Best things so far:

1. My cellphone, my American Sprint PCS cellphone, works here. :)
2. My TMoney (subway) card from two years ago still works and has money on it. I’m glad I didn’t throw it away or cut it up…
3. My doorbell has a camera in it.
4. After 2 days, I figured out how to lock the door. XD
5. In the Olympics, South Korea already has 3 gold medals. The US has 2. All other countries (save China) trail them. woo!

I’ll update for real when I get the Internet working at my place, and such…

On the backs of their textbooks, some particularly avaricious universities have started printing, “This book may not be sold.” If the books were originally sold at heavily discounted prices, if they were copied illegally, if they were printed off the Internet … then maybe this policy would make a bit of sense. But they weren’t, so it doesn’t make any sense.

University students can easily spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks each semester. Used books save trees and help keep prices down. Used books are good, right?

What annoys me the most about this is that legally “this book may not be sold” is weightless nonsense.  Publishers may print whatever they wish on the backs of their books. “The pages in this book may not be folded over.” “You may not write in this book.” “You may only open this book after 5PM on Wednesdays.”

But statements like that are not enforceable.  If I buy a book, I may write my name in it. If a publisher dislikes that, oh well - it sucks for her. :P Instead of printing unenforceable rubbish, publishers should save their ink!

It’s just terrible that universities go along with such nonsense. Aren’t they getting enough money out of their students already? Do they really need to cut crooked deals with publishers?

You make your students buy this overpriced version of this particular book, and we’ll give you $3 for every one we sell. *wink wink*  But remember, the deal is off if you even think about letting them resell their books. We won’t be undermined.

If you’re interested, here’s a proper article on “custom” textbooks.

On my last entry, I got such wonderful comments. Thank you! :) I didn’t realize that half of them were there until yesterday - I’m sorry - they got stuck in moderation.

One of my pet peeves: stereotypes. I am not fond of them; I hate them. People who incessantly employ them irritate me.

I teach; I volunteer. I help students with their math. Sometimes, I help—gasp!—people of Asian ancestry. When students tell me that their being Asian coupled with their being less than stellar at math causes their classmates to tease them, I get annoyed. Picking on someone’s ethnic background has been out of style for, at least, 50 years, amirite?

It’s bad enough that the kids are struggling. Shame on anyone who makes them feel less human or less Asian because of it. “You can’t really be Asian. Come on, I did better than you on this… You were probably adopted and just don’t know it yet.”

Also, shame on those who, without joking, attribute their mathematical abilities to their being Asian.

X: How’d you know that? Wow.
Y: Duh’. I don’t need to try. I’m naturally good at math. I’m Azn.

Okay—so because I’m not Asian, I’m going to suck at math? :( Or if I were Asian and still sucked at it, something would be terribly wrong with me?

Other annoying people feel that such stereotypes are wonderful. They get rather huffy when the subject is brought up. “OMG, you’re Asian. You can’t complain about racism. Your stereotypes are all good! You guys are good at math. You guys are frugal…ugh.”

I don’t know about them, but I don’t see anything particularly good or progressive about being held to a higher standard than the rest of your peers, simply because of your race, and then being looked down upon if you can’t meet it.

I haven’t had any personal experience with the subject, though. I’m black and female, so 99.9% of my stereotypes are bad. Sadness. Something that irks me, though, is that it seems… a lot of people assume that I’m part Asian or something because, “Like, OMGz, I’m not an idiot.”

What experiences have you had with stereotypes?

This insanity has two effects: First, people rarely know how much money they’re going to spend, before getting to the register. Second, it makes paying with exact change difficult. Prettily, evenly, priced things are corrupted by the sale’s tax.

Most Americans have given up on paying with exact change, but I like it… because I’m not fond of pennies. I want to get rid of them, not accumulate them. One cannot buy anything for a penny. :(

Do you pay with exact change?

In other news, I’ve been toying about with my abacus. I can only add and subtract, but I already pwn the calculator dependent. :)

Anyway, updates are coming to Callistonian.net. But I’m unsure of what to add first… Suggest something. In my queue are blog entries better than this one, photos (baby bunny photos, random place photos, &c.), a photo blog, foreign movie reviews, and books reviews.

I’m a Grade A* procrastinator. Procrastinating is something that I shouldn’t do. But as it is something that I do very well, I can’t help but indulge in it every once in awhile. Anyway, I bought my mother something today. I’ve still yet to put together a card and things… I will.

I bought my mother a tea pitcher and dainty tea cups/saucers. She likes tea. I like pretty things. Tea + pretty things = pretty tea things. Thus, that is what I bought her. :D

The pitcher was originally way overpriced, but because I was oh so lucky, I got the pitcher + cups + saucers + a coin purse for myself for less than the original price of the pitcher. I win! Seriously, I feel like I accomplished something amazing in the world of retail. :) Have you ever gotten a good deal on an item you really wanted?

