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tonight is the last night for smokers to light up in cambridge before it becomes smoke-free tomorrow. oh no!! ever since boston became smoke-free in the summer, i've always tried to persuade my friends to go to cambridge whenever we wanna hangout, cuz it's just across the river and i can still smoke there... now where do i go? sniff... :(
finally!!! no more memorizing any more of those weird vocabs that no one knows how to pronounce... no more agonizing over confusing complicated graphs or math word problems... say goodbye to bad migraines and thick GRE books! :D
ok, maybe the result was not spectacular, but at least the scores were acceptable enough to be sent out with my grad application next week. and to think that i was almost tempted to cancel the scores before they came up on the screen because i thought i had completely bombed the test! whew! glad i didn't. but seriously, i didn't even have enough time to answer all the quantitative problems... i think there were 3 more questions left when the time was up. and more than half the time i was just guessing the answer. i didn't expect that i would get anywhere near acceptable scores. so, thank you God very much for listening to my prayers (and others who have kindly put me in their prayers, too)!!!
well, now comes the next step. i gotta finish that scholarship essay that i've abandoned for months, and maybe look at my application essay for final tweaks. and of course, finish that damn portfolio somehow! i'm getting really sick and tired of looking at it in its pathetic unfinished state.
so yeah, it ain't really over yet, i'm afraid. but at least the most dreaded thing is out of the way now... :)
one thing at a time... one thing at a time...
oh yeah baby!!! guess what, the company somehow got this deal where we got FREE upgrade to studio mx 2004!!! if you remember my pathetic rambling last week regarding this matter, you will understand how totally ecstatic this has made me...
i really wasn't in the least expecting it, when just a few minutes ago, my favorite tech guy came over and showed me the upgrade CD with a wide grin on his face and told me about the free upgrade thing. he even left the CD with me for the day... and that, my dear friends, was how my day was completely made a lot more brighter, thanks to him! :D
*sniff* yet another failed attempt to study for gre... and it's only 8 days away!! (i was already studying for about an hour when i suddenly remembered that there's this email i had to reply about a prospective project to work on... so what can you do, right?)
but i curse the person who first came up with the pointless idea of standardized testing!!! what was he thinking?? it's nothing but a big money-making scheme which sole purpose is to rip off millions of nice, innocent grad-student wannabes worldwide such as myself (oh poor me) with expensive books, testing fees, and test prep centers like kaplan. and what do we get in return? frustrations, stress, and a steadily declining self-worth. *grumble grumble*
sad fact is, i still have to take it. huh... guess it's back to the books now...
*...must... not... be tempted... by the computer...*
hmmm... should i be concerned about this test result?
"The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether I'm
off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost in a good book,
or giggling with my best friend, I live in a world apart,
one full of adventure and wonder and other stuff
adults don't understand."
yesterday i got quite pissed to find a few sites have been hot-linking some of my images. i mean, at least download the image to their own server first instead of just conveniently using up my bandwidth! and whatever happen with the courtesy of asking first? totally not cool.
i actually don't really mind people using my images, as long as they ask me first, and most importantly, don't steal my bandwidth. had i not been randomly checking my stats yesterday, i wouldnt've found out about this at all. i check my stats irregularly; sometimes once a week, other times once every 6 months. so this might have already been happening before, only i just wasn't aware of it.
so, i've finally decided to use .htaccess to block both existing and future hot links. now those sites that use my images on their pages will get this instead:
i'm currently pathetically salivating over this particular one. a brand spanking new toy (WAY cool!) from those geniuses at macromedia. (i love you guys!)
problem is, my boss bought me the previous version of MX just a few months ago. it would be kinda hard to ask for a $400 upgrade so soon. but there might still be chance... *scheming mode on* hmmmm... if i present myself as a good enough employee for the next month or so (meaning putting on longer hours voluntarily plus some occasional meaningless sweet talks over morning coffees) and show a large amount of enthusiasm over even the most boring task, i might be able to get the company to buy me the upgrade within mere weeks... :P~ (another problem, though... *frown* i'm not at all skilled at schmoozing. tips, anyone?)
oh btw, i've uploaded some pictures from the maine trip in july (thanks to niko & jane)... and i just found out yesterday that MIT now offers this opencourseware site where people can access hundreds of materials from some of its most popular courses online for free. nice, huh?
