Month: December 2012

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Showing respect in the wake of tragedy?

If you’re reading this on the Internet, then you’ve probably been inundated with information from all sides about the shooting in a grade school in Newtown, Connecticut yesterday. Personally, I think it was disgusting. And I’m not just talking about what happened inside the school.

Immediately afterward, news reporters and camera crews arrived on the scene to “gather information”, which entailed a lot of pictures and videos of emotionally distraught parents, teachers, children… the pain on their faces was very real. Reading that kids were being interviewed just after their friends were killed makes me sick to my stomach. Yes, you want to get “the scoop”, but from five-year-olds who were scared for their lives, hearing screams coming through the intercom and seeing that kind of slaughter? Not cool. Not cool at all.

And then other people jumped at the chance to push their own political agendas. “Gun control!” “Stop trying to take away our guns!” “Without guns, this couldn’t have happened!” Yes, it could have happened. Do we have too many guns in this country? Maybe, but taking them away isn’t going to solve the problem. If someone breaks into a school with a big knife, is that somehow better? He didn’t have a gun, so it’s okay? Most objects are potentially lethal. The problem isn’t the object—it’s the person holding it. Some reports say the killer had a history of mental illness, so maybe we should quit bitching about gun control and look at ways to help people who think they should do something like this in the first place.

But you know what else happened yesterday? A lot of kids got some extra hugs from their parents. There’s no way we should dismiss the tragedy that happened and the pain that community is feeling right now, but give your kids some extra hugs. Remember the importance of life, of love, of family. Flags flying at half mast seems like a hollow gesture to me, so if you really want to show some respect for the people of Newtown, let your kids know how much they mean to you and give them some extra hugs.
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Good God. I’m not adding this to apologize for saying that the problem springs from something beyond gun control, but when someone suggests that people with autism lack empathy and that’s why it happened… there are not enough teeth in that man’s head to knock out. His opinion is biased, it’s offensive, and it’s wrong. Autism doesn’t push people over the edge into crazy. Show some respect for auties and Aspies, too, would you?

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It’s… it’s not loading! We’re all gonna die!

My sleeping patterns have been sporadic as of late—it’s probably a carry-over from studying for my Econ final at random hours of the day and night over the course of three or four days—which would explain why I’ve been awake since 5:30 this morning instead of sleeping past noon. Because of that fact, I’ve learned a very horrifying truth:

FACEBOOK IS DOWN!!! FACEBOOK IS DOWN!!!

I need to look at my friends’ recent status updates and pictures of cute kitties! If Facebook can go offline, it’s just a matter of time! It’s all over, man! We’re all gonna die!

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Wow, look at all those 12’s.

I’m sure you’ve heard it a bajillion times today. This is our last sextuple on the calendar for another century. 12:12:12 on 12/12/12. Yowza! (As you can probably tell, this event is making me very excited.)

I honestly don’t think it’s that big a deal. We’re in the year 2012 AD (Anno Domini) according to the Gregorian calendar. But what if we’re using the wrong calendar? What if the dates are wrong? Maybe someone messed up and this year is actually 2011, in which case we’ll have another sextuple coming up next December. According to the Hebrew calendar, it’s Year 5774, in which case we only have to wait a few decades before hitting another series of nifty dates that people make a big hubbub about.

And what about quintuples? Don’t people care about those anymore? We can use military time and people can get excited about 13:13:13 on 1/3/13! And then again in 2014! All the way to 2023! Yowza!

(On a side note, I’m glad the Internet hasn’t been blasted by people who live right next to the borders of time zones. “Hey, it’s 12:12:12 on 12/12/12! Now I’m gonna cross the street and wait for 59 minutes so I can celebrate the same thing all over again!”)

