AgPerson

Even when you know exactly what is going to happen going in, it doesn’t make it any more fun. So I met with David (Peter, the Ed-in-Chief couldn’t make it) and we chatted for a bit. I have lots of fun stuff to say about technology, journalism, etc., etc., but I’ll can it for now, and wait until I see if this thing is salvageable.

I’m thinking if I get some free time I’ll hack a mood indicator into AgBlog. Since my first scheduled free time is somewhere around January, and thats when Mock Trial is picking up, I guess I’ll have to hold off.

Speaking of MT, we went before the allocations board, argued our case, asked for the small sum of $350 to cover expenses, and were granted $250. Not exactly sure why, but something to do with inclusiveness. So now we can send one team of 6-8 instead of two, so I guess we can include less people, but hey, it makes sense to someone.

Right now I go to watch The Manchurian Candidate for Conspiracy class.

Other things to do:

1. Add an essay section to AgBlog


2. Setup another roundtable thing for the Justice, and hope it works


3. Read Down and Dirty and write an essay for Conspiracy.


4. Raise my grade in News on Screen from a B+ to an A


5. Go retake the stupid hex quiz in CoSi in person to prove to Hickey that I can actualy do base 10 to base 16 conversions in my head. Not complex ones, mind you, but the easy ones don’t exactly require scratch work. Sigh…

So yesterday I receive a call from a one Dana Kelley who would like to talk to me re: an incident in Usdan. I was out all day so I didn’t call him back, so the next morning bright and early at around 8:45am he wakes me up to summon me to his office. We arrange to meet somewhere around 2, after I get out of classes.

Kelley:   So what do you have to say?
Me:       About what?
Kelley:   About the incident in Usdan.
Me:       I wasn't there.
Kelley:   All right then, goodbye, I'll see you before the
          Judicial Board.
Me:       On what charge?
Kelley:   Lying to a Brandeis police officer.
Me:       I'm not lying.
Kelley:   Well, an eyewitness saw you there.
Me:       Perhaps you can give me a date and time and place.
Kelley:   Robin plugged a...
Me:       A keyboard into a terminal.
Kelley:   Into an Aramark [unclear] machine.
Me:       I wasn't there.
Kelley:   He implicated you.  You work for the Justice?
Me:       Yes.
Kelley:   And you were going to write some big expose about how easy
          it is to steal money from the Aramark computer system.
Me:       Not exactly.  Not how you put it.  But sure, yeah.
Kelley:   Okay, I'll see you at the Judicial Board hearing.  Goodbye.

Funny, because I wasn’t there, but I was at other “events,” but that was the extent of the conversation. So yeah, fun.

Well, we got another broadcast e-mail just now:

TO: The Brandeis Community
FROM: President Jehuda Reinharz

Earlier this morning when a suspicious envelope arrived at the President‚s
Office, the Office of Public Safety immediately notified the Waltham Fire
Department, who, along with other local and state officials, investigated
the incident. They have completed their investigation and have concluded
that the envelope presented no threat to those in the building. Therefore,
employees have been advised it is safe to return to work. The University
responded to this perceived threat in exactly the way President Bush has
suggested, with a heightened sense of awareness. We urge all members of
the community to continue to conduct themselves in that manner.

We understand that these sorts of incidents create an inconvenience and we
appreciate everyone‚s patience and cooperation.
—
Delivered via the absolutely-everybody-for-emergencies-only mailing list.

A “suspicious” package arrived addressed to the president of the university. No details were released, but it is safe to say that there was probably some kind of powdery substance inside. Fun.

Being a chronicle or journal or whatever, it might be good to elaborate on semi-important events in my life right now. That said, I’m tired so I won’t. But look soon for nice info on: chartering a Mock Trial team, becoming an American Studies major, and editing newspapers.

