Grad School

I am going to go to Graduate School. I did one year already. I am switching to another University.

I am doing what I want to do.

It’ll be done in a matter of weeks. The whole process over. A new one to begin.

I need to be allowed a moment of room for a bit.

23 or just 3

Yes, I am now officially 23. A nice odd-numbered age. I am glad to distance myself as much as possible from the dreaded 21. Too many negative stigmas are attached to that age. So being 23 feels rather better. Besides the negative stigmas, I think I now will have better treatment from adults. Let me explain…

At 21 and 22, I felt that my elders still thought me young and juvenile. This could be their mental connections thinking that a 21 and 22 year old are still in the party scene and lack morals or intelligent thoughts. However, 23 has just passed that line of uncertainty. I have distanced myself just enough, that any logical being would consider me an interesting, sound-minded individual. In other words, I would be considered an average adult. Don’t fool yourself by this statement. A typical 18 year old “adult” is as much an adult as a 14 year old pubescent teen.

But now that I am of a better age, a more refined age, I wonder why I still am treated like a three year old? Some may say that a 23 year old hasn’t varied much from its past, the 21 year old. And for that matter I can’t fathom a complete metamorphosis, but rather enough changes that a bit of respect is attached to the person.

However, herein lies my personal dilemma. I am a reasonably intelligent, educated, cultured 23 year old and yet I think I may still be considered 3 years of age. No more, no less. Three. It seems that no one has or will ever take me seriously. And when I get serious and talk authoritatively, no one really knows how to act.  For example, I chose not to attend a rather boring cleaning session with a family member today. Instead I decided to stay home and work on some resumes. However, the thought of me working at home and not following instruction from an elder completely confused those around me. Do they think I will always fall in step with their march?? Rather then accepting that I am an adult doing adult work, I was chastised like a three year old.

So maybe my theory that a 23 year old should receive more respect is false. Really I know not. Because 23 or 3 seems to have mingled and swapped places. I’ll just have to wait for my next birthday and hope that another year tacked on will bring with it a bit more esteem.

Done???

I just finished my project. I think. Well, I know that I submitted it, so it’s done. I don’t think i could have done anything else with it. So yea, one final done. I just have to sit through a critique tonight about the project. I am sure that if I were more savvy at Maya (the program) that I would have had an even better result.

Anywho, just one more final on Wednesday that I am dreading. Yuck.

Computer Lab

Today is another day in the computer lab. Working, working, trying to work, working some more.

In all honesty I need to cracking at this project. For heck sake, it is due this evening.

Inside voice, “Come back to your senses and focus!”

Alrighty I should work, for real.

Daydreaming and Procrastinating

Another afternoon in my house, in the kitchen, at the same table, in the same wooden chair.

Trying to do work, but falling short of successfully doing much of anything. Somehow I came here. To say? Apparantly not much of anything. A lot of nothingness.

Tonight I have class. I am supposed to have a decent amount of work done for it. Ah, but everything else seems so much more interesting.

To be truthful, everything feels very boring…even the diversions from my work are boring.

Wish I were laying on the grass at the farm, listening to the birds singing and the lambs laughing while i stared up at the clouds. Add some lemonade and nothing really sounds much better.

Instead, I am in my tiny kitchen, on my hard wooden chair, with fluorescent lighting above my head and clouds looming outdoors.

Sex and the City Sucks

Dior was nice. Prada was better. The shoes fantastic. The plot, not so much. I would describe myself as a Sex and the City fan. Okay, maybe that’s an understatement, I am a super fan. I watch the series over and over again and know the episodes inside and out. And even I, disliked the movie.

Netflix

Americans love the movies. All over the country people go to the opening night of big box-office hits; such as Spiderman, War of the Worlds, X-Men and Superman. These movies gross so much money, but what happens to those people that do not want to go to the crowded theaters? That is where Netflix comes in. Instead of going to the local movie theater or movie rental store, a person can now at the push of a button select a movie they want to watch and it will be delivered right to their front door. How convenient.

Netflix was started in 1998 by Reed Hastings after accruing a $40 fine in late fees from Blockbuster. “He began wondering why video stores don’t offer members unlimited access for a flat fee, like a health club” (Breslau and McGinn, 2005, p. 131). Initially, Reed was going to use VHS’s as the mailed product but then he switched to DVDs because it was the most current technology for movies. For a monthly fee around $17.99, consumers would be delivered an unlimited number of rented DVDs. Hastings, currently receives 100,000 new movies each day from studios to provide to the 3.2 million members. Altogether members can choose from 42 million discs.

With such a great idea, other companies have followed Hastings’s concept. Both Blockbuster and Wal-Mart decided they wanted a piece of the $5.7 million in profits that Netflix earned in 2005. Blockbuster and Wal-Mart executives have both started their own version of the DVD-mailing system because they could not compete with Hastings successful service. All of this competition between these large companies is due to what the authors call a battle between the “Forces of Control” and the “Forces of Freedom”. The Forces of Control are, “the cable and satellite companies, which offer 50 to 500 channels of content that’s chosen by network programmers” (Breslau and McGinn, 2005, p. 131). The Forces of Freedom are, “companies that include Netflix, TiVo, Apple, AOL and Yahoo. Together the freedom fighters offer something like 5 million channels via the Internet, giving consumers the ability to watch just about anything they’d like, whenever they’d like” (Breslau and McGinn, 2005, p. 131).

