something random

Aug 23, 2009: I haven’t written anything about myself in a while, so I thought I would add something in case any of my friends still go on wordpress. I’m not really sure what to write though! Honestly, how is it that people can just pour their thoughts and emotions into a blog online? I could barely keep up a diary in junior high. It ended up being used for poetry.

Poetry.  I can talk about that. I use to write poems all the time.  I haven’t written poetry in a while, though.  I tried getting back into my poet days last summer, when I wrote a poem about a really cute badminton player. Who, by the way, ended up dating a girl in Sacramento, and for all I know still is, so it’s not likely he’ll be seeing my poem any time soon. Maybe I should start up poetry again. Perhaps I could start a collection of poems about guys who I want to ask out.

Ehh, probably not. I think the badminton player and a redheaded civil engineering major (I love red hair) were the last two guys I had a sort-of crush on. My faith in guys has gone down the drain ever since I realized that the guys I  attract want the fast lane. I told one of my friends that if these are the only guys who exist then I will never have  a boyfriend. She said no,  I will be married by the time I am 27.  Hah!  Now, I do realize that there are guys out there who think with their brains, insead of..ahem.. something else, but so far I only found one who is single and I would actually date. Unfortunately, he was on the quiet side and we were coworkers, so our conversations were basically: “Hi. How are you. Have fun at work today.” I wonder if I should just give up on relationships and accept my fate as a crazy old cat lady?

My, wasn’t that an optomistic post.

BBC’s Merlin

Aug 17, 2009: If there is one show I recommend to catch up on this summer, it is Merlin. I admit, when I saw the premier, I was a little taken aback by the huge twist on the Aurthurian tale. Merlin is not the grey haired Dumbledorian figure we’ve all come to imagine him as being, but instead, like Clark Kent in Smallville, he is a teenager growing up and learning lessons along the way. While this isn’t such a strech from the traditional tales (I mean, obviously an elderly Merlin would have had to be a kid at some point), it was the fact that Arthur is the same age as him and is a prince that had me clenching my teeth. But after watching the first episode I actually came to appreciate this twist. Being the same age gives greater depth to the characters, as they learn to overcome trials together- and of course, get involved in medieval drama along the way. While the show’s main audience is most likely junior high kids, people of all ages can enjoy its entertaining stories and retelling of  familiar characters, including King Uther (Arthur’s father), Morgana Le Fay, and Gwenyvere.  Another twist in this version, one that I liked from the start, is that Gwenyvere is not the beautiful, sultry princess that she is portrayed to be in previous versions of King Arthur. Instead, she is just a simple servant girl, destined to one day become queen. Her beauty is not physical but from within, a rare trademark in today’s TV shows.

Joey Leaves ‘Real World’

Aug 5, 2009: Take home message from tonight’s ‘Real World’ episode: set two alarms, as Joey found out after being sent home for sleeping through his morning shift at a Cancun beach resort.  I have also made it to many 8 am exams/class/meetings/shifts using nothing but my beloved (and at the time annoying) cellphone alarm. Apparently the rest of the ‘Real World’ cast already learned this lesson, as Joey is one of the few ‘Real World’ members to be sent home. And that is saying a lot.

Who Really Won the Iranian Election?

June 18, 2009: Earlier this week Iran held its tenth presidential election, and officials announced incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the unanimous winner. There was only a slight problem to this announcement. According to a rather distressed general public, Ahmadinejad could not have won the election, given that most were in favor of Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Unlike Ahmadinejad, Mousavi advocated a diplomatic approach to foreign affairs and more freedoms to the general population, both economically and socially. I’ll let the news reporters debate what this setback means for the country.  My mind began to wander towards two Iranian friends of mine, who are anything but the stereotypical conservative who seemed to dominate the 1980s culture in Iran.

The friends I am thinking of are actually sisters who came to America with their dad when they were in high school. The younger one is tall, with long hair, and a face and personality that attracted at least one new boyfriend a month. The older one is short, with cropped hair and a sharp mind. She is now married to an American, but when she first came here she was carrying on a long distance relationship with a boyfriend in Iran. Both girls love to party, dance, wear attractive clothes, and hang out at all hours. You might be surprised to find out that they had been enjoying their social lifestyle long before coming to America. In fact, they told me, many young Iranians do.

Distraught with the recent election results, they are doing what they can in America to voice their opinion against it. I recently got a facebook message from them showing a link to a site that denounces Ahmadinejad as the president and encourages world leaders to not recognize him as such. If the election could stir such passion among the Iranian Americans here, is it any wonder that the country has experienced some of the largest riots in its recent history?

While dictatorship might still hold onto Iran for several years, maybe decades, to come, I really do see a change in the heart of Iran. I see a new generation of people who are tired of being told what they can’t do, and will vote for someone who offers them the beginning of freedom.  And when their chosen leader does not get the presidency he deserves, they are willing to voice their despair so that the world can hear them.

