conquering the world one oxymoron at a time
Archive for daily grind
July 24, 2007 at 7:49 pm · Filed under daily grind
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.
June 24, 2007 at 7:40 pm · Filed under daily grind
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.
March 29, 2007 at 11:41 am · Filed under daily grind
In working with student government this past year, I’ve come across several people who are students but who try to be politicians. And by that, I mean the sleazy, slippery, reason-we-hate-politicians type of politicians. I don’t particularly understand the motivation, except maybe to just appear as a politician. I guess people have made comments such as, “Yeah, he’s just being a good politician”, and maybe these are the compliments these people strive to get.
I get very frustrated working with these people, and I visibly fume. Take a recent example where one student completely and ruthlessly expressed his disgust with a particularly idea, in the company of a group of other students. However, when the audience changed to a key MIT administrator, the same student sweet-talked the administrator and told stories about how he really supported the idea and how he only wished he could have done more to convince others that it was a good idea.
My jaws dropped during that meeting. While I never had that great of an impression of this guy before, he just lost all forms of respect from me.
When I brought this up with the two other students in the meeting, they agreed, but one of them backed up the sleazy guy and said, “Well, he was just being a good politician. He did what was best for us, and he said what I wouldn’t have been able to say.” I was more shocked. So now his actions are being viewed as good? When did we lose all sense of integrity??
I really feel that there are two ways to do politics: with slippery sleaziness and with integrity. The slippery sleaziness is like the hacked temporary solution; you smile and tell people what they want to hear knowing full well that you are completely lying to them. It’s not even a white lie; you are just flat-out lying through your teeth. The people are happy with you in the moment, but 1) everyone else who witnesses this loses respect for you, and 2) eventually the people you lied to figure it out, and they too, hate you.
The integrity is trying your best to do what is right and to be able to in your heart, justify your decisions. It’s impossible to make everyone happy, and politicians have that impossible task. So the point shouldn’t be to make everyone happy, but to have a good feeling about the decisions you do make. People will disagree, but you can go to sleep at night knowing you did your best and your actions were not questionable morally.
I heard a talk recently, by a Harvard Business School graduate-turned entrepreneur. He talked about this idea of a company culture, and how important that was especially for a small start-up. He put up a list of qualities to define his current company culture (small startup with some 10 employees, I think). And in there, specifically, says “As much as possible, do everything that is right.” He even mentioned in his talk that they value personality so much when hiring. If someone is arrogant, that’s a big red flag. If someone seems dishonest, that’s a even bigger no-no.
So often, HBS graduates and politicians and entrepreneurs get lumped into the same pot of “sleazy schmoozers”, and it was nice and refreshing to see a completely humble and down to earth guy talk about the importance of integrity and company culture. It made me feel kinda justified in my whole view that politics can be conducted with integrity instead of immorality.
March 16, 2007 at 2:08 pm · Filed under daily grind
Sitting with some of my students last night, it came up that I graduated high school with the Class of 2000. One guy very noticeably said “00?? Wow, you ARE old”. I paused, and then I thought, he is absolutely right. Class of 2000 was eons ago. When I graduated high school, if someone told me they were the Class of 1994, I would have had a cow. Only old fogeys belong to classes graduating SIX years ago. So it’s all relative.
I also went to a meeting yesterday where some undergrad stated that she really enjoyed attending weekly meetings for the organization and discussing policy. When probed on what the policies were, she mentioned things such as how many mailboxes should be stacked on top of each other versus placed across, or how to phrase a particular question on a survey or really just whether or not to make the answers to that one question public. That’s all fine and dandy until she mentioned how these were all very important issues that were debated at length for 3+ weeks each. That’s when I thought, “wow, was I this brainwashed as an undergrad and thought that the longer the we discuss something, the more important it must be?” So again, it’s all relative.
It’s snowing outside right now. With the weather in the 60s earlier this week, the snow is really quite a bummer. But I’m going snowboarding this weekend on Sunday, and I groaned at the 60-degree weather this past week thinking the slopes would be incredibly undesirable on Sunday. Now I’m actually happy that it’s snowing. I don’t think I’ve been this happy to see snow since I was in elementary school in the South.
It’s all relative.
February 17, 2007 at 4:02 am · Filed under daily grind
My MIA status for the past month or so can probably be attributed to my extreme levels of dedication to actually doing research for once. Did I magically find some kind of motivation? Well, sort of. We’re all required to give a department-wide seminar during the spring of our 3rd year, and mine fell on this past Wednesday, which incidentally was Valentine’s Day (did I need to remind anybody of this fact?).
The seminar isn’t really as scary as it sounds, but nevertheless, I worked up quite a sweat leading up to it (but it didn’t stop me from procrastinating … my last slides change was at 11:12am, and my presentation began at noon). In general, it was rather anti-climatic. It came, and 30 minutes later, it went, with no drums nor any fanfare. I also got lucky because the one professor famous for picking students apart was also magically absent from my seminar.
