{"id":1062,"date":"2004-07-11T22:42:03","date_gmt":"2004-07-12T05:42:03","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T08:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/?p=1062","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had always been anti-war.  Not that I am a pacifist (people know how easily I cause drama when my blood is boiled), but rather I didn\\&#8217;t agree with the invasion of Iraq.  So I had been intrigued when I overheard some girl arguing how wrong the war was.  She spoke so loudly, arguing with some people she was sitting with.  A full blown debate.  She wore a t-shirt proclaiming her stance on war.  While I ate my fish sandwich and french fries, I stared at them.  I thought about joining the conversation, but then I realized that it won\\&#8217;t do any good.  People are often unbiased prior to entering a debate.  Yet by the end of debate where they are nearly forced to choose a side, they find themselves so much to the extreme right or extreme left.  Not to mention, last year I learned during another anti-war debate, that people can get so defensive that personal feelings are hurt.  I had taken a short leave from an online community as a result.  So I got up and walked around the airport, looking for a power outlet to charge my powerbook.<\/p>\n<p>By the time I returned to the gate, they had already started boarding.  I heard the girl still talking amongst her group.  But now it was about presidents.  How so many presidents cannot avoid scandals.  Now I realized how pretentious all that was.  It seemed like she was influenced by Michael Moore\\&#8217;s \\&#8221;documentaries\\&#8221;, which are very obviously biased.  It seemed like she was just arguing for the sake of arguing about politics.  To appear like a liberal San Francisco resident?  In the end, it doesn\\&#8217;t really matter how much you debate, but as long as you do something about it.  It\\&#8217;s all about <i>if you don\\&#8217;t like how something is done, then go out and do something about it<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>And so ends my first journey to Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n<p>Things I am looking forward to:<\/p>\n<li>living REALLY FAR away from home<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>living in a large city, only 20 minute bus ride to downtown<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>art museums!<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Pittsburgh symphony<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>the mhci program &#8211; very excited to get started<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>hopefully research with an incoming cmu professor :)<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>having my sister visit me after visiting her over the last 3 years<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>having my OWN room in a house, instead of staying in a living room like I have the last 3 years in Berkeley<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>all the people I will meet, especially people passionate about hci &#8211; maybe some people who are as interested as I am in the dynamics of \\&#8221;stalking\\&#8221;<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>a restart, a makeover, starting over<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Newell-Simon hall (and maybe Wean Hall) which is \\&#8221;better\\&#8221; than Soda Hall<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>my \\&#8221;own\\&#8221; office<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>attending the CHI conferences &#8211; unfortunately, it\\&#8217;s going in Portland Oregon next year rather than in Europe :(<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>wireless internet EVERYWHERE!<\/li>\n<p>things I am not looking forward to:<\/p>\n<li>cold winters &#8211; I don\\&#8217;t know why Socalers complain about NorCal weather.  It\\&#8217;s really not that bad <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>muggy summers &#8211;  I expected that a cool breeze would come during the hot nights in Pittsburgh like in the Bay Area, but it didn\\&#8217;t&#8230;it stayed&#8230;hot.  And yes, the program goes through the summer.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>dragging my stuff all the way from California<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>long flights from California (not that many direct flights to Pittsburgh) usually around 8 hours one way including layover<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>no car :(<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>absence of recycling throughout the majority of Pittsburgh &#8211; ever since, I was young I have always put papers in a separate pile as wells as bottles\/cans\/plastic<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>no more 10 after times (in Berkeley, 4 pm means 4:10 pm.  Everything is 10 minutes late!<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>no Cingular cellular provider? :(<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>no landline &#8211; although I wonder why this bothers me, maybe it\\&#8217;s because I always think I\\&#8217;ll run out of minutes and I hate the idea of someone always being able to reach me<\/li>\n<p>on a side note: I have always disliked comments that are \\&#8221;empty\\&#8221;.  That is, the comments don\\&#8217;t really have anything do with my entry.  (you can always e-mail\/im me)  *cough* I think you know who you are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had always been anti-war. Not that I am a pacifist (people know how easily I cause drama when my blood is boiled), but rather I didn\\&#8217;t agree with the invasion of Iraq. So I had been intrigued when I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/?p=1062\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/of.jennism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}