Taking an idea from Lele and also her teaching of the b2-cut. A smattering of webcam over the last 4 years of college. I got my Quickcam with my desktop Compaq Presario (I think it was one of the major deciding factors in getting that computer). Yet, I couldn\’t figure out how to focus or sharpen during my freshman year and magically found out during my sophomore year.

Of course, I rarely use my webcam nowadays because I have my digital camera which takes better shots than the grainy ones I get with the Quickcam. But I have also reverted back to the belief that people judge blogs based on how the author looks like rather than the content. HUH HUH AIN\’T IT TRUE!

And so I present the last four years in webcammage:

Continue reading →

Did I mention how much I disliked \”ending\” statements in an instant message?

Statements such as:
i see
ok
yeah
k

Statements that obviously don\’t deserve a response. It makes me want to respond, ok, i hate you too!

Of course, I do the same sometimes when I can\’t think of anything else to say. My own versions come out as that\’s good or how interesting.

But the fact is, being the person I am, I tend to look for an underlying meaning. Does she not want to talk to me anymore? Is she busy and am I taking up her time? Is it meant to be a short conversation? Is he just not interested in talking to me?

Obviously, there are times when I mean the conversation to end. However, it bothers me when people do it when I don\’t know their intention. Back to my desire to read people\’s minds. Back in the day when IM was new, I was heavily insulted when people would disappear without saying bye. Nowadays, it\’s the norm to just im some small idea and then that\’s it.

Many couples I know had their relationship cultivated through AIM. If AIM never existed, they never would have gotten to a comfort level thta would have propelled them in a relationship. But what happens if we are moving into a habit of sproadic ims, what happens then? Are instant messaging conversations just based around needs and wants? Maybe it\’s me that\’s changing, but I dislike really random ims. Then again, I dislike talking to certain people. I mean a certain someone (HI CERTAIN SOMEONE!) But what of our culture? What will kind of IM culture will be like in 10 years?

I somehow convinced myself that the convocation was a once in a lifetime kind of thing. That never again would I have a chance to attend a convocation for class of 2004. So I went with a friend from work and her roommates. My other friends who were graduating were busy with their own thing.

The ceremony was long. Since it was the Greek Theatre, we sat outside under the burning sun. I used the program to fan my face and shield my eyes. My sunglasses just weren\’t enough, I could feel my black hair heat up my entire face. Some of the speakers were very cliched. Most people ended their speeches with the typical \”GO BEARS\”!

The sad part was when Chancellor Berdahl was speaking. During the speech, some people started chanting \”Shame on you!\” I didn\’t really understand what they were protesting about. Their signs said something along the lines of \”Shame on Berdahl. Justice for Chapelle.\” I didn\’t get it. Random people told the protestors to shut up…show respect for the speaker. Apparently, Berdhal was slightly surprised because he stuttered the rest of his speech. Several officers approached the protestors and later they were escorted out of the Greek Theatre (as shown in the picture). But what a useless protest. The entire theatre probably didn\’t appreciate such actions…thus leading to an increase of indifference toward their cause.

The keynote speaker this year was Ted Koppel, that anchorman of ABC\’s \”Nightline\”. Compared with 2002\’s Johnny Moseley, it was so much better. But can I say that I was disappointed? Koppel\’s speech was mainly about how we should honor our parents who got us to college and how tough the real world is. He focused on how C+ students (he was supposedly a C+ undergrad at Stanford) will always be the presidents or vice presidents. Not to mention, he emphasized how the world isn\’t fair because non-Berkeley alumni will always be our supervisors. Then worst of all, he went onto to discuss the war in Iraq (how is that relevent?). But that\’s not the worst, he said, \”I know most of you are opposed to the war, but…i am not.\” Hello? He\’s saying this in Berkeley! His whole speech was political and warned us about what kind of world we\’re entering. No advice. Just brutal truth. At least he said (being a Stanford alumnus), \”Go bears\” albeit reluctantly.

I was exploring the photo gallery of Rescomp (where I work) today and found the following picture:

It\’s one of the few pictures that I was in. And guess what, while everyone was chatting with each other, I was the one eating! In that moment, I think I was dissecting my burger. I suddenly decided I didn\’t like the bun and began pulling the entire thing apart. Unfortunately, the whole thing came apart and I had to eat bit by bit using my fingers. Thus, the photo.

I loved Lele\’s idea of posting a phone number. It was more of an experiment than an actual call-me plea. Of course, what\’s surprising is that nobody…calls. Nobody would unless given the okay either through a blog comment or an instant message.

But what interests me the most is this so-called polite boundary that people are reluctant to cross. It\’s almost the exact thing I am doing research on at GUIR (informal research if anything). This year I got involved with the privacy stuff…how people really are worried about releasing their location, their address, their phone number, etc. We imagine all these worse-case scenarios, yet how often do they really happen? Our phone number is widely available in the white pages, but the only annoyance we get is marketing phone calls. By posting a phone number on the web, who really cares? Not to mention my street address, who would really come? There is nobody (except myself) that is a good stalker. Nobody has the patience to pursue something that may or may not have a plausible relationship. Why are we so worried about our privacy when there is no real risk?

