Begin at the Bottom
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Friday
30April99
7:32 am
I don't know what to write. I am groggy. There is a guy who has pulled into the parking lot by my apartment before blasting his rap music. So today I leaned out the window and told him that I was moving out of my apartment in one month, and I asked him to please not blast his music for one month. He was complaint, so I am happy. Today is going to be a homework intensive day, and this weekend is for filmmaking. Good luck to myself.
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Thursday
29April99
I can do this. I can do this, can't I? I can get my act together and pull of one final triumph, can't I? I can write a thesis. I can do it by the time it is due. I can. Can't I?Tentative calendar of the next few weeks:
05 May 99: filmmaking film due 06 May 99: last day of classes 07 May 99: 6-9 pm: filmmaking screening 08 May 99: clean apartment / thesis 09 May 99: thesis / clean apartment 10 May 99: 5-8 pm: digital storytelling screening; family arrives 11 May 99: temporal structures final critique 12 May 99: 2-5 pm: la graduacion; thesis draft due (look at that timing!) 13 May 99: last of the family leaves 14 May 99: thesis possibly due (see below) 18 May 99: digital video critique day (yes, I have to stay in town all that time; yuck) 19 May 99: I think I am finally free... ?? May 99: who knows when my thesis is actually due, but it has to be before the 22nd
I think my advisor said it was due the 15th, but that is a Saturday...
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Wednesday
28April99
1:06 pm
I was just reading a fantastic article about some engineers who put themselves for sale on ebay, which I, of course, found at /. I have never been able to understand people who read daily news (I know that's ironic), especially on the web. I could never manage the newspaper, but now I am into reading /. and checking my bank balance on a fairly regular basis. There is something very satisfying about knowing when a check clears.4:59 pm
Today has been a day of running into people who I haven't seen in ages. It occurred to me, while talking to Aurora, that I will be graduating in exactly two weeks from today, and my sixteen years of school will be coming to an end. ...breathe...
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Tuesday
27April99
8:25 am
My machine is back up and purring, actually working better than ever before. I hadn't realized how dependent I had grown on it. My power supply died for the second time on the exact one year anniversary of when I bought it. But I put in a PC power supply, and bought an UPS, and at long last my 27 gig disk array is also working. Yippy!I like computers, and I don't believe in spending "too much time online" and other such ridiculousnesses that people complain about. My mom used to complain about how much time I spent on AOL, but now she is addicted to ebay. I have no doubt that if my dad (or anyone) gave the net a fair chance he too would be able to find a community. There is something for everyone!
3:35 pm
Today is customer appreciation at Ben and Jerry's, so anyone who is reading this should go get themselves a free cone of ice cream...
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Monday
26April99
9:24 am
My brother is in town, visiting until this evening. When we went down to Stanford to pick him up yesterday, Matthew suggested we go racing at Malibu Grand Prix, which we did. That was a total blast, and Matthew and Adam both got major adrenaline rushes. Adam also did a great job of knocking over cones and driving on the grass, which got him a lecture from someone who worked there. I thought my brother was leaving last night, so my plans for the day have to be converted into entertaining him. I'm really glad to have more time with him, I'm just stressed out. I guess he'll be the last visitor I have staying with me here.10:09 pm
There is a dog up the block from me, that has been barking for a half hour straight, which wouldn't be so bad if some idiot would stop blowing his air horn and screaming SHUT UP DOG. I bought a book today called The Guide To Getting It On, of which I have not read very much, but which I have thus far enjoyed immensely. Any book that makes fun of a reader by saying that it is sure that the reader's penis cringes when it sees the reader's cynical hand approaching is well worth the purchase price. That comment was made after (correctly) informing the reader that no woman would ever date him if she knew that he had submitted that letter.
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Saturday
24April99
8:24 am
There is something horribly haunting about reading the stories of children of the holocaust, who lost their identities. I really don't think anyone can imagine how horrific it was to live though that war. To be a child and to lose who you were -- your family, your name.... I remember the shock when my grandfather told me he stopped believing in god because of that war. You never doubt the faith of your grandparents (or at least I didn't). And then there is my great Aunt Florence, who came to stay with my grandfather's brother's (Norman's) family. Norman and Florence grew up together and got married and had a family, a family which would never have existed if it weren't for the war...I spent a long time talking with one of Matthew's roommates last night. He wants to be a doctor, and I was asking if he ever had a problem with the conflict between the drive to save/help people and the knowledge that the world is heavily over populated, and people have to die. He said yes, and we were discussing all of the implications, and I was thinking how disheartened one could get. I am such an advocate of community service and such, but you really could view it as helping the overall balance of our earth to let people suffer and die to make room for all the new babies we are making. And I do want to make babies of my own. I have always believed two children for two people was perfect, but their are so many countries where social status is determined by the amount of children one has. And I look at the way my family tree branches, and I think of my new cousin that will be born in Israel in September. I want to know that child...
