As I mentioned a few posts back, I was running for my Business School's Student Senate position. The vote was to be held online via electronic ballot and the results were ot be tallied up and the winners determined as such. When the day to vote came around, there were plenty of technical difficulties involving the ballot not working and as a result having things being postponed further and further. After that initial debacle, we recieved an email telling us to stop trying to vote until the ballot was fixed and that the student body would receive an email telling them when voting would be back on. Well, we never got an email and I just continued to suspect that maybe things were still being worked out behind closed doors - technology can be a bitch as we all probably know. Imagine my surprise then when I checked my email inbox declaring that everyone who ran got "reelected by us" with a "traditionally excellent vote turnout" (sarcasm, please do note).
I immediately started asking everyone I knew in the business school whether they ever got the chance to vote in this election or ever got an email saying the ballot was fixed. The response was a universal "no". I went back to the old email sent out earlier in the week with the broken link to the ballot to find it was fixed - must have been recently since one of my friends tried to vote as late as Thursday, well past the original deadline. So someone, pray tell, explain to me how an election as ridiculous and disrespectful to the seven candidates who ran as this should stand, let alone be considered fair?
I've already emailed the president of the council and have requested a new ballot and vote to be held. If needed I will contact the deans to fix this. This is war; not war over winning or losing, but war over the right to have a fair election and for everyone who has the right to vote be able to vote.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Five
I heard the clicking of bike wheels as I cruised along the waterfront past one monument and then another; it had been six years since I'd been on a bike.
I played catch, swung from the money bars, and ate fro yo with tart mangos and talked about how if adults just indulged their inner child, everyone would be happier.
Thursday was possibly one of the best days of my life, and tonight, I'm going to have fun. Few forces in nature are stronger than the determination of a child to have fun.
My inner five year old approves.
JP
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A Boy and His Toys
It's been a while since I bought some shiny new piece of technology for me to play around with a while, but today the postman delivered my newest toy.
I bought myself a pair of Sennheiser HD 202 II headphones form NewEgg a few days ago and they finally arrived. I had a pair of HD 201s back at the beginning of the that I promptly broke three weeks in. Since then I've been stuck using my old ear buds that came with my iPod which in overall quality isn't bad for earbuds, but I missed the deep bass and high quality sound of a good pair of over the ear headphones, so you can guess I tried them out right when I got back to my room.
Oh my Jesus I've been deprived for the past few months. I put on a mix of songs including some dubstep, a mashup, Fall Out Boy and Katy Perry's ET to test a variety of genres and I'm hearing parts of songs I never even knew existed, it's brilliant.
Seriously, if you don't own a pair of nice headphones I really suggest spending some money and getting a pair. Artists put a lot of work into their music and it would be a real shame if you're missing out because the subtleties are lost because of your low quality headphones. I recommend using Amazon or NewEgg.com for your technology needs, they tend to be the cheapest plus if you have Amazon Prime like I do, many things have free two-day shipping. Same goes with NewEgg, they have free shipping and they will eat the tax for you which is ballin by any standard.
Here's a song I tested my new headphones with-
Kap Slap - Illmerican Blow (Illmerica mashup)
Studying is going to be so much more fun now.
All the best,
JP
I bought myself a pair of Sennheiser HD 202 II headphones form NewEgg a few days ago and they finally arrived. I had a pair of HD 201s back at the beginning of the that I promptly broke three weeks in. Since then I've been stuck using my old ear buds that came with my iPod which in overall quality isn't bad for earbuds, but I missed the deep bass and high quality sound of a good pair of over the ear headphones, so you can guess I tried them out right when I got back to my room.
Oh my Jesus I've been deprived for the past few months. I put on a mix of songs including some dubstep, a mashup, Fall Out Boy and Katy Perry's ET to test a variety of genres and I'm hearing parts of songs I never even knew existed, it's brilliant.
Seriously, if you don't own a pair of nice headphones I really suggest spending some money and getting a pair. Artists put a lot of work into their music and it would be a real shame if you're missing out because the subtleties are lost because of your low quality headphones. I recommend using Amazon or NewEgg.com for your technology needs, they tend to be the cheapest plus if you have Amazon Prime like I do, many things have free two-day shipping. Same goes with NewEgg, they have free shipping and they will eat the tax for you which is ballin by any standard.
Here's a song I tested my new headphones with-
Kap Slap - Illmerican Blow (Illmerica mashup)
Studying is going to be so much more fun now.
All the best,
JP
Monday, April 4, 2011
Impulse
One of my friends got a temple piercing on a whim this afternoon; she had gone in to get a tattoo but left with the piercing instead. It wasn't something she had been planning to do for a while; she had been wanting yet another tattoo but she changed her mind last minute. Befor eyou ask, it does look good but I could only imagine what could possess someone to do something like that out of thin air. It isn't like buying a Snickers bar at the checkout line or spontaneously deciding to go for a walk, no it was getting a piercing on your face....I mean really?