UPDATE: July 30: A few days ago I came across this insightful commentary on CNN.com. A really good read for those of you who are interested in the Green Movement (you know, the other Green Movement) and how it may affect the rest of the Middle East.

Elder Scrolls Oblivion Cheats: Why You SHOULDN’T Use Them

March 24, 2009: Socrates once famously declared: “I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating.” Yet Socrates never felt the impatience or frustration that can come with spending anywhere from $5o-$80 on a game and being stuck at a difficult point only thirty minutes into the game.  Not to mention that the benefits to cheating are every gamer’s dream. You can max out your character’s level. You can stay immune to every single blade, fireball, and poison thrown out you. You can become, in essence, like a god right out of an ancient greek myth spun from Socrates’s time that portrays the hero’s quest to fight off villains and save the world. So what is the path to this total dominion over virtual nature?  Ask any gamer and they will answer with  ‘easter eggs’, since both the virtual eggs and the holiday gifts they are nicknamed after are hidden treasures that can be found through some skillful detective work . Sometimes developed by game creators to test various parts of the game as it is being produced, these official cheats are simple methods of getting everything out of your character that you could possibly imagine. And Bethesda’s explosive addition to its popular Elder Scroll series, Oblivion, has no shortage to the number of easter eggs found by clicking the ~ button on the keyboard and typing in a special word or two.

But Oblivion happens to be a bit smarter than the average slash-and-smash game. As an RPG, it requires your character to level up in order to advance in the game, and to make sure that you aren’t too spoiled with upgraded skills, enemies level up right along with you. This is where the problem with cheats come in. Want to kill off that annoying minotaur? Sure, type in ‘kill’ and it is dead. But you do not gain any stat points from such a kill, and so your character loses out on valuable assets that could have been used to upgrade your armorer technique or blade strength. Set the immunity cheat on and restoration points go out the window. Changing your character’s look or class in the middle of the game has an even more drastic effect, as all your skills get reset to the beginning, even though your level (and hence enemy’s levels, with upgraded skills) stays the same. Basically, the only real advantagous cheats are the ones that give you extra lockpicks or repair hammers.  Still, if you save a game after successfully breaking in with few lockpicks and repairing an item without losing a hammer, and load when something goes awry, then you can save lockpicks and repair hammers without getting that just-cheated guilty feeling. Of course, typing in a few words is a lot more efficient then repeatedly saving and loading. But by using this cheat, or any others, did you really ‘win’ the game after you finish it?  At what point are you no longer playing the game, but instead using developers’ codes to play it for you? Perhaps there is no real answer. But, as Socrates would certainly agree, the advantages of cheating  just aren’t worth the advantages of not cheating.

President Obama

January 7, 2009: Because his Inauguration is coming up, I thought I would take a moment and congratulate the former senator for winning the election. Although he hasn’t been able to step into the shoes of commander-in-chief yet, I’m already hopeful that he’ll help pull America out of the many messes that our current president has put us in.  Seriously, any guy who went from being an impoverished child to a well-respected senator deserves recognition. And while I do not think that how far a person advances in life should be a primary factor in the presidential election, I do think that it says a lot about the person’s intelligence and work ethics. Between him and McCain, Obama seemed like the best candidate because of his powerful communication skills  (when you represent about 300 million people in the eyes of other countries, being able to talk effectively is rather important), his excellent choice in a vice president, and his grounded political views. Okay, I admit, as far as political views go, that is more of a personal thing.  What I might think is a good idea someone else could think is incredibly horrible. I would have taken that into consideration If McCain had chosen Mick Romney as the Republican vice presidential candidate, because I respect both candidates. But I really did not want Sarah Palin to be vice president. The woman has no clue how to be. Don’t get me wrong, she is smart and ambitious. But she just doesn’t have the knowledge or experience to take on such a huge job. Her interviews were awful, she didn’t know how to answer questions or even how to make herself look good (forget beauty, looking good as a v.p. candidate is all about the brains). Biden, on the other hand, was just as good at handling interviews as Obama, and from the comments that the two candidates gave I am confident that they will both represent American interests very well. So congratulations Obama, here’s to four years of a wonderful presidency!

la snowbunny

Sept 13, 2008: For Halloween this year I’m thinking of being a snowbunny. Yes, a snowbunny. I just need a white shirt, skirt, boots, and… bunny ears! Cotton tail! I’m excited. It all started when I went to play badminton with my usual group of badminton friends and Kelly noticed I was wearing a pink PJ shirt and denim shorts and put me in the middle of the court, joking that I should continue looking cute so that way the guys on the other team would go easy on us (they did, but I think that was because they knew we were all beginners). Well, the bunny thing started when, as she was pushing me to center court, she was like: “no one wants to kill a bunny,” and later on I said that next time we play I should wear some bunny ears too. So now it’s a funny thing between us that someday I show up wearing bunny ears and the pink PJ shirt to be our team’s mascot. And then today, when I was waiting for my eye checkup, I thought that it would be fun to go as a bunny for Halloween, so… a snowbunny! Now that I have a costume in mind ahead of time (*cough* not last possible moment, like last year *cough*) I just need to search around these coming weeks and put my costume together. When I graduate I’m going to miss silly moments like these XD

graduation jitters

Wow, I found this saved as a draft from a long time ago. I finished it up just now.