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Friday
23April99
11:42 am
Where is yesterday's entry? sitting on my machine at home. I am sitting in the office reading an article on the new jpeg 2000 file format. Why didn't I put it online? my machine is fried. Do I have my thesis and current scripts backed up? yes. Am I having a spaz anyway? yes. Can I go home and work tonight? no. AHHHHHH!My beautiful Power Tower Pro elected not to boot yesterday evening, and has continued to show all signs of having burnt out its power supply again (as it did on 14 May 98). Can I get my landlord to reimburse me for it, since his apartment building has crappy power? I can't wait to move (one month!).
11:51 am
I really am flipping out. I must distract myself with pretty pictures of Io in front of Jupiter, which I would love to stick on a disk to take home, but I wouldn't be able to do jack with it...
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Thursday
22April99
I dreamt that I kissed some boy (not Matthew) and then I went to the supermarket. There was an upstairs to the market, where the freezer section was, and they had covered the floor in snow. A man brought in his pet polar bear to walk around. Then I went to a different supermarket, and realized that I had missed the curfew my parents had set for me, which was 9 o'clock. I went outside to call my dad when I saw my mom. I began apologizing, but she wasn't at all upset. Instead, she accused me of being an adulterer. I was very upset. Then I woke up.
12:34 pm
I am stressed out to the limit. My prof absolutely ripped apart my thesis introduction yesterday, and I feel like I am slowly drowning... I am scripting two movies right now, and I still have five more flicks to make before the end of the semester, one of which I shot at 8 am this morning. I can't wait for this month to pass by...
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Wednesday
21April99
7:52 am
It is much to early to be awake. I have been having a ridiculously difficult time sleeping lately. I sleep a lot when I get depressed or stressed out, but lately I've just been waking up early with no ability to go back to sleep. These are the trials and tribulations of Rachel.4:48 pm
It occurs to me that I am graduating from college in less than a month and I have not a clue what I will be doing after that. My current favorites for activities next year are:
- drive around the country meeting me new found family members and working on my genealogical research
- do the above and make a documentary about it
- do freelance web work in LA, NY, or the Bay Area
- do freelance web work in Europe, or somewhere else out of this country
- get a real job [yick!]
- make a movie about my sister
- go teach English in some foreign country
- go to Israel and fart around (my cousins live there, and are expecting their third child in September)
My grandfather is buying me a digital video camera for my graduation present, which is all I really wanted, though I do have my eye on a G3 laptop, especially if I will be travelling. I haven't gotten many gifts the past few years, because I never really wanted anything, and now I could come up with one hundred purchases for my computer. I think I will tell people to get me gift certificates to Fry's.
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Tuesday
20April99
Today I presented a dress made entirely out of salt and packing tape to my time class. I found something so sensual about it, since it was exactly the shape of my body (I having wrapped myself in an entire roll of tape. I also managed to get rid of some of my body hair, which was quite painful!
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Monday
19April99
10:09 am
I opened up my Discover Card bill and saw that I could get and pay my statement online. They apparently have no options for rotary phone users (do any still exist?); most automated phone systems will dump you directly to an operator if you hit "0". The male voice instructed me to punch in my account number for faster service. I elected for slower service and did nothing. He repeated his instruction, so I got the picture. He should say to punch in your number for any service. I don't know what you'd do if you had no account and were requesting an application. Anyway, I wanted to find out if there was a fee for using the online account center. Sites usually plug the free issue if they are, and this page made no mention of anything money related. To my surprise, the woman on the phone was wonderfully nice and helpful, and she took care of my order from Sir Computers. I purchased a 19" monitor for my mother, which has failed to be shipped, despite the charge to my account. I have sent them four e-mails, called them, and checked their listing of shipped products (my order number isn't listed at all...).I read an interesting article on making the web handicap accessible, which I found linked from /. (which I have become an avid reader of).
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Sunday
18April99
My One and a Half Year Anniversary with Him
Still going strong! Yummy....
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Friday
16April99
2:42 pm
I had a fight with my dad yesterday; it must be our first one in six years. I couldn't stand to write afterwards, so I have no entry; just thinking about what he said made me so mad. I called him back later on in the evening to say that I knew he was stressed out and he knew I was stressed out and hopefully we could talk about it later. He was super nice to me, which means he must have felt bad. Today is his birthday...It is just roasting hot in this city, and of course we are never satisfied, even though the skies have been dumping on us for many months. I, in particular, have found that I am never the right temperature, but I did manage to shave my legs after half a year. I filmmed it, and I am hoping to play it backwards so that I will shave the hair back onto my legs. It might be interesting, or it might not work...
