Eye to Eye

In one of my classes at the table in front of me sits a very tall fellow. When I say “tall,” I mean really, really tall—the kind of tall that requires him to duck when stepping through the doorway. He’s also in the lab for this class, and even though these are our first classes with him, it hasn't taken him long to make our acquaintances. As tall as he is, I had wondered that he isn’t playing basketball. As it turns out, he is an ex-basketball player, having transferred from Montana after a career-ending injury.

So anyway, at the end of our class on Thursday, he had something he hadn’t finished talking about, and I found myself effectively blocked off from leaving the classroom while he finished. He was talking abut our department head and was telling me some things about which he disagrees. “I just don’t see eye to eye with him,” he said.

With a brilliant flash of inspiration, I flopped my head back dramatically in order to gaze up at his 7+ ft. self and said, “Well, quite frankly, there aren’t many people who do see eye to eye with you.”

His guffaws echoing down the hallway confirmed my brilliance of the moment, and I am ashamed to admit that I have chuckled about it several times since.

Thumbs up!

I just have to give a shout-out to some of the things that I have recently found to make my life especially nice!

1. USPS APC. As seems to be the case a lot of the time more recently here, I needed to send some large envelopes with varying numbers of pages inside. Additionally, I needed a book of self-adhesive stamps to replenish my supply. So when I arrived at the post office in Bowling Green several days prior to Valentine's Day, I was dismayed to find half of the local county standing in line, waiting to send their Special Someone an I Love You package. The line was so long, in fact, that despite a very creative curl to the line, I couldn’t even step inside the glassed-in waiting area. I was instead left standing out by the post office boxes. I weighed my options. I saw the usual machines with postage booklets in them, but unfortunately, they don’t take any method of payment other than cash, and cash is something that I usually don’t have much of with me.

And then around the corner on the far end of the building, I saw a kiosk called APC (Automated Postal Center). Upon closer examination, I saw that this nifty little thing was digitized and not only took credit cards to buy postage stamps, but one can literally weigh items to mail right there and print any type of postage desired, including delivery confirmation and content insurance. AND this delightful little APC is accessible 24 hours a day—no more need to coincide my visits to the Post Office with their less-than-accommodating business hours!

I took care of my business in short order, completely bypassing that long line of sentimental package senders.

Way to go, USPS!

2. My Dana Wireless. When my Palm was stolen on the third day of class, I bought in its stead a Dana Wireless. I had been dissatisfied with the less than predictable connection of my wireless keyboard with my Palm, and so the Dana seemed like a good option to try. It is roughly the size of a piece of paper and is about ¾ in. thick. It looks like a small keyboard with a wide screen at the top. It weighs about 3 pounds. The Dana actually runs a Palm operating system, and therefore, it can run any program that the Palm can. The screen is not color, however, which means that it can hold a charge of up to 25 hours before it needs to be recharged. Just like a Palm, it can be synced with my computer, and all documents are compatible with Word and Excel. Furthermore, you are supposed to be able to surf the Internet and check email on it with its wireless feature. I haven’t taken the time to figure out that aspect of it yet.

The thing that made me decide to actually buy the Dana was having to sit in one of my classes for an hour and twenty minutes and having to write notes that entire time. I would average 4-5 pages of notes every time. Unlike a laptop, there is no boot time—it’s just on or off. Your typing is saved automatically, and so there is no loss of data. There are no cords or accessories. And it fits right into my backpack and doesn’t make the weight of it impossible to carry on my back! In short, it has become my best friend! I do a lot of writing in my major, and that will only intensify when/if I’m accepted into graduate school, so I believe this is the beginning of a long and sustainable relationship.

The first day I had my Dana in class, I became somewhat of a hero. I sit with my friends Natalie, Brad, Brandon, and Adrian. After explaining what it is and what it can do, class began. What took my classmates five minutes to write, I was done with in one. In fact, I could study for something else while everyone else wrote and wrote and wrote… We take a break midway through the class, and I found it quite comical when in unison Brad and Brandon turned around and asked, “Now where do you get that?” Natalie immediately declared that she would be willing to pay me for my notes. “You could make money off that thing,” she said.

Needless to say, I am indeed the absolute envy of my classmates wherever I go. And I become more and more fond of my Dana with every passing day. While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that a laptop does, it is literally this student’s best friend. I love my Dana so much, in fact, that (as I told Sharon) I am surprised I didn’t invent it myself!

3. Logmein.com. Logmein.com is an exceptionally great service. When Alvin was here for Christmas he introduced me to this little tool. This service is FREE, and it allows one to log into your home PC remotely. In other words, I can be on campus in the computer lab, and this service allows me to bring up my home desktop as if I were right there at home. The first day in one of my classes, our instructor told us that we would have to meet on alternate dates because of a scheduling discrepancy. I do not carry a planner with me, and because we were in a computer lab at the time, I just logged into my home PC to check my calendar on Outlook. Natalie and Justin were on either side of me, and Justin especially about “spazzed out.” He thought it was really cool. Which it is.