Here is a schedule you should not envy, but it sure makes for an interesting day:

11:30am	Awake, stretch, shower, shave, print philosophy essay, go to class.
12:10pm	News On Screen. A discussion of medium and message in the Vietnam war, and also some talk about the war in Afghanistan now, although Prof. Socolow tried to steer us away from that until next week. Some very interesting points were made with regard to American’s perceptions of war and our tendancy to not want to see things that are occuring. CBS used a “queasiness quotient” during Vietnam to determine what to play — how would it make you feel at dinner time? At this point in the current conflict, the quotient is insanely low. We don’t want to see dead people, period. However, this may change as the conflict goes on and people start to stomach more.
1:40pm	Intro. Philosophy. We talk about various things, including visual perceptions and tricking the brain and such. We turn in essays, I play a bit of Bugdom on my laptop, interesting talk w/ Prof. Teuber about memes.
3:00pm	I was supposed to meet Kelson outside of Shiffman but he forgot, so I went and grabbed a piece of pizza and headed back to the dorm. Kelson and I met up and went to find Prof. Cohen to talk about Mock Trial as planned.
4:00pm	Not having found the American Studies dept. in the Rabb quad (I then realized that its somewhere else. Heh.), Kelson met his UWS TA to discuss his essay. I waited, but he didn’t return for a while, so at 4 I saw David, the Justice Features editor, and we talked for a while, then I went to find Cohen on my own.
4:40pm	With no Cohen in his office, I rendezvoused with David as planned to do some Justice stuff. I learned how to discuss editorial changes with writers and how to plan coverage.
6:00pm	I return to Cable and meet up with group going to dinner. I follow them but quickly decide that, not only am I not hungry, I have a fun headache and I should take a nap. I vow to call my grandpa (and try to get through for the 6th time) when I wake up. Whoops.
12:00am	Not exactly sure when I woke up, but I was probably comprehensible around midnight, which would be 9 PST, so no grandpa call. Discussed Mock Trial with Kelson for a while, helped Sara with her politics essay for a while, ate a lot of chocolate chip cookies (I bought 10 when I found that the cafeteria finally had some again), and then watched an episode of The Pretender before going to sleep, again. That would be what I’m doing now.

So that is my day. Noon to six, Midnight to four, its incredibly odd because I really wasn’t up very long at all, only ten hours, so maybe I’m making up for all the lost sleep during the week. Keep in mind I did stay up until about 4 the night before doing my Philosophy essay. This was not hard at all, because my sleep habits were so strange that 4 was when I did my best work. Dunno how well this going to work out.

Haven’t we been saying for years that the US is completely unprepared for a widespread attack on infrastructure? Not enough medical facilities, not enough antibiotics, not enough computer security? Oh, not to mention that many US nuclear power plants are woefully underprotected. Did I mention the anthrax fiasco? And smallpox? West Nile virus?


My conclusion: we’re screwed.

Mimi Lester is a 14 year old student in a school just down the street from the World Trade Center site. Today, she was interviewed by BBC World, and her words just filled me with so much hope. As best I can remember:

We’re all people, and just because they have been brought up believing things that we don’t believe in, we shouldn’t bomb the civilians.

She lives in the wreckage, military is all around, she has to show ID to get home after school, she and her 7 year old brother are subjected to searches before they can enter their neighborhood. Yet she still worries about the lives of people half a world away.


What also struck me on the BBC this morning is that they go all around the world for their reports on all kinds of conflicts. In the US they never do that, except on NPR. I don’t think I like US media that much.


In other news, the US is killing a bunch of innocents.


Oh, and now Busy is saying there will be terrorism by anthrax. Fun.

Just for those who may be interested, I am running a Power Mac G4 400 Mhz with 256 MB ram and 108 GB of hard drive space. Right now I’m running Mac OS X 10.1 plus OS 9.2 in the classic environment. Basically everything works except my SmartMedia card reader and Palm sync, so my uptime is only a day or so cause I occasionally rebott so I can use one of the two. I will have to find a solution to these problems when I start running servers, though.

I’m running sshd, httpd (apache), and ftpd. Its useful. I’m considering sendmail, but maybe not. I’m running the test site for Gravity Magazine (gravmag.org) on my computer, and I expect to run the real thing as soon as I finish it. If I’m doing that, its logical that I might as well host some other stuff, so we’ll see.

I’m running XDarwin, which is an implementation of X Windows on OS X. I’m no good at these things, but I know I’m running Enlightenment as my window manager, and I ssh into Robin’s laptop next door to run Gabber, at least until I learn how to compile it on my computer (eww…gtk libraries…) or until someone makes a good Mac OS X implementation.

Running programs off of other people’s cycles is kinda cool for me, as I’ve never really done it before, now I see one of the reasons why so many people like *nix. Speaking of which, apparently there is a Brandes LUG of some sort forming here, which is cool.

