The Class That is the Microcosm of the Nation’s Trailer Trash

I know- copied and pasted from my other blog. 

Since I believe in year-round education (not), most of my free time has been spent studying for the classes I’m taking in summer school- English and Algebra.

There are two boys (notice I am not referring to them as guys or men) in my Algebra class who stick out for a handful of reasons.  We’ll refer to them as Left and Right.  Left wears undershirts (but not under a shirt) and eats pop tarts with Red Bull and claims to be in “Algebra 1 with High School Review” because Calculus 5 was full (or not). Right thinks he’s hot but clearly missed the memo on how pubic hairs on the chin is so Fall 2006.  He spends the three hour class chatting with Left about how cool it is to fail a drug test and how his coworkers at Costco (big money right there) think it’s an actual exam and they study for it.  Seriously, look who’s talking.

So I’m sitting in class on our break (because I have nothing better to do) tweeting away when Fat Girl asks me how much I pay for my iPhone.  I want to say “by the way, I’m Caitlin and my blood type is O positive.  How much do you weigh?” But instead, I put the smart ass away and mutter something about how it’s like $100 month and that’s with the Apple employee discount.  See, I have yet to inform AT&T that I’m no longer an Apple employee.  It just hasn’t come up in conversation.  Maybe they’ll read this blog.  So, anyway, Fat Girl says $100 a month is “bull crap” and I thank her for her input on my finances.  And then, I give her my two cents on her back fat.

It’s around this time that Right perks up and says he, too, was an Apple employee, but that he was a Genius and he hated.  Left adds that he’s a Genius also (remember, he was supposed to be in Calculus).

Somehow, the fact that Right was also manning the fruit stand makes me hate him less, although since he said he hated it, chances are he was also canned, and in that event, the hypocrite in me hates him even more.

Actually, the reason my hatred grows is that he and Left proceed to leave this conversation to discuss how they built their Mac Pros by hand (referring either to the underpaid children in China who watch as the machines assemble the Mac Pros or to the configure to order options on Apple’s website- either way- not exactly “by hand”) and how the processors they put inside clocks speeds that, unless I’ve been living under a rock have yet to be seen by the world’s fastest computers, much less their (comparatively) puny Mac Pros.

But at least he knows what a Mac Pro is.  The kid in front of him, Chews on T-shirt, swears his iPod touch is an iPhone.  I’d love to ask him to call me on it.  I think he’s special, though, or at least I like to pretend there’s a good reason he chews on his shirt and bunches himself up into a ball in his desk and spends the entire class sending emails to himself on his “iPhone.”

Judgment passed.

C

Variations on a Toyota Celica

So, it’s too bad I’m not hot.  As I was driving home tonight, two boys in the bed of a truck held up their hands in peace signs at me and yelled “awesome car!” until I decided to floor it and be done with them.  If I had been hot, I would have stuck around, but alas, I am not.

 

I get “requests” to race all the time.  I had three or four today which is unusually high.  I don’t normally acknowledge the car that wants to race, but if I can, I try to cut them off before the next light.  I didn’t think the Celica would be the racing type of car but everyone who sees it asks me about it.

 

Anyway, that’s it.  Back to LSAT studying and prep for school tomorrow.

Blog later.

Things I Wish My (First Gen) iPhone Had

With all the hullabaloo about the new iPhone and the accompanying 2.0 software, I thought I’d make a list of things I hope come in future software (or hardware) updates:

1. Full Bluetooth capabilities.  I’m not sure if this is software or hardware related, but it is my understanding that the Bluetooth modules in devices have no distinction other than distance. Thus, Apple should be able to release a firmware update that would allow users to take full advantage of its Bluetooth module.  I personally would like to use it for BluePhoneElite, a program that connects your Mac to your cell phone and allows you to send text messages and take calls through the computer.  Check it out at http://mirasoftware.com/BPE2.

2. Searchable email.  I use Gmail, which archives all your mail by default, and as a result, I have a lot of mail.  I frequently find myself searching through endless emails on my iPhone and very rarely do I find the message I want.  This should be as simple to implement as searchable contacts, but then, I do not know how to code so I really have no idea.

3. Picture messaging.  I love to take pictures with my iPhone because you can use the camera without anyone knowing what you’re doing.  I find myself attaching these pictures to emails and sending them off which is great on my end, but not all of my friends (sadly) have iPhones.  Also, when unknowing friends send pictures to my phone, I have to go to AT&T’s view my message website and enter in a randomly generated message ID and password which is impossible to memorize from the text message screen.  Pretty sure every iPhone user wants this.

