It’s been a good long ride guys, but for now I’m done blogging. I don’t have much I want to share on here lately, and most of you are being disappointed with lack of updates anyways when you click here.
Maybe at some later point, I’ll feel the desire to type again … we’ll see.
For now, thanks, and virtual homage to you for getting the title reference.
Less Than Jake sings a song titled “The Science of Selling Yourself Short”, which is really too fitting for me. I feel like the song title describes the story of my life. In general, I’m not a very loud person, and I don’t usually toot my own horn very much. Sometimes I wonder if I really err too much on the side of being too quiet about my accomplishments and end up selling myself short.
I was at something recently where the whole string of events just bothered me. It was at an alumni event, and as much as I still love Virginia, the longer I am out of college, the more I feel like the whole place was just a giant hairball of pretentiousness. Inevitably, because of the presence of young alums, the Lawn came up in conversation. So-and-so attending the event got called out as “oh, see her over there, she lived on the Lawn, too!” And the next person. And the next person. Until a group of former Lawnies all gathered together and shared the funniest stories from their respective years living on the grassy knoll.
Of course I felt left out. No one brought me up; no one even knew about me. I guess I could have easily said, “Hey guys, wait a minute. I lived there, too. Don’t forget me! I applied, got chosen, and then went and became Head Resident! Me! Me! I need reaffirmation of my worth as measured in Lawnie-status, too!”
Of course I didn’t say that. I really wanted to. In the end, I said nothing and just chit-chatted with the rest of the people, listening politely to the Lawn stories that were told. Before long, the conversation topic shifted, and the whole episode was forgotten. For me though, I still kept wondering just why was it that I always inevitably feel like I sold myself short, and furthermore, why is it that others do the same to me, too?
I can be pretty immature sometimes, feeling the need to take it upon myself to bring justice to this world. And this world has too much melodrama. Ever see an acquaintance on the streets and ask him how he’s doing, only to be met with a mopey “well, I’ve been better” with no further explanation? Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.
Or how about a colleague who unnecessarily complicates matters by insisting that insignificant rules are melodramatically important for no more reason than simply because s/he is in charge of enforcing the rule? Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.
In good moods, I do a decent job of rolling with things and not fighting the melodrama. In not so great moods, I tend to immaturely challenge the melodramatic offender. “What do you mean you’ve been better? What’s not to love about the day?” “You know, mixologically speaking, the hot and cold water mix together anyway regardless of which one you turn on first.”
I’ll dig and push and challenge until the person has no choice but to admit that s/he was melodramatically exaggerating, and then walk away with their tail tucked between their legs. Yes, unnecessary melodrama is one of my biggest pet peeves. But no, I don’t really need to exercise vigilante justice to beat it down. I really should just roll with it. Maybe I’d have more friends that way.
I read about this topic on some other blogs recently, with regards to just how much should one spend. The general consensus seems to be that ~$100 is good for friends, more for family, less for co-workers/acquaintances. That seems about right, and I’d only add the caveat that perhaps students get a bit more of a slack when it comes to giving wedding gifts. Between flying someplace to attend the wedding, booking a hotel room, and getting a present, it certainly adds up, and it’s especially hard on a graduate student budget.
Regardless, I didn’t think there was a hard and fast rule. I thought in general, you give what you’re comfortable with, and there’s not so much of a science about it. BUT, I overheard a random conversation the other day in which a girl proclaimed her formula for deciding how much to spend on a wedding gift: she would somehow find out the name of the reception caterer, contact them directly, and get an actual per head number on how much the couple are spending for the reception. She would then buy a gift around that number, figuring that she’s giving a gift around the price that the couple is spending on her for food.
Isn’t that completely and utterly insane???? Not to mention, if she were to go through all that trouble, why not take into account the cost of the church/minister/receptionsite/weddingdress/etc.etc??? Really, I did think that it was the thought that counted. Matching the dollar amount of the present to the dollar amount of the food is completely overboard.
Despite now having lived in a big city for three years, I still don’t have the survival-essential city instincts. I don’t automatically assume that everyone may be out to mug me, and when people ask me for directions, I always stop to help. At one point, I did wonder why I seemed to be targeted especially frequently for directions. Back then, I didn’t really feel/realize the need to be more selective about stopping to talk to strangers, so I always helped.
This past week, while in Toronto, I walked home one night by myself (I had an early flight to catch; others in my group wanted to go out). I know one shouldn’t walk alone after dark, but really, what was I supposed to do? I didn’t have money for a cab (Canadian or US).
Walking along, I barely noticed a car stopped on the side of the street … Having already passed the car, I was surprised when the driver said something to me. City Instinct Girl (CIG) would have just kept walking, but my first gut reaction was to stop, turn around and very politely ask “What’s that?”
