MILES to GO || before I sleep

When I graduate, I want to do so with a bang. I've been president of the National Society of Leadership & Success (NSLS) for a year now, and I don't want to leave having set a bad example in any way.

That said, we're toward the tail end of our magazine fundraiser, during which we're selling top magazine subscriptions (2-5 year subscriptions) for only $40! Plus, students can pick from a combination of 2 magazines for only $25! (shorter subscription times though)

We're raising funds because it costs nearly $3000 just to keep our organization on campus, let alone do cool things like have an Induction ceremony or social events. This fundraiser will help us stay on campus and help students achieve their leadership goals while having fun, too.

The fundraiser closes tomorrow, so please help out in any way you can!

Yesterday's NSLS Leadership Training Day went well, even if I was having unexpected technical difficulties-- I learned from the Orientation what to plug in where and what to click, but when the audio mysteriously didn't work despite that, it took a good 15 minutes of button-pushing (randomly) to figure out THE EQUIPMENT RACK needed to be turned on in order for the stupid 3.5mm jack to be active! Dur-hur-hur. (I can be such a dummy with hardware, seriously.)

I also didn't finish my time planner for the video-- an hour-and-a-half long, LQ *.rm file (seriously!) that I had to squeeze into a 2-hour session (plus time for filling in worksheets and discussing the contents of those sheets with fellow NSLS members). Good thing the LTD is getting revised for next semester/year....

Also, I've been playing with my MacHeist bundle options, and so far:

* I LOVE EventBox. It's not that great for RSS feeds that are image-heavy-- that is, it sucks for LiveJournal, but it's great for Twitter updates, Facebook updates, and RSS feeds like Apple Hot News, Scholarship Points, and other simple text-only updates. Like Chris Pirillo said in yesterday's Reveal Screencast though, I do wish it did more. In the meantime, I'll keep NetNewsWire around for LiveJournal feed updates, even if I only check it once in a blue moon. Shame on me. :P I also wish you could have more than one Twitter account configured in it, but... meh!

ETA: There was a bug in the MH EventBox that caused Tweets and other updates to be dated incorrectly and then not update at all. It's been fixed on the EventBox Twitter, so heisters can download that, and I'm sure it'll eventually be up at the MacHeist site, too. But the catch is that for future updates, including all those great features like multiple account support (and maybe auto-fill? And confirmation of post? And deletion from the client?), you have to BUY the app. Well, I like it so far, so I might. But anyway, onward!

* I played one level in World of Goo and I think it's awesome. Great graphics, fun concept, interesting "puzzles." I'm looking forward to having the time (someday) to get to the other levels....

* I want to compare iSale to GarageSale, the two eBay auction-creating programs for the Mac. They're both PRETTY, but when it comes to which one produces genuinely eye-catching auctions that result in more bids? We'll see. I used GarageSale to make the auction for the ring Ryan, fountain_the's brother, was trying to sell, and no luck, even though I shelled out $16 in fees to make the auction listing highlighted, featured, and everything. Of course, it could be the pricetag on the item itself, but we can only test that theory with further experimentation.

* Espresso (not Acorn; whoops-- Acorn is another photo editor, like Picturesque; why we have two of them in the bundle is beyond me... maybe it's because Acorn can work with other images too, but Picturesque focuses on... pictures/photos?) looks interesting, if only because it looks more intuitive than KompoZer, which is what I have to use for the RPGClassics Star Ocean: Till The End of Time shrine (ah, yet another project dangling). Finding a website creator (not necessarily a WYSIWYG one like Dreamweaver or FrontPage, though) that produces clean code is a pretty tall order, in fact, and it'll be good to know if Acorn can do that. It's especially awesome that it's got FTP built in, which is a MAJOR sell point for me.

* I want to start using LittleSnapper right away to either make tutorials for website navigation easy (see: myNorthridge portal, LiveJournal) or to simply do full-page screenshots of my old website layouts and gather them in a gallery.