This morning I awoke to rain. Funny, cause yesterday it was completely dry. Still, I find the weather quite nice, although rain means more plugged nose. My recent Costco visit left me with 32 bottles of water for only $6.50, I figured that would hold me for a while. Boy was I wrong. Everyone wants them! I’ve decided I’ll buy a case, plunk it in the hallway along with a coffee can and a sign saying “Take a bottle, leave 25 cents.” If I break even, I’ll do it again. If not, no more water for other people!


Yesterday Jason, Kelson, Florida Rachel and I went into Boston for some food. I was thinking about hearing Terry Gross, of Fresh Air, talking at Harvard, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to or would rather just hang out. Well, I quickly got my answer when a huge backup on the Pike meant it took us about 90 minutes to get to Harvard Yard, meaning no Fresh Air for me, only Chili’s. Still, it was fun. As we waited for the bus, Kelson and I discovered that, not only do we want to major in similar things, we also want to go into the same job. Wow. We both couldn’t stop talking about Mock Trial and we’ve resolved to see how hard it would be to form a team at Brandeis.


On Thursday I was at Harvard also, this time with Peter, to see the Ig Nobel awards. It was quite cool. Of course, when scientists are trying to be funny you have to cut them a little slack, and some of the sight gags got old, but it was pretty good. For a list of winners, check out this Wired article. For some background, check out this one. I liked it, it was fun, plus I got a few glow sticks out of it, and got to throw lots of paper airplanes at the stage! 😛

I’m listening to the soundtrack of Jekyll & Hyde now that I’ve ripped a copy from someone else, since all my music was lost in the great hard drive crash of ’01. Its very nice music. I came into the show so prejudiced about the thin story and bad acting from what I’d read that I missed some very nice music, and of course the effects were wonderful, but you can’t make a show on effects…

Still, it would be nice to see it again, if only it was still playing. But then, there is probably a reason why they closed it down. Maybe Scarlet Pimpernel. That one is fantabulous, I should go see it again.

The Chronicle of Danny’s Day goes something like this:

1. Wake up at 10:30, attempt Plato.


2. Fall asleep at 11:00, wake up at 11:30.


3. Shower. Clean up. Call home.


4. Shave, go to class, add to discussion.


5. More class, more discussion, meeting about paper.


6. Faculty Mentor dinner thingy for first years. About 50 of us out of…what…750? A couple professors tell us about their lives. Its interesting, but the food (salad) sucks.


7. Stop by the Justice. Nothin to do there. Leave.


8. Islam teach in. Somewhat informative, interesting speakers. One woman, who was very interesting, talked for way too long and put a lot of her politics into it, with no one choosing to contradict. Typical Brandeis, I guess.


9. Back to the Justice. Nothing to do. Wait around and read…uh…the Justice.


10. David, features ed, gets out of a meeting. Says my story will be in news. Okie dokie.


11. Waiting…


12. Yanna, news editor (at least for the next week), gets out of meeting. Looks like I’ll be making front page, but its kinda funny that its news instead of feature, basically I think its just a space issue.


13. I stand staring over Yanna’s shoulder long enough and she gives me something to do. Yay! I type up campus announcements and then the police log. Fun!


14. Come back. Go out partying with a group. Turns out there is no party where they thougth there was one. Hmm. The BranVan has left, so we start walking towards town.


15. We end up at a bar, but get kicked out very quickly. My first bar experience, and it really wasn’t anything special. Sigh.


16. We walk to McDonalds and have some nuggets. Yum! BranVan comes to pick us up, and the driver tells us about a happening party somewhere else. We go!


17. When we arrive we find the alcohol gone and the party ending. We call the BranVan…again.


18. Home, Mac OS X, sleep. Fun day.

So that is my day in order. Fun, huh? Its like, I did a lot, but not a lot of accomplishments. Although I do get a nice warm fuzzy feeling about the Justice. Yay! But my first party circuit was a major downer, not that I was planning on drinking, smoking, or shooting up anyway, but I did want to see what goes on at those places. Perhaps next week, as I’ve been invited to a party in Ridgewood. 🙂

It feels like a Claritin commercial. The sun woke me up at about 8:30 AM, after going to sleep around 2:00 AM. Squirrels danced outside my window. There was a morning chill in the air. I’m awake and ready to start my day. But bandwidth is wide open this time of morning, so I’m wasting it attempting to download Rod Stewart songs. 😛

Depression appears to have passed. I’m a few days late for my second Hep. A shot. I have to go do that on Monday. Oh, and it would probably be good to call Verizon one of these days…

At least my Philosophy book finally came from the Amazon seller, not in as good of condition as he said but good enough because now I can finally read it.

