Work Log - 6 September, 2007

Not a lot of putzing around yesterday (or today). But my internet surfing mainly consisted of travel research yesterday.

What I read:

Lonely Planet Guide
-The lonely planet guides are very helpful. I actually went to Borders yesterday after work to read some of them in the flesh and they were very specific. I was researching routes from Cairo to Tel Aviv to Istanbul and found all the information I needed (for now).
Transitions Abroad
-I have found this one to be helpful in regard to working abroad programs.
Eurail.com
-Although this was monetarily informative, this website doesn't offer a Europass that includes Britain at all. So that was stupid.
Heather Matarazzo
-I didn't know she was gay!

Other things I did at work:

Lots of registration. That's about it. I was pretty busy. Here is an excerpt from an email that I sent Lisa the other day describing the Registration part of my job:

i have been doing registration (sitting at a counter, calling, "next!" and registering students for classes), which can be heartbreaking (when students come to the counter and their classes have been dropped for apparently no reason and now they are all full so they have to redo the schedule they so meticulously created six months ago and they are mad at everyone --one student asked me to call security on one of my co-workers and several others threw their papers at me and stormed away..) and gratifying (when they come to the counter for the tenth time after all their attempted registrations have been rejected because of full class capacity and finally everything works out and they say, "there is an angel on your back" [one person said that] or "you are beautiful, thank you for all of your help, you have made my education possible!" [another person said that]).

Work Log - 5 September, 2007

Things I read on the internet yesterday:
Family Guy Trivia + other "Fun Stuff"
-I was wondering about why Lacey Chabert did the voice of Meg for the first season and then they switched to Mila Kunis. I did not find an answer, but I did find out that Chris Griffin's middle name is Cross.
Mila Kunis
-I wound up reading a bunch of stuff about Mila Kunis after that. Turns out she's engaged to Macauly Culkin. I don't know if that's still true. IMDB can be a little outdated.
American Nystagmus Network
-I found this website about Nystagmus, the eye condition that I have. It was quite informative and quite interesting.
WikiPhilly City Paper Article
-I edited this article and created one for The Clog, Local Support, and the Astral Plane restaurant. I also learned that the Astral Plane no longer exists.
British Monarchy Family Tree
-Since Dominique and I watched The Queen the other night, I was curious about how the monarchy worked. I looked up wikipedia articles on the Queen, her consort, her son, and a handful of other people. Including Tony Blair.
Hillary Rodham Clinton
-Just as I was about to go on to read Gordon Brown's Wikipedia Page, I decided to be a patriot and read Hillary Clinton's.
Stephen Hawking
-Somehow I also wound up reading about Stephen Hawking. Oh.. I know why.. because I heard that he and his daughter had written a book. And I didn't know that Stephen Hawking had, or could have, a daughter.
Woz
-Because yesterday I read about Steve Jobs and it kind of seemed like he gave Woz the shaft. I guess he didn't (?) but anyway now I know about both of them.
This Fishing Lure Art Exhibition
-I read about this and thought it was awesome. That's what the chicken leg picture is all about.

Other things I did at work:
Not much. I was asked if I would like to continue working here (in another position), which is pretty great news. Other than that, I really didn't do anything. I feel guilty about that, but if there's nothing to do, there's nothing to do..!
--TGIT?

Work Log

What I read at work yesterday:

Steve Jobs
Author Events at the Free Library of Philadelphia
This NYT article on the future of author events
John Phillips and all of his wives and children
Sally Field Filmography
All ebay auctions for this camera that i really want


Other things I did at work:

Registered students for classes
Entered some event data into the college database
An equal amount of disappointing and helping students
Stayed 2 hours later than I needed to on a count of losing 8 hours to Labor Day
Snooped on a (cambodian) student worker's idle instant message, which read, "when i pee in rice field i think of you :)"

Postal Activities Welcome

i think about blogging every day, but i never have anything to say. when you read too many blogs, it's hard to come up with material.
one blog i found, though, has given my creativity a nudge. a girl (i don't know anything about her, which is cool) started this mail collective. like temporary pen pals. it's more for the giving than the receiving. well, in my case at least. sometimes they are themed. this one isn't. (here's the link...scroll to the bottom).
i used to be so postally active and i'd like to get back into it. so i've signed on for the next mail swap. it gives me something to think about at work, which essentially means that i've decided to theme my letter/package with post-its and paper clips.
it's fun, though.

My Favorite Web Ads

Usually when I go to weather.com or cnn.com I see these ads for lowering your (my?) mortgage. More often than not, there's a little animation of someone drawing George Washington and Abraham Lincoln out of connect-the-dots and then they come alive and do a little Vaudeville dance. I don't understand them in any way. Sometimes it's a silhouette of a guy dancing.
Today, it was this:



I almost wish I had a mortgage!

This World

Why did Of Montreal change the words to one of their songs to fit an Outback Steakhouse Mothers' Day commercial?

It just occured to me..

I have just returned from seeing Spiderman 3 in the theater. As a whole, I liked the movie. I caught the latter half of the 2nd one on TV last night, and I had only caught the first half of it at the nail salon like 6 months ago. So I was feeling up to speed and my dad suggested that we see it. So we did. And I liked it. But I was wondering...
Why did they pick Tobey Maguire to play Spiderman? I'm sure he's a swell guy and everything. I think he's a good actor, and I even had a small crush on him when I was 18. But:

Topher Grace, James Franco, and Thomas Haden Church (even in THIS photo) are each a hundred times hotter than Tobey Maguire. Was this done on purpose?
I don't have any more philosophizing on the subject.. I'm just throwin it out there. Oh, except that they could have had someone hotter than Kirsten Dunst, too.
That's all I have to say about that.