Glasses online?

Its time for me to get new glasses and contact lenses. I am going to set up an appointment to get my prescription updated and order my contacts online, but what to do about the glasses? The last pair I bought ran me $300 and only lasted about 6 months before they got pretty badly damaged - It seems too expensive to keep paying this much for glasses. As a result, I am starting to pay more serious attention to online glasses websites like this one, this one, and this one. The issue of styles, however, is whats got me nervous. Do I want cool looking frameless glasses? Flexible ones that won't mind being sat on? Square lenses or round? hingeless glasses? There are so many decisions, so many styles. What does everybody recommend?

What in the world is going on here?

Yesterday i started recieving emails from a "Betty Hurst" who claims to know me. I find the whole thing rather bizarre, as though the person is a friend playing a bad joke, or an online stalker of some sort. Here is the initial email I recieved:

"Hi Jeff
Heard you had a big problem with Office 2007 ... how come u had such a problem ??
I thought u were a wiz at all of this .... buh !
seems like u r getting old - or is that technology is getting too new for you ... u used to be smart guy, I always longed for ... but you never looked at me : (
its been long that I wrote to you - howzz it going for you at BC ?? still single or .... ??
there are couple of women after u it seems in BC ... all of a sudden u have become talk of the town - u weren't like that at Colgate ?? how come this change ... from technology to women - guess its the China effect - I heard that u want to work in China now ..... is it because of the Chinese women ...
a friend of mine at BC in your MBA class has a big crush on you ... u dumbo, do something !
keep guessin ...... n study hard for operations - try to study with her - she'll like it .... now you'll get the hint, dumbo - go call her up, now .... "

before I even recieved this email, there was a follow up:

"did u read my mail
or are ignoring me sweetie ....."

My Response:

"Ms. Hurst,
I don't recall ever communicating with you before, and your name seems unfamiliar to me. Please describe how exactly we know each other, and who you know at BC. I have been receiving a number of prank emails lately, and require some proof of identity before conversing with unknown parties.
Thank you,
Jeff"

The reply does nothing to alleviate my confusion and suspicion:

"We met at Colgate - your memory is short & you don't remember me ... so you even forget that we spent good time together - I guess u never wanted to be near me ! !

now this seems like a prank email to you now ....... buh ! unknown parties n all ...

proof of identity - my friend at BC tells me that you are going for IME Asia and were struglling with Econ n Finance - now you are lookin for an internship in China ..

well, it was for your good that I wanted to tell you - keep guessing .... whom do you usually study with ? is that the woman of your love ... ur desire ?? ur fantasy ?? what does her name start with ..... is she your destiny ?

the only thing that worries me now is how quickly people change .....

I didn't expect this from you Jeff - never from you !

U let me down ...."

And a second follow up:

"Jeff
please let me know if u want to take this forward .......
throw me names of who that woman could be and I will help u out ....... she's from your batch !"

My Second Response:
"Ms. Hurst,

I am in a serious relationship. I am flattered to learn that someone has a crush on me, but I don't feel that it would be appropriate for me to go and speculate about who that person might be. I would advise your friend to come forward and speak with me in a public setting to discuss the matter, so that we can clear the air and determine what steps would be necessary to bring the situation to a close.

Jeff"

New Thumbdrive

I bought a Kingston 2gigabyte flash drive to replace my old 32megabyte flash drive. I was shocked to realize that the old one was only 1.5% of the size of new one. Also, I paid twice as much for the old one as I did for the new one, all those years ago. What a pleasant surprise!

That was close!

Let me tell you how the office 2007 thing panned out - I got it all set up, found out how to put in solver, data analysis, etc, and discovered that it slowed down the whole computer significantly. the windows splash screen lasted for 5 seconds, and all other programs slowed to a crawl (poor AVG took about a year to complete a scan). I was just starting to get the hang of the odd new interface when I encountered one of those "We're sorry, but Microsoft Excel has encountered an error and needs to close" dialog boxes. I'd hit the usual 'don't send error report', and Excel automatically restarted - only to immediately crash again. After getting tired of this infinite loop, I restarted the computer, and started another project in Word. When I tried to open a default memo template, same behavior! After a few cycles of this, I was seething about my inability to use the only reason for keeping windows around in the first place. Knowing better than to do something rash like wipe the partition, I uninstalled office 2007, went home, and went to bed praying my bad luck would end with the night. It did, and today I successfully put office 2003 back on. Now I hear people talking about upgrading anything - office 2007 or vista - and I shake my head, having learned the hard way what happens when you try to upgrade anything.

