I just realized.
After nearly four years together, when he picks me up, he still comes to the door to get me. Every. Single. Time. I doubt he thinks much of it, but it’s the little chivalrous things that he does that really hit me sometimes. What a catch.
1 Comment »Everything feels the same. And yet, I know it’s different.
Starting very soon, things will change.
No Comments »First final of the last finals period: I sat equipped with a brand new mechanical pencil, marking the ones I knew for sure (a grand total of 2). Scribbled somewhat logical, if not completely fabricated, reasonings onto the back of my scantron. Filled in my name again at the front of the room because the TA asked me to. Handed in the extra sheets and ambled back up the awkward steps of the Bloomberg auditorium, wondering if everyone could tell I had opted to merely roll out of bed this morning instead of prepping and studying. Walked out into the unusually chilly air and contemplated what would happen if I completely bombed the final and ended up with an unsatisfactory grade. Dismissed my thought just as quickly as it had arisen. Walked back to my apartment to lie in my bed, as I am now. Wondered when I will ever learn that sleep is probably more valuable than wasted time on the Internet. Made a mental note to educate myself properly in InDesign, Flash, and the Pantone color spectrum. Made a mental note to find my favorite Pantone color to act presumptuous and art school-y. Contemplated picking up smoking just to make use of my balcony next year. Wondered why I am so stupid. Decided to go to sleep before further delirium set in.
No Comments »I always get the most impatient, the most anxious about seeing F right before it happens. He comes in two weeks and I cannot wait to see him after nearly six months.. the longest we’ve been away from each other and somehow, the easiest it’s been. Time, maybe, or rather my being preoccupied with everything that’s gone on this semester.
It’s going to be really weird not being so far away from him all the time. My mind is overrun with questions — will we get sick of each other? Will I want my own space? Will I revert to being a stage 5 clinger? Will we fall apart?
Everybody thinks we are so perfect and brave, and they always ask me, how do you do it? It’s been almost four years now, four years of just waiting for a resolution that might not live up to its expectations. I can’t imagine not being happy to be with him, but I am scared to death. Scared that for some reason, we might only work away from each other. Scared that he will finally realize just how crazy I am, or that maybe, over four years and so many miles, we’ve grown apart.
Every now and then, I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years has gone by…
No Comments »Whenever you fill out an “About Me” section anywhere, there is inevitably the question: “Who is your hero?”
I struggled with this for a while. It’s so cliche to say, “your parents.” But not like I ever had anyone else to look up to. Batman? I’m not even really into comics. God? I kind of loathe religion. My parents? My parents.
My mom is my hero for working overtime, six days out of the week, night shift, decreasing her lifespan by 10% (as she likes to tell me often, for some ridiculous reason). My mom is my hero for cleaning and cooking and being patient and taking care of everybody in our damn house. For always letting me buy new shoes and clothes and things I don’t use, shoes I’m supposed to share with her but take to Baltimore. For never relenting. For surviving not having LMN which was her only guilty pleasure. For surviving everything that she did, that she has never revisited, never got closure, for the sake of all of us.
My dad is my hero for always telling me I could do anything, even if he was always telling me to do something else. For keeping up appearances when his ego was bruised, for being reduced to so little after he was at the top. For being the best stay-at-home dad he could for four years and adding a ridiculous amount of value to our house with his bare hands. For always being protective of me because I’m his little girl. For being optimistic, at least to my face, when I couldn’t see anything else. For going through this even though he doesn’t deserve any of it at all. For giving me everything he deserved for himself.
Sometimes I am such an utter failure. A disappointment for not having more self-control, for being selfish, for forgetting what they did to get here to have me and my brother. A bitch for not doing more. An idiot for not doing anything about it.
The things they did to get here….. I need to prove to them that it was all worth it. And I need to do it now.
No Comments »Working on my last college paper. For my last college class which will end today at 1:15 PM.
Right now, I couldn’t care less. Boy, am I tired. Sleep deprivation does really mess with your head — my reactions are so much slower, my emotions are permanently subdued, and my heart is thumping in my chest. Not fast, not slow, just.. thump. thump. And clearly I am delirious.
I wonder how this will compare to MAS (she asked the air, devoid of any emotion whatsoever).
No Comments »I’ve been flying high for the last couple of days. Got into my dream school, with only minor anxiety attacks with the wait. Had a wonderfully bittersweet last KDPhi formal. Realized that I’ve really gotta live it up over the next couple of weeks. Realized that wow, I’m growing up and it is so damn exciting to do new things.
But then Hopkins came back and kicked me in the ass. Thanks, JHU. You never fail to give me a reality check. Two papers due over the next couple days and some long nights ahead.
