Claire's Random Thoughts

Wow, my life is so different right now compared to how it was just a year ago. If I didn’t transfer to NYU from SJU, I would probably still be on my old lifestyle.

By the way, I did go back to the Everyman Sleep Schedule. There’s just no way I can get everything done otherwise, especially with my daily commute time from Greenwich Hotel.

For starters, last year, I would probably be either watching a movie or TV or just chatting with Sarah, Athena, Clare, David, and Jeffrey. O’Connor Hall Suite 306 nightly after TV/movie gathering! Or, during the most productive days, we might have a “homework party” which was really just chatting.

Now, I’m reading ahead so I can be prepared for tomorrow’s Financial Statement Analysis lecture. That’s right, I’m reading ahead, something I would have never even considered considering just a year ago.

Just a year ago, I never opened a textbook. Now I’m electing to preview the material before class (for classes I like).
Just a year ago, I slept about 9 hours per night. Now, I’m on the Everyman sleep schedule.
Just a year ago, I thought my 9:10 am class twice per week was ridiculously early, and I often missed it when I couldn’t get up. Now I have no trouble making it to 8:00 am classes Monday through Thursday and 9:30 on Friday.
Just a year ago, virtually all time outside of class became free time. Now it’s networking, presentation, seminar, or group project time.
Just a year ago, I would hang out at Montgoris Dining Hall for hours with friends. Then, we would go back to the dorms and continue. Now, I grab something to go and eat while working on group projects.

Finally, just a year ago I had fun…now…

Well, it’s safe to say that I’m adapting to the typical life of an NYU Stern student. Sometimes I still miss my old laid back life with actuarial science major classes as the only thing requiring work. I just couldn’t keep it simple, continue with my full scholarship, and be an actuary, could I? Well, I value prestige, so I guess it’s prestige I’m getting and working for. I also have the reputation of making everything more complicated than necessary, and that’s definitely what I’m doing now.

I define the “All or Nothing” concept as the curse that makes me either not do anything at all or go “all out” but never in between. I also believe that this is why it is often difficult for me to start an assignment or studying for a test. Before I start to focus, it’s very difficult to get started. Once I start to focus, I continue until the project is perfect and complete or I think I understand the material on the test completely (provided I have at least some interest in the topic). My philosophy is to “either do something right or don’t do it at all.”

Why is it so difficult to focus on many things in life but each of them in moderation? I know that once I get into one thing, I drop the previous “addiction” and move onto the next. Right now it’s at posting on online forums and blogging. Of course these “addictions” always come second in priority after spending time with family/friends (mainly friends, because I’m in college now and living away from my family). If I ever become indulged enough in something like World of Warcraft and choose that thing over hanging out, somebody shoot me (or maybe just give me a shot of reality). If I started playing such a game, I would probably just farther prove the “all or nothing” concept, but I definitely don’t want an addiction like that lol.

Now that I’m getting back into the groove of blogging, I understand why it was so addicting before. Yes, I think it should be safe to call myself a blogger again at this point in time, because I have been posting fairly regularly for a while. It seems like whenever I’m doing anything, I’m constantly thinking, “Hmm…is this bloggable?” Whenever I think of anything, I start a blog post for it. My reaction to everything is, “Let me blog about it!” I typically have an average of about 10 drafts at any given time that I started when I thought about a “bloggable” topic. However, I would say that fewer than half of these drafts are actually finished and not eventually deleted after being deemed blog unworthy or never finished and out of date for publishing purposes. Anyway, now I understand why I used to post so much when I first started my blog. When I kind of stopped, I couldn’t only post occasionally. I just posted once in a blue moon. I guess this might also explain why you can find so few personal blogs that have consistent posts every week or two. They typically either update every couple days or very infrequently altogether.

I remember a while back when I was obsessed with paid to post online forums and spent many hours per day posting on them, even though the pay was definitely not worth the time I spent on them. After a couple weeks on such forums, I stopped posting altogether, because I felt like the discussions that took place on them were not the highest in quality, since people just posted to earn forum “points” that they would get paid for. I somehow reminded myself of these forums again and started posting on a few of them. Fortunately, this time around I only check each forum a few times per day. Maybe this is just because I’m a busier person right now than I was the first time I signed up for such forums.

Previous addictions included chess-live (an online chess server that is now dead) that I was convinced was the secret to my downfall and Guitar Hero that I played way too much last semester, because I had no job and no challenging classes. I don’t spend my time on either of these two things anymore, because once I got over the addiction, I ceased to waste time on them completely. As far as I’m concerned, this is probably a good thing, because I should be able to find a more useful addiction. Just think about how great it would be if I got addicted to studying for actuarial exams.