Which then brings me to Valentine’s Day. I thought about writing something about having an anti-Valentine’s day, but thought better of it because I didn’t want to come across as being bitter. I’m sure plenty of us hear great many mutterings about the stupidity of such a Hallmark-imposed holiday that you really didn’t want to read about it on my blog. Besides, I preferred sleeping to procrastination via blogging.
So in the end, all I have to offer is that this year, unlike most other years, I had no special feelings toward v-day. It really was just another day that also came and went with no fanfare. That was helped along by my boarding an overnight train to DC at 9:45pm on the evening of February 14. Even if I wanted to have make a big deal of it, I wouldn’t have been able to. So my Valentine’s day dinner consisted of some Bourbon chicken bought at the Amtrak station and shared with my handsome, and very much loved, GSC officers and one hot Latin grad student magazine editor.
I’ll be back to the real world sometime tomorrow when my plane lands in Boston and I subsequently end my email boycott. Then I will have a ball cleaning out the 250+ unread emails that have accumulated. Yummy.
February 11, 2007 at 7:39 pm · Filed under daily grind
Still being a proud South Carolinian, I never thought that the day would come when I would embrace Dunkin Donuts as a mirage in the desert. But indeed Dunkin has won me over, with its coffee.
Driving back from a day of snowboarding at Attitash, going down down a lonely road with its two-way traffic, fighting my eye lids, willing them to stay open, all I could think about was how I so very badly wanted a cup of coffee, and how happy I would be should I see a Dunkin Donuts.
All of a sudden, away in the distance, I spotted a rectangular lighted sign on the left side of the road, and it looked like it just might be what I had wished for. My passenger asked how I was feeling about the drive, and I said that I wanted a cup of coffee, but wait, wait, because i think I see something, but I don’t want to get my hopes up high … and lo and behold, there it was, the best Dunkin Donuts sign I have ever seen.
I have never been so happy to see the familiar white sign with red words (or is it orange?). A large styrofoam cup of coffee and a couple of U-turns to get back on the road later, I was as happy as I could be. Krispy Kreme just became a thing of the past, and I’m turning Bostonian.
January 19, 2007 at 1:25 pm · Filed under the internet, daily grind
I’ve been very distracted for the past couple of days, finding it very difficult to focus. I just sit in front my computer in my office and pray for random interesting things that I can find to occupy my time on the internet. This included reading multiple blogs, finding new and interesting blogs to read, and refreshing the ones I’ve already read in case there are new entries.
For whatever reason, I was leaving a comment that required me to write “millenium falcon” (don’t ask). It didn’t look correctly spelled, however I looked at it, so I went to dictionary.com to confirm. Turns out that dictionary.com will now not only give you the english definition of a word, but it will also give you the same word in multiple languages. Kinda cool.
Check it out: millenium at dictionary.com
January 15, 2007 at 1:27 pm · Filed under daily grind
Due to a slight addiction to watching movies, I’ve been a loyal Blockbuster Online customer for almost two years now (since February 2005). I chose it over Netflix because Blockbuster Online offers the flexibility to also get free rentals in their stores, so when I don’t feel like waiting for the mail to show up, I’ll print out a little coupon and go into the store and get the new release that they “guarantee to be on shelves, or it’s free”.
Recently, Blockbuster Online’s seriously pissing me off. I’ve been watching Grey’s Anatomy on DVDs. The different discs for Seasons 1 and 2 are queued up in my account, and all that needs to happen is for me to send one back, and the next one on my queue will arrive. SHOULD be a great system. Except, for the second time in a row now, Blockbuster has skipped the next disc on my queue. I should be getting Disc 1 of Season Two, but instead, it sent me Disc 2. So I returned a non-Grey’s Anatomy DVD … and instead I got Disc 4.
What the hell??? Because I really want to watch everything in order, I don’t even know what to do now. I can’t watch Disc 2 before Disc 1. Do I return Disc 4, hoping that I’ll get Disc 1 in the mail? Ugh. I’m really annoyed.
January 11, 2007 at 11:46 pm · Filed under daily grind
I came home to find this in the hallway outside my door …
Yes, thank you. I was looking for a toilet on my way home.
December 28, 2006 at 1:54 am · Filed under daily grind
I’ve been home for a few days now, and I don’t feel at home. Because of certain disagreements that will never be resolved between my parents and me, I don’t feel very comfortable being around them. I don’t want them to bring up topics that I don’t want to discuss because we fundamentally disagree, and no matter what I say, they will tell me that I’m wrong. What’s the point of having that conversation?
I feel like I’m always on edge because even when we’re just hanging out, having dinner, or when I’m on my computer, and my dad’s on his … any moment, he could start “discussing” things with me again. And I say “discussing” because that’s what they say, but really it’s let’s-talk-about-this-until-shan-changes-her-mind-to-our-way-of-thinking.
This really sucks. I’ve always been happy that I am close to my parents, that they are understanding and supportive not unreasonable. Now I just want to get out of the house. I think this is the first time I’ve been home that I haven’t been happy to be here.
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