Archive for "School"
Observations
Posted on August 27, 2003 by Ching under School.
There have been so many changes since I last attended Wichita State University.. Technology in schools have advanced so much in the last four or five years. When I registered for my classes this semester, I was amazed that I could do everything online — even get advising. Back in the day you had touch-and-roll phone registration or you registered for classes in person. When it was time to pay, everyone paid in person so you can imagine the nightmare. These days many people opt to pay by mail so there are fewer people who pay in person. The lines are still pretty bad but only because they’ve shortened the payment period. Overall things are more efficient than they were in the past.
The improvements don’t end there either. I love that more classes are now using Blackboard. The technology has been around for many, many years but none of the classes I’ve taken in late 90s really took full advantage of it. The computers have been replaced with newer ones and even the classrooms received upgrades. Enter SMARTBoard, the technology that will render primitive chalkboards and whiteboards obsolete. It’s great to see progress. It’s great to see the university make an effort to keep up.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to changes that I’ve noticed. It’s a familiar place but there is so much for me to explore and catch up on. It’s like seeing an old friend at your high school reunion whom you haven’t seen since graduation. I’m getting to know WSU all over again.
So I’m back to school with my old stuff. Armed with new text books and supplies but still the same old me. Me and my trusty leather backpack which Sarah jokingly refers to as “old school.” And it is. It’s showing signs of age very much like its owner. Bought at Wilson’s for $125 at the beginning of my very first semester at WSU in 1996, it’s been through a lot. And it endures, much like I have.
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Homeless Guy
Posted on August 16, 2003 by Ching under Life, School.
With school starting next week I have a long list of things that I will miss: sleeping in and having Brian drive me to work and pick me up, just to name a couple. I love it when Brian picks me up even though I have to wait a few minutes for him to arrive at my work (we both get off at 11 pm but he has to wait for all of his people to get off the phone and finish his end of day stuff and drive from the North side of town where T-Mobile is located to downtown Wichita). I usually have a pretty uneventful wait — just the two of us, talking to each other via our cellphones until he arrives to whisk me away. Thursday night, however, was more exciting than usual.
I looked in the alley where Brian normally comes from and told him that they are still doing construction but this time the entire alley is blocked off so he will have to go around and take Main Street instead at which point I noticed this drunk man walking in my direction. Instictively I walked back to the well-lit front entry. I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible but the man still found me and asked for directions (I am the last person you’d want directions from, trust me). He wanted to know how to get to Broadway. I always get turned around so I started asking Brian who was on the phone with me the whole time through my handsfree/headset but everytime I would say something to Brian the drunk man would start talking to me again. I can’t really fault him for it for even sober people get taken aback when you are seemingly talking to think air because they do not see any kind of phone held next to your ear. He was drunk so he probably didn’t realize I was on the phone.
I couldn’t get decent directions because he would keep interrupting me everytime I’d ask so I just told him to keep going in the direction that he was already going (he was walking along First Street, coming from Main towards Market). Our entry faces South so this would actually be correct. What I didn’t understand was he said he wanted to go downtown but he was already downtown. He mentioned something about looking for McDonald’s but I really couldn’t understand because his speech was slurred. I wished that I could’ve given him better directions but I was actually relieved to see him walking away.
Broadway kind of has a bad reputation, specially as you go further North. The street is riddled with street-walkers and seedy motels. Brian immediately assumed that the drunk man was looking for a hooker. “No, baby!” I told him, “He’s looking for a McDonalds.” Brian goes, “He has a long walk ahead of him then.” I didn’t realize this then but Brian is right. When he gets to Broadway, he has to walk another four blocks South in order to get there.
As we started driving home, we saw him still walking along First Street. He had gone past Broadway and was well on his way to Old Town. I almost made Brian stop so we could give him a ride to McDonald’s. Brian was like, “No! You gave him directions. That’s your good deed for the day.” He said “Look,” pointing to the police car driving behind us, “they’re not even stopping!” But still I felt guilty for not being able to give him better directions. Brian’s point was, what are the chances that he would have even understood the better directions? “It’s not YOUR fault that he is too drunk to read the BIG green street sign!”
“But baby, you don’t understand! What if I run into him again? He might try to kill me for giving him such horrible directions!” Brian’s like, “That’s why I tell you to stay inside the building while you wait for me! I hate it when you stand outside! It makes me worry!” To this I always insist that it’s fine because the entry is very well lit. Seriously though, I feel really bad that he missed Broadway.
You know what the sad part is? I’ve been working downtown for over a year, I was completely sober and yet I didn’t know which direction Broadway would be! It’s terrible!
