My friend sent me this and I thought it was funny. Also we were talking about the anonymous nature of the Internet in class.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
JAYWALKING
Last semester I received a jaywalking ticket at the corner of 30th and Hoover. The only reason I got the ticket was because I stepped two feet out into the intersection to say hi to some friends stopped at the stoplight. They honked, which got a cop's attention and he drove over and gave me a citation. I didn't think they even enforced jaywalking around the college campus, people do it literally right in front of cops all the time. The worst part about it was that the cop said something would come to me in the mail, I would pay a small fine, and then I would be done with this mess. This is not at all how the process worked for me. I was not notified of the fine until this month, and the notice was about how I missed my court date and now I owe $676 and my case had been turned over to a collection agency. So I after talking to every lawyer I know, both family members and parents of friends, my only option was to go sit at the courthouse all day and petition to set another court date. After waiting for hours at the nearest courthouse, I found out all I could do at this point was pay the fine.
I have now lost faith in our justice system. They pretty much scammed me out of money for something that I believe was not a justifiable offense. So, a word to the wise: don't trust cops, especially South Central cops that don't trust anyone and obviously have no friends.
I have now lost faith in our justice system. They pretty much scammed me out of money for something that I believe was not a justifiable offense. So, a word to the wise: don't trust cops, especially South Central cops that don't trust anyone and obviously have no friends.
ASR
I went to the San Diego Convention Center this weekend for ASR. ASR stands for Action Sports Retail and its a trade show for the Surf, Skate, and Snowboard industry. Every major company in the industry comes down and sets up booths to show off their newest product, whatever that may be. I went down with Happy Magazine, a surf/ lifestyle magazine out of Costa Mesa, California. I have a couple friends that work for the magazine, and sometimes I go in and help out. To put that a better way, sometimes I go over and distract people while they are trying to get work done. The trade show can be sort of a drag and kind of boring if you're working, but I don't have anything of real importance to do down there, so I had a good time. The most interesting booth is always put on by Volcom. This is because they always have a theme for their booth and everyone gets really into it. In the past they have had a Mariachi theme, where they hired real Mariachi bands to play, as well as bringing in donkeys. One show they had a fraternity theme, which was pretty funny. For this trade show they had a 1960's hippie theme, where everyone was wearing tie-died shirts and had long wigs. They actually had a fairly clever sign on their booth that said "moclov not war" (Volcom backwards). Overall it was fun, but it gets boring after half an hour or so.
Monday, January 22, 2007
BORED IN CLASS, PART II
How I got kicked out of Spanish class:
I had been "celebrating" my friend's brake-up with his girlfriend, who I referred to as "the devil." We started drinking at about 11am, which is a perfectly healthy college start time. So naturally I walk into class a good twenty minutes late. My answer to my teacher's inquiry of Como estas? was "you're the reason I have to press one to speak English" which apparently I thought was an appropriate joke at the time. She let that slide because I participate and try way more than most of the kids in my class. What she did not let slide, and got me kicked out of class was what happened next. She was looking up a word in the Spanish-to-English dictionary because she wasn't sure about the correct usage of a word. She took a little too long for my patience at the time, so I decided to say "its in alphabetical order." This did not go over well, as she replied with, "adios Justino" (my name in Spanish) and asked me to leave. She likes me and told me that she thought I was charming during the previous class meeting, so I'm not too worried. If anything else comes up I'll let you know.
I had been "celebrating" my friend's brake-up with his girlfriend, who I referred to as "the devil." We started drinking at about 11am, which is a perfectly healthy college start time. So naturally I walk into class a good twenty minutes late. My answer to my teacher's inquiry of Como estas? was "you're the reason I have to press one to speak English" which apparently I thought was an appropriate joke at the time. She let that slide because I participate and try way more than most of the kids in my class. What she did not let slide, and got me kicked out of class was what happened next. She was looking up a word in the Spanish-to-English dictionary because she wasn't sure about the correct usage of a word. She took a little too long for my patience at the time, so I decided to say "its in alphabetical order." This did not go over well, as she replied with, "adios Justino" (my name in Spanish) and asked me to leave. She likes me and told me that she thought I was charming during the previous class meeting, so I'm not too worried. If anything else comes up I'll let you know.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
BORED IN CLASS, PART I
Any class, no matter what the subject, has its boring moments throughout the semester. These are the times when you have to find things besides the teacher to keep you entertained. Usually, I find certain things amusing that most other people do not. I like to keep people on their toes when I'm bored in class and at least give them something to tell their friends later. Even though it is early on in the semester, I already have what I believe to be funny incidents in class. Most of these are probably the kind of stories where you had to be there, but this is my blog so I'm going to write about them anyway.
