Callistonian.net

18 days into 2010, how are you new year’s resolutions holding up?

This year, I decided to focus on eight special things.

• reading I need to read more books, articles, journals, blogs, etc.
• Korean I want to become fluent in another language ASAP. I want to have the ability to work as a diplomatic translator, even though I’m not trying to become one. Of course, I had to pick one of the hardest languages—but it is what it is. I need to study tons.
• Callistonian.net I’ve had this site for 8 years. I’m not ready to let it go.
• exercise Staying healthy is important.
• traveling Not only do I want to take long trips across oceans, but I also want to visit local hot spots (restaurants, museums, cafes,  and one-of-a-kind stores).
• photography Memories are wonderful, and they’re so much sweeter when there are photos to accompany them.
• writing I’m not too sure about how far I want to push this one. Am I willing to work hard enough to get something (non-fiction) published or is it enough if I just keep a journal and write as I normally do.
• give Last but not least, I want to volunteer and give money to charity.

At day 18, I’m doing okay. I’ve read a novel, at least two dozen newspaper articles, and some blogs.  I’ve studied Korean for hours. I’ve also been giving. I gave money to Doctors Without Borders (for Haiti) and to another organization. I also volunteered.

I have this thing with mathematics. Let’s call it a love/mild-dislike relationship. I love it; it mildly dislikes me. When I say I love math, I’m not joking. Look at my icon on Snark (courtesy of noldo_icons). It’s on the left. Sadly, two years ago, I got into a huge fight with darling mathematics. I wanted it to be fun and practical. But it insisted on being monotonous and abstract. It hated me. So I told it to go to hell and changed my major. I made the ultimate jump: I went from engineering to history. The break-up was messy and painful. It took me some time to get over. Every once in a while, I dropped by an engineering course I wasn’t enrolled in, but it was for the best. History pwns all. End of story.

The bad thing about all of this is that people assume I have a problem with math, because I’m a girl and because I majored in history. I don’t have a problem with math. I miss math; I love math. I’m just getting rusty. I don’t think that I know how to take surface integrals anymore, and this makes me sad. Today, I was talking with someone who teaches Diff. Eq. and—OMG—that made me long for math problems… I don’t know. Maybe I’m just going crazy. After GRE and grad. school application(?) HELL, maybe I’ll look at some math and some Dutch (language #5!!!) for fun. I’m studying math for the GRE now (speed multiplication woo!) so perhaps by then I’ll be satiated and not bother with any of it.

I’m a teacher/tutor. I started not too long ago, and I qualified to teach a ton of different things. As of yet, I’ve been busy teaching other stuff. I haven’t had a chance to teach what I really want to teach (ACT Math). I’ve done random math stuff, random reading stuff, ACT Reading, ACT Writing, and ACT English; I’m going to do Science Reasoning sometime soon… I know that I’ll do math eventually, but I can hardly wait. That was the first thing I was really excited about teaching, because I feel a silly need to prove that I have mad math skillz, and because the idea of a history major teaching mathematics is hilarious to me… :D

I want to teach Math. :X

I confess. I’m a logophile (aka dork); I even created a list of beloved terms. At this moment, ten minutes after one on a Sunday morning, my favorite English word is ebullience (n. zestful enthusiasm). My favorite word is 진심 (korean. n. jin shim meaning sincerity). I suppose I love fancy terms for qualities I wish to possess. What about you? Do you have any favorite words?

Yesterday, Caitlin—Happy (late) Birthday!!— was sweet and linked FreeRice.com in a comment. FreeRice is awesome, a must visit for logophiles, those wanting to expand their vocabularies, those who like to raise things for charity, and the bored. Every question answered correctly equals ten grains of rice (not much but it adds up after awhile). Also, there are 50 levels. Can you reach 50? I’m not that cool. (I can’t do it. 45 is my best? idk.) I have a tendency to wallow in the spaces between 33 and 40.

Also, the three words I dislike the most are masticate, tribe, and gargantuan.

My desktop is not cluttered; 85% of my computer’s files are where they should be. 50% of these files are located in folders labeled sensibility: music is in the “Music” folder; videos are in the “Videos” folder; documents are in the “Documents” folder.

I’m not a digital slob, and I’ve never been one. I’ve just had occasional mishaps during which icons and files that I wanted but didn’t want to be bothered with piled up on my desktop… Those files were quickly relocated into a folder called something like “Crap.”

Now, I’m being particularly good. A “Crap” folder has yet to plague my 3-month-old laptop’s desktop. But a 3 month span of desktop cleanliness is not atypical because, as I said, I’ve never been a digital slob. My computers have always been organized.

What is atypical: videos in the “Videos” folder, music in the “Music” folder, &c. Videos have graced the hard drives of my computers for years. But, until now, I never thought it fit to put them in a “Videos” folder.  I thought that doing that would make things too boring. Three months ago, I was putting my videos in the “Ebooks” folder. Ebooks were kept in an ambiguously titled folder elsewhere.  My system of organization didn’t spring up accidentally. After mistakenly dropping one video in the “Ebooks” folder, I didn’t decide that the rest might as well go there too. I, intentionally, put them there. The decision was an improvement upon their previous location as they were no longer buried in a mess of whimsically titled folders. 

Long story short: more of my files are sensibly located than ever before.

However, I am still me. I’ve taken my love of unique organizational themes to my bookmarks (RSS feeds). Surprisingly, a few of the folders’ labels may make sense (sans explanation) to average people.  Legal sites are filed under “jurisprudents” and linguistic ones under “language.”

But the personal blogs I subscribe to are separated into four folders: “Marquise,” “Vicomtesse,” “Baronne,” and “Baronnet.” They’re ranked. Blogs I like the most are in the “Marquise” folder; the ones I like the least are in “Baronnet.” I have all sorts of complicated reasons for why I’ve used feminine French ranks of nobility to organize blogs and as to why certain ranks are missing but I suppose the real question is: why must I complicate things? I can put videos in the “Videos” folder but asking me to sort blogs into categories like “Blogs I Read Daily” and “Blogs I Sort of Like” is asking too much.  I feel compelled to attach partly whimsical and highly symbolic titles to them … and to other things. :)

On the subject of the last entry: I will answer your questions. Thanks a ton for asking them.

How would you feel if your school was flooded; if it caught on fire; if it was hit by a tornado? If any of the above happened to my beloved university, I’d be upset. However, my middle school endured all of the above. Was I upset then? Not in the least.

Every battle of school building versus nature/idiot- inspired- disaster equaled, at least, a few hours of freedom from school for me and as the building was never destroyed… I was happy.

On a slightly related note, I like storms. I’m not fond of tornados or hurricanes but, a strong thunderstorm (every once in awhile) is a lovely thing. The rain falls in torrents; the wind bends the trees; the power goes out. It’s a good bit of adventure. In residential areas, a few hours without electricity won’t hurt anyone. It’ll only inspire creativity and residents will get traditional with their sources of entertainment. Forget the television and break out a board game. Read a book. Write a letter by candlelight? Perhaps not the last one.

Storms are one of the good things about the southern region of the USA. The Northeast misses out.

Site-related: I’m still working on this design. I intend to change parts of it so… beware. :D