Silence

A couple of nights ago, I sat in the balcony for a few minutes, to enjoy the blissful silence.

My mother had told me to not unplug the tree lights because Christmas Eve was close by and it would be nice to have the tree lit in the nights leading up to it. I also thought it would be nice, but I found it best to unplug the lights to save power and avoid the risk of fire. So, I stepped out to the balcony and, instead of doing what I had planned, I stood there and listened …

Not a sound to be heard. I sat down on the rocking chair, staring at the parking lot. The computer was off, so the noisy CPU fan couldn’t be heard. One of the fans in my room wasn’t working well, so it was also off and therefore couldn’t be heard through the window next to the balcony. The night watchman was sitting near the door to the staircase instead of walking around. There were no cars going in or out of the parking lot. All I could hear was the sound of crickets in the distance, and the occasional car speeding a through one of the avenues.

One of the first things I thought, as I stared at the parking lot was “Wow … this parking lot is very well-lit”. I guess the energy dedicated to hearing the constant noise of the CPU fan went directly to my sight, because things outside looked brighter than the usual, as if the lights were doing a better job. I felt like going outside, to take a walk. If not for my living with the parents and siblings, or the watchman … or the crime rate, I would probably have done just that. I’d have gone outside and walked through the night. I remember this one time, back in school … no, I’ll save that for later.

Anyway, reader, I’m boring you. Or myself.

I managed to solve my college-credit thing. Finally got my certificate on Friday, delivered it and I’m officially a part of the monograph thing. There was a minor screw-up on my part when paying the difference, but that was quickly fixed. I had to deliver the receipt to the credit company, but I made the mistake of not taking a second look at the class schedule printed in it. I think I remember it well enough: Saturdays and Sundays, 3:00-6:00 p.m. It didn’t have the classroom in it, so I’ll have to see about that.

I haven’t felt well in the last few days. I initially thought I had indigestion from something I ate, but the stomach pains have lasted longer than it should take for the bad food to follow its course. I’m also feeling a bit weak today. I had planned to go get a haircut, but that didn’t happen as I’m not well enough to go out on the street. Hopefully, it’s the result of my very light dinner last night, which consisted on a few soy cookies and a considerable amount of boruga –fermented milk, with a sweet and sour taste–.

Speaking –or writing– about what’s out on the street, there was the usual crowd lined up to get some Christmas stuff, given away at the house of former President Joaquín Balaguer. He died earlier in the decade, but it remains a tradition to give toys and/or food to those patient enough to stand in line for so long. Thankfully, the crowd cleared some time after noon, but people kept walking by, leaving the usual big mess.

The weather is surprisingly fresh. The fan in my room wasn’t working well, as I already said, but it didn’t keep me from sleeping well that night. Since then, it’s been exchanged for the living room fan, which is usually on when I’m on the computer. I don’t miss it, in part because the temperature is good enough, and the constant flow of air to my face just dries my eyes.

The Christmas Eve dinner is right around the corner. As shopping and I don’t mix, I gave my mother some money, along with some hints on what to get for the others. We can’t put the presents under the tree, with it being in the balcony and the dogs eager to use it as a toilet. They’re in the back room, some still unwrapped.

If I don’t manage to get that haircut tomorrow, I’ll have to settle for using massive amounts of hair gel and hoping that the others won’t look at me too much.

I’ve got a few more posts to make before the year is done. Whatever I post on the 25th or the 26th depends on how well the 24th works out, but I’ve got some nice ideas for the days leading up to 2010. Until then, this post should be enough.

I need some rest.

P.S.: Let Shorewood make your day.

Patience

After several months on vacation, I feel like I’m still needing rest, particularly in the past week. My eyes have taken on a life of their own, and they are, slowly but surely, losing that very life. While that happens, I try desperately to regain control of them, to stay awake during the day.

All right, enough drama.

On Sunday night, I logged on to website of the credit company, the one that’s putting me through college without hassle. They recently implemented this “virtual certificate” thing that would be as easy as downloading and printing instead of the usual, which is to go there and receive it in person. The instructions for obtaining the certificate are easy enough: log on with the password given, download the certificate, press “Print”. Too bad I could only get as far as step one.

I was looking at an empty page. There was supposed to be a file there, which I could easily download, print and take to college to be quickly processed. But there was no such file. I had not yet ensured my stay in college for the upcoming “four-mester”, because I had not yet paid by showing them that piece of paper that currently takes the place of money.

