Now that school is almost over, I've seen a couple of friends with whom I've lost touch while I was buried in the pile that is called schoolwork. We are all "resurfacing," a.k.a. catching up. I've caught up with my friend Mawadda, and that brought back memories of Deeqa (who's buried in her own Ph.D. work), who once wisely told me, "Uh...crooks do reproduce."

At that time, I'd laughed because I found it funny. It took me three years to appreciate it as truth, and see the irony. Because in fact, crooks had been procreating and giving birth to crook-offspring, who grow up to become adult crooks, who in turn perpetuate the vicious cycle of populating the world with more crooks who are the bane of my existence.

If you know me well enough, then you know who (plural) I'm talking about. >:(

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New favorite quote: "Just because a statement is delivered with force and volume does not make it fact." - Cassie from "Secrets" (may not be an exact quote, but it's close enough)

It's been a while since I posted to this blog...because I have forgotten my log-in information. Forgetful and absent-minded at 29. I wonder how I'll be when I'm 30. :p

It has been three months since I last posted anything. Not that anything exciting was really happening to me. I have since then passed Advanced Epidemiology (although I can't say that for a fact, since I haven't really gotten the courage to check my grades yet). I haven't gotten an e-mail that says otherwise, so the opposite must be true. And I'm sure there's a fallacy of logical reasoning there somewhere, but the proper phrase just escaped me.

It's 5 months (more or less) to graduation. And then...ta-ta! ;)

What is this? Why am I posting once a month?

Could it be because:

A. I have been busy with school.
B. a lot of (good, thank goodness) things have been going on in my life.
C. my Internet connection is not as wonderful as advertised.
D. All of the above.

The answer is D. All of the above.

(Note to self: Post more this month. Exercise that free speech the responsible thought process that should come with it. :p)

I hate being late for anything, although that seemed to be all that I'm doing lately.

Since this is the first week of Fall 2008, I am determined to not be late.

I. Will. Be. On. Time.

I woke up earlier than I normally do, got myself ready for the day, and even remembered to pull up my classroom schedules off my e-mail. I managed to leave my apartment with 10 minutes to spare. That was plenty of time, since most of my classes this year are practically across the street. :p

I found directions to my classroom, and slid into my seat in the nick of time. But no sweat, I was still on time. I was really surprised to see the classroom/auditorium full of students. The last class I've attended that was close to being that full was Introduction to Biostatistics. But then, there's really no escaping Biostats, not if you want to do research. I guess there was no escaping Medical Informatics as well.

"Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here on time. My name is Professor ________, and this is Advanced Biochemistry."

Whaattt??? Exactly. I was in the wrong freaking classroom. I checked the room numbers written on my planner, speed-dialed the one person who could straighten out the classroom assignments for me, and tried to get out of the room unnoticed.

"You're in the wrong classroom!"

(Well, duh.)

"You must be looking at Thursday's schedule. Today is Wednesday."

(Well, double-duh.)

I ended up getting to the (right) class and classroom 15 minutes late.

In my defense, this is the first time it happened to me. And if this says something about how the rest of my semester is going to be, I'm off to FABULOUS start.

This is a long time coming.

Because I did not have time to call Time Warner Cable to get digital cable installed, I've missed out on my favorite show for the summer: The Next Food Network Star.

In the past weeks when I was stuck in cable-less oblivion, finalists have been eliminated, and Aaron McCargo emerged the winner. :D

Yay for Aaron. I had a feeling he was going to win.

The recap for the finale can be viewed here.

Visit the Food Network website for episodes.

I can't believe it's almost the start of the fall semester. Where had the summer gone? Where was the sunshine and the nice warm weather that summer was supposed to bring? All we had was rain and more rain.

In the last 9 days of the summer, I'm hoping to accomplish several things:
1. Catch up on my summer reading. Thanks to my heavy course work this summer, I had totally neglected reading for leisure. Now I'm on a fast-track to go through all the books I checked out from our library.

2. Watch the videos of the women's gymnastics and men's swimming in the Beijing Olympics. Like summer, the Olympics came and went with me hardly being aware of it. I kept mostly up to date with Yahoo! Sports. Without it, I would not even be aware of it ("Oh, are the Olympics going on in China this year? Is this even an Olympic year?").

3. Watch "Gossip Girl" from season 1, and find out what the hype about Blake Lively is about.

4. Go to New York City, eat all the pastries I can eat at Red Ribbon Bake Shop, and shop to my heart's content (more accurately, shop to my wallet's contents). :D

When I was in high school, I remember a classmate bringing up an interesting point:

You can have everything. You can't just have everything all at once.

What is wrong with having everything? I'm all for having everything. Me, me, me. Now, now, now.

Some twelve years later, and a lousy experience with cable TV services, and I've completely reversed my thinking.

Monopoly sucks, especially if you're on the consuming end of products and services.

Time Warner Cable is the sole cable TV provider in my city, so if I want cable, I gotta pay up, and pay up fast. And if I want, I can bundle that service with a digital phone package, and a high-speed internet service, for a low, low price that they don't advertise in their websites.

The thing is, my roommate and I already have an Internet service provider, from the competition, no less.

Yup, we were sucked into Frontier's DSL service, which for the life of me, does not consistently work for my laptop. I've taken my laptop everywhere, and only at our apartment did I ever encounter problems connecting to the Internet. And at the most inopportune times, too. I'm not self-centered enough to think that the universe is conspiring against me, but the times when I do have problems connecting to the Internet are the times when there are papers to write, assignments have to download and upload into the course website, and most importantly, contact numbers for Frontier have to be Googled.

I called AT&T's 4-1-1 on my cell phone, and got hold of a very bored-sounding LaToya who gave me the listing for Frontier Airlines, after telling her TWICE, "No, I want the listing for Frontier, the Internet provider. Please." Needless to say, AT&T charged me for that 4-1-1 call. And for the minutes I used up calling the wrong number, thanks to the very competent LaToya.

So, this is why my roommate wants to keep a landline in the apartment, for emergencies like this. I ran to the phone, called Frontier's 4-1-1, which I was pretty sure will give me the correct number for the correct Frontier, given that it's the same company as our internet provider.

The representative picked up the 4-1-1 call:

Me: Can I get the listing for Frontier, the internet provider, please?
CSR: (looks up the number) Do you need help???
Me: No, I just need the number for Frontier, the internet provider.
CSR: Do you need help?
Me: (Help with what??? Yes, I need help. Can you write my paper? It's due in two hours.) No, just the number, please. I've been having problems with our Internet and I just want to ask talk to them.
CSR: (very rudely) That's just what I asked you. Because there's two numbers. One is for technical support, and the other one is for blah-blah-blah.
Me: (mentally reviews the conversation, because I was certain that technical support was mentioned anywhere in our conversation) I want the number for technical support. Thank you, goodbye (and good riddance, LaToya 2).

I dial Frontier's number on our Frontier phone, which my roommate told me costs us X amount of dollars per minute. After what felt like centuries (and $$$), I was told they couldn't help me, because:

1. They couldn't hear me very well. There was static on the phone (did I mention it was a Frontier phone, and the static was worse on my end???)
2. They couldn't help me, period.

How's that for fabulous customer service? And people wonder why people outsource their customer support to countries like Philippines.

On the one hand, Time Warner's cable TV monopoly sucks. On the other hand, their competition (Frontier) sucks on many aspects, anyway. In the end, it really just sucks for consumers like myself.