Author: Teel

Did I mention I got officially re-admitted to ASU on Friday, transfered to the College of Fine Arts, and changed my major to Painting? All true. I am on probation for at least one semester while I show that I’m serious about succeeding (and raising my GPA more), but effectively that means I need to see an Advisor at least once. I’ve already seen my Fine Arts Advisor twice, and plan to see her again before the semester starts. I’m serious about this.

I could go on again about the re-admission department, but effectively, if you read my last post on the subject (here, here, and here in 3 parts), the same things happened in the same order, except this time there was an extra computer glitch or two. One of them means that I can never, ever take English at ASU as an undergraduate again. The other just temporarily adjusted my ASU GPA down to 2.09.

Since I don’t want to be an English (Literature) major again, the former is fine. Since they’ve fixed my ASU GPA to properly reflect 2.31 now, and 2.99 overall, the latter is fine, too. If I do well in my art classes this semester and at some point re-take Calc III and get a better grade than failing, my GPA can’t help but be even better.

So, on the ASU front, things are looking like they’ll work out okay. Next hurdles to leap are trying to afford the classes and trying to get into the classes. The latter is fairly easy because of students who don’t remember or can’t manage the former. On August 6th, anyone who hasn’t already paid for the classes they’ve registered for gets dropped automatically, and at 7AM on the 6th I can see if some of those students were in the classes I need to get into. Of course, then I have to pay tuition in full on the 6th as well. If the classes remain full after the 6th, I have to get an override from the professors teaching them, which I guess isn’t too hard. So, no problem but timing or paperwork. Everything’s looking good.

So then it occurs to me that there’s a lot more than first impressions going on when I give someone my card. They have their first impression of me from when we met in person, but then they have the address to this site. To this journal. All of a sudden instead of calling me or writing me an email they find that they can do some reasearch about me. They can find out about me and my life and the way I think about things and the way I react to different stimuli. They can also read the other blogs on the site and find out what other people think about me. They can see that my mother just died a few weeks ago. They can see that I still have love for ex’s I haven’t seen in years.

(Look, just because I still love Amanda and have been spending time and money for years trying to locate her doesn’t mean I want to get back together with her. After the first couple of years it was more about the finding than what may or may not come afterwards. At the very least I owe her an apology for my behaviour the last time we were together.)

Look, I’m getting defensive. How cute.

I ran into an old acquaintence the other day and I gave her my card and we discussed this site briefly. I mentioned the online journal and she said she could never do anything like that because she would always be worried that something she wrote would come back to haunt her. I responded that if you’re too embarrased to write about something, you probably shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. That you’re either living your life out in the open or you’re lying all the time, and it’s up to each person to decide whether they want to be lying all the time. (Oh, and if you’re reading this now, I’m glad to see you found the site and took a look. Don’t miss the archives. And email me if you get a chance!)

Back to the other ones. The ones who haven’t alreadyknown me for years before they see this site. The ones that I was hoping to maybe have a first date with. What would a first date be like for someone who had spent a few hours reading my ramblings here? If my various neuroses and insecurities (as found in my words here) allowed such a meeting to happen, the other would know what has been going on in my life and may even have a clear image in their mind about who I am, and I would still just have that first impression. Probably that’s a good thing. The most difficult part of making a new friend (or more than a friend) seems to be getting used to me. I guess I’m not particularly easy to get along with at first. Maybe this site’s candor will help by showing that although I think a little differently, I’m still a good person, and worth knowing.

I don’t remember where I was trying to go with this. I’m posting from work and I’ve had a few interruptions (you know, customers, the boss… interruptions) so … if you got something from this, if it made sense at all, great. If it didn’t make any sense, just pretend you never saw it.

Last night I decided to go out and try to have a good time, maybe work on getting past the ‘innocent’ flirting to the actually expressing my interest in a person. I don’t know how clear I’ve made it hear but that seems to be the biggest reason I’ve been single for so long. I meet lots of nice people. I am interested in some of them. I am bold enough to meet them, speak to them, be friendly and even a little flirty and as charming as I’ve tried to make come naturally. Yet I have been too shy to do more. To ask for a phone number, or give them mine. Or even just my card, which by default just has my email address on it, so you’d think it would be less intimidating to give out. Too shy to ask them out to coffee (I don’t really drink coffee, but maybe I could ask them out for a boba) or a movie (I watch almost all the movies, so there’s something we could go watch just about every week. Plus, I have …108 DVDs plus ~22hrs of QAF that we could watch on my big TV) or whatever.