An Open Letter

I used to think we’d be friends again one day, even though the divide between us is about as massive as the Grand Canyon.  I’m okay with that now, in fact, I wish the divide was bigger because you are the last person I want to be associated with on this earth.  You lie, cheat, and steal, and somehow you live with yourself.  You stole from the job you loved more than anything in the world and were fired for that and for no other reason.  Stop fooling yourself, no one wanted you fired, no one was out to get you, no one cared enough about you to try and have you removed.  You stole and you were caught.  It’s been a year now and you’re the only one that hasn’t gotten over it.  I’ll be the first to admit that I was fired for something I did.  I violated a policy that, although ambiguous and unknown to me at the time, was in place to protect the assets of the company I worked for.  You can’t say you didn’t know you weren’t supposed to steal or that someone gave you permission to take it.  No one gave you permission to steal it, and until you stop being so unbelievably stupid about your indiscretions, other people will continue to point them out in order to save themselves from the position you and you alone put them in.

Your stupidity doesn’t stop at stealing.  You engage in shallow friendships that mean nothing- that’s why you and I are no longer friends.  I was tired of you long before anything happened with work and told you I was not going to be friends with someone that didn’t want to try.  That was just the tip of the iceberg.  I will never be friends with anyone that leads their life in such an unethical manner.

You couldn’t even turn things around at your next job.  I’m not sure which part of you thought it was okay to engage in an outside of class relationship with your students, but I’m sure some pickled portion of your disease ridden brain justified it.

Now you do nothing for a living, which is about the only thing you can do in this city because you’ve made too many enemies and burned too many bridges.  No one I know cares enough about you to make sure you aren’t successful because we all know you’ll screw up on your own- you’ve never failed us.

I hope one day you open your eyes, only because I feel bad for the people in your life.  They are being manipulated into doing whatever you please and exist in your life only to serve your purposes.  Seriously, take a minute to look at your life.  It’s pathetic.  You have pretend friends, a pretend business, and a pretend facade you put up to make you feel good about yourself.

Grow up.

On A Myriad of Topics

Big silence again- my apologies, lots going on.  

Academia

I got a B in my drawing class, which was a pleasant surprise, as I spent the entire semester feeling miserably inadequate.  Tomorrow, I start Algebra and English, and in Fall I have 2D Design, Criminal Law, Lifespan Psychology, and Political Science.  I’m looking forward to being well rounded and I fit everything in at a pretty good time of day.

Business

Take a look at Brenda’s Flickr page sometime at flickr.com/photos/divineltrain.  She’s pretty fabulous at what she does. 

 

Other things going on as well.  Blog soon.

The Art I Did Today

Our assignment for tomorrow was to prepare to draw an abstract self-portrait based on something that impacted our life.  I chose my experience working with Apple so here is the background for my self-portrait.

 

Thoughts?

Apple’s Worst Products

I will be the first to say I love Apple’s products.  I own an iMac, MacBook and iPhone.  My mom also has an iMac and we have various iPods in the household.  I could make a list of all of my favorite products, but that would be too easy.  So here are some of what I think are the worst:

Take the mighty mouse for example.  I think the wired version is a terrible, terrible mouse.  It weighs nothing and gets caught in the cord constantly.  The trackball on it gets clogged very easily while other mice do not have this problem.  It’s also grossly overpriced.  How many do I own? 3.

Let’s also look at the tv.  Add DVR and a Blu-ray player and you’ve got yourself a device that’s top notch.  The tv does none of these things.  It relies entirely on a plugged in hard drive or a wireless network.  Seems like a lot of trouble to go.

Some people also complain that iTunes is one of Apple’s worst products.  I don’t agree with this because it’s speedy on a Mac but apparently it’s painfully slow on a Windows machine. Shameless plug: buy a Mac.

Also on the worst list: iMovie 8.  This app totally stripped iMovie of the advanced capabilities and focused more on the beginner.  This is not at all a bad thing, except its shiny interface is sculpted more to the advanced user which confuses the target audience.  Good move? Not so much.

Coming soon: My favorite third party applications (most of which are free!)

Comments on Relationships, Academia and Dialogue with My Pea-sized Brain

I’d apologize again for not posting in a week- but that’s getting kind of old, is it not?

Whilst sitting in Starbucks this morning I noticed something that I’ve probably seen frequently but never taken the time to actually think about.  A couple was in line to order their drinks and the girl, about my age, stepped forward to pay for both.  What I noticed was that the guy backed up and looked very awkward.  I think it’s important that girls do their part in a relationship and don’t always let the guy do everything, or in some cases make the guy do everything.  Does that make a guy feel weird?  I hope not. 

That’s all I had to say about relationships.

The class I’m taking right now is a drawing class for art majors.  I was really excited about it because it’s my first studio art class ever but my excitement was only out of naivete.  The first day of class we were given a list as long as my arm of supplies we needed to buy and the next day we were shown a still life and told to draw it.

Naturally, my pea-sized, left-dominant brain was like “I can draw a stick figure but if you want a still life you’re gonna have to come over here and move her hand because I sure as hell can’t.”  That went over like a lead balloon and my drawing of what was supposed to be a plastic cup and a vase of flowers ended up being a blob and a circle with a flower on top.  It was really lovely.   So after class that day I called my dad and said “I’m going to fail!” and he said “go to law school” and I said “okay I’ll do better tomorrow.”