Speaking of a gallery, I'm thinking of adding Coppermine Gallery to my eFiction installs (epiphany for my own stuff, and Dragonfayth for the Seto x Anzu stuff). This might prove to be a handy way of including fanart on the Seventh-Star.Net sites without worrying about theft or a lack of a crediting system. Still, some of the PHP scripts (eFiction and MediaWiki, to be precise) have been acting wonky on my server, so I don't know when this'll be feasible.

In school-related news, the Daily Sundial has started to go downhill-- a very steep hill, perhaps like the one Coit Tower sits on in San Francisco. Or Balboa Street between 22nd and 24th Avenues. I've thought so for a while, but seeing two measly eight-page issues two days in a row finally got to me. Also the quite repetitive indication that the copy editors there either have no idea what they're doing or they're high when they're doing it. Normally this kind of thing would make me want to charge in, guns blazing, and revamp the place, but I had a decent run with Sundial while it lasted-- and while it was good. If the Sundial wants to be seen seriously as a major campus newspaper as it once was, the whole staff, from publisher to cub reporters-- need to be in on it.

Now that I've become a Twitter addict (my username is the_sweet on there too; come follow me!), I think it's stupid that the Sundial DOESN'T have one. It'd be so easy to set up, and it was actually Ezra's Twitter for SCENE magazine that got me thinking I should get one (and Fred's nagging that I should update it more often). Why can't different members of the Journalism department learn from one another?

Actually, what had me writing this post in the first place was the fact that A.S. (Associated Students, a.k.a our student government here at Cal State Northridge) has flubbed up elections again. The Sundial says this is the fourth year in a row, and I believe them. There have been problems with elections EVERY SINGLE YEAR I have been here. Another example of an organization not learning. This year the problem was that a person running for a particular slate for my own college, the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication, got left out of the ballot, even though he registered on time and was campaigning and everything. That means that regardless of who I voted for today, my vote for the seats for my college (which is a BIG college, needless to say) is nullified. That sucks in and of itself, but it also sucks that the guy's name was left out of the ballot. Honestly, the only ways students hear about who is running for what is the booklet (an honest improvement from past years' elections, I must say; we never had that kind of resource in the past) and the names on the ballot. The campaigning signs that are plastered all over campus aren't allowed within a certain distance of the polling stations (as it should be), so unless someone bothered to read those signs, take note of the names (or memorize them, which is hard enough with so many seats open and people running), and bring their notes with them to the polling station, people aren't going to vote for someone who's write-in or left off the ballot.

I liked the online elections a LOT better, but they crashed the server and I guess that was a sobering enough of an experience for them to never want to try again. Why can't they hire someone to be a full-time manager for the AS site whose big project of the year would be the elections? And make sure they have a robust server that can handle a ton of bandwidth overload? Or heck, they could pay $19.95 a month to get a premium SurveyMonkey site and just outsource it to them!

Side Note: WireTap Studio just got unlocked for MacHeisters! Whether you already bought your bundle or are just thinking about it, grab it now! Extra apps for helping charities!

Anyway, it's just about time for my biology class, so TTFN!

My geology midterm wasn't nearly as hard as the teacher made it out to be. She gave us this big long comprehensive study guide and only some of it was actually on the 25-question, multiple-choice test. She had us freaking out at the beginning of the period with mentions of needing a calculator, and there wasn't a single math problem on the test (that I saw; I didn't skip any, and I don't think she had different "versions" of the test). There were no questions about the movement of hot spots or locating a point within a quadrangle using given longitude, latitude, as well as township and range. I only hesitated on two questions, and only one on the extra credit sheet.

It's Friday and I still haven't committed to a class ring (yet). It's probably a good thing, but what sucks is that even if I do make up my mind, the ordering at this point is either online or over the phone. If I want encrusting --and TBH, it doesn't look as good IRL as it does online; I thought it would be more like "dimensional" embossing, but it's really just like painted-on the stone (which has to be of a certain cut or they can't do it at all)-- I have to order over the phone. I have narrowed down the stone choices to either garnet or blue fire spinel, and I'm probably going to get an "antique" finish in some form of silver or platinum or palladium or whatever's available.