The man asked me for some directions. CIG would have walked off, or at the least perhaps made up something. I actually said “Sorry, I don’t know; I’m not from around here.” Mistake #2 in the books of city instincts: Reveal that you are not familiar with the area.
At this point, some form of instinct did kick in, and I turned on my 3-inch heels and walked away, ignoring anything else the man said (which included various ways to try to entice me for further conversation: “Oh? So where ARE you from?”, “Where are you walking to?” etc etc)
The moral of this story was that I need to gain some city instinct, be more alert/aware of my surroundings. It’s better to seem rude and offend a stranger (he’s a stranger!) than to put myself in any potential danger. I know I should do this (and I will try), but at the same time, I can’t help feeling a tinge of disappointment that our society has come to this.
Must be the southern-upbringing.
I’m in Toronto for a conference on tissue engineering, and all of the talks started today. For the first time ever at one of these conferences, I saw people taking pictures of presentations with digital cameras. Whenever a new slide gets shown, or even sometimes when animation on a single slide gets changed, someone would take a picture. Is this a new form of note-taking? It really struck me as rather odd.
My first reaction was one of shock: “Oh my god, are they allowed to do that in this day and age of oversensitivity to IP??” Then I reasoned that taking a picture of a presentation slide is not that much more damaging considering that the content is being presented orally anyway (and theoretically available on the abstract CD). But the whole concept still felt somewhat off to me. If I were presenting, I’d be pretty thrown by cameras pointed at my slides snapping images as I paced through my presentation.
Perhaps more interestingly, the presentation-slide-photographers are almost entirely Asian. Seeing that the conference boasts attendees from 20 different countries, I wonder if the cameras are an emerging trend in Asia-hosted scientific meetings that got carried over here to Toronto/North America through the venue of an international conferece.
I always knew the Harry Potter books were getting longer and longer with each one that she writes, but it never sunk in as much as when I saw this picture of the boxset while browsing through Amazon:
For serious, check out the difference in thickness between the first book (reasonable) and the 4th, 5th, 6th, and now 7th (ridiculous). Maybe she figures that the 10-year-olds who first started reading the first book in 1999 were 14/15 by the time the 4th book came out, and are now 18, and so would have no problem handling 500-page books. My question is just how necessary was it to have a 500-page book?
Her first book wasn’t 500 pages, no doubt, because her publisher/editor/common sense told her that she can’t sell a book 500 pages long for 10-year-olds. So edit she did, but somehow as the books got more popular, the editing became superfluous because she knew the books would fly off the bookstore shelves no matter what. Granted, the last one (Half-blooded Prince) was quite good and moved along at a good pace, so I didn’t so mind the length. But I remember reading the 4th one (Goblet of Fire) and getting so frustrated with page after page of descriptions of the Gryffindor common room. Was that really necessary? Just get on with the story!
So I’m curious as to just how successful she will be in “getting on with the story” in this 7th, and last installment (Deathly Hollows). I’m sure I’ll feel differently when I get to the last page and realize that I really do want to know more, but for now, I’m glad that this whole Harry Potter thing will soon be over.
You know how some websites make you enter in a “security code” when you sign up? The code is usually some image file of numbers and letters and deters pattern-recognition software by slightly jumbling up the lines that form the letters/numbers. I guess the purpose is to prevent bots from hitting the site and spam registering.
The problem is that half the time, I can’t even make out what the letters and numbers are supposed to be. The lines are too squiggly that I can’t tell if something is supposed to be a “b” or a “6″, for example. So I enter in what I think the code is, and I’m told that my registration failed because I did not input the security code correctly. Grrr
I’ve had the worst luck with blogspot blogs that require logging in for commenting; those codes are the by far the toughest to decipher.
In a society of bigger is better, toilet paper rolls are now bigger than ever. What with double rolls, triple rolls, even quadruple jumbo rolls, it’s hard to buy a pack of regular, single-rolled toilet paper. Which raises the question: just what constitutes a single roll of toilet paper?
This question came to me when I saw “4 rolls = 8 rolls!” on the outside of a pack of 4 rolls of Cottonelle while ruminating the meanings of life in the bathroom. You don’t have to be an Asian whiz math kid to realize that there’s something wrong with that equality, not to mention that the pack clearly had only four physical rolls of toilet paper inside. What do you mean there are 8 rolls in there? Maybe my eyes are failing me again…
Clearly, these are all indications that the 1x single roll, whatever it may be, is simply too small. I think it’s high time for the toilet paper industry to stop lying to us (that or learn how to count). My pack of 6 jumbo rolls of Charmin does not equal 24 rolls. That’s just bullshit waiting to be wiped up.
I sold my Wahoo and started riding my Marlin around, especially since the weather’s so nice these days. I got winded getting to school along a 1-mile or so ride. Oops. Time to hit the gym. *sigh*