The problem for Netflix specifically, is the advances with the Internet. People can now at the push of a button, download an entire movie. Now, that’s speed. Hastings sees downloadable movies as a long-term threat and is starting to slowly move the company in that new direction. Currently, Hastings is trying to transform his company into an Internet content provider as opposed to a mail-order retailer. Regardless of the Internet changes he predicts that, “his snail-mail model will be around another 20 to 30 years, both because DVDs are very portable and convenient to customers and because movie studios want DVDs to last a long time because it’s such a revenue and profit driver” (Breslau and McGinn, 2005, p. 132).

Regardless of Hastings positive outlook, other professionals are skeptical of Netflix’s domination. Forrester Researcher analyst Ted Schadler believes that Netflix will not last five years, with the growing changes of the Internet. “Digital music sharing has driven worldwide music sales down 13 percent in the past six years, and video downloads could do the same to mail-order movies” (Breslau and McGinn, 2005, p. 132).

I personally have been a Netflix customer. At first the thrill of receiving as many DVDs as you could think of, was amazing. My sister and I would choose our top favorites and watch them. However, over time the excitement was lost. After awhile, the cost per month seemed expensive and we did not want to watch DVDs as often. I mean really how many movies on the weekend can you watch? We ended up stopping our service with Netflix after about 8 months, but it was fun while it lasted. With the possibilities of downloading a movie right at our fingertips, this does seem to raise awareness that Netflix will lose customers if they do not change with the times. According to the authors, Netflix is being proactive and thinking ahead. Netflix is working out a deal with TiVo, for personal movie recording.

It seems according to current news, that Netflix is losing customers in this ongoing battle to stay afloat. Michel Marriott of the New York Times, believes that Netflix is trying to keep customers by offering streaming video with a subscription. “This year, the DVD rental company Netflix began to take advantage of click-and-view streaming of full-length films and television episodes with a subscription service. “Push a tab ‘Watch Now’ and more than 3,000 television episodes and movies come up in 30 seconds or less,” said Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman. ‘There’s no downloading’” (Marriott, 2007, p.1).

However, although Netflix is constantly trying to keep up with tech-savvy consumers, they still are having difficulty staying on top. According to the Associated Press from the New York Times, Netflix is not having such a positive outlook for the future. Its stock plunged $2.36, or 12 percent on July 24, 2007. Netflix hoping to retain more of its current customers while enticing new subscribers, lowered monthly fees by $1 on its two most popular plans to match Blockbuster’s prices for comparable Internet-only services (Associated Press, 2007, p.1). Apparently the discounts were driven by Netflix’s trouble in signing new subscribers since last year. Despite profit decreases Hastings remains optimistic, “We are in a very competitive, large battle,” said Hastings. “But we feel like we are still in a great position” (Associated Press, 2007, p.1). As for now, Netflix is still a service that many subscribe to. However, Hastings needs to either make changes or embrace reality—for it seems that Blockbuster is taking back the lead.

Media Dependency 2

If you haven’t already noticed, I am obsessed with the Media Dependency theory. For my senior project (see entry below) I went without any media for a week. I was a hermit. Interestingly enough, Oprah just did this episode about wasting. Wasting what, you ask? Anything. The episode was titled, “What would you dare to live without”?

Whether it be energy, food, time, heat, money, etc. This episode had so much basis in Media Dependency that I just had to watch. (As a side note, they never referred to this term, but it was implied).

This family above, had to live without any luxuries for a week. No TV, video games, cell phones, plastic water bottles, no take-out, shopping, Internet, radio,etc.

http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200804/tows_past_20080417.jhtml?promocode=incl20080417TD

What are your thoughts? Could you go a week without these things, or would you crack, like their daughter did?

Nothing rhymes with April

It’s the truth. I can not think of anything that rhymes with April. That’s why April stinks for me. Actually my mom’s birthday is in April. Alright April gets some points. Oh, and Earth day is on April 22, it gets some bonus points. Oh, my neighbor is supposed to give birth this month–fine it’ll rack up 10 extra points.

Wow, April isn’t looking so bad now.

Oh wait, I just remembered…finals are this month (deduct 10 points).

Oh and I have several final projects due (deduct a few more).

What else stinks? I remember…I have to work on the yearbook (deduct 59 points).

Stupid April.

Montclair High School

I have to say this. I must. My mouth dropped when I read this article. The person below is Romal Roberts. The photo is courtesy of the New York Times. Roberts, 18, decided to sexually assault a “possibly” handicap girl with two buddies. Did I forget to mention that they used a broom stick?

I am dumbfounded. Really. Has it come to this? What provoked them to do such nastiness? I don’t even think I can write anything.

The article I read had comments from neighbors praising him. I went to MySpace.com and he seems to be a completely different person there. Not so sweet and innocent. He has pictures of angry adults yelling, a diagram of sexual positions, things relating to his sex life, when he lost his virginity, comments and photos relating to marijuana, etc.

This photo was on his myspace page in a folder titled, “me and my niggs”. Classy.