No Fate but What We Make

My journal has undergone a total makeover to represent my current attitudes in life.

I really don't update this thing anymore.

Oh well. I guess that's a good thing? It means I've matured past it...

Today, February 12, 2008, was the first time in my life I voted!!!

I left feeling SO AWESOME!!! Seriously, walking out of my polling place, I realized how much I love this country. I get a voice in the political process. Not just that, but it's my CIVIC DUTY. I love being able to do that.

I love it!

Every nasty, horrific, scathing thing I've ever heard someone say about Microsoft is true.

So I got a new computer like 2 weeks ago. It came with an awesome trial version of Microsoft Office 2007. Dude, IT'S SO COOL. The interface is shiny and useful and all that amazing stuff. Anyway, today the trial version decided it was going to expire, and being that I have my last final tomorrow this was not a good time for that to happen because I have a bunch of notes I need to type up. So I uninstalled it (tear tear) and went ahead and plugged in my Office 2003 disk that I bought with my last computer. Well anyway, the uninstallation took forever, and the installation took forever, but in the end Office 2003 was safe and sound on my computer.

Anyway, I typed of one of my sets of notes, and decided to configure Outlook 2003 to work with my mail. For those of you who don't know, I connect to the University's mail servers using Outlook instead of the stupid internet client that sucks. It's a much friendlier, cozier atmosphere, and it works with my PDA too. Nice little unified world there. Anyway, I configure it, and when I'm done I get a very strange message I don't recognize: "The IMAP store could not be properly updated. You may want to restart Outlook before proceeding." Now I'm pretty good with computers, and even I could tell that was an error. So I tried again figuring I did something wrong, and the same error came up. Right about now I was getting pretty concerned, so I went ahead and looked up the error I was getting on Google.

AND NOW FOR THE FUN PART. Ladies and Gentlemen, THIS is why MICROSOFT loves YOU!

Apparently in uninstalling Office 2007, the software package decided to take a bunch of system files with it! Apparently Microsoft asked itself why the hell anyone would want to remove a trial package of $400 dollar software after it stopped working and put in its place an older version of that software FOR WHICH THEY GET NO MONEY, so they unilaterally decided you won't be needing the system files to run it either! This was a GREAT time for this to happen, you know, with a final tomorrow that I have to get an A on or I don't get an A in the class (literally. 44/50 means I get a B+)

And in other news...damn it's been a while since I posted here.

But at least my new computer is hot.

Even though it doesn't work for the one thing I actually need it for.

Down to the last...

Proof that I have grown more conservative in the last 8 months.

I am: 69% Republican.

"I bet you'd like Democrats okay if they wouldn't keep handing out your paycheck to urban welfare cheats, right? (And you probably don't want me to be saying anything about 'urban' being some kind of code word, I bet.)"

Are You A Republican?

The original can be found here.

http://billfiredrake.livejournal.com/233148.html

What you did was so cruel... it was almost evil. But that no longer matters.

You will never know love. You will never know true companionship. And I feel sorry for you.

School starts again tomorrow. I'm almost glad because I hate sitting around here bored.

Apartment looks nice though...

I lost my virginity today.

It was to a latex glove and a gastroenterologist named Ann.

My dignity went along with it.

Kill me now.

It's official, I'm going to cry.

In Russian, the verb Снимать/Снять (don't even ask me about aspectual pairs...) is a very cute little verb. VEEEEEEEEEERY SPECIAL. Oh yes. This one verb means...

To shoot (a film)
To rent (an apartment)
To take off (hate, glasses)

...HOW THE HELL ARE THOSE RELATED IN THE LEAST?!?! WHAT IF TAKE OFF MY GLASSES WHILE SHOOTING A FILM OF ME PAYING MY RENT?!?!?!?!?!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Last night while walking Shelby, I was stung in the neck by what we now think to be a Hornet. Given that as a child I was deathly allergic to bees, I figured it would have been a matter of seconds before I went into anaphylatic shock--and minutes before I died.

Obviously I didn't.

After running back upstairs, keeping my hand over the spot, I practically screamed "Dad, I've just been stung in the neck by a bee." It only took one look at the spot for him to see the whole area--about the size of a grapefruit--had turned red and swelled to the point of elevation. Dad rushed me to the Emergency Room immediately.

Long story short, I'm on steroids and Benadryl as a precaution to make sure my body completely fights off the venom. Otherwise I'm alive.

How frightening.

OMG I FELT LIKE A 13 YEAR OLD GIRL.