Do you have any plans for Mother’s Day?

Okay—what I really want to know is what I can do to improve Callistonian.net (because, you know, I’m a perfectionist. I honestly want to get better! :P ). What’s wrong with this layout? What’s wrong with my blog entries? What would you like to see? What would you like for me to blog about? I hate criticism, but I care about improving more than I hate being criticized. So, as much as it pains me to say this and as much as I feel that I may regret it: do your worst and critique my site. Thanks.

What do you think of the header (the large graphic above)?¹ I was rejected from Perfection because of it. -_-; … I like it. I think it fits my style: I can’t draw; I’m detail-oriented; I like complex things. I doubt that I will ever get into Perfection because its member seem to like things I dislike and vice versa—that’s fine. ♥

Anyway, I’m thankful to the members of Perfection who reviewed my site. Thanks! Also, because the gallery is all about perfection (and thus, improving), I’m going to return the favor by critiquing it just a bit. I made the mistake of getting rejected, so you’ll just have to believe me when I say the following comments aren’t the product of bitterness.

Suggestions for Perfection:

• Add a paragraph explaining how sites are added. The owner doesn’t decide who to add, so it’s atypical and hard to figure out intuitively… Sites are “reviewed” before they’re added, but how does it work? Do random members vote on the sites? Shouldn’t this be explained somewhere? If it’s a random number of random members voting on each site doesn’t that make the process more subjective than with most galleries because with Perfection different standards are applied each time? Anyway, an explanation is needed.
• Add more specific guidelines to the guideline page. This page doesn’t list anything besides the bare minimums; it makes it seem that all decent looking sites will be accepted.

  Add the following:

  * Clean, organized, often validated code.
  * Quality, well-written content.
  * Unique, eye-catching designs.
  * Exemplary use of color and space.

  The guideline page also suggests comparing one’s site to those in the gallery. That can be a little misleading; it can also cause bitter my site is better than X why wasn’t I accepted rants. Brigette’s site displays the most beautiful dolls, but she’s using a pre-made theme… :( Impish.ca’s layout is nice but really simple. Silencia.net and Amelie’s Not-Noticeably.net are also lovely and simple. But sites with equally simple layouts have been rejected. Aside from giving applicants a very rough idea of whether or not they can get in, comparing doesn’t have much of a point. It only seems to create false hope. What are visitors supposed to think when they see sites using pre-made layouts?

• Reevaluate member sites. Perfection lists the sites of perfectionists. If members become lazy and create things that are not up to the community’s standards, they should remove themselves or be cut. That sounds harsh, but Perfection claims to be “a collection of top-quality websites and like-minded designers.” It should push its members to achieve their best by refusing to list sites that have become second-rate. On the other hand, if it feels that all of the gallery’s sites are great - why refuse to list similar sites? :D

¹ Don’t comment saying they were insane &c. to reject me over the header. Different people like different things. :)

Admittedly, being able to tell the three apart is not an important life skill. But! it does give one the ability to say, “Look at that pretty Chinese website (sign, artwork, writing, &c.)” with confidence. If a girl can tell languages apart, she won’t have to fear nasty reprimands of this nature: “OMG! You idiot, that’s Korean!” (Have you ever been reprimanded in this way? XD )

So, here we go.

Chinese and Japanese do not have stand-alone circles! If you see a circle, it’s Korean. The image above is Korean. The circles are gray.

With this one, it’s a bit harder. Generally, Japanese is less complicated than Chinese. If you see simplistic looking roundish or stick-like characters, it’s Japanese. In the image above, the roundish characters are purple.

Chinese just looks complicated. ♥

A quick review: Remember, Korean = circles; it’s the least complicated. Japanese = no circles and medium complications; it features simplistic roundish/stick-like characters. Chinese = no circles; it looks very complicated.

Now that you’re fluent in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese you can tell them apart, figure out which line in the following image belows to which language. After you’ve figured it out, look at the solution.

That’s it. You can thank me for making you slightly more clever? Anyway, comment if you know of any clever ways to tell any languages apart (these included). Also, e-cookies and much love to anyone who recognizes any of the material quoted in any of the images above.

Did she answer? Of course, she did. What’d she say? “OMG WTF!?!? It’s 2:30 am?” Nope… She said, “I’m on the bus. Call me back in 30 minutes.”¹ XD

When is it unacceptable to call you? I have a slight problem with 8 am phone calls. If I’m awake at that horrible time, I’m busy.

After an hour long phone call and some fiddling around, I went up to bed… because staying up all night for no reason isn’t particularly good for your health. While I was falling asleep, something shook. The house? The boat outside? My bed? Everything?—I don’t know exactly, but I reacted with, “Was that an earthquake?!? *blink* No way? I hear an airplane, maybe it was an airplane… Maybe that was thunder? It’s starting to storm again?” My intuition, my initial reaction, was correct (woo!) : it was an earthquake, my first one. We rarely (i.e. never) have earthquakes here.