Alvin told me about it, I told Sharon about it, and Sharon told Sara about it. Good news travels quickly! We have also set Mom’s PC up on it so that we can deal with her “disappearing files” without having to move from our little underground nest.

So thumbs up to Logmein.com, to the Dana Wireless, and to the smart moves of the USPS!

The Path to Graduation

Suddenly, I am a Senior, and I am left wondering how it happened so quickly.

My degree program is set up in such a way that certain classes are only offered in the spring and some only in the fall. Because of the way things worked out, I am on track to graduate next May (2008). After the summer semester, however, I will only have five classes left to split over two semesters (which is not ideal in the academic world). Because of the spring/fall thing, I had just resigned myself to that extra semester, and I had planned to just fill in the blanks with classes that I wouldn’t mind taking anyway, most likely ending up with a minor in Finance.

Then I saw that one of the classes I won’t be able to take until next spring (HCA445) is listed on the summer schedule, and if I could indeed take it this summer, that would leave me with just one (1) class preventing my December 07 graduation! This was too much to bear. Then I checked last fall’s schedule and found that the last class I needed (HCA448) had been offered, which was out of the norm. I just couldn’t help it. I began dreaming about graduation in December—that wonderful month of festive activities.

So I talked with certain key individuals about it the very next day, and as it turns out, Operation December Graduation is not going to happen after all. No, they will not be offering 448 in the fall as they did last year, and 445 is only being offered to certain individuals who have it as being their only class preventing graduation. Figures!

I just can’t help but be disappointed.

On the bright side, however, it seems I have been tossed a bone. Sometime in the past year—not exactly sure when—I decided to pursue my Masters degree, which means another 2 ½ years of school. I know, I know—sick, sick, sick of this college thing. But anyway… all my professors are strongly encouraging me in that direction, and I know that for what I want to be doing, I will have to have a Masters.

As my friend Johnny from my very first semester said, “I’ll be on Social Security by the time I graduate.”

So back to this bone I’ve been tossed… Because of the holes in my last semester, I can actually take up to two graduate-level classes before I graduate with a Bachelors, which means I won’t just be sitting there wasting my time on behalf of two classes. AND Dr. W said he might be able to get three classes approved because of my particularly unfortunate situation.

But first, I have to pass the GRE, which requires months of intensive preparatory study. And adding to the stress of the exam itself is the fact that they are changing the format of the test this coming September (longer, harder, and more expensive), which means I need to take it this summer.

And suddenly, I don’t have much time left to study anymore. Why, it’s practically summer already!

Take Heed

So there we were—a group of about a dozen strangers—weighed down with backpacks, wrapped up in coats and mufflers and mittens, red-cheeked from the cold, and wishing—yay, even praying—that the next bus would quickly COME.

As everyone stood silently in his or her own little world of cold misery in the “shelter” that offered very little protection from the elements, down the sidewalk came yet another—and her intent was to pass us by. We all watched her come closer, her ears full of iPod, and as one, we all turned to watch her go.

When she was directly in front of us, however, the ice that mere seconds before had been lying in a benign state upon the sidewalk suddenly became a Force to be reckoned with. And she slipped in a manner that abruptly jolted her from her self-aborbed world of iPod-dom. She did not quite fall, but it was comical nonetheless. And the twelve or so strangers she had intended to ignore suddenly became part of the picture. Her expression was Priceless, and as could be expected, she left our world considerably brighter than when she had entered it.

And when she had gone, the gentleman to my right voiced what everyone else was thinking. “What an embarrassing place to wipe out!”

Then we all laughed.

But we all took heed, lest we too, should fall.

A Good Deal

This thing of dragging heavy books around is very tiresome indeed. I have had a sore back again since this semester began, and I’m tired of it. So I made it my business to march up to the fifth floor of Grise and inquire about the rental of a locker. The gal I was to see was downstairs helping Dr. A with some boxes, so I settled down on the bench in the hall to wait. I was a little nervous about possibly being perceived to be the naughty child waiting for the principal in the Norman Rockwell painting.

She finally came back. I dropped my cell phone into my backpack and was glad to be able to rise from what I was beginning was to be my permanent perch for the afternoon. “What can I do for you, Sharon?” she said with a pleasant smile. That doesn’t happen to me as often as it happens to Sharon, so it was a bit odd to hear myself inserting, “I’m Sharon’s sister….” So a bit of awkwardness later, I was in possession of locker 178A. I was expecting to pay at least $25 for the rental, but it only cost $10 for the entire semester. Add the $3 lock, divide it in half (because Sharon is planning to utilize it as well), and we’ve got ourselves A Good Deal at $6.50 a piece. Hopefully, it will pay for itself in the chiropractor savings.

Now if I can just keep from losing the key.