This time of year always spurs some seriously conflicting emotions. The summer has grown boring, but school seems so unappealing. It's hard to decide which is more fun sometimes; having a full time job and making money, or lavishing in the poor yet carefree lifestyle of a college student. Alas, it is back to school time. It's time for a fresh start, new classes, possibly a new living situation, maybe some new gadgets to play with.
Funny how senseless hope can be sometimes. Like a funeral procession I make several loops around my apartment building last night, scanning over the same cars I see everyday. A brisk, 21 degree New England frost creeps up the window as my chapped thumb clicks buttons labeled "PANIC" and "OPTION" because a car alarm clicker I'm friends with had lost its partner. My car was stolen last night. A gorgeous, restored, custom 1995 Acura Integra GSR. 190k miles, but you'd never know it. Bounced you around like a bad pilot on approach, but you loved it. Problem after mechanical problem, but you fixed it.
What is it about moving that's so hard? 2 weeks to pack, 12 hours to move, then 2 more weeks to figure out what box you put your life in. The older you get the more stuff you collect. Plus it weighs more. How ironic that in a world where global networks daily tear away at the walls of time and place in our work that we still so held back by time and place in our lives?
Believe the news people. Yesterday marked my first hands-on exposure to the iPod nano. All I can say is that there are some things that just don't seem natural. Pick it up and you expect it to weigh 4x more than it does. Activate the screen expecting Timex, you get HDTV. Hold it in your hand and play with it for a while and crazy ideas about sliding it in your wallet alongside your Mastercard emerge. Yes, yes, and yes, it really is that "impossibly small".
This time of year always spurs some seriously conflicting emotions. The summer has grown boring, but school seems so unappealing. It's hard to decide which is more fun sometimes; having a full time job and making money, or lavishing in the poor yet carefree lifestyle of a college student. Alas, it is back to school time. It's time for a fresh start, new classes, possibly a new living situation, maybe some new gadgets to play with.
So I just picked up my first cell phone with Bluetooth last week and after getting it paired up and running to my Mac and headset I have only two things to say:
Budgeting your time, in college it makes or breaks you. As an undergrad my entire life revolved around spending the first week of classes placing every exam, test, and homework assignment carefully into a weekly planner, then going back highlighting key dates on the mini-months for quickie test-checks.
I hope that everyone's summer is going fantastic. Summer is one of the most fun times of the year, when anything is possible. Internships, cool jobs, traveling all over the world, finding a summer love, and great times with friends. With the summer winding down, back to school is just around the corner.
As my first post, I though I would share a little addiction I have. Ever since the release of iTunes 4.9, I have been absolutely hooked on podcasting. Most activities of my day lately are accompanied by one of my many subscribed podcasts.
Freshmen Orientations at my school have been going on for the past few weeks. It's so interesting to watch the new students and their parents walk through the campus. I am reminded of my own freshman orientation. Wandering through the campus, I attempted to act as cool as the upperclassmen that I saw slowly making their way to their summer classes. Of course, I wasn't as cool. I was a freshman and still needed the confidence that comes only from experience. I was nervous, excited and had a million questions that I was too afraid to ask (I didn't want anyone to know I was a freshman of course). I see now though, that the new freshmen coming in act exactly the same as I did. To all you freshmen out there, don't worry about not knowing where you or going or not looking cool. Remember, you are one out of a class of thousands so you are not alone!
So I'm going on a couple weeks with a nice new iPod Shuffle and I'm definitely more impressed than I expected to be. I wear it around work and one of the first things people say to me is the same concern I had before I tried it: "That's cool, but I need a screen." Not so fast. When deciding what music player to buy it's easy to overlook the legendary integration between iTunes and Shuffle. It's not just about random music fills, set up your playlists right and you'll always know what's on your Shuffle and how to get it.
Well, everyone, this is my last post. I've graduated, and I'm moving to a new town to start a new job, with a new car, a new apartment, and of course, a new iBook.
My school runs on a quarter system. Each quarter is 10 weeks. It's brutal. It seems like every minute of my day is spent doing work. Especially week 10. Only my peers know the pain that we all feel the last week of class, and the lack of sleep that ensues. But this quarter, I really have to take some time out to thank a good friend of mine that helped me through the last week and into the summer - it was my Mac.
Around here, Spring Break '05 has come and gone. The memories have been made, the clothes unpacked and the dirt and sand swept out of the car. Did you forget to "unpack" something? We take digital photos with the best intentions - to share them with the world the minute you get back to your computer, but instead they sit, not unlike an undeveloped roll of film. I confess. I am guilty! While I didn't go far for Spring Break, I did take some pictures with my digital camera when I went out to a local bike trail with some friends… And the pictures are still on the card, in the camera and not shared with my friends yet. Before the week is through, I am going to take the few minutes and download my pictures into iPhoto, make some crops and tweaks (you would really be amazed at how good a photographer you are… after a bit of playing around in iPhoto.) and post them on my .mac website for my friends to see and download. It seems like such a simple thing, especially for someone who LOVES to take pictures like me, and with iPhoto 5, you can really make your amateur point-and-shoot photos look good without messing around with exporting to Photoshop and using lots of advanced techniques.
My graduation is fast approaching, and I know I'm not alone. This message is for all you seniors out there.