July 12, 2008: This going to be my last year as an undergrad, and in less than 10 months I am going to head out into the “real world”. Several of my friends graduated in June, and they all say the same thing: “life after college sucks.” After talking with one of my friends on aim today about her plans for jobs, I’m even more nervous. She said that there’s really not many biochem. jobs that pay high enough for you to live on your own until you get a Masters, and all Masters programs want high GPAs. She didn’t get the high GPA she wanted so she’s going to earn a degree as a pharm. tech to support herself while she lives at home and studies hard for the GRE. All of this left me wondering what I am going to do after I graduate. So, my plans for this year are to…

1. Talk with an advisor about masters programs that will land me a decent job (can I fall back on a state university as a last resort? or do jobs not hire there?)
2. Study more seriously. That means cutting back on APhiO.
3. Go to a lot of career workshops. I should know what companies look for in applicants. Yay for the Career and Internship Center!
4. Look for an internship. I got involved in one last year, so that should help. And I’m working now, so that will look good on a resume.

If I follow my plan, I think I’ll at least be on some sort of career path like my friend. Who knew that college would be the easy part?

Ow.

Being sick is no fun

July 7, 2008: Maybe there really is such a thing as Murphy’s Law. Last week I went to a cousin’s wedding out of state and I missed 2 days of work, thinking I can pull in extra hours this week. And then yesterday, when I was biking over to Borders to join two of my friends in a jogging/walking workout, my throat felt like it was tightening or something. At first I didn’t think anything of it. I could still talk, right?

Well, five minutes into walking (me and Kelly stopped jogging after several minutes, while Edith, ever the athlete, continued down the bikepath as if jogging was like doing a few pushups), swallowing hurt. A lot. As I listened to Kelly talk about what I had missed when I was away, that little pain in my throat grew into a lets-annoy-Tamara pounding. I felt a little better when we reached the university’s horse ranch, because there was a really, really cute baby horse that was nuzzling against us and who wouldn’t feel better if a super cute baby horse was being all cuddly? After feeding it some hay, we continued down the bikepath, and I wondered if Kelly thought it was weird that I was just nodding my head and smiling and saying “oh wow” or “oh my gosh” when neccessary, rather than chipping in like I usually do. I told her about my sore throat, and she said it was probably just the smoke from all the fires in California, and that I would get used to it. She had felt the same thing last weekend, and her grandma had told her that smoke can do that to people. Relieved that it wasn’t some cold bug, we continued on, and now I even joined in with actual sentences.

That is, until we reached Borders again and my throat felt like it needed a tranquilizer. Tommy and Chris joined us for dinner, but I could barely swallow the food from Pluto’s, and so I stuck to my nodding and smiling, which sucked because I hadn’t talked to them in a while and I wanted to know how they’d been. After dinner everyone went to get ice cream, but I figured I should probably head home. After the goodbyes, I got on my bike and, in my foggy state, went in the wrong direction. I realized this once I reached the train station. I doubled back and, after several zig zags through downtown, I somehow made it back home. I thought maybe if I go to sleep early I would wake up refreshed, but instead, here I am, typing on the computer and missing yet another day of work.

As much as I want this to be the smoke like Kelly thought, I think that I have to face the fact it really might be a cold. Bleh. Someone find a cure already!

Beirut’s Pop Princess

Myriam Fares

July 6, 2008: You probably haven’t heard of her, but you’ll be glad you did. A few weeks ago on You Tube, I stumbled across a music video of Shakira singing and dancing to a song called Nadini. As always, her dance moves were enough to make even the most talented dancer jealous. And then it hit me. That wasn’t Shakira’s voice. The lyrics weren’t even in Spanish.. they were in Arabic. I checked the singer’s name, Myriam Fares, and looked up her songs on Project Playlist . It’s no wonder that the prodigy of south Lebanon is famous in the east. The 25 year old has a number of catchy singles, my favorites being Leih Habibi, Shou Baddo Yssir, and Gh’morni. And in music videos like Nadini , La Tes’Alni, and Waheshni Eih, Myriam shows off dance skills worthy of her Cuban counterpart. For people like me who don’t speak a word of Arabic, a site called arabicmusictranlation.com translates her most popular works into English. Once you start her uplifting pop beats and jawdropping videos, you’ll be too mesmerized to pull away.