The next day, Monday, I called the credit company. I was given an e-mail by the nice lady from customer service, to which I would send my credit account information. I didn’t get the address right the first time, so, when the message kept getting rejected from two different mail accounts, I began to feel that my luck was worse than I imagined. This problem just didn’t want to be solved.

Thankfully, I called again and the customer support lady sent me a message to which I could reply. I saw that I got the address wrong, because the hissing from the phone can cause things to not sound as they should.

After a while, I got a reply. Turns out that their system thought that I was finishing college in December. That is, now. I’m not, obviously. I had to call someone else to inquire about an extension to my credit time. After making the call, the lady who answered told me that I had to write a short letter (“Dear nice credit company people …”) requesting those additional months and provide a summarized grade report of my college career thus far. Done and done.

I dreaded going out, as usual, but I had no choice. Like before, public transport wasn’t the most appropriate method of getting there, so I took my time and walked … fast. When I got there, I met the lady from customer service, who, after saying “No problem” to my apologies for being such a bother, told me that I had to go to the second floor and give my papers to the other lady, the one who told me about the letter and the grade report. I planned on using the elevator but I noticed that it wouldn’t go below the third floor. I took the stairs instead.

After delivering the papers, I was sent downstairs again to pay a certain amount of money that I was also asked to bring. Being too nice, I asked the cashier if she preferred credit card or cash. I already had the cash in my hand, because I knew the answer. Once I paid, I was supposed to take the receipt upstairs. As I headed for the stairs, I saw a man standing in front of the elevator, waiting. I walked in front of him and uttered “Stairs are healthy”, to which he replied “Is that so?” as the door the the staircase closed behind me.

I delivered the receipt, and the lady said that I would be getting a call the day after or sometime after that. College weighs heavier on my mind as days go by, so I wasn’t able to sleep much, waiting for that call. A whole day went by, so I called yesterday, and they told me that it doesn’t take too many days to process such a request and that I’d be getting that call. My father also went there, even though I told him not to, to pressure them a little. We have different kinds of patience, he and I. While I mostly lose my patience when deadlines approach, he tends to become impatient when too many things go wrong at the same time (well … I can also really lose it in such a case, so I got a really bad patience deal). Otherwise, he remains calm, and he calmly went there to help me a bit.

My father gave me the name of the second-floor lady, which I already knew (that’s how I guessed that he went there), and told me to call her. As I didn’t remember the extension to her office, which seemed to be missing from their answering service, and there was an ongoing power outage, I told myself that I would call the next day, which is today.

I called in the morning, and I was told that it –my request– was being processed, but the person who had to sign it wasn’t there. A while later, I got another call about the request letter I had written, and something about the monograph, the January-April period, and there was even a mention of the month of May. I didn’t fully understand what the second-floor lady meant, but she said that she’d take care of it, so I just said “Okay” and hung up.

In the afternoon, I called a few more times. When I finally got a hold of them, the second-floor lady told me to call her tomorrow morning (yet another night of not sleeping well) to see if my certificate, presumably non-virtual, is ready. I generally pay the entire college term on the first pay date, so it pains me that it has gone by and my place in the upcoming monograph course has not been set in stone as usual. I’ve got until Saturday, but I’m wondering what would’ve happened if I had not find out about my December time limit as soon as I did. I was perhaps a bit too confident about my remaining college time going so well that I didn’t consider something like this happening. Good thing I acted semi-quickly.

By the way … on Monday, an hour or two after my going to the credit place, there was another college meeting, where the courses were announced. Graphic design students will only take two courses, neither of them being what I voted for. We’ll be taking corporate image design (again) and web “programming”. Those are things I tried to stay away from.

I put programming in quotes, because it will likely be Dreamweaver again, and it seems like a safe bet to say that we’ll be looking more at the WYSIWYG mode instead of the actual code. While such a mode may work well, I’d much rather make pages from scratch instead of dealing with the messy code generated by visual editing. Makes for a cleaner, more understandable result when you know how your site is built. As for corporate image design, we’ve seen that too many times already. I guess the whole voting thing from the previous meeting was just to make us feel special or something like that.

Our course teachers are from outside of college, as they cannot be ones with whom we’ve already taken classes. According to the woman who preceded the meeting, they had to be people with “more field experience and less teaching experience” (oh, yay) and they will be “our contact with the world out there”. Just what we need? I didn’t recognize any of the names she gave us, so our “teachers” are, in fact, complete strangers. How lucky are we, reader?

Anyway, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow, which makes it a bit difficult to type. If I can finally pay the upcoming final term in its entirety, my mind will be almost as light as a feather.