My mom said I just don’t ‘follow through’. She said she’d seen me flirt with people and them flirt back with me, but then I don’t follow through. I guess they’re waiting for me to take it past innocent flirting and I’m waiting for some sign from them or for them to do the same. My mom said I’m just not seeing the signals. So, I’ve been trying to work on that. I think I’ve just had too many friends over the years who flirted with everyone but didn’t mean anything by it; they just liked flirting. It’s given me a view of flirting slightly askew of reality, I think. I think I’ve begun to pick up on the fact that there are some people who are smiling at me and chatting candidly with me and being extra friendly to me who aren’t doing the same things with everyone they see.

I actually managed to see that last night and get past the generic friendliness to the actually expressing interest in a person, and I even scrawled my phone number on the back of my card and gave it out. Of course now I get to have that bit of anticipation that is “Will they call?” I don’t know whether it is a good or a bad thing that I didn’t get their phone number; I always worry I’ll be like John Favreau in Swingers, calling too soon or leaving an akward message (or string of akward messages) and destroy whatever connection I may have made. I won’t let the anticipation get to me too much though. I know my life doesn’t hinge on whether or not they contact me. I’ll still be alive and well and happy with my life and glad I got re-instated at ASU to take art classes right away in the fall and bubbling with joy and every other good thing in my life will still be true, even if one person or another that I would have liked to get to know better doesn’t feel the same way about me.

In case you don’t have a Demotivators calendar, take a look at the image for this month, Lonliness. Whether they call or not, I’ll have that to look at every day for the rest of the month.

Several weeks ago, when I was informed that I would be covering the 5AM shift for Brian, they told me that he would be back today, the 5th. Which means that I would come in at my normal time today, the 5th. I verified this and wrote it down before Brian left, and I have had at least two discussions with Chris (who is in charge of such things as making sure people’s shifts are covered) while he was gone about the subject of not having to wake up so early any more this year as of today, since Brian has used up every form of time off he had available. So this morning I came in at 6AM, fully expecting to see Brian sitting at his desk taking calls.

Except Brian wasn’t there.

When Chris showed up at 6:30, I asked him, and he tells me that he ‘would never have told me that’ Brian was coming back today. He has no idea where I got this impression. I have it written down in two places so I wouldn’t forget which days I needed to wake up early, so I know that however it was communicated to me originally, someone wasn’t clear.

So based on all the information given to me before I arrived today, I was on time. But in the eyes of the man who keeps track of who is late, I was a full hour late today.

Everyone who uses any electronic devices such as computers, VCRs, PVRs, mobile phones, etc… should read this FAQ on TCPA / Palladium. It has some important information in it about recent moves by Intel and Microsoft that will affect the ways in which you are allowed to use your electronics in the future. Also take a look at this week’s and last week’s columns by Robert X. Cringely, in chronological order (if you want them to make sense) with more information on this, plus a recent change to Microsoft’s EUL.

What interests me is that as Intel/Microsoft go this way, Apple will have a new tool to convert consumers; freedom. TCPA takes your right to use your computer and the software and media you purchase, and puts it in the hands of the companies you purchased them from. If content providers are in control of how and when you can and cannot use content you purchased from them, and can revoke your priveliges at any time with no notice, I don’t want to buy their content. Same as I won’t buy Shakira’s music; did you know that if I were to just put that CD-like disc into my computer, it would void the computer’s warranty and prevent the computer from booting or ejecting the CD? Copy protection, they call it. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

If buying a new PC means you are giving up your right to control your use of that PC, or any software/media you put on it, and there was another computer available that let YOU decide how and when and for what you want to use it, wouldn’t you chose the latter? I would. I did. I chose a Mac instead of a PC running WinXP. Did you know that if you upgrade the hardware of your PC, you have to re-register WinXP? And if you don’t re-register, you get locked out of your computer completely? When I used PCs, I changed out a card or two every month. I didn’t even bother using a case for the last couple of years with PCs because I was changing out parts so frequently. I could never use WinXP. On a Mac, I don’t have to change out the hardware; everything just works.

I think that Apple’s choice on whether or not to try to support this or a similar initiative will be vital in its control of the consumer market.