I still don't understand her rationale but it got me thinking about my own life. If you were to observe my life on film it really does look like a rerun playing over and over again. It's the same schedule, wake up, shower, go to class, eat lunch, more class, dinner, find a breakout room and study until 3AM and then go to bed only to have it repeat the next day, and the next, and the next. Maybe I'll toss in a trip to the gym for shits and giggles. I envy her ability to give in to impulse, to say "why not?" when life entices her with something new and exciting.
It's disturbingly sad how bland my routine actually is. I've become accustomed to the familiar; in reality it's something I enjoy, but now it's not just familiar anymore....it's boring. I'm not a risk taker for the most part but I don't want this pattern to set in and end up 20 years from now being stuck day in and day out in a computer terminal analyzing balance sheets and entering data into spreadsheets. That's not what I want my life to be.
I'm craving excitement, the unexpected, the "what the fuck?" moments that have been absent from my life as of late. Whenever I've done something on a whim, it's always been do something something else that's still safe and familiar to me - going home for a weekend, going on an impromptu walk down M St, it's just so....expected. I want to go on an adventure. I want to feel my heart race from the anticipation of going somewhere new, somewhere dangerous, somewhere where few would consider seeing. I want to do something brash, something that will leave others scratching their heads and thinking "wow, I didn't expect that". I don't intend to do anything which could harm myself but something that will give me that spine tingling pleasurable adrenaline rush.
Once tomorrow is over I would have turned in my last paper for the week and finally be free for a few days. I want to go on an adventure this weekend. Mom wants me to meet with dad to work on FAFSA but his taxes won't be done, I know that. This weekend holds so many possibilities and experiences just waiting to be discovered; I don't intend to waste them this time. I've been waiting too long for some excitement, maybe what I need to do is find it rather than waiting for it to find me. Hmmmmm.
I still don't understand her rationale but it got me thinking about my own life. If you were to observe my life on film it really does look like a rerun playing over and over again. It's the same schedule, wake up, shower, go to class, eat lunch, more class, dinner, find a breakout room and study until 3AM and then go to bed only to have it repeat the next day, and the next, and the next. Maybe I'll toss in a trip to the gym for shits and giggles. I envy her ability to give in to impulse, to say "why not?" when life entices her with something new and exciting.
It's disturbingly sad how bland my routine actually is. I've become accustomed to the familiar; in reality it's something I enjoy, but now it's not just familiar anymore....it's boring. I'm not a risk taker for the most part but I don't want this pattern to set in and end up 20 years from now being stuck day in and day out in a computer terminal analyzing balance sheets and entering data into spreadsheets. That's not what I want my life to be.
I'm craving excitement, the unexpected, the "what the fuck?" moments that have been absent from my life as of late. Whenever I've done something on a whim, it's always been do something something else that's still safe and familiar to me - going home for a weekend, going on an impromptu walk down M St, it's just so....expected. I want to go on an adventure. I want to feel my heart race from the anticipation of going somewhere new, somewhere dangerous, somewhere where few would consider seeing. I want to do something brash, something that will leave others scratching their heads and thinking "wow, I didn't expect that". I don't intend to do anything which could harm myself but something that will give me that spine tingling pleasurable adrenaline rush.
Once tomorrow is over I would have turned in my last paper for the week and finally be free for a few days. I want to go on an adventure this weekend. Mom wants me to meet with dad to work on FAFSA but his taxes won't be done, I know that. This weekend holds so many possibilities and experiences just waiting to be discovered; I don't intend to waste them this time. I've been waiting too long for some excitement, maybe what I need to do is find it rather than waiting for it to find me. Hmmmmm.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
The Return of Southern Charm
I went home yesterday to take a breather from campus life and visit my old crew team at a regatta they had today; It was like a trip down memory lane- going back just one year but seeing everything from a completely different point of view. I was merely an observer.
I went out to dinner with mom when I first got off the metro, just the two of us. The topic of my dad never once came up, it surprised me to say the least, but in a good way. It was nice to just talk over school, catching up on family gossip about my cousins, and my mom rather embarrassingly printing out many of the fashion show photos I sent to her over authentic and tongue numbingly spicy Chinese food. We went to a restaurant we used to go to almost every two weeks, but neither of us had gone to since I started school in September.
I spent that night not doing anything – probably not a very good idea when I have two essays I need to write in the span of (now) one and a half days. I know, it’s bad of me. I shouldn’t be writing this either, but it relaxes me. When I woke up at 7:30 to my alarm, I immediately fell back asleep. I was supposed to go watch the Varsity 1st 8 race in their heat at 9ish but I was too tired. By the time I got out of bed, showered and left it was 9:45. I arrived at the reservoir to a familiar sights: trailers and slings of sleek racing shells, people decked out in their school colours, and the love it or hate it sight of spandex unis. Approaching my high school’s boat house, I was greeted by the sight of people I hadn’t seen in almost a year, many of who are now seniors, hearing back from colleges and trying to fight through a few more months of school before moving on to the next chapter of their lives.