3:59 pm
Just so I can feel cheery about getting out of here, I am copying the following from this page.Am I wrong to be excited about graduating? My dad has already given me the as-of-June-you-are-financially-independent speech, but I'm not worried. I am looking forward to Freedom Friday (May 7th). And I only have 26 days till graduation. Woo hoo!Out of college, money spent See no future, pay no rent All the money's gone, nowhere to go Any jobber got the sack Monday morning, turning back Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go But oh, that magic feelingI cleaned up my webring page and have been trying to print a single document for the past two hours. The Mac networks here are pretty slow since they switched them from TCP/IP to AppleTalk. I wanted to get copies of the family tree in the mail this week, but it looks like that isn't going to happen...
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Wednesday
14April99
3:53 pm
I tried to accomplish a lot today, and succeeded half way. I needed to get graduation announcements (check), drop off my graduation form (check), write a memo (unfinished, but now I know where to deliver it), get a cap and gown (that can't be done until two day before graduation!). [writing interrupted by trying to help someone in the facility, even though I'm not working now] I had a meeting with my professor at 11, which I was late for, and that made me mad. Why do I have to be so anal about being on time that I make myself feel ridiculously guilty when I am late. I was, at least, on time to work at 11:30, but I was sweating, and soon learned that I was sweating garlic. I went home after work to help Steve finish up the sound for his documentary. Then I made sure to take a shower. I rushed to class to learn that it had been cancelled, and to also learn that I still stunk like garlic, despite my previous shower and fresh coat of deodorant. Today literally stinks.
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Tuesday
13April99
1:54 pm
I was in a rotten mood yesterday; I felt sick and achy all over. I was acidically sarcastic at the hour long staff meeting I had to attend last night, mostly because I was mad that it started late. I'm doing better today. My gravity digital video that I made with Gretchen went perfectly when we presented it. Our queuing was accurate and we went first in the class. I also finished a small essay I had to write for my time class. Ah, if I only hang in there for another month... It is now less than a month till graduation!
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Monday
12April99
2:11 pm
I am learning 16mm editing right now, which is great, because I haven't done a lot of actual film work, but which is also lousy, because it requires a lot of time outside of class -- which I just don't have. I dreamt last night that Matthew was trying to feed me ketchup, and I kept saying I don't like ketchup (which is true).
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Sunday
11April99
2:43 pm
I'm broke so I took a long shift today. That end of the semester crunch is on full force, and I have it times ten, because I have to take care of so many things in order to graduate. I find the whole idea of family to be fascinating. I am getting to know my new found cousins on the east coast. Our grandfathers were brothers, and if it weren't for that fact, I would have no connection to these people and know way of knowing them. But I have found this distant link, and now I am welcomed into their homes. It is a bizarre facet of our society. I will be making a video on my internet based genealogical research for my final project this semester. I am thinking of calling it Six Circuits of Separation.I wanted to know how to write my name in binary, and a good friend Ashley figured it out for me:
He even made me an awesome illustration, which I will most likely use in the above mentioned film. I will now have to refer to myself as 01010010 01100001 01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100. I could even sign my papers that way. Oh! A binary signature. I absolutely do not remember how to write numbers in cursive.ASCII DECIMAL BINARY R 82 01010010 a 97 01100001 c 99 01100011 h 104 01101000 e 101 01100101 l 108 01101100 So, your 'Rachel' gets represented in Binary as: '01010010 01100001 01100011 01101000 01100101 01101100'6:24 pm
I took an extra 2 hours that came up as an emergency sub, and I have been working on my family tree. I am printing copies to mail to people, and it requires 10 pages at 12 point font. I sure am thankful I get free printing at this job. I found out that my thesis professor is going to be on Siskel and Ebert on Sunday, 18 April 1999. She is the first woman to fill in on the show. I happen to think that is pretty cool!