Random: Ring tones annoy some, but today one made my day! I was in the mall—I went to get those shoes, but they weren’t there—A classy lady with the cutest baby had Wonder Girls’ Tell Me as her ring tone! Tell Me! Tell Me! T-t-t-Tell Me! Like 99.999999999… percent of the people in my city, you’ve probably never heard of it before. :( It’s not an English song… So when the lady’s cell sung, “T-t-t-t-tell me!”, I paused in shock. It was a miracle! XD If you believe in rounding, in my city the chance of encountering someone with that song as a ring tone is 0%.

If there’s anything you’d like me to blog about, comment with the suggestion. Thanks! ♥

¹It wasn’t 2:30 am her time. She lives on the other side of the planet, 13 or thereabouts hours in the future.

My most recent purchase: a Japanese abacus, a soroban. It’s being shipped from Japan now. It’s supposed to help me with my “calculator-dependency.” What’s 21+213+2434+-1232-45+867? I don’t know. I can figure it out, but problems like that make me want a calculator! After I get my magical brain-enhancer (a soroban), I’ll be able to multiply six digit numbers in my head in 3 seconds (like those in this soroban video). Perhaps I won’t become that badass (or close), but I’ll still become better with mental math than I am …

Now that I have you safely impressed by my intellectual ambitions and mad math skillz (more mad math skills here), I’m going to take a risk. I’m going to expose a darker side of my personality. This side of me indulges in Gossip Girl, wears large sunglasses, drinks overly-priced and fancifully titled concoctions from coffee chains, and adventures around in skirts—scared, yet? This silly side of me is also fed up with my intellectual pursuits and has decided that my next random-wth-purchase is going to be impractical, but who cares? What matters here is looks. It has decided that these shoes are pretty. I want them. If they’re at J.Crew when I get there, I’ll be walking out with a new pair of shoes!!1!1! ♥

Anyway, how do you spend your money?

—SIGHTINGS
K hiding behind a huge pair of Chanel’s in Holly’s Coffee sipping an espresso macchiato and reading Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl. Let’s hope that she doesn’t lose any brain cells, a side effect of reading anything by von Ziegesar—but GG is so worth the risk! Let’s also hope that K is able to fit into her skimpy Pucci numbers after that macchiato. L informs me that a quick trip to the bathroom—if you know what I mean—will keep K from getting fat. Good. No one likes a fatty. ♥

So goes the novel… Gossip Girl revolves around the lives of privileged teens living in New York City’s Upper East Side. The vast majority of GG’s protagonists are spiteful and superficial: they are as deep as the ink on paper after a girl signs her name with a Montblanc fountain pen. In the GG world, how does one react to someone saying, first, that her best friend snorts Comet (a cleaner) and, second, that her best friend was late to school because she got pregnant and had to have an abortion that morning? With a smile. XD

Oddly, Gossip Girl’s annoying and despicable characters make the novel interesting. They create drama… Drama is entertaining. Cecily von Ziegesar’s writing style isn’t bad, either. It’s chic. Gossip Girl also wins in the field of boredom. It may annoy you; it may insult you; it may you make feel dumber; but, bore you? It won’t bore you.

Also, if you read Gossip Girl, you may

• learn that peregrine falcons aren’t like woodpeckers
• feel as though your IQ has plummeted
• increase your knowledge of high-end fashion brands (Fendi, Pucci, &c.—this is a pleasant counter to the above, no?)

If you read Gossip Girl, you may will notice its incessant name-dropping. Gauloises? Check. Gucci? Check. Prada? Check … Is Gossip Girl some sort of secret advert for cigarette companies and fashion designers? If the constant barrage of labels added to the novel’s descriptions, it would be understandable. But it doesn’t. It’s just irritating and makes Gossip Girl even more ridiculous.

Blair had tucked the postcard into her old Fendi shoe box with all the other mementos from their friendship.

Who keeps mementos in an old Fendi shoe box? Rich, snotty, label-obsessed people do not keep precious mementos in old shoe boxes, Fendi or not. Storing things in shoe boxes is an obvious faux pas (for snotty people). Mementos belong in designer boxes—not shoe boxes!, but memento boxes—especially made for keeping mementos. There’s no need to point out that Blair has a Fendi shoe box, unless she’s going to do the right thing with it…

Anyway, I recommend Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl to those who don’t give a toss about realism and who just want to read something quick, fun, and dramatic. However, if you happen to live in Manhattan on the Upper East Side, if you’re a student who does a lot of charity work, if you’re a student enrolled in AP classes, or if you attend(ed) an Ivy League university, beware! Because you may find Gossip Girl offensive.

On a random final note, Gossip Girl would be really good—potentially—if it was written as a satire. Don’t you think?