Egads! What have I done???

I was just starting to get comfortable with getting around in office for windows, and finally close to having it set up the way I like. Then, someone introduced me to OneNote 2007. It looked nice, and so i got the full office 2007 version and installed it this morning. But I can't figure out how to use some of the important features of excel that I need! Nor can I find the old excel, which seems to have been overwritten! I suppose this is an object lesson about not tinkering with your mission critical applications just before exams.

Exam time!

I'm about to take an operations exam. It will be painful, involving shoving long and pointy equations in small and sensitive orifices. Wish me luck!

Fun with skype and google docs

I just downloaded skype for windows and started playing with it. It is a pretty cool conferencing tool, and i'm really excited about it because it will allow our consulting project team and others to communicate and coordinate with eachother without having to congregate in a single location. Consider this: the four of us need to put together a big report. We need to coordinate together on some activities like the writing, but have very different class and work schedules.Rather than everyone going to a conference room, standing around and watching one person type, we can all work on writing the report at the same time and talk about it simultaneously. Every few seconds everybody's changes refresh, and since we're all talking and bouncing questions, Its just like being in the same room. Only better. How neat is that?

Yikes

I have to do a presentation for the IME Asia on Monday, and part of that work involves calling and interviewing a BC alumni. The thing is, the time difference complicates the entire process, and we have to coordinate with the Alumni office as well. All told, we basically need to research the company tonight so we can reach out via email overnight, and interview Sunday (Monday, Shanghai time). We need to move fast, really fast.

Devil Wears Prada

I just watched The Devil Wears Prada. Its a chick flick about the changes and learning that a young college grad undergoes trying to make it in New York High Fashion. Its interesting to watch because I wonder if someday soon I will be replaying that movie in a different industry. It raises interesting questions about priorities and how far one is willing to go to get ahead, and the results that it has for one's personal life, and inner self. It provides good reason to pause and look in the mirror. What trade offs will I make? And what effect will that have on my career? Food for thought. A word to those who watch the movie: try to ignore the hideous getup that everyone wears, and see it for what it is: a story about ambition and greed versus freedom and self.

Wow

Cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! lol if you can raed tihs rpsoet it!

Splickety - Splat

This morning when I woke up I thought it was raining - The sound coming from outside was unmistakable. As I climbed out of bed and dove into my clothes, I was reminiscing about all the times that as a kid I would get up to the lovely sound of condensing smog. After getting up, having breakfast, and enjoying the splickety splat of the rain outside, I was surprised to walk out the front door and discover that that noise wasn't liquid smog after all - No, it was snow. Now, smoggy people may not realize, but when snow falls, it usually falls silently. This snow was more ambitious than regular snow, though, and managed to make noise. I wasn't sure how it pulled that stunt off until I walked by some bushes (read: stand of waist high twigs) and realized that the watery splickety splat was the snow (more like white sky-sand, actually) smacking into the twigs of the bushes, making them rattle. At least it looks more like winter than it sounds.

Please don't call me in class

I was just in class and someone just called me.

The person is probably not someone I know (the phone number wasn't already in the phone) but the phone rang and interrupted the whole class. My first instinct was to think "How rude, didn't they know I'm in class?" My second thought, of course, was "Of course not. It's probably a wrong number. How rude!" My third thought, as I write this, is that this should be a lesson to myself: "Leave your phone off when you don't want to be called."  And that seems like a good rule. If you call and don't get a hold of me, now you know why. (Or, my phone is out of power. Or, I'm studying somewhere with no reception.Or, I'm avoiding you.) So don't take it personal, ok?

Orange juice?

This morning after my run I made a 'random vegetables that are in danger of spoiling' flavored smoothie. Into the mix today went some clementines, tomatoes, and carrots. Naturally, the resulting smoothie was this great bright orange color, and very tasty, prompting me to wonder if this really should qualify as a new kind of orange juice.