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Saturday
10April99
5:17 pm
I had a long dream about being at my mother's house, which ended with a nightmare about my dog dying. I dreamt that I was in my mother's backyard and there were several people sitting around. Desirée was there, but that is all I remember about her. I walked over to one corner of the backyard where my mom was. She was explaining about how she wanted some plant to replace the lawn [which we don't really have] and she was asking me why one of her vines wasn't growing up the wooden fence. Then I noticed the huge red ants walking nearby. They were on a branch, and as I looked at them I realized they were one foot long and had wings. A girl in my filmmaking class was there and she picked up one of the ants, to show me how big it was, as I exclaimed to my mother that those were the hugest ants I had ever seen. My mother dismissed the subject. Then later, I was walking by the pool and I saw my beagle, Blu, swimming in the water. I thought that was odd, because he normally doesn't like to go in the water. Later I walked by the pool again, and saw him laying at the bottom. I would have jumped in immediately, but there was heavy paper covering the surface, so I had to struggle to pull that out of the water. Then I dove down and began to pull on my precious Blu, but he was too heavy, and I could not bring him to the surface. I awoke in a panic, and forced myself to get out of bed so that I would fall back into that nightmare. I later called my mom, just to see if everything was ok.The dream about my dog came from an actual experience; a few months ago he fell in the pool and got trapped under the cover. My mom thought something was peculiar and made it to the backyard just in time to rescue him, though she said she had a hard time dragging him out of the water (he weighs nearly 70 lbs dry). But I hadn't thought of that story since then, and I don't know how it got dragged out of my subconscious.
On a completely different note, last night I went to a gay bar. When I walked in, I realized that I was the only woman there, having gone with Matthew and a gay friend of ours. Matthew was a total sport, though I know he was made uncomfortable by the difference in notions of personal space. I had an internal dialog. When I first walked in I projected thoughts onto the patrons, and it took me about 15 minutes to realize what I was doing. I decided that all of the men were angry that I was there, when in reality I'm sure they couldn't have cared less. And when we got past the bar area to the dance floor, I saw a few other women. I didn't dance very much, but I liked the place (N Touch, on Polk at California in San Fran). It was a completely new experience to be in a place with so many men and to have none of them interested in even looking at me. I would love to go again, but preferably without my man, because I was a bit too worried about him the whole time. But he likes new experiences, and I am so happy he let me take him... He really is an amazing human being, and I am so lucky that he shares his life with me.
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Friday
9April99
1:39 pm
Today I learned form this site that the origin of cheese is believed to have occurred when:... an Arab put milk into a bag made from a sheep's stomach to take with him on a trip. By the time he was ready for a drink, the rennet from the sheep's stomach, along with the warmth and gentle agitation had turned his milk into a type of cheese.I discovered this cheese fact while researching salt, for my next time piece. Yesterday I was researching binary, because I want to be able to write my name in binary. I learned the following on this page:0000 = 0My own revelation was the discovery that the reason that my RAID array hasn't been working is due to my power supply. Not an easy problem to fix, since my apartment has crappy electricity.
0001 = 1
0010 = 2
0011 = 3
0100 = 4
0101 = 5
0110 = 6
0111 = 7
1000 = 8
1001 = 9
1010 = 10
1011 = 11
1100 = 12
1101 = 13
1110 = 14
1111 = 154:02 pm
I spent a chunk of the afternoon making a page about my dreams. I will try to better record my dreams here in my diary from now on.
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Thursday
8April99
12:29 pm
I spent the morning learning how to use Quicken and I managed to download an online banking statement from Bank of America. This could potentially make my life a whole lot easier, though it would require me to leave my machine on all day... Class was cancelled for meetings with the teacher and I had already done mine yesterday. I have had a gloriously good few days in the family tree world. I reunited two long lost first cousins, and I was so happy to be part of something which brought two people so much joy. I have spent part of the morning getting to know my newly found cousin Brian, who lives in NY. Actually, 90% of my family is on the east coast, in New York, New Jersey, and Florida. They only odd ones are my cousin Mark's family, in Israel, and my family, here in sunny California.In other research updates, my search for one branch has gone nowhere. Herbert, my fellow researcher in Florida, sent me some bait. He said that we are potentially related to a famous fashion designer of the 40's, who traveled world-wide. Not a scrap on her on the web, so now I have to locate some fashion expert to tell me if this woman even exists. I suppose I could break down and go to the library, but there is something I love about internet research (probably just that I'm good at it!). I am so happy to help people do their research; I love the challenge.
2:27 pm
We're getting a beginning Premiere workshop in my digital storytelling class, and my teacher was kind enough to excuse me for the day. We have to make a video for our final project, and I can't decide whether to do something on my parent's divorce or something on my family tree research. Perhaps I will find a way to combine the two...2:47 pm
I told my teacher I wanted to work on my script, which I do. So I will now write some ramblings that I will later attempt to form into coherent thoughts.3:02 pm
Yesterday my boss was showing me car talk, and I found the boss button to be amusing and wonderful. I like people who have a sense of humor about the web and how much time we devote to it.
8:11 pm