It\’s sad, but people just…don\’t…care.

I received 3 surprising things today. A few days ago, the graduate student I am working with for research sent me an e-mail saying he had something cool for me. My interest was piqued, but I didn\’t want to seem TOO enthuastic. Could it be free tuition next fall? Maybe it was free food! Candy! And to my surprise today, he got me the NO I WILL NOT FIX YOUR COMPUTER t-shirt! I almost died (out of happiness), but I retained my composure. Although the t-shirt is too big for me (it seems like almost everyone who got me a thinkgeek t-shirt neglected my size, but that\’s OK), I was so pleased! Now I can add to the collection of the I\’M BLOGGING THIS shirt from Seth and the defunct DON\’T BLAME ME IT\’S A HARDWARE PROBLEM. from Shroom.

Then for some odd reason, my coworker suddenly became nostalgic. I was slightly irritated at his complaints about how he wanted school to be over and how he disliked work (how he wanted work to be over too). So I wasn\’t being particularly nice (*cough*) or attentive to his concerns. Suddenly over my focus on residents\’ computers, he asked me where I was going next year. I told him that I was going across country to Pittsburgh, PA. He reacted in a surprising way, since we never had never achieved that balance of \”friendship\”. He gave a sad look…for a second…\”so far away!\” he exclaimed. I raised my eyebrows and finished up the laptops I was working on. As I was about to leave, he told me to hold on a second. He wrote something on a post-it and told me to look at it when I needed it. I gave him a curious look and put the folded note in my pocket. I went to my appointment and when I had to wait to let the comptuer scan, I pulled the note out of my pocket. It piqued my curiousity–was he going to be indifferent as I was to him? was it going to be a silly note?

Instead, the note simply read, Be successful in all that you do! Love, Monty

After the appointment, I went back to the computing center and thanked him.

When I returned to my apartment, I saw a small box sitting on my desk. Definitely something that came in the mail. To my surprise, it had a Google sticker. I couldn\’t recall ordering anything online for the last few months. I opened the box and inside was a nalgene bottle with a Google logo. Then there was a note inside. Apparently, they had received my application for the human computer interaction internship, but they received over 2000 applications for 75 positions and couldn\’t accept several highly qualified applicants…like me? It was a nice gift, but it makes me wonder if all 2000 applicants received a bottle or just highly qualified applicants like myself.

Oh yes, lest we forget that my cousin Alan proposed to me today. INCEST!

From time to time, I wonder what kind of impression people have of me when they visit my blog. Because of various incidents, I rarely give out my url to people I recently met. I don\’t include the url in my aim info anymore.

But I don\’t want to be a stealth blogger like some people I know. I have an urge to express myself and a need to receive attention.

But what will people think when they read this conversation from last year? It has been almost a year since it happened and I do look back on it, fondly with amusement.

I was appalled the moment I discovered that my parents got involved in a Chinese soap opera.

It was about some girl that had fallen in love with a guy when she was young, but her mother or something made her leave. Then she met a new guy but the old guy had come back. Then she got pregnant somehow and the new guy thinks it\’s his child, but it might be the old guy\’s child. Then the parents appear. And as most soap opera goes, someone cheated on who and it\’s really not her mother? Are they siblings?

Both of my parents work. But I was shocked to find them behaving like housewives, gossiping about how the soap opera could occur…about who slept with who…

If you overhear people talking about a tv show, you would think they were talking about real people. How would you keep track of what is real and what is not? Last year in my cognitive linguistics class, I learned it was mental models. This year in my philosophy of language class, it\’s all about the pretend speech acts.

One skill I would like to have: mind-reading.

There is so much said that we don\’t really mean. There\’s so much we want to say, but we don\’t say it because we\’re being polite or we\’re afraid to express ourselves. We are afraid of the consequences, because we don\’t know how the hearer will react.

I want to read people\’s minds and not have to guess what they\’re thinking.

But yet, there was a study done on couples. If a couple was totally in tune with each other\’s thoughts, their relationship wasn\’t that great. At the same time, if the couple didn\’t hear each other\’s thoughts at all, then the relationship wasn\’t great. Optimally, it was supposed to be somewhere in the middle–that both people would know 50% of each other\’s thoughts.

But for me, I dislike guessing. I would rather know. Pry into your mind, please!

It\’s strange. Being an INFJ, I am worn out really quickly by all the interaction I had to do with people. Just for work. When I return to my apartment, I can\’t really think clearly. Everything is race race. Maybe it\’s because I put so much energy toward interacting with people that I have none left for myself.

Tomorrow I am getting a tour of Cory Hall by anderson. :D