College things

Now, I’ve realized I haven’t done some serious college writing in well over a month. Not that I look forward to writing about it, but that’s something that’s been left behind, despite the tag cloud on the right suggesting otherwise. Here goes nothing.

I’ve got a three-day week when it comes to college. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I can’t say that enough times, because it leaves me with a comfortable four-day weekend (can’t stop saying that, either!). Everyone should have four-day weekends.

On to the actual part of me being at college … things seem to be going well. The “degree seminar” class is probably the strongest point, as my our work earned 48/50. The teacher’s got an unusual way of grading this one, giving 50 points for the first draft and the remaining 50 for the final thing, instead of the standard 35/35/30 system. I can’t complain. 48 points? That means we only need 22 points to pass and I think we are way past that. We’re supposed to defend our work (being a bit of a thesis and all) but, even if we don’t, something that would take away some points, we still pass. Yay for us.

The budget class couldn’t be better, and could be a lot worse. The teacher is a riot. She’s always making jokes, about things in general and about people in class, but no one is offended. Everyone laughs. There wasn’t a class last week because of Teacher’s Day (on which notable teachers were awarded things), and so we had quite a lot of work to deliver for this past Tuesday. I’m one of the few who actually did everything, but I got a number wrong on one of the last few tables, something that was bound to happen at one point or another, which resulted in the totals being different from the expected amounts. I explained this to the teacher and she told me that if she finds that to be the only thing wrong with my assignment, she’d let it go. Fingers crossed!

Then comes graphic design. Oh, so much can be said about that one final class in a string of nine (yes, it’s Graphic Design IX) that may determine all that happens after this term ends in August. I’m pretty sure I won’t fail this one, though. The project I’m working on is smooth sailing, more or less. I’m delivering everything on time, and the teacher seems pleased with my work, but it’s not the best effort I’ve made. The thing is that this project is rather intensive. I’ve got to design posters, stickers, billboards, radio and TV ads, a web site, a magazine and all those things using the same theme, which is environmental protection. Not a particularly exciting thing, especially because it’s focused on this country. The amount of online information about national parks, endangered species and all that jazz is rather limited, and the work I’ve created based on it is not really innovative and would probably not cause much impact if this environmental campaign thing were to become a reality. But, hey, at least I’m delivering things on time. Right now, I want the points!

And that’s the college update. What a strange journal, this is. Rather than writing about things on the day they happen (like a handwritten one would be), I let life’s things pile up and just throw them into a post or two when I feel like it. It’s a bit out of sync, but I think I’ve almost got that fixed. Just one or two overdue posts and I can go back to the usual day-by-day rants that drive people away make this blog a frequent read for anyone who might like it.

For now, I’ll just enjoy my usual long weekend. I’ve got no assignments for Tuesday, nothing big for Wednesday and just a bit of making things up research and summary work for Thursday. So, a worry-free weekend like few that I’ve seen since the month began. And to think that the halfway point of July is only a few days away. How time flies …

By the way, see that SocialVibe thing on the upper right? It’s not an ornament, you know.

Looking up

I post again, before a full week goes by since the last post. I may or may not be running out of steam here, but that’s likely because I’ve got college work on my mind at all times. Once I’m done with that, I’ll probably have some space in my head for actual life things,  and stuff I care about.

Meanwhile, I found that I had unintentionally made several photos, between the end of May and the beginning of June, that somehow fit one theme: looking up. Here they are.

And that’s pretty much it.

I’ve got a bunch of work for this upcoming week, particularly for the budget class. A bunch of money-related tables that I’ve got to make, for a handful of points. And there’s the graphic design thing, a magazine or something. The teacher hasn’t seen my work in weeks now, so I don’t know how well I’m doing. I’ll have to keep my fingers crossed when not typing or working. It might just help.

Anyway, off I go.

A longer night

Following from the previous post … the power company had told us that things would get back to normal at around 5:30 in the afternoon. After much waiting in the living room, I sat on the rocking chair in the balcony, a chair that’s probably much older than I am. Anyway, I waited, and just at the time when we’d get our power back, I heard a loud BOOM! which came from up the street. Some people who were passing by our building looked back to see what had happened, but I didn’t bother going out to check. After all, we get all the luck (not!).

So, Leoni left, my sister arrived and we (nephew included) sat in the balcony as we waited for others to get here. My sister called the power company so ask about our service. My mother did the same, and they both repeated this action every time we ran out of things to do, talk about or make fun of. Something had happened, and we were going be left in the dark for much longer than expected. Yay.