The hard part is the BAND size-- originally I wanted this one with these neat sides that had your major and/or other interest on them, plus wording around the stone that says the school name. I can also get these "ribbons" that say something like the year I'm graduating or custom characters...

I whittled it down to wanting:
* Journalism
* Sigma Alpha Pi (Greek name of NSLS)
* CSUN or Cal State Northridge or some variation of the school's name

I can do without 2009 or 2010, but those ones above are MUSTS. Problem is, the ring I wanted that can have all that is so THICK on my fingers, it looks weird. My fingers are pretty short and stubby, with no shape to them. They look like sticks. The one with a thinner, curvier band can't have customized sides, which takes half the fun out of the ring altogether. I like CSUN, but I don't want a Matador on my ring. I looked at some more elegant rings, where there are no side pictures, but I can still get writing on them, but the band looked too thin. It was like my finger was sprouting out of this pretty little delicate-looking thing.

I asked the Jostens folks, but they were basically like "Yeah, there's no middle ground." HELP!

Also, I feel lousy. I think I ate my breakfast too fast again this morning; I was running a bit late for a dentist's appointment. My appointment ended up getting cancelled anyway, so the five minutes that turned into eleven minutes ended up being meaningless. I've rescheduled for the 27th. But in the meantime, this wibbly, constipated feeling has stuck with me all day. I had Campbell's Tomato Soup and Ritz for lunch; the sodium content was just off the charts! I don't usually care too much about sodium --I like my eggs and potatoes salted, thank you very much-- but 790 mg per serving, with a single bowl being 2 servings!? WTF!? It was so salty I was smacking my lips the whole while (and not in the good way). I tried to water the soup down and drink tea to make the saltiness go away, but it didn't help much. I couldn't finish the bowl. I had rice pudding for "dessert," but I'm not sure if that was the best idea, either. On the one hand: rice, which is nice and benign, but on the other hand, PUDDING, which is cream and fat and more stomach pain.

I wonder if all this is caused by the new medicine I've been taking off and on for my dermographia or whatever-- basically all the itchy redness I tend to get all over. I wonder if it's working in conjunction with one of my many other allergy/asthma/heartburn/etc. meds and is making me fill ILL more often than not. Is there some sort of "input meds, see side effects and interactions" generator out there somewhere?

Also: weekend? What weekend? Tomorrow I'm going shopping with Baba and Grandpa in Porter Ranch, and on Sunday I'm planting trees in Granada Hills. Next week is the first meeting of NSLS this semester and I have to make sure to have all the materials and BE ready. Eek, I hope I can do this!

Let's see, five or so minutes until clean-up time (or at least until Jamie is supposed to get here to help me clean up) for the NSCS Garage Sale, and we've made about $85 over the course of two days. Not too bad. The leftovers I suppose we'll give to the Goodwill, though some stuff (namely some sports cards and some manga) I think I can sell online for a decent amount. Hopefully.

Joyce also said she'll buy all the stuffed animals; she works in family law, and when kids get adopted out, they get to pick a stuffed animal, but she says "they're" (I don't know who "they" are) always running out (of stuffed animals to give away). Right now, we have about 10 left, so hopefully Joyce will be willing to fork over $20 or so for the lot, including a brand-new, super-soft dog-pillow thing.

It hasn't been bad, sitting out here pretty much all day. As per usual for me, I've been reading a lot of CSI fic (I think I've read almost everything by Mossley, at this point), chatting with Joe and Jamie when they were here (Jamie is helping me clean up before we meet Joe and the others at Starbucks for an NSLS meeting), and checking my email.