I saw the familiar tent and table of regatta day food, which having not eaten breakfast before leaving, I greedily attacked. As I said hi and talked to more and more of my old teammates, I felt constantly distracted. Yeah, I missed the other guys, but I was looking for one guy in particular – Southern Charm. When I went to visit the team in the winter when they still had land practice, he was missing which saddened me. After asking someone if he was there, I walked into the boat house again.
At first I didn’t even recognize him, either he hadn’t grown taller or maybe I grew myself. His hair was longer and his skin was more tanned since I last saw him, but the longer I looked at him, the familiarity came back to me: his soft blue eyes, his slightly wavy brown hair and his goofy grin whenever he laughed. “JP! How are you!?” he shouted. We bro-bumped and talked for a while. He had been curled in a sleeping bag unnoticed when I first walked through. We talked about his senior year, how his classes were going, his college plans and the season so far. He told me the 1V placed first in their heat and were moving on to finals later on. He had heard back from all of his schools and was deciding between three. He still worked at the sub shop where I once visited him last summer. It was nice talking to him again; he was still as down to earth and happy as I remembered him. The whole time I couldn’t help remembering him writing “You were my first friend when I joined the crew team, I really appreciate and won’t forget that” in my yearbook before I left during our meeting.
Soon it was time for him to go race in the finals along with the rest of the guys and I made my way to the grand stands. The trail that winds along the coast of the reservoir hadn’t changed one bit – I reached one inlet where I used to always ponder why they hadn’t built a bridge to bypass it and to make things easier than having to walk an extra quarter mile, yet that bridge still, and probably will never exist. When I got to the grandstands it struck me again that this time I was just another observer. For two years, I was one of the people on the water, hearing the cheering from the shore in the final 250 meter sprint to the finish line, but now the roles reversed. When the 1st 8 came into view, it had begun to pour cold rain; they were fighting for second when in the last 15 strokes another boat pulled ahead and pushed us to third. It was a good race which left me nostalgic of the days when I was part of the team. I missed the feeling of simulated flying, the sound of the water rushing under me, the solid thunk of the oar when everyone feathered, and the lightness in my seat when I dropped the blade in for a stroke. They say once you do crew it’s impossible to get it out of your system, it’s in your blood; well, I found out that was true today.
When I got back to the boat house, they were moving the shell up the hill back to the boat house. I ran into SC and congratulated him for a good job and a good race. He complained of how it was probably the coldest, most uncomfortable race he had ever been in and how he couldn’t feel his hands as he laughed. His dad was on the hill and I left when he went to go talk with him. By then it was almost 1:30 and I had to get home. I said goodbye to the guys and saved SC for last. While the other guys said goodbye with a handshake which I offered to him as well, SC went in for a hug instead; it was cute. Southern Charm always had been more affectionate than the other guys, one of the reasons I thought he could have been something other than straight but was something I put behind since I graduated. I told him I’d probably go to some future regattas and would hopefully see him again. He just smiled again with that warm, goofy grin and we parted ways. I really do hope to see him again.
The sun was coming back out again when I left, strange when it was pouring and hailing just 45 minutes prior. The regatta would be going for a few more hours but I didn’t want my stay to be too long.
It’s scary to think just how fast time is moving. In a little more than a month I’ll be done with my first year of college. The year flew by too fast; there wasn’t nearly as much time as I wanted or needed to accomplish everything I wanted. I had made a master list of goals for the year back in August; I feel I got through less than half since then. Sure, I’ve met many new people and tried many new things, I but I still don’t think I’ve defined myself as who I want to be yet. I still feel the weight of trying to fit the mold others had created for me based on their few months of knowing me. That’s not who I truly am, and I don’t think they recognize that yet. I guess that’s why college is four years or more rather than one.
The Fray - Over My Head. Another song from my youth
It’s Saturday night and that would normally mean it’s time to get out and have fun but tonight I’m a slave to my Ethics paper. Writing about Immanuel Kant isn’t something particularly enjoy to say the least but I made a new playlist to work to and help me make it through the night. Love you college, truly.
All the best,
JP
I went out to dinner with mom when I first got off the metro, just the two of us. The topic of my dad never once came up, it surprised me to say the least, but in a good way. It was nice to just talk over school, catching up on family gossip about my cousins, and my mom rather embarrassingly printing out many of the fashion show photos I sent to her over authentic and tongue numbingly spicy Chinese food. We went to a restaurant we used to go to almost every two weeks, but neither of us had gone to since I started school in September.
