Category: Uncategorized

Exams are over. I have one paper left, which is well past due, but the professor for the course is a very giving soul. I actually feel like this morning’s exam, the one I was the most worried about, went the best of all the exams I’ve taken this week. The other two were completely wacked out, but that’s sort of typical for those classes.

I also got back my second paper in the class for which I had the exam this morning. I don’t know how the hell I got a ‘b’ on that. I had no bibliography. I literally ended one paragraph in the middle of a sentence with “1!@#$#T.” (that’s up there with including a intragroup editing comment from a draft of a paper I put into my writing sample for ‘developing your public service career’) There were somewhere between 10 and 20 typos, not including the above (plus a number of things the prof misidentified as a typo), and the structure was a bit off in places. Furthermore, it came off as descriptive rather than evaluative, a flaw I was aware of as I wrote it. It was about 2 parts descriptive to 1 part evaluative.

That having been said, it was a good analysis and critique of a regional economic development organization. If I were to correct the typos, finish the sentence, and reorder the necessary paragraph or 3, I’d be happy to include it in my writing portfolio. This is why people do rough and final drafts instead of writing their papers the night before, or the morning of, as the case may be. Heh.

Well, there was a final today, on friday the 13th. The omens were accurate. It was indeed a totally fucked up final. Normally I would attribute my failure to get it to my own hyperconfident oh-please-like-I-need-to-study-for-statistics attitude, but my classmates who have been banging their head against the material all week also regarded this exam as a nonsequitur. *shrug* Incompetent instruction has been a hallmark of my experience at the humphrey. And is part of the reason I’m less than jazzed about next year. Still, being halfway through, and having legitimately learned alot in the process, I’m reluctant to call it quits without getting my MA or MS or something.

Well, things to do. People to see. Events to go to. Finals to take.

Tonight there’s a farewell party for the second year MURPs. There’s a final tomorrow morning which I need to study for. Tomorrow afternoon, I’ve made a commitment to chocolate and peanut butter pie making. Sunday I’m supposed to go running in the morning with a friend, and two hours later, it’s graduation time for the humphrey. I’d like to attend. Don’t even get me started on paperwork related to taxes and the gao, housing for my move out in about 3 weeks or, for that matter, the webwork I need to complete by monday.

“It’s like we told that young lady, I told her, I said, You’ve made your bed and now you must eat it.“

So, I took the plunge, and got WoW. And I have a dyky lookin’ level 8 gnome mage engineer called gnulica (any intimation of ‘cunnilingus’ you can draw from that name is purely intentional)

Servers so far are

Server	Character(s)	people to play with
Proudmoore	Gnulica	Vice & Valour guild (particularly for , , and a certain friend from long ago that I hope to surprise.)
	Kamuul (tauren shaman lvl 6)	vnv
Daggerspine	Kolah (dwarven paladin w/ Princess Leia hairbuns)	, , ,
Scarlet Crusade (RP server)	tbd horde	CS Lounge folk(?) I am uncertain if this includes anyone I know particularly well, so I’m waiting for confirmation before actually doing this
	tbd

Other characters I would like to create include

• night elf druid (totally cliched, I know)
• orc hunter (feral female engineer in loincloth)
• undead priest (I turn myself!)
• human warlock (Hey, I’m a good guy, ignore the gibbering hellspawn)
• troll rogue
• tauren warrior

Any persons wishing to join and I may submit your application, please be sure to sign in human blood (bonus points if its someone else’s). We plan on playing our characters as sorta background characters, and only playing together, not our main characters. The rest of the plans are far more laid back, but playing with friends, to chat with if nothing else, is always good.

I want to help make documentaries. Documentaries that examine the state of the American educational system, and various other public interests. Policy, not politics, oriented documentaries. Look, I don’t think the real problem with the country is a lack of quality research, I think the problem is that nobody knows about the research, and almost nobody understands it outside ‘the ivory tower’/academia. Movies are about as broadly accessible as you can get. Broadcast media is the way to reach the public, because the internet is too echo-chamber-ish, too many opportunities to click away in the middle of a sophisticated message, and the personal approach is hugely expensive in terms of people’s time, well, that and the big screen has persuasive power all unto itself.

I know basically jack and shit about making films, but I’m anything but averse to learning on the job.

I think people care, I just think next to no one has high quality information at their (our) disposal. I’m certainly not claiming to know the right answers, or to have all that high quality information at my fingertips, but if I can find and talk to the people who do, why not share that information broadly? I would necessarily be selecting information, and presenting it with my view, but I would also do my best to be factual/nonpartisan.

Maybe I should get a few years’ practice at the GAO first. =) Still, I’m sure there’s gotta be some amateur film-maker’s club or something in chicago. Probably here too. Hmmmm…. *thoughtful rubbing of chin*

A cut & pasted comment from a protected entry in a friend’s journal.

How do you feel about the fetishization of asian, latino, not asian, anything-but-black, etc? Racial preferences? Whatever. I think that race has an effect on aesthetics, but culture is where it’s really at.

