fact that when you apply from there, the school just pulls your record on its own. However, wasn't so lucky with the GMAT score and now, I'm truly convinced that ETS is the outfit from hell. Not only do they lack customer service - ie, giving me wrong information and then refusing to correct it and refund my money - but they have the website and phone system from hell. But at any rate, that part of my application is finished.

I also spent the day calling hotels and caterers for a Very Big Event this spring. This type of stuff brought back memories of The Job and I had a scary fugue moment where I was remembering details of doing everything from booking hotels to wrapping gifts for the speakers. I only spent the money though, someone else actually handled paying the bills. Except for that one speaker with the weird travel itinerary. That was one conversation everyone in my department heard because it was possibly the most furious I'd ever been at work. It went something like this.

I had hired a speaker to come to an event in the summer of 2001. In his contract, I said I would pay him his fee ($8,000) for 3 hours of speaking and his transportation, room and board expenses. This guy was quite a piece of work. I had a room booked for him at the hotel (which, btw, is a national historical landmark and costs $300/night - we had a negotiated rate that was a bit less than that) but he went and made his own arrangements (grrr...) at the full rate, not the negotiated rate. But the kicker was his plane ticket. He was flying here from Ohio. The ticket invoice he sent me was for $1,600.

Eh? $1,600?

He flew first class. Okay. I didn't approve first class, but okay - he was a big guy. But what got me was how he calculated the ticket. He flew here from Ohio, then from here to Minnesota and then on to about 9 other cities in the continental United States. So the way I saw it, I was on the hook for a one-way ticket from Ohio to here (as he had a speaking engagement in Minnesota and theoretically, the other company ought to be paying for that ticket) and that one way ticket was only $750.

So I called his people and asked what the hey was going on. They told me that they were charging me the estimated refundable, changeable, first class fare from Ohio to here. Mind you, not the ticket that they bought, but one that they could have bought but didn't. What they bought was $750. Big difference. I asked him how he wanted me to explain this to Accounting? I had nightmares of the conversation.

"Um, yes, this is a receipt for a ticket that was never purchased, but if I called Delta and asked for a one way, refundable, changeable, first class fare from Ohio to here, then it would cost $1,600, so you should reimburse this guy that much money even though he didn't spend that much money and the ticket receipt clearly reads $750."

Not to mention, if he was charging all ten companies he had bundled together $1,600, he was clearly making a killing on travel. I also pointed out that it was unfair of him to put my company into a "tour" package without telling me first. Had I known, I would have had Corporate travel make the arrangements the same way I did for one of the speakers I flew in from California. I also pointed out that we had to pay for two hotel rooms for him - one that had been booked by us at the negotiated rate and then the one that had been booked by him at the full price.

I think he got the message; not only did he not go over well as a speaker, we were clearly unhappy with the way he charged us. So I ended up reimbursing him for the one-way ticket from Ohio and for his airport shuttle, and of course, the meals he ate which weren't already provided by us at the hotel.

I just realized how nightmarish that month must have been - I did not blog for an entire month. An entire month of nothing because I was chasing receipts, wrapping gifts, and angsting over how my agendas were printed on a slightly different color paper than the rest of my materials. Nah, I don't miss the job. Only the money. The money I miss, the job I don't.

Bloggy Dodgy Blog

I'm so rusty with this blogging thing given my two week hiatus, I haven't got much to say. I've been amusing myself by lurking at forums, and reveling in the prevalence of self-absorption in some. It occasionally takes much will power (and a resounding NO from Jerie) to pull me away from said forums so I don't post something inflammatory (or with the potential to erupt into a flame war). I also have this thing about posting to mailing lists - I'm always angsty about it afterwards and wondering if everyone else on the list thinks I'm a total moron for saying anything. Especially when the post is greeted with - nothing. And then it's like, "Uh oh, I said something stupid and no one wants to tell me so."

But there seem to be plenty of people out there who don't have a posting complex, who post lots of stuff and don't even think about how it comes off or whether it even makes sense to say what they're saying. Coherence and/or respect for differing POVs don't seem to prevail in certain forums these days. There really ought to be a site devoted to dodgy forums, baseless accusations and gratuitious fawning - a 'best of', per se. I'd start one myself, but my fic taxes are already piling up and I'm reluctant to add more. Still, it would be nice.

And here's Seeeeeeeeeeeeeeema!

I'm back! Yes, after two weeks (7 airports, 6 flights, 3 cities), I'm back on terra firma. The inbox frightens me greatly, the beta reading queue (six fics) terrifies me, and I just realized that school starts on Monday and I have no idea what my schedule looks like. At any rate, my friends on the East Coast blame me for the snow storms of the last two weeks - I take full responsibility for that. Now that I'm home, it's highly doubtful I will see snow here. At any rate, I'm back, in one piece, but not necessarily sane. And tired, dreadfully tired. Did I mention that I slept in 7 different beds over the two weeks? Twice in my clothes?