can't think of a more enticing entry title at all. i sometimes wish that i don't have to put in a title, but then it will be kinda difficult to archive. anyway, whatever...
found this article on ny times today; an encouraging story about the bupati of kebumen. if all of our leaders could be like her, then we still have hope for a better indonesia.
last night, for the first time in weeks (maybe even months, for all i know), i had an early night. i was already asleep by around 9:30, and didn't wake up until about 8:30 this morning. and i can totally feel the difference. am so very productive today!
a few days ago, i found this other article that says insomnia might be genetic. the gene is called 'period 3.' people who categorize themselves as a morning person usually have a longer period 3 gene, while those who have trouble going to bed and waking up early such as myself usually have a shorter period 3 gene.
i wish i could show this to my boss and the human resource manager, so that i am allowed to come in after lunch everyday and leave around 8pm. i'll definitely be more productive that way. the article says that it's better not to fight this natural tendency. (yeah right, like my boss would actually buy it!)
the new edition of creative behavior is out. there's an interview with monica calvo from eendar.com (my most recent favorite!) and a good article about learning interactivity from video games. and while you're at it, try the fly guy. he's really fun to play with!
when you're done with mr. fly, and suddenly find yourself with nothing to do, and start to get annoyed of staring at the empty white walls in front of you (which really have been bothering you for months because of their blankness), blik can probably improve your happiness... if not, you can always shoot the teletubbies. he he (thanks to enda for the link!)
finally went and see bjork tonight! oh, she's so awesome!! she sang mostly from the "homogenic" and "vespertine" albums, but there were also some old favorites like isobel and of course, hyperballad.
i managed to persuade a couple other people to go with me to the concert, so i didn't have to go alone. it was a good thing, too, cuz even though we arrived a good 2 hours before the show, the line was already like a couple of miles long. it would really suck if i had to wait in that line by myself. there was this guy who painted himself all white and wore a feathery swan dress (like bjork's) with wings. but i saw that he got a seat in the back, which was too bad, cuz then he couldn't show his painstakingly-made costume to bjork.
oh, but here's a really random coincidence that happened. me and my friends were just chatting in the red line train on our way to the concert, when suddenly the white guy that sat by my friend said, "mau kemana?" in indonesian. quite shocked, we looked at him, and he continued," saya dari malang." and he explained that he was a harvard student working on his phd in medical anthropology, and in the past 3 years had been going back and forth to various places in indonesia for his research. turned out that he was also on his way to go to the bjork concert. so we ended up being friends with him and went together to the concert and exchanged emails afterwards. he he... now how weird is that?
so anyway, back to the concert. the venue was changed at the last minute because of some production restriction issue, so i guess the preparation was done in a hurry. the lighting was just so so, and the fireworks (which was supposed to be part of the show) was canceled. but in the end, bjork was... well, bjork.
the string octet showed up first, and then the woman who played the harp. and finally bjork herself showed up skipping and jumping from the right side of the stage wearing a black swan dress with pink stockings and spiky green ear accessories and immediately launched into hunter.
me and dewi tried to go up closer to the stage, and we were not the only ones, of course, but then got shoo-ed away to go back to our seats... *pout* i couldn't get a really good look of the stage because since the first time bjork entered the stage, everybody got up to their feet and just stood all the way through the concert, and i had to stand on tiptoe the whole time and tried to see her through the heads and hair of two people in front of me.
anyway, she sang all my favorites, and i was almost beside myself with euphoria when, after she sang bachelorette so beautifully, she continued with hyperballad. she sang 18 songs in total, for less than 1.5 hours. i wish it could've been longer, and she would sing more than a couple songs in the encore, but oh well... go here for a complete list of songs from last night's concert.
there was this really cool video playing on the big screen behind her when she was singing... oh what was she singing then? desired constellation, maybe? anyway, this video showed some fish-looking creatures swimming around, which later became arms with hands that function like tailfins that propelled the arms to swim around. it was really great. i wish there's a place where they archived all these concert clips for people to see (i heard the videos played in the radiohead concert were awesome, too).
last night the summer officially ended. it was really chilly, with a temperature in the low 60s and continued through today. it was a good thing i bought a bjork t-shirt in the concert. i ended up wearing it on top of my clothes to get warmer. oh how sad... goodbye summer, bye sandals and tanktops, bye summer concerts... even though i didn't get to see radiohead, at least i'm happy enough to finally see bjork. :)