December happenings

I felt very relieved when I got the message from college that there was going to be a meeting of some sort, because it confirmed that my application for the monograph thing was not lost in some way. It also confirms that my luck can’t be that bad, especially on what I hope is the last leg of my formal education, because I really don’t want any more money spent on this and because the mere thought of college weighs heavy on my mind.

It had been a while since I last went out, as the thought of being in the chaos that is “out there” brings about a special kind of stress that makes me sick and has me postponing things or taking too long to get ready to go out. I wish it would all just come to me, instead, while I sit semi-comfortably at home.

Anyway, on the second day of the present month I headed out towards campus. Just a handful of blocks away from home, so I prefer to walk the distance instead of facing the messy public transport system. Walking, while a bit tiring, also makes me a tiny bit less anxious, and involves less interaction than getting in a bus or a car, or even the subway train, for which I have yet to find any use, at least until they’re done building that second line.

I got to college a few minutes before this meeting was to take place. It was at the projection room, where my last presentation had taken place. It was empty, but an acquaintance of mine was right outside, apparently there for the same thing. I asked him to confirm, in case they had changed the date or something. While he stayed outside, I opted to go in the room and wait there, in the air-conditioned comfort.

Not a long while later, a few others showed up outside, among which were a few familiar faces. I went out to greet them but quickly got back in my seat as a crowd began to form. When they all got inside, I noticed that this was only for the Arts students, and there were many of them there. A former teacher of mine, who was going to handle this meeting, said that there were supposed to be a total of ninety students, but only about half of those showed up. That’s still a lot, considering that these were all Arts students.

First, the teacher gave us a small survey, in which we evaluated the entire career program. At the end of the survey, there was a place for making suggestions. As soon as the teacher told us of this last part, everyone all rolled their eyes and expressed that it was too late to make suggestions, as we had all already suffered through the program. Still, we filled our surveys silently as the teacher went through the list of students. I was in it again, and I didn’t have to say “present”, as I had already taken three classes with her (one of which I failed, but that was because of bad choices I made), and she knew me well enough because of that.

Next up, the teacher handed a paper to each of us, by career (advertising, graphic design, etc.). We were supposed to pick three out of the seven listed courses that were on the paper. The top three voted courses (again, by career) will be the ones that we take before doing the monograph. I’m not sure if the courses will be given at the same time or if they’ll be one each month.

I didn’t bring anything with me, outside of the usual –wallet, handkerchief, cellphone and keys–, so I had to wait for one of my former classmates to finish using their pen in order to fill the survey and pick my top three. Note to self: bring pen and paper next time.

I can’t remember which three courses I picked … I know I picked digital photography because the photography classes weren’t too in-depth when it comes to the digital aspects, and I picked another one that mentioned animation. The other one, I don’t know. I did avoid one that mentioned Flash and Illustrator because I don’t want to deal with those again unless they pay me a substantial amount of money, and, even then, I’d have to think it over.

At the end, the teacher announced that there was going to be another meeting on the 14th (oh, great), and those who didn’t attend the current one depended on our course picks. If they don’t like what turn out to be the top three courses for each career, it’s their fault for not attending.

Some of the students wanted this meeting to end because they “wanted  to see Martha”. They’re referring to Martha Heredia, the Dominican contestant of Latin American Idol, who was going to be on the semi-finals that night. The entire country had been paying attention to the show because of her presence, as she quickly became the favorite of the judges and was the first time that our country was included in the casting. Even our president called out to the people to support her. We’re very fond of every potential victory that could put us on the map.

As it turns out, Martha Heredia earned the title of Latin American Idol last night, and I even heard a distant cheer that was probably related to that. The newspapers all seem to have Martha won! as a headline, and advertisers quickly jumped on the “congratulations” bandwagon, featuring half-page or full-page adverts congratulating her for the victory and making sure that their logos aren’t too obvious, but also not too unnoticeable.

Since my mother’s return from the U.S., she has asked me about a getting a job a couple of times. The last time she asked, which took place after the above meeting, I was able to counter the question by telling her of the three courses that I would have to take. That seems to have killed the subject for now. Thank you kindly, college.

I’ve begun working out a bit in the last few weeks. As I find it awkward to be around people, I only exercise when I’m “home alone”, like that movie (but without the burglars). The first time made it seem like it had been years since I last exercised because I felt sore for three days after. Maybe it really has been years. College has kept me unmotivated busy. I haven’t noticed any results yet, aside from the not feeling sore the day after. Maybe I need to step it up.