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Tricked
Posted on April 22, 2003 by Ching under Life, School.
Easter Sunday has been a real blow to my diet. The whole holiday weekend has been a blow to my workout regimen period.
Friday was actually somewhat okay. We woke up, had some McDonald’s breakfast (I usually have a sausage and egg McMuffin with a folded egg when I eat McDonald’s breakfast; this was early enough in the day that I knew I had plenty of time to burn it off), then proceeded to Ashley’s because I promised her that I would help her with her class project. We worked on it for a couple of hours and took off at a little past eleven to go to Shooters (free pool with lunch) to meet his dad and Don for their lunch break. I skipped lunch because I just had breakfast and kicked serious ass at pool (as in Brian lost to me three times and I only lost once to Dave and almost won cut-throat if I hadn’t scratched and put Don, who actually ended up winning after having been out of the game for a while already, back on table).
Next on the agenda was WSU. I knew this was trick from the very beginning but I told Brian (he’s the one who really wanted to go back to school, I had no intention of going back up until that fateful afternoon) that I would go with him anyway because I was more familiar with the buildings and stuff. In the middle of getting re-activated he gets a phone call so I had to complete the re-activation process for him. The lady was just updating information on the computer prior to the re-activation anyway and I told her that I would be able to answer on his behalf. After we finished and he was still on the phone, I asked her in passing if it cost anything to get your school account re-activated and she said no. I thought, well if it’s free then might as well re-activate me too. I’m already here. It’ll save me time when I get a bug up my butt and decide to return to college later on. So she did. She then sent us to the College of Fine Arts office, which was in the same building, so we could get a printout of all of the courses that we had taken (since it wasn’t an official transcript, it would be free). The lady there was really super-nice. She printed Brian a list and, instead of sending me to another place, she printed me a list also.
Brian and I took a minute to pause and ponder our lists. I had 86 credits already (should have 100 or so, because I went for four consecutive years, but I ended up losing a whole semesters worth of credits due to slacking off and stupidity — meaning, audits and withdrawals) and Brian thought it would be such a shame to waste all of those credits. We ended up talking me into returning to college (I’ll be one of those returning adults who used to creep me out when I was a freshman — yikes) in the fall. I’m actually excited because lately I realize how much I loved going to school and I really miss it. I hate doing homework but I love doing projects and helping Ashley on hers just made me realize it even more.
After our campus shennanigans (which consisted of a lot of walking around, good calorie consumption right there) Brian took me to this gown/dress store. It was crappy. I knew there was a reason that,although they’d been in business for several years, I’ve never been there. We ended up looking for dresses (for the upcoming June Filipino ball) at the mall and I actually found one at Maurices. We did some more walking around in the mall (burning more calories, yeah baby) until I finally started getting tired (and cranky). We went to mom’s house in the afternoon and had some leftovers. She had fried tilapia and nilagang manok for me and some fried chicken for Brian. It was so yummy! It was before five o’clock too, so it was the perfect time to eat dinner (for me anyhow, Brian would still need to eat at around ten-ish because of his biological clock). After showing mom my dress and being disappointed to learn that she did not have any shoes that would match my dress in her almost Imelda-like collection, we ended up going to Payless and KOHL’s in vain. I ended up just ordering a pair from the Spiegel website when we got home.
I don’t remember working out on Friday but I did work out on Saturday morning before Brian and I started our day. We both had to work that day. Normally I wouldn’t have to but I traded my Friday (so we could hang out that day) to work on Saturday instead. I remained faithful to my diet and workout regimen through Saturday.
Sunday was the killer. I did not work out at all and Brian refused to allow me to remain within the bounds of my diet (at the risk of offending his mom who was our Easter Sunday dinner host). I can’t say I was averse to it either because I took full advantage of my food freedom. Needless to say, I ate a lot! As in, totally pigged out. And I’ve been pigging out on leftovers since.
I told myself that it was no big deal because it would only be for one day and I would be working out on Monday anyway. Well, guess what. My friend Pia caught me as I was coming home on Monday night and I ended up walking her through a successful installation of Moveable Type and an unsuccessful attempt at installing Image Magick (I finally told her to just email her webhost about it) on her server. I was with her from eight to midnight (two hours on the phone until my cellphone finally ran out of battery and then the rest of the time on Yahoo! Messenger — I’m afraid to ask what her cellphone bill is like) working on her photoblog idea. I didn’t get to work out as planned but I did get some laundry done. So it wasn’t an altogether unproductive evening for me.
Today is a new day and, by golly, I’m really going to work out because my belly is getting super-big again!
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