P.S. I love having inside info about Positive Psych and the “intradepartment controversy,” hee hee.
No Comments »I’ve been rather geekily invested in the recent Gizmodo Lost iPhone saga. At first I was stoked when Henry texted (ok, Pinged) me: I rushed to class, flung open my laptop, and reveled in all the leaked glory. But from the start, before I even read the article, I had a suspicion:
Dude whoevers that was… is in DEEP shit. Unless it was all a ploy by Apple [~10:30 EST]
The more I read, and the more they explained, the more questions I had. Confirmed reports of Nick Denton’s “checkbook journalism” arose, leading to questions about Gawker/Gizmodo’s journalistic integrity. Gawker paid the source $5,000 (supposedly after Engadget had rejected a $10,000 offer for the same piece of equipment) and Gizmodo editors appeared on multiple news networks this morning, no doubt raking in the cash for “image rights.” They then proceeded to post the name of the poor Apple engineer who “lost” his prototype phone in Redwood City.
Besides questions about the legality of the whole transaction, there are just too many things wrong with their story, at least in my opinion, for it to be both real and moral.
Gizmodo claims:
OK. Seems straightforward, right? My problems with this:
So the Source is shady. OK, that’s out of the way. We can’t blame that all on Gizmodo, though, right?Hmmm.
Could it be that they had to get their story straight, as well as coordinate with Source and maybe Apple itself? At the very least, if the whole scheme wasn’t fabricated by Apple, Giz might have used the phone as leverage to a package deal (Apple gets phone back, Giz gets exclusive, entry to all future Apple keynotes, etc.).
The last question seems to be the most complex, however, both in terms of journalistic integrity and in the scheme of the Gizmapple conspiracy theory. GP does seem to be a real person, who indeed went to the university and worked at the companies he claimed (a quick Google search seems to verify). GP, however, thanks to posts on Twitter and Facebook, didn’t seem to be distressed about losing such a vital piece of equipment. In fact, he still associates with Apple on both sites, according to screenshots across the web.
In addition, before changing his Facebook name to be unsearchable to the public, his flickr stream (now deleted/private) had been prominently displayed on his info tab, showing pictures with the caption “Sent from myPhone.” Said pictures had been extremely high-quality and taken in low-light environments (e.g., from the nosebleed section of a Jay-Z concert), perhaps to exhibit the impressive features of the new iPhone with better camera and flash.
Some commenters also noticed that in order for Giz to publish the transcript of their phone conversation with him, they would have certainly had to have said they were on the record — something that a supposedly humiliated, shamed GP, self-conscious about losing the newest iPhone and about his job, never would have agreed to.
Giz claimed to “out” GP to the world in order to save his job with Apple (under the premise that Apple would get bad publicity for firing an employee who lost an extremely confidential piece of equipment, under an inevitably tight NDA, while drinking at a bar on his birthday. Yeah. I don’t think anything could save him.). But regardless of whether he was fired, his future career would have been almost certainly cursed, thanks to the 6.5 million Google hits under his name, most of which linking him to making a mistake that could have cost a company billions.
For me, the most likely scenario is that maybe it really was lost in a bar. Maybe the Source didn’t have the best intentions, hence the shoddily-made-up story, but did shop it around and ended up making some money (plus a solid contract keeping Source confidential). And Gizmodo used their new toy as leverage against Apple to get a huge, though heavily controlled, exclusive, without being blacklisted or sued into oblivion.
I guess we won’t ever know for sure, but honestly — it doesn’t make me any less likely to buy a new iPhone in June. My 3G is outdated thanks to OS 4.0 developments, and my dad is eager for the chance to have it. I’m excited for all that 4.0 offers and the possibility of a ceramic multitouch back surface (!!). And damn, if this was a carefully orchestrated Apple agenda all along, they have got to be the most clever marketing team in history, even more so than we all already thought. (Not clever enough to dupe some savvy Internet commenters, though.) I’m kind of a fangirl, I admit, but I also know that this would be a grand scheme that required a lot of creativity, and a lot of planning, to pull off.
Gizmodo, on the other hand — they may have experienced their biggest scoop, possibly ever, but a lot of loyal readers have turned away since yesterday. For now, I’ll keep reading to see what happens, but my perception has changed dramatically.
(They’ve just posted a response to the conspiracy theories, but it doesn’t seem to answer any of the pressing questions anybody has. Giz mentions that reporters have to step carefully in order to stay in Apple’s good graces, so why do the one thing to piss them off forever? The tone of this article is kind of all over the place and at some points even gives more credence to the conspiracy theory. Worst of all, it attempts to shift the blame onto the reader for so naively falling into a corporate trap of sorts. I’m still not buyin’ it.)
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