In case you’re wondering, I’m not bitter because I wasn’t looking at the clock when it scrolled past 12:12 this afternoon. It just seems really arbitrary to me. I suppose that could change over time. Hey, everyone who thinks I should be more excited today! How about you go away and stop bothering me, then find me again 100 years from now and see how I feel about the final sextuple? I bet if you hold a horn up to my mouth and I have the lung capacity to blow into it and make any noise… Yowza!

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Free at last, free at last! Thank Augsburg College, I’m free at last!

Tonight was my final class in Augsburg’s MBA program. It’s all over. I’m done. Now I’ll have a degree coming in the mail sometime soon that I can add to the collection that’s already resting against my bedroom wall.

Well, technically, I’m not entirely done: I have to write a couple two-page papers for Applied Managerial Economics that need to be done by tomorrow, so once the clock chimes 6:00PM, it’s officially all over. No more teachers, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks. Yes, I wrote teacher twice—it seems appropriate under the circumstances. (I don’t recall whether I’ve written about my Econ professor in here, but I’ll just leave it as “I don’t like his attitude and don’t think he was a good teacher.”)

Class started with an hour-long final exam, after which, hey, there was nothing else really keeping us there. One or two people left, but there was a final group presentation that some classmates needed to make and most people were polite enough to stay. Finally, the professor taught us the short, short version of macroeconomics. It took about twenty minutes. And that was it. (That was probably for the best, given that I’d had minimal amounts of sleep last night and was already doing the tired head bob.)

It all feels really anticlimactic at the moment, which I guess is understandable. I only had night classes once a week and didn’t do my homework on a constant basis. I was doing it, but usually at the last minute. Maybe it’ll sink in on Sunday when I can watch football all day and not have to worry about any schoolwork, showering and shaving and driving into the city for class on Monday… maybe.

In the meantime, I know I need to work on those papers, but I also know I need sleep. Badly. I’ve got a bunch of empty cans of Mountain Dew next to my desk that I’d drink while studying and studying had a tendency to last until the wee hours of the morning (see: entry about the online textbook site under maintenance), so… yeah. No caffeine currently in my system and my brain is starting to check out. Sleep is good. So are formal-looking sheets of paper with my name on them. Good night.

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I remember what sunlight looks like…

I’ve been a night owl since… since forever, I think. I’ve had plenty of “days” when I’ve been up to watch the sunrise, then slept until the wee hours of the afternoon. I have no problems functioning during that time. Hell, I prefer it. (Or maybe I just don’t like waking up early, I’m not sure.)

Apparently, being a night owl has its downsides as well (aside from sleeping until the wee hours of the afternoon). I bought the online version of our Economics textbook and I was reading it just now, trying to cram a whole bunch of knowledge into my head for our upcoming final exam on Monday. I made it through fixed, variable and sunk costs and clicked the button to turn the page. Instead of the next section, I was greeted with this message:

Temporarily Unavailable for Maintenance
While Gale products are regularly available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, a high quality product experience requires routine maintenance.

Which means they’re not available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So now I’m stuck trying to find something else to study, hoping that I’ll be able to access the textbook again within the next, oh, I don’t know, sometime before the sun comes up to say “Hi”.

(As a side note, shouldn’t that notice read “Temporarily Unavailable Due to Maintenance”? The way it’s written, they can’t perform maintenance on the website right now, in which case I’m getting doubly screwed.)

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Planning on getting here anytime soon?

A friend of mine set up a date through OKCupid and planned to meet him at a bar at 7:30. The guy still hadn’t shown up by 7:45, so she left to go shopping. Later that evening, she received these texts:

Yeah, like there’s anything else you might want to do tonight…

This begs the question of whether there’s an unwritten rule about how long to wait for a date, especially someone you “met” on a dating website. Ten minutes? Half an hour? “Only” fifteen minutes? I think my friend exercised good judgment, but I’m wondering how some of the rest of you feel. How long should you stand around, not knowing if/when the person will show up? (For the record, “That guy was a douchebag and what’s with the Lol?” may be true, but that’s not what I’m asking.)