A few days ago, I had to go out to pick up something related to my student credit. It was of no use to go via public transport (because it was on the opposite direction of a one-way avenue), so I walked. That walk was enough to tire me for the rest of the day, and it was almost an exercise in futility, as the letter that I went to pick up contained something that I should have been able to guess in the first place. Way to make people lose time.

Took me quite a long while, but I managed to finish the book I’d been reading, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (père). I have to admit that the character of Lady Clarick de Winter is one epic female dog, like none other in any books I’ve read. It’s a regrettable thing that it took me so long to get to the ending. Months upon months, reading two or three chapters every few days in a week or two. My interest in reading suffers greatly when there’s so much around me that could serve as a distraction. Oh, well … shorter book next time.

It’s been raining quite a bit in the last couple of weeks, and the temperature seems to have gone down a few degrees, which is a good change from the usual heat that comes from that big ball of light up in the sky. Feels … fresh.

Last, but not least, our neighbors on the apartment across from us have moved out. They had been living there for what about a decade and a half, so it’s a bit strange to see the apartment empty. They were a Cuban family, half of them artists, and they had progressively moved out during the last few months. The last one to move out left us with a couple of works that he made and probably couldn’t take along.

All right, I think this should be a good-enough update, reader(s). This post is ridiculously long.

It’s the last month of the decade, so I should be able to come up with something else without waiting so long between one post and the next.

Old versus new

My mother returned from the U.S. on the day of the last post (which was written around midnight, so the day had barely begun). As usual, she brought many things for us. We can always count on her bringing lots of candy, which she tends to keep hidden in a bag because it wouldn’t last long if we had easy access to it.

One of the most interesting things she brought along is a camera. It’s my uncle’s old camera, which he gave to her because he bought a replacement. It is yet another Canon camera, and an older model than the one I currently use. Being four years older, it means that it’s at a disadvantage in terms of quality and resolution (not that I need much of the latter). But this old PowerShot A60 –because 2003 is very old for any digital device– does have an edge over my usual PowerShot A550, when it comes to control. It’s got actual photographic control, something that I’ve been missing since I stopped using my sister’s film camera for photography class.

If I had known what I know now about digital photography, I’d have made a wiser choice and bought something with the control provided by this old camera I now have. I picked the A550 because it claimed to have a “manual” mode that really isn’t. The older A60 does have real manual control, as well as aperture and shutter priority modes.

Now, aperture priority doesn’t matter that much for this type of cameras because things will usually be in focus outside of macro mode and after a certain distance from the lens, and there isn’t an effective way to isolate a subject from its background unless said subject is very close. It does have its uses when one wishes to limit the amount of light entering the camera without changing the speed, or to reduce background blur in macro mode, which is something I wouldn’t often do because, well … I’m a sucker for bokeh.

I did keep the camera on aperture priority (Av) mode for most of the time, testing the differences between a large aperture (f/2.8) and a small one (f/8, which is as far as most compacts will go when they have this level of control). The newer model wouldn’t benefit from this mode because it lacks a proper iris diaphragm and instead limits the entrance of light by placing a neutral density filter in the lens under certain lighting conditions. I found out about this when I installed CHDK last year, hoping that it would “unlock” the control I was missing. All I found was a filter-in, filter-out setting, much to my disappointment.

Something strange that I’ve discovered while testing the camera and comparing it to the newer one is that it’s faster in terms of the shutter speeds it uses. While the newer camera would go for speeds slower than 1/4 when making an indoor shot, the older one will use something like 1/8 or faster (sometimes much faster), while providing a similar output. I find that rather odd because the apertures of both cameras are very similar (f/2.8 and f/2.6 for the newer one), and I compared shooting with both using that similar aperture, ISO value, and no exposure compensation.

The newer model’s aperture, which is supposed to be slightly wider (2.6), seems to be a bad approximate or something, as the old camera gives similar results without forcing me to keep my hands as steady as a robot. I tried, with the old camera, using the settings that the newer one would choose and the result was too bright. With the newer camera, I can only match the fast shutter speeds of the old one by increasing the ISO value, which results in a noisy mess. Odd … very odd.

Anyway …

The older camera, while providing the control I was missing (shutter speed, aperture, manual focus) and quite a few advantages because of that, does have some other limitations. It uses four batteries, as opposed the two I need for my usual camera, meaning that I don’t have a backup set of batteries. The screen is significantly smaller, so manual focus is of little use. It’s a bit wider (about 1 cm) so it’s more difficult to keep it in a pocket, though I haven’t tried that yet. Like I already said, the resolution could be a bit higher (1600 x 1200 isn’t bad, though). White balance tends to go for the red tones.