My first major was law and I had thought going to law school was my dream and that I’d be a prosecutor and everyone would do what I say.  Not so much.  I sat through a couple government classes and that pea-sized brain once again spoke and said “girl, please.” and that was the end of that.  So I sat down and I said, what is the exact opposite and infinitely more exciting than law? ART. (More specifically graphic design, or in my case industrial and product design.  You know like cars and computers.)  Well that wasn’t exactly how it happened but I ended up enrolling in the Arts and Technology program at UTD with my pea-sized brain thinking “that sounds exciting” and then being slapped in the face by programming classes.  I hate Java and UTD so that wasn’t really a good fit for me so I looked at a couple other programs.  There was Communications Design at UNT, but that was a pretty hard core program that I would have a hard time getting into this late in the game.  There was also a run of the mill design degree from UTA.  And then, there was a studio art-based graphic design degree at Harding University.  

For those of you who are like I have no idea what that is, and that’s probably most of you- Harding University is a small Christian college somewhere in Arkansas.  I say somewhere because I am a Texas girl so if you can’t relate it to ” west of DFW airport” or “just along 35″ I can’t really describe it to you.  I found out about it through some friends and research.  The paperwork is done but I’m going out to visit in a few weeks so that’s probably where I’ll end up.

ANYWAY- back to my drawing class.

So I went back to class the next day (because my skipping days are LONG GONE) and I drew a pretty good flower and vase- I’ll try to post pictures to my Flickr account later.  I’ve had a couple of rough days since then- when the oil paint or the charcoal or the conte crayons just WOULD NOT COOPERATE or my pea-sized brain was saying, “seriously, Caitlin- go to law school.”  I have been getting better, though, and tomorrow I get my second assignment back so that will be the moment of truth because my first assignment grade was an 80 which was most disappointing since I have been on an all A streak since returning to school.  

It’s a pretty fun class and the people in it are pretty interesting but I will save my comments on them for a later date so I can have a post dedicated entirely to pissing people off which in turn gets me comments from “anonymous” people who think I’m bitter.  In case you’ve never used WordPress, all IP addresses of commenters are made available to me, so next time you want to leave snarky comments either use your name, or don’t do it at UTD.

Alright, time to make another attempt at paying my cell phone bill, though if AT&T can’t get their servers back up, I’m going to pretend like my bill is paid.

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

My New Book and Five Things I Learned From it Today

So, I got this book yesterday…

 

 

It’s really cool and I’m learning all kinds of neat stuff so I’m gonna post a couple things I learned from it in my posts from now on.

Here are the first five (from the facts about the human body section):

1. A body releases four pints of gas per day as burps or farts.

2. You spend a half an hour every day blinking.

3. Everyone has a unique tongue print.

4. Babies don’t have bony kneecaps, which appear between the ages of two and six.

5. Common colds can be caused by one of more than 250 types of virus.

Another Rant About Bush Bashing

It seems like the latest trend is not to call Bush a myriad of names, but rather to say that he should be impeached and tried for war crimes along with various others in his administration.  

Before I go into a tirade about why we shouldn’t be making claims like this, I’d just like to say that my political views are irrelevant to this discussion.  I do not believe that Bush will be hailed as one of our greatest presidents in history, nor do I believe we will want our future leaders to follow in his footsteps.

However.

And if you disagree with what I’m about to say, I would love to hear that because that helps me widen my perspective and understand the scope of the situation more accurately.

If I understand correctly, the basis of impeaching Bush regards “war crimes” he committed when it comes to the Iraq war.

I would like to find the person that was a fly on the wall for every meeting, conversation, piece of intelligence, discussion with foreign officials, etc., that went into the ultimate choice to invade Iraq.

I don’t believe we should be making assumptions that the President of the United States of American invaded another country because a. he felt like it, b. he wanted more power, c. he wanted to kill some Americans, or d. he thought it would make people like him.

Let’s just stop giving a character to the title here and just think about the figurehead that is the President.  Don’t you think, that in order to be the President of the world’s only remaining superpower, that you’d have to be at least, just a tiny bit educated?  Sure, he makes the same grammatical errors you and I do, but that’s just being the leader for the common man.  If he was this eloquent speaker, everyone would call him elite and out of touch.

I can’t for a second, think that anyone that is making these hyperbolic claims about impeachment really has all the information.  Instead, we rely on the media (which is historically known for stretching truths and creating lies) to tell us what we should believe.

Yeah, I know you don’t like Bush, I’m not a big fan either, but let’s give credit where credit is due.  Someone who has every spotlight in the world cast on him and his administration would never dare make a decision based upon anything but fact.  I know we didn’t find WMDs in Iraq, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t there now, or weren’t there before.

Try to give the man a break- his term is almost over, focus on the leadership you want to see in the future.