January 2008

just a little thing...for mysql

If you are like me, you are probably a control+c addict when it comes to copy/pasting all the time.

or compulsive ctrl-s.

Don't ever do control-c in MySql--it will crash it.

This is the lesson for today.

Thank goodness I didn't have anything important on there.

I need to do some self-training to wean myself off of control+s, though...

Friends

So my friend Aakash last week suggested that we go visit the museum/mausoleum on campus, but since I had a lot of work I suggested that we all go this week.

Fast forward to one day ago, where Aakash tells me he's sick. I'm disappointed, but there are like 5 people confirmed so we decide to eat at the museum anyway.

Somehow, more people kept on getting added until I had a head count of 7 for lunch, and then 9, and then finally it ended up with 12 people at lunch, because Alex, David and Marc happened to be having lunch together and decided to join us too. It was fun times. Poor Aakash! It was his plan and he wasn't even there!

I just realized, however, that I am a HORRIBLE friend. I threatened to block one of my friends on instant messenger about 2 weeks ago, and then I did it. I completely forgot until today, when I was wondering why I hadn't chatted with them until now.

...I wonder if other people go through these daily oopsies.

Fellowships

5 a.m.

Fellowships eat my soul for breakfast.

Applications take so much time...yet are so futile...

Also, I am up due to the fact that I can't let go of a problem when I'm working on it. I am now going to bed, but really wanting to work on this problem, if it wasn't for the fact that my neck is killing me (gah).

Self-censorship

I started thinking, after talking to some people about how I interviewed and went through the process of choosing a grad school, how incredibly stupid I was when it came to who read and actually looked at my opinions.

In my mind, I felt that people wouldn't care about what I thought about each school, or what I was asking other people. I treated social networking sites such as TheFacebook as venues for dialogue similar to email.

Really, I'm just nobody. Who would pay attention to my profile?

What I forgot, however, is that fact that all those people...all the other people who are your "friends" on facebook, or linked to you on any social networking site, may actually read what you write on someone else's (facebook) wall. Actually, what is worse is that the NEWS FEED lets other people know that you posted on someone else's wall. I thought I had disabled that feature until a friend kindly pointed it out. That was the moment when I realized that other people, who I did not intend to have read my thoughts on particular aspects of my decision making process, had a real and clear insight into what I was thinking.

It's strange...you always think that only 5 people you know are seeing what you do on the internet, but in reality there are more people interested, perhaps simply because it is forced upon them by some type of rss aggregator, or by the pure fact that they chance upon your information. Tracking a person's thoughts, feelings, and concerns has become an instantaneously accessible feat--a trivial mouseclick will allow me to feel concern for a friend in troubled times, or note the fact that a friend was engaged or married without ever speaking a word to them.

In the last year I have become increasingly aware of this--although I do not intend to incur my own embarrassment or shame associated with what I put on the internet, I have learned to become more aware of the people around me and how it affects them. Strangely enough, as we synthesize our social connections, the metasociety that grows online has become this weird amalgamation of true society and internet society.

It seems obvious now, but at the time, stupidly enough I didn't completely think about how the responsibility of putting one's opinion on the internet would actually affect real life.

Other people have learned this more quickly, and censor themselves. I will try to be careful, but not to the point of ignoring my own convictions. I'm not embarrassed to the effect of shame--in fact, the majority of photos or comments that I have on the internet that people would say are "embarrassing" are staged for comedic effect, or intentionally strange or inappropriate.

Where is the line of social correctness? I guess I am still learning.

Be a better person

Everyday we have one of those revelations that we need to be doing more, and that life is too short.

This is one of those days.

Hopefully I'll try to post more about volunteer activities/opportunities. Most of my volunteer activities are primarily educational in nature...I hope to do more of this, but in a better way.

Days like today make me sad, and a little angry at myself for becoming so absorbed in my own work.