I'm applying to another internship that might meet the Journalism department's standards for credit (for a journalism internship)-- the Washington Internship Institute. Okay, it's not free, but housing is actually part of the package and I *hope* that it's a paid internship. Anyway, Prof. Shapiro (last semester's JOUR 331 - Graphics professor) agreed to write the required faculty recommendation form for me, so yay to that. :) I think it's bull that I should have to pay all these fees and deposits for things I supposedly qualify for because I'm so active in volunteering, have such a good GPA, etc. -_- Whatever happened to REWARDING the smart kids? I feel like all the good opportunities are just beyond my reach, all because of cash. Well, there's loans, fundraising, and scholarships, and I'm sure as hell not a quitter, so I'll have to look into a variety of things.

Personally, I'd like it if the Target internship could still work out somehow for Journalism credit, because not only is it local and sound fun (but also challenging), but it pays well. Plus there's a strong chance of being hired full-time after the fact, which is nothing to scoff at. Even Target needs a media/press relations department, and while I'm no PR concentration, you never know the needs of a corporation like that.

I have decided I'm going to drop Japanese as a minor, though. On the one hand, it's sad, because I've always been so dedicated to the study of Japanese language and culture, and I enjoyed it a lot when I was younger. When I got into college and DID declare it as my secondary minor, I thought of it as the thing that would set me apart from all the other Journalism majors with their required collateral fields or minors. But the classes are terribly timed, stressful... and to be honest, just thinking about it makes my chest hurt. I can't handle the professors, the workload... anything. I get this sickening guilty feeling whenever I read the japanese community, too. I know that I said just a few paragraphs above, I'm not a quitter-- and I'm not NOW. But I was, because Japanese stressed me out that much.

Even though I look back on going to Japan as a great experience, one I learned a lot from, to be honest, I can't see myself living there anymore, like I used to. I don't think I could work at Shonen Jump or Shojo Beat as a translator; an editor, maybe (and they do need one...). And when I really look back on it, I remember the fun times with my friends, but I also remember how cold and lonely I was. I remember crying the first few days I got there, because I felt like the stupidest person there, not remembering certain things. That was especially true when I finally went to Tokyo on my own and I didn't understand what the clerk was telling me when she said Sarah Brightman had already left the store. I must have waited there for an hour, all because I forgot what the word "sakki" meant.

I don't want to feel that way again. I'd like to think that I learned from my experiences --both in class and in Japan-- and now I have a better grasp on my limitations. I know a bit more about just what defines my breaking point: at which point I get so stressed I make myself ill. I have to say, I really have been getting pretty sick over the past half-year, and if it's really all psychosomatic, I'm disappointed in myself. I'm not exactly the paragon of healthy eating and regular exercise, but it's not like I pork out in front of the TV all day with a bag of chips and guac. But stressing out does things to your insides, and I was getting pretty close to either being a hypochondriac or being genuinely ill with something like an ulcer. Scott had that, and just judging by what I heard from him, I don't want to go down that route.

I have yet to really un-declare the minor, and I'm not 100% sure of the consequences- after all, I got that Presidential Scholarship which I really never did anything with, though it saved my hide in Japan after that idiotic phone escapade. Part of me still thinks I'm more than capable of writing that book, but it's not like I ever had this great relationship with my supposed mentor, Hirota-sensei, and I hardly think I would after I un-declare the minor. That's especially true if I have to get her signature on any forms and explain just why I feel the way I do. I don't like getting emotional around professors.

Anyway, other stuff:
What's your preferred domain registrar? I've been with Register.com, and while they were good, they were too expensive. Same goes with InterNIC. I'm with Yahoo! Small Business for meredithsweet.com, and GoDaddy for seventh-star.net, but today at the NSLS officers' meeting, Jamie told me that GoDaddy sucks and he won't have anything to do with them, directly or indirectly. I've had a great experience with them so far, despite their supposed lousy TOS and policies. Nonetheless, if I wanted to get a CSUN NSLS website that's not hosted by CSUN (because apparently that requires funding which we currently do not have), I need to find a good registrar. Suggestions are appreciated!

WDKY25 is like, seriously, almost done. Whee! I actually was working on it last night-- a storm of writing! Please let it continue...!