Contemplating a Haircut

I'm due for a haircut. It's cold enough outside that I want to wear a hat to stay warm, but once inside, i'm loathe to take it off and have my hair stick out at funny angles, making me look like a mess. There are three options for me: get a very short haircut that won't stick up noticeably because its so short, stop wearing a hat and deal with the cold, or get a not-so-short haircut from a good stylist and hope for the best. I'm not sure what to do, but am leaning towards a the first option. I don't know any stylists I like nearby, and I don't really want to give up on hats when its ten degrees outside. The super short option is hard to screw up (you just need a shaver with a lenthening attachment) and reqires no skill. You can even buy one for the cost of two or three haircuts. However, there is quite a regret factor if it looks bad (you'd have to wait for the hair to grow back out again) and I'm not sure that it is so easy to cut your own hair that way. What I really need to do is a three way coin toss.

Vitamins

I really don't want to get sick this semester.

I want to stay healthy so much that I have even been trying to take
vitamins to make sure that I stay healthy. The thing is, vitamins and
I don't normally get along. If I take them on an empty stomach, I am
guaranteed to throw up as soon as they start to dissolve in my
stomach. If I take them with a meal I can keep them down, but about
4-6 hours later I get a stomachache. Or worse, I get diarrhea.

So, I've been trying to identify which vitamin in particular causes
these reactions, so that I can stop taking it, adjust the dosage, or
do something else to address the situation. Unfortunately, the
process is kind of like russian roulette, because if I guess wrong
I'm not a very happy camper for a couple of days.

Who knew taking vitamins could be so much fun?

Organization, Health, and a self-improvement update

I posted earlier that I was going to try to implement GTD for the first 7 weeks of this semester. After two weeks, I have a few observations that I'd like to share. First, its much easier to commit to doing something if you just take the time to jump in and get started, and go all out at the beginning. I've tried to organize and keep myself on timetables and stuff before, but I never really committed fully to doing it for a while. I would dabble with this method or that method, looking for a cure-all that would tell me what to do, when, and make everything easy. I have to say that it doesn't exist. However, there is a lot to be gained from cutting up huge, terrifying projects into manageable, measurable chunks. Chunks that you can do, and finish, and then congratulate yourself over. The other big thing with staying organized is to make sure you have everything in one (or two, or three) places. It has helped immeasurably to have a memo pad around all the time for no other purpose than to jot stuff down as it occurs to me. I don't have to worry about losing it among my class notes, or a napkin dissolving in the wash.

The other thing that I've found to be very helpful is to get up early every day and go and exercise. I mentioned earlier that I've gotten a gym membership this semester, and last week I started getting up at 5:30 so that I could be at the gym when it opened at 6am, and showered and ready to study by 7. If i bring some food to school (rice and sauce, apples, whatever is easy and on hand) then I've found I can get 2 good meals a day, and it has helped my studying and concentration immensely. I can't wait to continue the process this upcoming week as well, and see if it can't get me through the three exams that are coming up as well.

The next area on which I am trying to improve is not resisting that work which seems scary to me. Knowing what the next thing that I need to tackle when I'm able to do it is great, but if I'm avoiding stuff because I'm scared of it things just don't work so well.

Mostly I am referring to my internship search, which bothers me because I'm not sure exactly what roles and positions I would be the best fit for. Am I more cut out for corporate finance, I-banking, asset management, or operations? Which would I enjoy the most? When I ask myself these questions, the answer is always "I don't know. I don't know what they do, so how should I know if I'm a good fit?" And not knowing, of course, is always scariest thing. Now, just like those first open-water dives, I just need to jump in and do it.

Tomorrow: Operations Exam 1

Tomorrow is the first exam of the quarter, for Operations Class.
The class is engaging, but closely follows the textbook publisher's
provided materials, which has us students wondering if the exam will be
as detail oriented as the publisher's study exams. After all, if the
professor closely follows the book in class, why wouldn't he use the
book's exams?
That prospect has me a bit nervous. Multiple choice exams with
misleading wording are simply not beneficial for students. They don't
teach anything, or force students to grasp the ideas, or tcorrelate with
the functional skills needed in the business world. Instead, they
encourage rote memorization and actually punish those who take
functional approaches to studying.