Having no desk is getting to me. Every night, I spent hours just sitting on my bed with my laptop on my lap doing my usual thing. Now I am wondering why I using my baby PB every day throughout the summer, rarely using the desktop. The keyboard is feeling cramped. I want to use my microsoft keyboard. I want to use a numeric keypad rather than struggle with that row of keys at the top. And most of all, i want to use my mouse.

I also need a monitor. A lcd monitor. But the way I am doing things, it seems like I won\’t purchase one for another week. Laziness. I still haven\’t ordered new checks from my brand new PNC bank account.

In other news, I have been very lucky to receive a graduate assistantship. To think, last year if I hadn\’t e-mail a graduate student asking about research…I wouldn\’t be where I am today. Last year, around this time, I had finished taking my first GRE intending to apply to low-level, below-mediocre graduate schools in computer science (e.g. San Jose State), especially those that didn\’t require a letter of recommendation. At that time, I thought that only a masters in computer science would secure me a good job even if I didn\’t enjoy programming that much. I was so ready to pursue that path until…the research and exposure to GUIR…turned me to the path of human computer interaction. What if I never e-mailed the graduate student (now the professor that I\’ll be working with…for the next 2 semesters)? What if I had lost my courage and submitted to my limited cognitive science degree? I would probably still be in the Bay Area. Would I have met the same people I did during the summer? What if I had turned down the graduate student\’s offer of research to do lowly undergraduate work in URAP? It\’s choices like these that can change my entire path in life.