Dropped the Tylenol stuff, and my stuffy nose and other symptoms that i’ve had to deal with for years returned again, sigh sigh sigh. But at least I was much more awake!

Airport security confiscates pilot’s fingernail clippers. Heh.

My Justice article is now late, but nowhere near being done. Sigh. Guess I’ll do that now.

One of the bad things about writing a publically accessible blog is when you want to write something very personal, very deep, that is somewhat exposing. Its almost like you wish that friends, family, and others could read it and then forget it, move it to their subconscious so that they still sorta know that its there, but they don’t really know enough that it makes things uncomfortable.

I don’t like talking with anyone about my fun mental rollercoaster rides, least of all family members. I don’t like people bringing it up. At the same time, one of the great things about having a mental illness and being me is being able to analyze every action and determine how my daily seratonin dose is affecting me. Such was, and still is, the case today, and over the last few days.

I can look away, logically, and see myself, and tell myself that all of my insecurities and sadness and all is just chemical, its not me, but that’s not something you can tell your emotions. Laying on Andrew’s bed, watching drivel on television, with my eyes closed, listening to everyone playing football in the halls, it is nice, even for a brief moment, for someone to correct me, just a bit, and say no, some people do love you. That makes a big difference.

I’ve got a great roommate, I’ve met great people here, great professors, everything. I absolutely love my experiece. When I lasho out or feel sad, its completely me, and not them. And I try the best I can to control it. But it is hard, especially when so many other people have someone (eg, significant other) to rely on, to hug. Not me.

If you’re readin this and you go to school here, or are at home, don’t bring it up. I really, really don’t want to talk about it, just a bit of support every now and again, a shoulder squeeze or a nice word, goes a long way. It does for all of us, but for me especially, especially right now.

And for enemies reading this in the future – I am still my cold, logical self, even when I’m in these vulnerable states, so no, you will not triumph. Sorry. 😛

It is a record! Four hours of sleep and I’m not even tired (yet)! Three important things:

1. Some of the pictures aren’t showing up. I know. Anything with pluses in the name became underscores, so now nothing is working. I’ll fix it soon.


2. E-mail. I’ve gotten about 10 emails complaining that I don’t respond to e-mails. Thy are all right, because I’m getting an insane amout of e-mails. Hint: Send to dsilverman@mindwire.org, NOT my Brandeis account. The Brandeis one is getting so overloaded with Brandeis announcements and things that I can’t get through it. And if I don’t respond immediately, feel free to send me reminders, and bug me often!


3. While I’m dictating all this code-of-conduct stuff, I should point out that often times I come online and want to talk to people at home, etc., but sometimes I come on specifically to talk to someone here at Brandeis. I’m sorry if I ignore or don’t fully respond to outside queries, I’m trying to find a program that only shows certain people I’m online so that I can avoid this problem. Now that the weekend is coming and I’m getting more caught up on my work, I should be able to chat with outside sources much more. Thanks for your patience. 😛

That is all! Live long and prosper. And did anyone else not really like the first episode of Enterprise?

It is almost five AM. I should go to sleep now. But I’m just writing to suggest you click on the “media” link and check out the latest pictures. Oh, and to thank Amanda for the great music. Thanks!

Up late. In a depression swing, I can feel it. Play Age of Empires with no heart, end up resigning because the prospect of building armies and destroying cities just does not appeal. Brief moments of feeling everyone hates me. Unfulfiling Mario Kart. Anger at people in general, but I’m getting better at containing it during these periods. Hopefully a bit of exuberance will return tomorrow.

Reading Howard Zinn. Yummmm. Perfect medicine. That, and, of course, medicine. Speaking of which, Tylenol Allergy & Sinus, which I tried today, was very useful. No sniffiles for at least one day. Wow. Now off to bed, or perhaps more Zinn.