Add Glitter to Pictures

For reasons I can't at all explain, I'm feeling extremely nostalgic tonight. It all started with thinking about random things, and realizing that it's been many years since I last played with my Gameboy. One thing led to another, and I started thinking about a lot of the things over the years I loved with so much passion and vigor that ended up dying out. Animorphs, for those of you who remember it, was a book series I loved so much when I was around 9-10. I got curious tonight about what exactly happened to the series, whether it ever finished or not. Needless to say it was finished, and I read a brief synopsis of the conclusion and got so overwhelmed with nostalgia that I realize now, 8 years after the last time I read an Animorphs book, that I hate the fact that I never finished the series. I'm so inspired right now, that I'm almost thinking of buying the entire series just so I can finially finish it and leave one less thing unfinished. This isn't a cheap proposition either, FYI. One option I saw in passing is an auction, which includes the entire book series and the peripherals for a "mere" 150 dollars. I got through 14 of them (the last I did for a book report in 6th grade, I remember doing so but not at all what the book was on). The series concluded at 54, not including a handfull of necessary side stories. And no, guys, these aren't exactly heavy reading. The biggest books of the series were at max 250 pages in large print and with double spacing.

But it didn't end there. I started thinking about Pokemon again, and I realized that I never finished Silver. I was not even half way through it. I remember Blue/Yellow very distinctly, but Silver I don't at all remember--probably because I partially played it once, and never even finished it never even mind replayed it several times like I did with Blue. So now I'm inspired to dig out my Gameboy as soon as I get home and pick up where I left off. That should be interesting considering it's been about 8 years since I last played Pokemon, and probably 5 since I even last touched my Gameboy. This might prove to be interesting after all.

I don't know what brought it on, but suddenly I feel so compelled, so possessed, to pick up these things and finish them. Perhaps it was the fact that one of the first things I did when I got my Wii (yes I got one) was buy Sonic the Hedgehog, which brought back tons of memories from being a kid. Then days later, I felt compelled to download the Shareware version of Duke Nukem 3D and play that a little. I have no idea what's going on with me lately, but I just feel compelled to jump back half my life and do things that I enjoyed when I was 10. Yeah Animorphs is a childrens' book series, and Pokemon isn't exactly an adult obsession either, but I don't give a damn. I loved these things so much for such a long time, and there has to be a reason that suddenly tonight they've come back and hit me so hard.

This is hot.




Some more interesting figures:

Gender Averages
Male Average: 19.15
Female Average: 17.44

Ethnicity Averages
East Indian 19.1
White/Caucasian 18.37
Pacific Islander 17.73
Asian 17.44
Native American 17.41
Middle Eastern 17.36
Black/African Descent 17.31
Other 17.3
Latino/Hispanic 17.06


And here I thought females would be smarter than males, and Asians would be the smartest. Hehehehe.

A quote from an ad on hair restoration:

"80% of feeling good is looking good."

Am I the only one disturbed by this equation?

I just saw a Facebook group, "Burn in Hell, Jerry Falwell", and I sit here and shake my head. This is the height of immaturity.

He did what he believed in. He stood up for his beliefs in a society that rejected them. But he stood by them. He didn't change his beliefs to suit the times, as is so prevalent in today's world. He stayed with his beliefs despite the fact that they were unpopular. He did not compromise his values for anyone. No, I did not like Jerry Falwell. No, I did not agree with his beliefs. Yes, I thought they were inflammatory and horrible, but they were his. He stood by them. And I respect him for that.

When I said to a close friend that it bothers me that so many people would compromise their values just to improve their lives a little bit, she responded, "I don't particularly see the problem in that... it's nice to have concrete values, but not always practical." This bothered me to no end. Having taken a class this past semester where the underlying theme of the entire semester focused on issues of integrity and morality--"sticking to your guns" in the face of adversity, so to speak--I've explored this issue at great length and had plenty of time to come to my own conclusions. To me, it is far more important to stick to your own beliefs and values than to bend to what is more widely accepted; sticking to what is right rather than what is easy. To me, knowing that what I've done is right is far greater a feeling than that I would get having compromised my values for a small material gain. Again, I don't believe Jerry Falwell was right--he preached hate discrimination--but I think this is a far greater issue in society than just Jerry Falwell's beliefs. In fact, this isn't even about Jerry Falwell anymore; it's about society at large. Is society so corrupted that anyone will compromise any value to improve his life? Or does an idea still carry more weight than a dollar?

Discuss.

Finalizing my new career direction. Criminal Law and Criminal Prosecution. Thoughts?

Using the case of Iran, contrast proscriptions and strategies to address the problem of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that can be derived from the liberal perspective with these stemming from realist perspective. (Don’t forget to take into account the UN Security Council Resolution 1737)

My Paper:

We should use bombs...liberally.





Think I'll get an A?

Stolen from a friend.

Now THIS is what I like to see.

Dealer: FiatJustitia has a straight flush, Seven to Jack
Dealer: Game #9620305921: FiatJustitia wins pot (3770) with a straight flush, Seven to Jack

Damn computer didn't have enough memory for the screencap...it was an awesome sight.