The question of cultural identity is huge. I think my (probably upper class) Burkina Faso classmate rocks. I think (a particular) African American classmate is annoying. And I know it’s a cultural thing. This makes me feel really sorry for the people in the African American underclass. Caucasian Americans leave them behind, and many Africans who emigrated voluntarily view them with disdain. You generally don’t choose your culture. It’s more voluntary than sexual orientation, but not generally a deliberate choice people make.

Latin American machismo irks me. You don’t have that, as far as I can tell, because you are not of that culture [despite being ‘affiliated’ by race]. I don’t think I’m racist to any significant degree, though I think I’m culturist. Since culture and race are highly correlated, the two types of discrimination are easily confused. And I do think racism is alive, and lurking in the shadows.

So, I caved in, I went to the game store to purchase WoW. And they were out! The loser behind the counter recommended guild wars instead. I thanked him for the recommendation, but declined. When I got home, I checked out the game’s website. I’m glad I made the decision I did. The graphics appear flat out superior, but the game play sounds like it would suck doodee.

Is it unusual that nearly a third of my lj subscribers met me before I started using lj? That doesn’t even include the ones that I met after starting my lj but before I became aware of (or helped them create) their journal, let alone the ones I’ve met after reading their lj. I’ve at least talked to 158 out of my 199 subscriptions in person at some point. 157/196 if you exclude a couple deleted and redundant accounts. That’s an 80% hit rate. How odd is that?

[My initial suspicion is that the ljers I know from cmu will largely adhere to the demographic I posted, and will in fact, know their subscription lists better than I do, and that the homo-segment of my population won’t know their subscription lists as well. This has been mostly born out so far. For the nonhomo, noncmu folk among you, I have no predictions. =)]

The GAO, as part of a standard criminal background check wants my past 10 years of housing history. I do not remember any of the addresses exactly, except for where I’m currently living, two that I could find documents for, and all the addresses I’ve shared with (an amusing coincidence). Presented here primarily for your amusement is everything I could come up with. And if any of you can help me eliminate some of the ?’s, that’d be great too.

Dates
From	To	Address	Mail/Residence
09/2004	present	3145 Dupont Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55408
07/2004	08/2004	2438? Delaware St SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414
08/2003	06/2004	1590 LeRoy Ave, Berkeley, CA 94708
09/2002	07/2003	547A 66th St, Oakland, CA 94609
08/2001	07/2002	Apt 1a? 5838? Darlington Rd, Pittsburgh, PA 15217	R
08/2001	07/2002	Box 117? 4902 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213	M
05/2001	07/2001	Apt 2A 5457 Blackstone Ave, Chicago, IL 60615
01/2001	04/2001	Apt 1G? 1648 W Greenleaf Ave, Chicago, IL 60626
11/2000	12/2001	1117 N Ashland Ave, Chicago, IL 60622
09/2000	11/2000	Apt128? 1931? Prairie Sq, Schaumburg, IL 60173
08/2000	09/2000	Apt 2S? 3233? Clark St, Chicago, IL 60657
12/1995	08/2000	Box 249? 4902 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213	M
06/2000	08/2000	5706 Phillips Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15217	R
08/1999	08/2000	Apt 2? 714? Ivy St, Pittsburgh, PA 15232	R
06/1999	08/1999	5706 Phillips Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15217	R
06/1998	06/1999	1314 Wightman St, Pittsburgh, PA 15217	R
05/1997	05/1998	5848? Shady-Forbes Terrace, Pittsburgh, PA 15217	R
08/1996	05/1997	Apt 1? 301 N Neville St, Pittsburgh, PA 15213	R
04/1996	08/1996	Apt ?? 5838 Alderson St, Pittsburgh, PA 15217	R
08/1995	12/1995	5134? Margaret Morrison St, Pittsburgh, PA 15213	R
05/1995	08/1995	Room 305? 1091 Morewood Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213	R

Brought to you by a walk home in the rain at rush hour.

So, I get out of the grocery store and it starts to rain. Not a downpower, but not a light shower either. I head towards the bus shelter, only to see that a gaggle of smoking bitches have taken up residence, accelerating the progress of their lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease, while making the bus shelter a semi-open air gas chamber, rather than a public convenience. I decide to walk to the next shelter, and catch any bus that happens by at the right time. Turns out the next shelter is 80% of the way to my house (more than a mile away), and no buses come by in the time it takes me to walk there. All of this takes place on a noisy, smelly, congested street, of course. Shortly after spotting the nasty nicotine nuisances, some jackass decides that he should pull most of the way through the intersection, instead of allowing me to walk in front of him. This brilliant manuever gains him a two foot headstart when the light finally does change (after I’m on the opposing curb) because there’s no spot for him in the cross traffic because it’s rush hour, moron. Well, he also got the bird from me. After that, it’s a wet, but uneventful trudge for the next mile or so. As it turns out, had I waited for the bus, I might have made it home two minutes sooner, if that. On the home stretch, not one, but two twenty-something assholes in sports cars decided taking their opportunity was more important than obeying pedestrian right of way. The look of contempt and rage I shot one of them got him to stop in the middle of a left turn before my foot left the curb. It’s nice to know that in a pinch, I can succeed on an intimidate check. The other leadfoot noticed me when he was about halfway through the intersection and swerved to the other side of the street to avoid me. Napalm is a versatile solution to many problems.