I spent that night not doing anything – probably not a very good idea when I have two essays I need to write in the span of (now) one and a half days. I know, it’s bad of me. I shouldn’t be writing this either, but it relaxes me. When I woke up at 7:30 to my alarm, I immediately fell back asleep. I was supposed to go watch the Varsity 1st 8 race in their heat at 9ish but I was too tired. By the time I got out of bed, showered and left it was 9:45. I arrived at the reservoir to a familiar sights: trailers and slings of sleek racing shells, people decked out in their school colours, and the love it or hate it sight of spandex unis. Approaching my high school’s boat house, I was greeted by the sight of people I hadn’t seen in almost a year, many of who are now seniors, hearing back from colleges and trying to fight through a few more months of school before moving on to the next chapter of their lives.
I saw the familiar tent and table of regatta day food, which having not eaten breakfast before leaving, I greedily attacked. As I said hi and talked to more and more of my old teammates, I felt constantly distracted. Yeah, I missed the other guys, but I was looking for one guy in particular – Southern Charm. When I went to visit the team in the winter when they still had land practice, he was missing which saddened me. After asking someone if he was there, I walked into the boat house again.
At first I didn’t even recognize him, either he hadn’t grown taller or maybe I grew myself. His hair was longer and his skin was more tanned since I last saw him, but the longer I looked at him, the familiarity came back to me: his soft blue eyes, his slightly wavy brown hair and his goofy grin whenever he laughed. “JP! How are you!?” he shouted. We bro-bumped and talked for a while. He had been curled in a sleeping bag unnoticed when I first walked through. We talked about his senior year, how his classes were going, his college plans and the season so far. He told me the 1V placed first in their heat and were moving on to finals later on. He had heard back from all of his schools and was deciding between three. He still worked at the sub shop where I once visited him last summer. It was nice talking to him again; he was still as down to earth and happy as I remembered him. The whole time I couldn’t help remembering him writing “You were my first friend when I joined the crew team, I really appreciate and won’t forget that” in my yearbook before I left during our meeting.
Soon it was time for him to go race in the finals along with the rest of the guys and I made my way to the grand stands. The trail that winds along the coast of the reservoir hadn’t changed one bit – I reached one inlet where I used to always ponder why they hadn’t built a bridge to bypass it and to make things easier than having to walk an extra quarter mile, yet that bridge still, and probably will never exist. When I got to the grandstands it struck me again that this time I was just another observer. For two years, I was one of the people on the water, hearing the cheering from the shore in the final 250 meter sprint to the finish line, but now the roles reversed. When the 1st 8 came into view, it had begun to pour cold rain; they were fighting for second when in the last 15 strokes another boat pulled ahead and pushed us to third. It was a good race which left me nostalgic of the days when I was part of the team. I missed the feeling of simulated flying, the sound of the water rushing under me, the solid thunk of the oar when everyone feathered, and the lightness in my seat when I dropped the blade in for a stroke. They say once you do crew it’s impossible to get it out of your system, it’s in your blood; well, I found out that was true today.
When I got back to the boat house, they were moving the shell up the hill back to the boat house. I ran into SC and congratulated him for a good job and a good race. He complained of how it was probably the coldest, most uncomfortable race he had ever been in and how he couldn’t feel his hands as he laughed. His dad was on the hill and I left when he went to go talk with him. By then it was almost 1:30 and I had to get home. I said goodbye to the guys and saved SC for last. While the other guys said goodbye with a handshake which I offered to him as well, SC went in for a hug instead; it was cute. Southern Charm always had been more affectionate than the other guys, one of the reasons I thought he could have been something other than straight but was something I put behind since I graduated. I told him I’d probably go to some future regattas and would hopefully see him again. He just smiled again with that warm, goofy grin and we parted ways. I really do hope to see him again.
The sun was coming back out again when I left, strange when it was pouring and hailing just 45 minutes prior. The regatta would be going for a few more hours but I didn’t want my stay to be too long.
It’s scary to think just how fast time is moving. In a little more than a month I’ll be done with my first year of college. The year flew by too fast; there wasn’t nearly as much time as I wanted or needed to accomplish everything I wanted. I had made a master list of goals for the year back in August; I feel I got through less than half since then. Sure, I’ve met many new people and tried many new things, I but I still don’t think I’ve defined myself as who I want to be yet. I still feel the weight of trying to fit the mold others had created for me based on their few months of knowing me. That’s not who I truly am, and I don’t think they recognize that yet. I guess that’s why college is four years or more rather than one.
The Fray - Over My Head. Another song from my youth
It’s Saturday night and that would normally mean it’s time to get out and have fun but tonight I’m a slave to my Ethics paper. Writing about Immanuel Kant isn’t something particularly enjoy to say the least but I made a new playlist to work to and help me make it through the night. Love you college, truly.
All the best,
JP
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