I wish you could get some kind of grad degree from studying something awesome at home or at the library. I mean, most of my studying for my music masters (besides the lessons and practice) were done online or by checking out books in the music library.

Things I would love to study more of:

Bible
MUSIC (classical first, modern production second)
Business and making money
drawing?
Fixing Cars
Programming
Video game design

Looking at this silly list I see that I already study half this stuff!!! I still practice and get lessons for music (infrequently, but still), I’m in school for Biz, I have the Chilton books on the camrey, and I am surrounded by programmers and gamers all day long!! I am truly blessed… can I get a masters on all the above?

I went on a “date night” with my wife today to an Indian restaurant. Coincidentally, it was the restaurant’s 9th year anniversary so we got some free food in addition to our order (kindly provided by my programmer/gamer coworker from India). We gave our waiter a list of the food we wanted.

“Who made this list?”

He bobbled his head a lot, which my wife didn’t understand. She thought the bobble meant disapproval. Luckily, I had seen a clip of “Outsourced” where Madhuri bobbles her head, so I knew it was a cultural thing… it meant “OK” in this context (I think). We ate a lot of foods that you dip.

We had a really nice dinner, my wife is great!

Studying music is much more interesting than finance.

But I suppose that if everyone studied only what they were interested in our society would be far less productive.

This class would be so interesting if all the course material was sung and each student got to play and instrument during class. To ask a question, you would play a dissonance. If you agreed with something said, you would play a little consonant ditty.

Back to paying attention!

It’s very difficult to say because I write every day at work, but often I don’t think I write well. I find that I use jargon too often to save time with tix on LH esp when I there have been issues deploying things that worked on stage 2 to prod, but some bug occurred and I need IGN’s quickly because I don’t have time to type full emails. My sentences are too long and boring too often, and I overuse commas, it can be unclear. Sometimes my sentances are to short. They have typos and I don’t know it.

Now I’m trying to write simply in American english people can understand. I try to be short and to the point; that’s business writing, isn’t it?

I do have grander aspirations though. I want to use writing to be a creative outlet from day to day. I am not an artistic writer, but I think artistic writing would be a fun and rewarding medium to explore. The reason is that most of my writing does not need to be creative on a given day, and I get bored. While I’m working, the creative section of my brain becomes very itchy. To scratch it, I need to do something artistic, like play music or draw a funny cartoon, but I can’t always do that.

Writing can be an art form, although it’s overlooked as one. So I figure, if I need to write all day, why not channel some of my creative energy into writing bug tickets? It can be a substitute for music for me, sort of.

Unfortunately, this is extremely difficult, because writing tickets should be clear and efficient, which is almost the same as short and simple. I’ve tried to add funny words from time to time, like this sentence “avatar is still too chubby when sitting in the chair, his bottom sticks out,” but those are very rare. Also, I don’t have a lot of time to beautify my writing because my plate of things to do at work is full, and I have an inbox crammed with messages from people desperate for support. I am their only contact within the company, and they need help, NOW! No time for pretty emails and messages.

For now, I’ll try my best to be a clear writer. I’m going to use less jargon and write simply, because that’s what I need to do at my job now. I’ll continue to evaluate this very interesting problem… maybe I can be very artistic by writing beautiful, simple sentences. Short, clear sentences can be pleasant and artistic.

Hope this wasn’t TLTR!

P.s. My wife says hello. She works with people in India.

Well, back to work!

Please pray for:
-God’s blessing for job/student search
-A worshipful, thankful attitude to God through evey trial or challenge.
-No anxiety regarding planning and things up in the air! Pray that I would “be anxious for nothing.”

Mostly I have been busy with a lot of school stuff and sending loads ‘o emails regarding more school stuff! I had to fill out a self-evaluation for my gradauate commitee, so that took some time. Then I wrote messages to coordinate some performances at some local libraries and nursing homes. Now I am blogging.