The camera came with a 64 MB card, CompactFlash type. I doubt we’ll buy a new one for it, because the files aren’t that big and because the camera also came with a major quirk: the sensor is screwy. Every once in a while, the live view on the screen will become distorted, and it takes a bit of smacking (hitting the top of the camera) to get it back into working condition. There’s also some occasional banding (horizontal lines across the photos) that do some damage, but that’s not so terrible because I will often use burst mode to get many shots in a row and one or two of them will usually be perfectly usable.

It seems I’ve got to pick my battles when it comes to these two cameras. It’s either control and speed (the older model), or slightly better quality/resolution and less battery usage (newer one). The camera I’d really like to use does not yet exist, so these two are perfectly fine for now.

Camera aside, I’ve also got this weird crank-powered flashlight/radio. Takes many swift turns of the handle to get the light to shine brightly or to make the radio loud enough, but this will be very useful in the case of a blackout. So, bring on the ten-hour … no, wait. Better not wish that, as we’ve already had our share of those for the year.

My mother gave me a bag of roasted pumpkin seeds, which I haven’t had in a very long time. Years and years. I quickly gave up trying to crack each one out of the shell and just started eating them whole, which is something a lot of people do, apparently. But it’s a whole new world of possibilities for me, reader(s).

It’s well past midnight already, so the events of this post have crossed into the realm of yesterday. So, yesterday at noon my mother told me that the college people called. There’s supposed to be a meeting of some sort for those who applied for the monograph. I hope this means that my application was accepted … or they probably want us all there to divide us into two groups, one of them being sent home and the other going to Hollywood. Or is that from some talent show? Anyway, I’ll need to be constantly reminded of tomorrow today’s meeting because I can quickly forget things after being on vacation for so long.

Our food supplies are running out. There are many things inside and around the refrigerator, but no two things can be properly and/or quickly combined. This being the case, my mother ordered a pizza for the three of us that were there (she, my sister and I … because the baby nephew can’t have that), while the others missed out. Oh, well!

Okay, I better get some sleep. I’ve had my cell phone alarm at 10:30 a.m. for some days now, but it’s not enough to make me get up. I’ll usually turn it off and get back to sleep until noon or later.

Those sleeping habits of mine …

November dusk

Seems like yesterday that this year began … no, it seems like New Year’s Rockin’ Eve was plenty of yesterdays ago, to the point where I cannot remember it unless I look through the blog archives (meaning that this blog does serve its purpose).

As I have not provided any life update whatsoever since … since the month began, this should be it.

My mother has been out of the country for a couple of weeks now, leaving us to figure things out on our own, for some part. Leoni, our housekeeper-friend, is here on weekdays after noon to do laundry, clean up a bit and prepare lunch for the next day (yes, we’re basically reheating), while the rest of the day and on weekends we need to watch ourselves and try to not destroy the place.

I haven’t received any news from college. After the 26th, I hope that they’ll publish a list of accepted monograph applicants, as well as the pay date, so that I can finally rest easy instead of thinking of the possibility that I might miss the date and have to wait for another four months. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to make this vacation a longer one, but I just can’t wait to be done with college and formal education altogether. It’s like a ball and chain that’s been growing every year for the past nineteen, and I’m waiting to break free of it and … start thinking of what comes next.

I envy those who have their lives figured out, those who have seen the chances they were waiting for and taken full advantage of them. I’m still on the who-the-hell-am-I phase that should probably have ended somewhere near the start of the decade. I still do most things because others want me to, and that includes college (meaning that my family will stop bugging me about it very, very soon!).

On the health front, things seem to be acceptable. They could be better for me –with better being what others call good–, but things could also be much worse. I hope I don’t have an episode of whatever it is I have until the year ends. Well … if I can push that hope a little further, then I hope I don’t feel like dying until after I’m done with college. Once that’s done, I can perhaps look into finding out what the real cause of my lifelong health problems is. In the past, it has always been different things, and there has never been a definitive solution. If it all turns out to just be caused by anxiety/nervousness … there will be little excuse to leave me without proper treatment for any longer. I need to function properly if I’m to survive this … island. I ken lee can’t live forever in an imaginary cage.

Anyway, reader(s), I’m tired. Didn’t rest well enough last night … or the night before that, I think. Should do something about my sleeping habits. The post-graduation era will most likely have me on that dreaded nine-to-five schedule, so going to bed long after midnight should eventually be phased out … but not for now!