Archive for Take a Lap
January 20, 2010 at 12:37 pm · Filed under Take a Lap
There is a professor at the university. I hate him. I hate everything about him. He’s taking the graduate course with me. The ‘good’ side of me wants to help him out, because he is pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. The ‘bad’ side of me wants to see him fall flat on his face and kick him out of the country.
One time, in the Summer, I ate dinner with him and another professor. He was speaking Korean to order food, (and you should know that he speaks awkwardly loud, fast, and with incorrect pronunciation.) The waitress was having a hard time understanding him, but he just kept talking. At the same, the waitress was trying to explain the menu. I found it comical, and I may have snickered. Immediately he asked if I was laughing at his Korean. I said, “no”. But, I could tell he wasn’t buying it.
Later, the waitress came back to say that they were out of our order. Again, the hilarity of reordering insued, and I snickered, and he took a great offense to this. He asked, “Are you laughing at my Korean?” I wanted to just say yes, but he went on a tirade. For something so small, it struck a nerve.
He said he takes “great pride” in his Korean. He’s lived here for 19 years. He said one Italian guy laughed at his ability to speak Italian, (which he partially is) and he said, “I kill people who laugh at my Italian.”
I really couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. Was he seriously getting worked up over this? We hadn’t been drinking, so what the fuck? The second professor calmed him down, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
Apparently, he has a world of baggage, so he takes anti-depressants. He’s bipolar, so he takes medication. Without his job, he has nothing. Therefore, the English professors look after him, like seriously covering his ass for anything at the university.
The professors encouraged him to enroll in this program. He should get a Masters to feel less like a “weak person”. (He likes to use this phrase when he feels like he’s being picked on) However, none of the other professors are, now, participating in the program to look after him. And I sure as hell don’t want to do it! He’s a parasite, who is incapable of surviving on his own.
I’ve been updating him on the course projects, the housing, the homework assignments, and the required textbooks … Why? Because he doesn’t check his email!
When I learned that we’d be doing group presentations for the course, I immediately signed up and made a group. Weeks later, I decided to tell him about the group presentations. He asked, “Are you in a group yet?” I said “Yeah, I picked a topic and the group is full. He replied, “It’s too bad we’re not in the same group. We could work TOGETHER!” I was like, “heh…………..yeah.”
I told him about the dormitory housing. We could get a single room or share with a friend. He said “We should room TOGETHER.” Timidly, I said, “Ok”. But, I thought that would be a recipe for disaster. I don’t want to be around this guy. A few days later, I said that I need my ‘me’ time and ‘personal space’. I told him I’d get a single room. He said, “Yea, I think I’m thinking about doing the same thing.”
Today, I majorly helped him out with the pre-course homework assignment. I held his hand, while he sent an email for the presentation topics and updated the coordinator with his housing and food choices.
At least 6 times, I’ve heard him say “I haven’t studied or had to do anything like this in 20 years.” It’s a bullshit excuse, and I want to fire back, “Well you ought to get your shit together, now!”
I could go on, but this is a good place to stop writing. I hate him.
March 23, 2009 at 12:03 pm · Filed under Lifestyle, Take a Lap
Fine! I’ll use Facebook, share my photos, and join your little clubs. 
yeesh.
January 11, 2009 at 9:03 am · Filed under Take a Lap
I want to get out more. Really, I do! I want to see new places, take photos, eat some culinary cuisines, and keep up my exercise schedule. But when I see this in the morning, I’m gonna slink back into bed, sip on some mate, and play Nintendo DS all day.
December 22, 2008 at 9:26 am · Filed under Little Things, Take a Lap
Why? Because, the internet becomes a ghost town.
Everything on broadcast television has wrapped up, so there is nothing to look forward to downloading each week. It will be late January or February before the new seasons begin. The same applies to all IPTV networks and news sites. Everyone is on holiday break. My RSS reader has already dropped by 2/3s of the posts. Everyone stops blogging or posting well thought articles.
Hello! I’m still here. I’m reading. Keep it coming. *le sigh*
I’m working on downloading Seasons 1,2,3 of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. It’s slow going. That’ll get me through a couple of weeks. I should probably get ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, too. I got Beedle the Bard, which isn’t very big. And I’ll be watching my beer ferment. It’s like watching paint dry, rainbow sherbert sparkled paint. I’ve got to give it hugs and nurture it.
November 4, 2008 at 1:52 am · Filed under Music, Take a Lap, Techy
The conventional Portable Media Player (PMP) sucks. Yes, I’m looking at you, iPod and Zune. It takes some left-wing thinking, but I feel it is the right one.
Story time.
I’m using a laptop, which the previous English teachers at my school have used. Upon receival, I began sifting through the files. What I first learned is that one of the teachers had been a Zune user. I looked through the music folder and was bewildered to find over 20 Gigs of music! Wow.
The teacher was an older man, so he had a lot of, what I would call classic or old bands. Some of it was good; Some of it was not. However, when I tried to play the music… It wouldn’t play. WTF. It wasn’t playing in VLC player, which is a swiss army knife of music players. What gives?
It turns out that this teacher was on the straight and narrow path. The majority of his collection was ALL legally purchased music from the Zune store. Now, there is no shame in that. It’s an honorable route. But, it’s not my route. Living in Korea away from your comfort music can be rough. Some of these older bands would be hard to find on any pirate websites. So, purchasing these albums would be the ideal choice.
However, these files are laced with DRM. Efff that, I say. This is why I couldn’t play the music with VLC player. The DRM wouldn’t allow me. “OK”, I thought, I’ll open the Zune software and listen to his music collection. Nope! I can’t do that either. To listen to the music, you have to log in with your Zune password. “Gaaahhh, foiled again!”
There were 20 Gigs of music here and none of it was playable.
… I know, right? In the end, there was nothing I could do.
/Uninstall Zune software. Goodbye. /Select all music folders and delete. Goodbye music. You are of no use to me. What a shame.
Now, let’s look at you iPod. I’ve been using you for the last 2 years and you are not without fault either. I’ve never bought music from the iTunes store. So, I wont comment on that. I still buy most of my CDs. However, all iTunes songs, also, come laced with DRM. Can I use iTunes songs with a Zune? No. Can I use iTunes songs with a Creative Zen? No. I have to use and iPod. Where’s the freedom in that?
And, dont even get me started on the quality of the song downloads. An mp3 is not a lossless file.
Secondly, I have to use that gorram program iTunes. I hate it. All I want to do is transfer MY music from MY computer to MY iPod. But, the software is so bloated. It does all of this shit that I dont want it to. I dont want you to download new updates. I dont want you to try and sync with the internet or take me to the iTunes store.
I dont even have iTunes installed on this laptop. I dont want to install it. Therefore, I can’t add new music to my iPod if I wanted to. I cant take music off either. If you go into the iPod filesystem, all the songs are garbles and unreadable if you try to take them off the iPod.
Before I came to Korea I thought about buying a new Nano. I thought about buying an iPod Touch, too, for the video capabilities. I’m glad I didn’t. There are restrictions and limitations of the video you can put on it. I dont want to spend hours converting video to the appropriate format of Apple’s choice.
The current standard is too restrictive and limited. I dont like it. There has to be a better PMP out there. And I think there is. When my nano dies, I wont go back for another one. I dont care about the ‘cool’ or ‘wow’ factor. I’m going to blast it up a notch.
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