Wooo Sahhh... I've found that I utterly loathe Tuesday's and Thursday's. They are not only my two longest days of class, but they are my longest day's period. I get on campus around 9 a.m. and don't leave until midnight. Recently I have been on campus at 8:30. You may ask what brings me to campus a full hour before my first class?

M.F.ing parking. I have to find a spot that is not too far from my class, but more importantly, close to the library since I am not too keen about walking ten miles across campus at midnight. I arrive this early because I have to do the infamous parking spot stalk. I enter the lot near Pogue Library, and wait for an unsuspecting walker to enter the lot, returning to their vehicle. The skill of the stalk is very high. You must follow them close enough so as not to lose your spot to another stalker, but not so close as to make the walker feel uncomfortable. If you do this, they may take you on a wild goose chase throughout the parking lot, finally entering their car at the back of the lot. Well this art has been perfected by many, but I like to think that I have mastered it for quite some time. Apparently this stealth stalk is no longer appreciated among any of the other stalkers. Other stalkers have taken the barbaric approach, barreling around corners, squealing tires with no regard for public safety. I feel this is a disservice to the walkers, but most of them are barbaric stalkers also. In the last month I have been almost run down trying to find a spot. Cars will squeal around a corner and essentially force me to slam on my breaks while they skid into my spot. Now I am patient most of the time with this, but after about the fifth person to do this, I loose my cool. I can visualize stopping the car and hitting the button for my Trunk Monkey. I actually have to stop myself from becoming vocal with these inconsiderate drivers by reciting the Woo Saah bit from a movie I once saw. I guess more than anything, the loss of the stealth stalk method is bothering me. I spent years perfecting it, watching veterans execute it with ease. Now I am the veteran and there are no new people to teach.

And another thing, this text messaging trend is getting out of hand. I have been known to send my fair share of messages, but only when I was not able to actually speak to the person I am contacting. Classroom situations, work situations, and the movies are all prime examples of this. I am saddened because I feel this is further desensitizing people. How long will it be before we no longer communicate vocally with people. All phones will be merely text messagers. This type of plugged-in-edness(I made that word up) is a bit over the edge. This is my pledge: I will not text unless it is absolutely necessary. I literally watched a guy walk into a pole today on campus because he was intently sending a text message to someone. How do I know he was sending a text message? The signature double thumb technique he used to enter characters. He never saw it coming. I think I was the only person that saw him do it because he immediatly looked around and then tried to hide what had happened. Guess what buddy? I'm announcing it to everyone.

And for my final note, this goes out to one of my professors. Today we spent much of the class discussing how proposed solutions to a problem may not be a solution to the problem itself but to a symptom of the problem. This occurs because of the ambiguity that may surround the statement of what the problem itself is. Essentially we spent a lot of time talking about ambiguous terms. When we started to talk about the project that is due Thursday(which I thoguht was due today, and hustled my ass off to get done) I found out that my final project was far above and beyond the scope of the actual term. I felt this my have been a result of inattentiveness on my part until the only other person to actually finish and turn in this problem asked him about the wording of his assignment. I kicked in to overdrive because I agreed with him, and felt that I needed to add my two cents. The other guy is from Eastern Europe and sometimes can't vocalize his thoughts accurately. The professor proceeded to bring up the prompt and try to make me and the other guy feel like a moron for "misreading" his assignment. Apparently no one else in the room had even started the project. I tried to calmly explain to him that they sequence of words he used made the assignment sound a bit more involved, but he replied with, "well if you had problems understanding the assignment you should have sent me an email." Well here is where I wanted to lose my cool. I didn't feel I had a problem with the scope of the assignment because I read and understood the problem. As did another student. I have no problem letting you know if I don't understand something. I do have a problem with a professor being condescending because I can't get inside his head and figure out what he actually meant. I proceeded to ask him if I needed to redo the project(my project had done what he wanted, and much much more) and he proceeded to let me know that, "it might be best if you just redo the whole thing." After spending over an hour on ambiguity, I had to laugh softly to myself. He spent a whole hour lecturing on something and basically contradicted all of his teachings in about thirty seconds.

This is the same guy that told me I would be lucky to get a C in his class.

I spent about twenty minutes on the first project in this class and got an 85.

I studied for the test for about two hours. The same test that everyone told me would kick my ass. I got an 81 on it. Well above the class average.

Kiss it...  ¶ Tuesday, February 21, 2006