The M stands for Monster - The Journal » School

Protected: Cheers for the Holidays

monster — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:15:27 +0000

Finals Week!

monster — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 10:11:11 +0000

Finals are upon us! I did a job interview this week, but I won’t find out about the next round until after break.

Anyway, mentally, I’m done. I have checked out. However, in actuality, I have an investments test in two days which I do not feel ready for in any capacity whatsoever. That is a problem. Anyhow, I’ll just say it – this semester was shitty. I felt whiny and crappy all semester cause I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Next semester, I am sure, will be better.

Most of all, I’m looking forward to the Paris and London trip we’re planning! Rita and I had dinner with Ben and Chaussie at Pura Vida this past week to iron out some details, but I think we’re set for the most part. We’ll be leaving Thursday night before Spring Break and flying back Sunday morning (to get back Sunday night). I’m literally going to be back around 11:30 pm the Sunday before school starts. But whatever. I’m psyched.

Paulo Coelho Gets It

monster — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:59:26 +0000

I’m trying to read Veronika Decide Morir (trans: Veronika Decides to Die) in Spanish right now. It’s quite difficult because I haven’t practiced my Spanish in almost three years. I’m a little less than a hundred pages into it, but it’s taken me almost 4 hours of reading and looking up words.

Anyway, in the book he tells a story about a king of a kingdom and the sorcerer who attempts to ruin him. The sorcerer poisons the water source in the kingdom to drive people to madness. The king, on the other hand, drinks from a private water source. Things go according to plan and the people go crazy. The king, trying to stop the madness, tries to take security measures, but everyone thinks he’s the crazy one. In the end, in order to rule, he ends up drinking from the poisoned water source himself. Once he is like everyone else, they believe he has regained his sanity. And, in this secluded kingdom, the crazy king and all the crazy people lived happily ever after.

I liked this story. It leads me to believe Paulo Coelho knows what it’s like to do group projects.

Packing is a Bitch

monster — Fri, 18 May 2007 01:57:10 +0000

Packing up my apartment took, like, four days — I’m not even kidding. What a pain in the ass.

But anyway, I’ve been dealing with a lot of organizational things recently so I haven’t had much time to blog. (Furthermore, let’s be honest, no one really wants to hear about how I decided to organize my office supplies anyway.) I also went ahead and reformatted my lovely computer so now it’s running a lot faster, but that meant reorganizing all my files and programs and getting updated applications, etc.

Now that my computer is up to par, I can do things like play games! I bought Psychonauts, a Tim Schafer game (he designed Grim Fandango which is my favorite game of all time), except I can already tell I’ll get sucked in if I start and I think I might need to rejoin the land of the living for a while. Hmm. What a predicament.

Okay, well, that’s honestly all that’s new with me. Most of my grades came in today and I was pretty shocked that I got an A in Business Law. I’m pretty sure I did the math and unless I totally aced the final, I thought I was going to get around a B+. So either I did really well or she curves like a madwoman. Good stuff.

Orkin, Man

monster — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:08:38 +0000

So, I was working on a semester-long advertising group project last Fall with a group of three other people. We were doing a project on Orkin, yes, the pest control company. Anyway, we did a bunch of research and stuff to come up with a “Master Idea” for the company and presented it along with out research and the slideshow (which I made) to our professor, some b-school marketing people, and Orkin representatives who we invited to come watch.

The whole thing was based on the idea that pest control is about protection and feeling safe in your own home, and not just getting rid of ants. It was all very touchy-feely stuff.

Anyway, apparently David (one of the members of our group) went to do an interview with JWT (v. large advertising agency) and it turns out that JWT also handles the advertising for Orkin. He wanted to show them the video we made to go with the presentation (just a 5 minute thing) because he was the one who handled the video component — but they were like, oh, we’ve seen that.

I’m told that Orkin sent up the video we made to show them an example of what they liked. So, basically, yeah, the trappings of one of my school projects is in the hands of one of the largest advertising agencies in the world because the client likes it more. Ha!

Protected: Something Sweeter

monster — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 08:45:17 +0000

Puppets, Poe and Plasma Pong

monster — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 09:17:47 +0000

A while back, I did a project for JRNL 311 (Electronic Communication) where we had to choose a topic, report on it, and build a website for it, along with Stein and Mcmillan. Anyway, Mcmillan and I revisited the Center for Puppetry Arts – our topic of choice – this past weekend along with Dave and Singer, which was actually quite fun. We watched Tales of Edgar Allen Poe (last time we watched the Velveteen Rabbit). We couldn’t take pictures inside the show, but here are some from the museum. There’s also more on the project website.

Anyway, afterwards we all went to the Majestic, which is this diner that Dave is obsessed with. It was, however, actually quite good. I’ll try to get a picture of it next time cause you have to see it to understand.

Oh, and one of the IT monkeys at work introduced me to a new game called Plasma Pong which seems a little too addicting for me to install on my computer right now. Nevertheless, during the next break…maybe. It’s like pong, except you can shoot out or suck in plasma with your paddle, and the game has a pretty impressive rendering engine for the plasma for any of those die-hard dorks out there.

In other news, I watched one of the most depressing movies ever. I was looking for a fluffy Korean drama-ish type movie. You know, just some silly characters in some ridiculously cheesy setup. Anyhow, I ended up watching Sad Movie (yes, I do realize that perhaps the title should have tipped me off, but try to work with me here), which stars Tae-hyun Cha (My Sassy Girl). I mean, the description I got from IMDB just said it was about some people struggling with their relationships.

Anyhow, it turned out to be like a Love Actually from hell. There were 4 pairs of people, each with a different type of relationship. Except, whereas in Love Actually everyone had issues, worked through them and then was happy, in Sad Movie, they all have issues, work through them and then miserable things happen to everyone! So depressing! Anyhow, the moral of this story is: Sometimes, things are more obvious than you would think. Lesson learned.

Grrr. Arrrgh.

monster — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:01:27 +0000

The most frustrating thing about being sick is that the world keeps going. I’m running a bit of a fever right now, which is unfortunate.

I, of course, am keeping my priorities straight and am updating this blog. This weekend was pretty hectic with Wheel stuff. I trained some new reps this morning and am really happy with how it went. Wrote a paper, blah blah blah.

Beyond that, I also got a chance to have some fun. Tracy’s 22nd was on Friday and I got breakfast the next day with a friend at the Flying Biscuit, which is a wonderful restaurant. It’s a pretty idiosyncratic place with lots of character, as you can see from the pictures. The food’s solid as well. I got a smoked salmon omelet and he got the Meggican Omelet (like Mexican, but with EGG inserted – get it? get it!?). EDIT Those two people in the picture aren’t us, by the way. I’m Chinese and uh…not forty.

Anyway, book reviews will be keeping me busy in the next two weeks. I’m reviewing Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky, an Emory alumni, for the Arts & Living section of the Wheel. Furthermore, I promised I’d finished my review of You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore for Emory’s Hub magazine in the next two weeks.