The only one who seemed very amused by the situation was my baby nephew, who is easily entertained. I still held on to the camera, and was looking for things to photograph. At the same time, my mother wanted me to make photos of the nephew laughing. Good thing they no longer ask me for that, as it’s more than enough to have an actual baby at home in addition to dozens, hundreds of photographs that no one looks at once they’re out of the camera.

As we had to save our backup power, we had to keep all the lights off. No one felt like cooking in the dark, so we ordered pizza. Delicious pizza, which we downed with Red Rock, a local brand of raspberry-flavored soda (or pop, for those who call it that). We didn’t have ice for it (everything melted!), so we ordered the coldest they had. The cold eventually went away, but we didn’t mind and gradually finished the two-liter bottle before midnight.

After dinner, most of us went back to the balcony for a while, and I was eventually left alone with the camera. I didn’t want to be anywhere else (in the apartment, of course) because I couldn’t bear the heat. Eventually, it started raining, with some thunder and lightning here and there. I tried my best get a good shot of the rain at night (using the flash) but I didn’t get much of a result. After a long while, and close to midnight, my mother told me that I shouldn’t be in the balcony at such an hour and I was forced to be inside.

I’m not sure how everyone else managed to sleep with the uncomfortable heat. We had to keep the fans off, of course, and having the windows open didn’t help much. I stayed in the living room for a bit, and took a picture or two. My sister came out and decided to sleep on the living room floor (on a blanket). Before I made the decision to go to bed, because I just didn’t want to sleep, I noticed that we had a bit of running water again, so I filled up every bucket and large container I could find, so others wouldn’t have to in the morning.

Thankfully (?), the power came back at about 9:30 in the morning. Turned out to be a 27-hour blackout, and some of our refrigerator food had spoiled.

Strangely, the power bill keeps coming higher and higher. More and more, it seems to me that they charge us extra for power outages. What a way for things to work! Wouldn’t you agree, reader(s)?

A long day

While my mind is still partially occupied with the subject of the previous post (I can blame all the news and music sites/channels for it, can’t I?), I’m barely close to the halfway point of this five-day weekend. Yep. Another one. So, here’s the first half, or maybe one third, of the photos from June 5th’s awesome great long, annoying blackout.

The power went out around 9:30 in the morning. As I generally don’t wake up at such an hour, especially on an off day (no college on Fridays!), those first few hours didn’t bother me much. As our backup power doesn’t last very long unless we turn everything off, I couldn’t do much of anything. So, I grabbed the old camera. After a few shots of my bedroom window, and having nothing else to do, I got bored and went up to the roof to capture the view.

After making several photos of the view and things I found interesting on the top of this old building, I went downstairs again and photographed the patio (again). I was so very bored that day.

Once I got enough photos, I sat in the living room, waiting patiently for the power to come back, as I did the last time. The power company was supposedly fixing some things ever since the morning (”fixing something” is usually their excuse for the longer outages) and they said the power would be back by 5:30 or so, but at that time, something went wrong. Very wrong.

Slowly, the day turned into night.

This could’ve been it

So, I leave the online world for a couple of hours, a rather boring class. After that, I figured I’d hang out for while, so I headed for the area near University Store, a supply shop on campus, only to see an article, written in French, about Michael Jackson dying. I didn’t think it was true, and the two who were reading the article on a laptop were laughing about it. After pretending to have something better to do, I rushed home to the point where I would’ve run across oncoming traffic, only to face reality: Michael Jackson is dead.

Yes, Farrah Fawcett also died today, but her death was expected, and I commented to my sister, just last night, that her time was close (as I read an article about her receiving the last rites from a priest while in the hospital). But this, the absolute least expected thing of the day, week, year and even decade.

While I didn’t pay that much attention to what he was doing these last few years, perhaps even the last decade, I couldn’t get enough of his songs and music videos when I was little. After the announcement of his final concert tour, This Is It!, I hoped it would mean a true comeback, a way to get back into form after much controversy and his 2005 trial.

Regardless of what others think of him (online response to his death in forums is rather disappointing), he had an incredible career. It’s an incredible loss of talent for the world, the end of an era for music history, and a source of sadness for me.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve some being sad to do for a while … and figure out dinner. The world still turns, even when it seems not to.