One of the most boring points of the semester is the first week, or more specifically the first day. Many teachers in moderate-to-small size classes choose to fill up the first day with the "get to know your neighbor" exercises. Ever since I was in elementary school, I have never taken these types of activities seriously. In one of my classes the first day of school this semester, everyone in the class had to choose three words that would best describe them. I was about the twentieth person to tell the class my three words. Everyone before me used a combination of "ambitious, hard-working, dedicated, or loyal" which are all great qualities, but made this exercise even more boring than it was to begin with, and didn't really give any insight as to the personality of these classmates. When it got to be my turn, I said "genius" followed by a five second pause, during which a couple of heads turned and looked to see what arrogant kid would actually say that about himself. Almost everyone in the now dead-silent class turned to see the obnoxious guy towards the back of the class during the pause after my second word, which was "gorgeous." The silence was broken with laughter after my final word of "humble." I also like it when teachers ask you why you are taking this class. While most people will answer that it fits their schedule or fulfills a requirement, my favorite answer is revenge. Answers like these usually just lighten the mood of a boring first day. Although, caution must be taken when making jokes like these in class, because some teachers do not find them amusing and they keep them in mind when grading.
One of the most boring points of the semester is the first week, or more specifically the first day. Many teachers in moderate-to-small size classes choose to fill up the first day with the "get to know your neighbor" exercises. Ever since I was in elementary school, I have never taken these types of activities seriously. In one of my classes the first day of school this semester, everyone in the class had to choose three words that would best describe them. I was about the twentieth person to tell the class my three words. Everyone before me used a combination of "ambitious, hard-working, dedicated, or loyal" which are all great qualities, but made this exercise even more boring than it was to begin with, and didn't really give any insight as to the personality of these classmates. When it got to be my turn, I said "genius" followed by a five second pause, during which a couple of heads turned and looked to see what arrogant kid would actually say that about himself. Almost everyone in the now dead-silent class turned to see the obnoxious guy towards the back of the class during the pause after my second word, which was "gorgeous." The silence was broken with laughter after my final word of "humble." I also like it when teachers ask you why you are taking this class. While most people will answer that it fits their schedule or fulfills a requirement, my favorite answer is revenge. Answers like these usually just lighten the mood of a boring first day. Although, caution must be taken when making jokes like these in class, because some teachers do not find them amusing and they keep them in mind when grading.
MY DAY AT WORK
I have worked for my mom's property management company in Orange County for almost five years now. I thought it would be a good idea for my résumé to have held a solid job throughout college. When I started it was my first "real" work experience, because I don't count working at skate shops, golf courses, and Christmas tree lots as something that could help build my career. The first three years I worked hard and it was a challenging, valuable learning experience. However, after I moved to LA for school it turned into a long day of looking for ways to waste the time of doing pretty much nothing. This is because I now only work one day a week, I'm the only one in the office on Sundays, and I'm pretty sure no one even knows that we're open for business on Sundays. I get fed up of looking at facebook and myspace after an hour or so, and there's only so much homework I can do in one sitting before I have to turn to other time-wasting activities.
To warn anyone reading this, I'm not joking, my day really is this boring and yes I get paid to mess around by myself in an empty office all day. So, for an hour or so I hit golf balls from one patch of grass to another in the parking lot, and I only hit some random car parked in the parking lot three times, which is good for how many times I hit over it succesfully. Next, I actually had a homeowner come in to ask a quick question, which I easily could have answered within five minutes and he could have moved on with his day like a person with a normal job. Instead, I kept him talking to me about pretty much nothing for over half an hour because he was from New Zealand and I tried to fit words into the conversation that would sound funny if he said them. I broke my old record of stacking office furniture with 8 chairs; I almost hit the ceiling. After that I took a two and a half hour lunch with a couple friends, and fit in a couple games of beach volleyball on the courts that are about one hundred feet from the office. I started a fire in the kitchen, because that's the most mature way to check the smoke detector. Finally, for my final task of the day I finished processing all my paperwork, which was supposed to take me all day, in about fifteen minutes.
As an end note, I do take on other internships each semester and summer that I do take much more seriously than this. I'm not that bad of an employee usually, its just the all day boredom the fact that people really don't know the office is open on Sundays, and if they do they usually figure whatever they need to get done can wait until Monday.
To warn anyone reading this, I'm not joking, my day really is this boring and yes I get paid to mess around by myself in an empty office all day. So, for an hour or so I hit golf balls from one patch of grass to another in the parking lot, and I only hit some random car parked in the parking lot three times, which is good for how many times I hit over it succesfully. Next, I actually had a homeowner come in to ask a quick question, which I easily could have answered within five minutes and he could have moved on with his day like a person with a normal job. Instead, I kept him talking to me about pretty much nothing for over half an hour because he was from New Zealand and I tried to fit words into the conversation that would sound funny if he said them. I broke my old record of stacking office furniture with 8 chairs; I almost hit the ceiling. After that I took a two and a half hour lunch with a couple friends, and fit in a couple games of beach volleyball on the courts that are about one hundred feet from the office. I started a fire in the kitchen, because that's the most mature way to check the smoke detector. Finally, for my final task of the day I finished processing all my paperwork, which was supposed to take me all day, in about fifteen minutes.
As an end note, I do take on other internships each semester and summer that I do take much more seriously than this. I'm not that bad of an employee usually, its just the all day boredom the fact that people really don't know the office is open on Sundays, and if they do they usually figure whatever they need to get done can wait until Monday.
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