Orkut came up with this new idea of having weekly columns and photos. Ok. Now. When I first got the e-mail, I thought this would be an opportunity for my dream…come true. To be published. To be famous. To be read by many people. To have others feel my words and be moved. Emotionally. For life.

Then, I read the fine print.

License Grant. All Materials submitted become the property of orkut and its affiliates and may be used, copied, edited, distributed, displayed, redistributed and/or republished in any medium.

Wait a minute. NO?!?!?! I would not want my material published anywhere without my name explicitly attached. I don\’t want to be legally binded. And that I could never publish my work in any other form again.

Sigh.

I hate having a dry cough. And the cough attacks that come along with that.

To kill myself or not to kill myself?

During my last semester in Berkeley, I regretted not taking many courses. I never got to take social psych by one of the famed professors. I never got to take a marketing course in Haas. I never took the female sexuality course or the b00bies course. I never took an art class. I never took Japanese or Latin. I never took a creative writing course. I don\’t know how to do darkroom.

So it\’s class registration now. I am technically a part-time student and am supposed to take only 2 classes. But right now I am \”registered\” for 42 units which is 4 classes for next semester. And it\’s all because I don\’t want to regret not taking a course. My part-time job is supposed to be 20 hours/week. So that equals 42+20 = 62 hours of work per week. Sounds about right?

On another note, it\’s troubling how society places so much emphasis on pairs. When you go to a restaurant, the server will look at you funny if you ask for a table for one. \”Are you waiting for somebody? Can you use your extra chair?\” Dancing was made for only pairs. And why do people look at me funny when I decided to get a twin bed (because a bed any bigger would not fit in my room…) Why do toasters come with two slots? What happened to being an inDUHdual???

Yesterday was the toga party held in my house. It was a celebration of the birthdays of my two housemates, a phd student, and a masters student. PHOTOZ

Nobody understood the signifcance of my golden apple. Ever heard of the apple of discord? Thrown by Eris, the goddess of discord? Hmmph I guess not. That which started the Trojan war?

Ok, maybe not.

Anyway, I thought it was funny how some people are so unpredictable. And how parties are a ripe ground for seeding. And how there was some guy that didn\’t own a sheet but just had a towel on…but it turns out he had shorts underneath. That was disappointing. Especially when he kept saying YOU CAN TOUCH, BUT YOU CAN\’T LOOK!

Compared with Berkeley\’s list of student-taught classes, CMU stuco courses seem relatively tame.

Selecting my schedule shouldn\’t be as hard as my last semester in Berkeley, but somehow I am caught in indecisiveness. Should I be a typical part-time student and take only 2 courses? Or should I take advantage of the fact the university considers me as a full-time student and take 3 courses?

Right now, I definitely have to take:

Programmable User Interfaces
I am sort of excited for this one. Finally, I get to assert my minimal programming skills to create interfaces. People say this course is time-consuming, but how can it be time-consuming when you\’re doing something you love? And iterations abound. I assume we\’ll be creating an interface and bettering it as the semester goes by. Hopefully, there\’s no busy work like creating code for programs that are irrelevant in the real world.

Interaction and Interface Design
Again, excited! At the beginning of the semester, I was very nervous about Communication Design Fundamentals, because it felt so disorienting to have my work critiqued in front of everyone. But now I feel better about it. And I like seeing other people\’s work…and getting feedback about my own. Seems like this is how IID will be like. And furthermore, the course seems like I\’ll actually come away with something to show to potential employers. That I created THIS.

And what about my third course? Considering how I enjoy a class more if there\’s people I know in there…I am slightly wary of stepping outside HCI. Yet my interests aren\’t similar to other people\’s in the program. I was thinking of a Pro-Social Behavior seminar, a Studio X: Home 2020 (you get to design a futuristic house with sensors and everything!!!! so cool!), Conceptual Models…

Anyway, thinking of a StuCo class. Unlike History of Breasts…they have, you guess it, How to be a Player (apparently people at CMU are undateable – the course is about the science of dating, how to get a date, how to be charming, how to be appealing to others – but I thought I already got this one down?)

