Midnight Message

I found a word that means to post to my blog and also begins with M, to create the alliteration ‘Midnight Message.’ :) I’m introducing the Midnight Message to help establish a new goal: posting about my day. Recently I’ve realized, in reading other people’s blogs, that their lives are astoundingly interesting. Just reading about their day is insightful. Thus, I’ve decided to do the same myself. Looking back on my past few posts, I’m somewhat ashamed. They’re impersonal. They have nothing to do with me. I’m going to change that. And I hope you like it, and that you’ll become a regular reader. :)

This new practice, which I’ll hopefully keep up for more than one day, is called a Midnight Message™ because I’m going to write it at (or near) midnight every evening. It will cover the past 24 hours, or the past day. Thus, I’ll have something of a daily log of my activities and thoughts. From these thoughts I hope to form connections, or help other people form connections, as to the purpose and meaning of my life. (But maybe not that deep.)

Tuesday. I woke this morning at about 10 AM to be greeted by one of the janitors who told me that the water has been turned off until noon. I have class at noon, thus making it impossible for me to take a shower that morning. Sigh. Strangely, the water still worked: it was just very, very low pressure. So I washed my face, changed into some clothes, and went to grab some sushi on the way to EE 106.

We’re working on robots in groups of 2 people, and we’re having something of a ‘competition’ next Tuesday/Thursday. So I brought the robot back to my dorm for working on (in theory) over the break and weekend. My partner, Michael, apparently lives in a dorm with lots of crazy drunk people. So it makes more sense for me to take care of it. In fact, the robots sitting in front of me right now; but I haven’t worked on it at all yet since bringing it here.

I then had a discussion section for my Calculus II class. It was as usual. My TA is funny. He makes mistakes. Hopefully I learned something. Then I came back to the dorm and wasted a lot of time online, particularly reading about Traffic Hurricane. I looked at the free version, and quickly realized exactly what it is. It’s nothing like the salesletter makes it sound. It’s actually far more limited. There’s no way to use it and not be spamming search engines. Thus, I’ve decided against it. However, I have been very impressed by the program’s author (or seller, considering that he claims to have spent $thousands on developing the program), Larry Hall: he responded to my email about a grammar mistake on his site, and it was fixed promptly. So, clearly, he’s looking at and responding to some emails. Which is a good sign.

I went to the Math Center at about 6:30 pm and learned nothing. But I justify the trip by telling myself I needed the exercise of walking. I then went to EVK, and sat with some strangers (by invitation). I believe they are from New/North, two girls, and one guy who doesn’t attend USC. It was something of a college culture shock. They all drank, and two out of the three smoked. Business majors. They seemed to be stereotypical college kids, teenagers and popular, talkative, pessimistic, shallow girls. But I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s college after all. What I’m used to, on the other hand, are the people I see daily in Marks Hall. Yet Marks Hall is not a typical college dorm. It’s awesome. People here are genuinely intelligent. And I just want to get to know the people here more.