I am very happy today! I feel very thankful today (it must be the holy spirit), like a Philippians 4 kind of thankfulness. There are many things I was anxious about regarding job, school, and car (broken), but now I have a lot of thankfulness in my prayers.

Find a wedding coordinator who is organized, relaxed and not easily shaken. A hyper-active or very volatile coordinator can suck a lot of life and joy from your special ceremony. I have coordinators make mistakes on the wedding day due to being jumpy under pressure. If the coordinator is not organized, it’s even worse. Also, a stressed out coordinator tends to rush people-and who wants to be rushed or scolded at a weddding? It’s better to have a coordinator who is willing to be flexible and make even unplanned situations turn out to be pleasant and enjoyable for everyone. Find a coordinator who is detailed, but diplomatic (not someone who must fight to get his or her way).

People tend to ask their friends to MC, and I assume they might choose a guy who is a real talker. Make sure you find an MC who will be culturally sensative and who will not make inappropriate jokes. One time, an MC made a joke about how expensive the wedding was, and it was a real downer. Make sure you tell your MC to stay away from that stuff.

Make sure that your best man doesn’t get drunk before his speech. Hold off his drinks until his speech is over.

Give your vendors directions to your wedding location, not just the address (just in case GPS or google maps throws them for a loop).

Contact your vendors directly. It’s not as clear when you have to communicate to a coordinator who is relaying messages for you. I’ve had some miscommunications before that could have been avoided if I got the information direct from the couple getting married.

I was going to write a nice post on music, but have since decided that doing so will take too long.

But here is something interesting I’ve observed. Some people study some academic subject in college, decide that it that subject wasn’t for them, and return to school to puruse a degree in music. On the other hand, some people study music and eventually quit for whatever reason.

I think that the that people that quit music don’t really quit on good terms. Perhaps it’s because that at some point they realized that the rigors of music study wasn’t what they expected, or they thought that they didn’t have the skills to be a great musician. I can see why they might feel dissapointed.

I don’t think there has to be unfortunate musical breakup. If one wants to quit, quit happily and continue enjoying music.

Later gaters.

Words to use again:
Likewise, Just as likely, Unfounded,

“Over time, the costs of processing go down because as organizations learn how to do things better, they become more efficient. In color film processing, for example, the cost of a 3-by-5-inch print fell from 50 cents for five-day service in 1970 to 20 cents for one-day service in 1984. The same principle applies to the processing of food. And since Olympic Foods will soon celebrate its twenty-fifth birthday, we can expect that our long experience will enable us to minimize costs and thus maximize profits.”

Olympic Food’s 25th birthday will be a great milestone for the company, but efficient performance and lowered costs cannot be reasonably assumed. The Annual report has two serious flaws. It contains a weak analogy and a wrong assumption.

First, the author draws a weak analogy between two unrelated industries. Admittedly, time provides experience and technological advances that often help companies work efficiently. One cannot assume, however, that Olympic Foods will experience the same benefits of increased efficiency as the color film industry. Because Olympic and the film processing industry are vastly different, it is highly doubtful that the fact about the film industry can be applied to Olympic. For instance, unlike development companies, Olympic Foods may choose not to deviate from its traditional methods. Perhaps new methods pose new problems and expenses Olympic cannot handle.

Second, the author forecasts that the company’s age has made it a stronger company. We should not assume that Olympic is capable of fulfilling such a claim, seeing that there is no evidence that supports it. Often company performance lags as time progresses. Take for example K-mart department stores, which shut down as a weak company after a period of success. Moreover, the author fails to mention that other factors besides inefficiency could raise production costs. New methods of efficient food preservation could be developed that increase food quality but also increase costs. Even if Olympic becomes more efficient, one cannot assume that its costs will go down.

In the final analysis, the 25th birthday of Olympic Foods is no proof of increased efficiency and lower costs. The author would have to provide evidence that the company has learned how to do things better in the last 25 years. The author also cannot rely on his analogy because the two industries are too dissimilar. Supporting examples from similar companies would be more convincing evidence.