\”You have a fever of 101?!\” one of my classmates exclaimed in the masters lounge.

And just like that, everyone turned around looked at me. I smiled sheepishly, knowing that I should probably be at home resting. But the way I always structured my obligations…I always neglect my health, while making sure I have all my work done.

And because I was sick, I had lost my voice too. Most of the day, I just practically whispered. During my only class, the instructor asked me a question and I just nodded. She gave me a look and said, \”Oooh, that\’s ok..\” That makes me wonder…am I more approachable because I am more quiet? Maybe I seem nicer just because I can\’t speak. :)

I went to the concert, against some people\’s recommendations. I cannot miss out on JEW. Although…this time, we were a free-standing club. So we eased ourselves into the crowd…the music was great, except that the crowd was rowdy (high schoolers!) Being shoved back and forth is not my greatest idea of having fun. But hey, maybe I am getting too old. Not like my sister though.

Goodbye Sky Harbor…

Of all the days I had to get the flu, it just had to be this one. Normally, I would do all my usual things without really regarding my own health. In Berkeley, there was once when I did a cs project with a 101 degree fever.

But why today. Why. I purchased tickets to Jimmy Eat World (one of my favorite bands) more than a month ago. Today is the concert. The way to get to the venue is a journey itself. Hopping and transferring buses. But now my head feels so horrible. And I have a deadline for tomorrow…for a project on my job…gah, why today.

So it goes? My competitive spirit before was about me being very contagious so as I got better everyone else got worse. But I am reluctant to do that. Sort of unfair to spread to my classmates…since all our work is collaborative.

We\’ll see how I endure the day…

Ugh, I got sick. And because of that, I woke up at 8 am today (90 minutes before I was supposed to wake up), then I felt…horrible for the rest of my long Wednesday. I missed watching Before Sunset at the UC. Sigh. JEW tomorrow, hopefully I\’ll feel better tomorrow.

So big question of the month: how do you reach someone who doesn\’t want to be reached? That is, how do you contact someone who doesn\’t pick up her phone? Who doesn\’t answer her e-mails? Who deleted her blog? And journals? Deleted her friendster profile? And deleted her orkut profile? And never goes on AIM anymore. And she who lives more than 8 hours from me. How do you reach someone who purposefully disappeared without any word? And how do you find out if she\’s ok? How do you reach someone who you had considered to be a (best) friend, but decided to disappear completely? How do you that?

Ironically, last year I had wondered (pessimistically) about how I could disappear and people wouldn\’t notice. Ultimately, that\’s not true. There\’s always someone watching, keeping tabs on you. You will be missed on the message boards, the blogs, and the journal comments. You will be missed for your input, your words. And the difference you used to make.

My housemate\’s birthday is today! Happy 24th, Carol! :)

And we\’re having a \”house party\” this Saturday with the theme TOGA PARTY. Out of boredom (and procrastination) yesterday, I created the following logo:

TOGA IT YOUR WAY.

Awesome. I picked up that word from my classmates. I never used it before in my life, but all these midwest, east coast people use it to describe a sarcastic moment. An unbelievable moment, and just about anything else.

It\’s amazing that there\’s so many people all around the country. Louisana, Illinois, Tennessee, New York, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Montana, Virginia, Arizona, Missouri and of course California. Wait, what happened to Pennsylvania? And other countries too – Korea, Hong Kong, Canada, India, Singapore… What happened to Europe?

Today during my lab presentation, one of my team members accidentally turned on the overheard projector light. Just for a second during my presentation. And for some reason, I started laughing. And couldn\’t stop. I tried going on with my presentation but the words that I was saying weren\’t clear at all. So I was forced to give a nice 10 second pause while the entire class watched me attempt to recover. Fortunately (or unfortunately) they laughed too…at me, I think? Definitely not with me. :)

Chwong says that kind of incident makes me very memorable.