All in all, living under the “all or nothing” concept could either my greatest strength or my greatest weakness. I could argue for it to be my greatest strength, because I make sure to get things done properly once I get started. I just need some interest and motivation to spark my initial focus. In a working environment, this could prove to be a valuable asset, because I would put in my best effort to finish my projects as long as they are worthy of the effort and not out of date. This is similar to me finishing blog posts that might potentially be worth reading while deleting my outdated drafts that are no longer appropriate for publishing at a later day. Even blogging can be a good addiction, because it can become a way for me to exercise my coherency, express myself, and eventually get paid when I can get this blog approved for paid posts. As long as I can become addicted to the right thing, my “all or nothing” motivation will push me to finish what I started with top quality. The problem, however, lies in focusing on the wrong things, such as chess-live or Guitar Hero. If I can find some way to improve my selection process, the “all or nothing” concept could greatly work to my advantage.

This purpose this post serves is mainly to remind myself of what I’m supposed to be doing. Maybe it will help me get my work done, so I can enjoy my “reasons to be cheerful”

Let’s start with things to be cheerful about. I’m trying to be an optimist, since they seem like the happier people. It wouldn’t hurt to be one of them, would it?
1. I get to go home for Thanksgiving! I miss home. I’ve been away since the end of August, so it’s only natural to want to go back.
2. It’s almost the end of the semester. Then, I get a break for about a month. Maybe I should try to get a job this time, since I have been unemployed for a while.

Now, what not to look forward to:
1. My scientific article project
This isn’t due until Tuesday December 2, but my flight’s coming in at about 6:00 am that morning, so I will have no time to work on it that day. I’m also going home for Thanksgiving break and don’t want to have to bring my laptop and articles with me, so my personal deadline for this is before I leave on Wednesday. I have to find 15 scientific articles and tease scientific terms out of them from a predetermined list the professor gave us. Then, we have to summarize the article while embedding the term. I was supposed to be working on this all semester, but I chose to wait until the very end. It’s much more difficult to find suitable articles than I had anticipated, because they not only have to be suitable for certain scientific terms but also have to be related to the environment. Since I only have to
2. My business law final. It’s probably not too big of a deal, because it’s just going to be multiple choice and fairly general, but I still need to review my notes. And, it’s on the same day the project is due, when my flight comes in at 6 am. I’ll be exhausted that day, sigh.
3. Studying for my calculus 3 final that will take place on December 9. I can’t say I fully understand vectors at this point. I can just follow examples and do problems. If I can get over this hump, I’m not too concerned about my other final exams, since this one is the most difficult.
4. Oh yeah, my final section of my accounting annual report project is due tomorrow too. Maybe I’ll skip this one and spend the time working on the scientific article instead (I say that, but I’ll probably just be wasting time on the internet). It’s only one section out of 10, and the whole project is only worth 10 percent of our grade. So, I’m only losing out on one percent of my final grade if I don’t do it. I’m glad the previous test had extra credit that was definitely worth more than 1 percent of the final grade. I’m probably going to end up doing the assignment tomorrow morning anyway, because accounting actually somewhat interests me.

I guess compared to some of my friends with majors with classes that require multiple term papers that each have to be pretty long in length, I’m lucky. Theoretically, I can concentrate on the scientific article project before I leave on Wednesday for Thanksgiving break and do a little looking over my business law notes. After that, I can then shift my focus to Calculus 3, since my grade is not in jeopardy in any of my other classes. The key word here is theoretically, which will only work if I am able to keep up my plan.

It’s funny how all the things to be cheerful about are directly related to one of the things not to look forward to. In other words, in order for me to enjoy anything I am looking forward to, I have complete one of my dreaded tasks. In order to enjoy Thanksgiving break, I have to get my scientific article project out of the way. Otherwise, I’ll have to go through great inconvenience to bring home all the materials I need to do the project and take time out of the few days I have there to do my project. In order for me to enjoy winter break, I have to get a decent grade in Calculus 3. Otherwise, a bad grade in that class will bother me throughout the break.

Other things to do:
1. Talk to another dean (not the one who was being as “unaccomodating” as she possibly could) so I can declare a minor in math (hmm…ideally, I can’t fail calculus 3 too badly if I want to do this, either. Otherwise a minor in math wouldn’t make much sense, would it?). I know that it’s allowed, because other people with my same major are doing the same thing, but it just seems like I always speak to the wrong people.
2. Redesign my stepmania site

So, I had an absolutely miserable calculus 3 test last Thursday. I didn’t mention it earlier, because it was before I resumed blogging. In fact, the test was so long and miserable for most of the class, that the professor let us take one problem home to do, the problem that asked us to find torsion for a vector that got more complex every time you derived it. I wasted a lot of time and frustration after dinner last night attempting to do the problem without one simple piece of information that I forgot to copy down, a simple t=0 (Thank you again, Sarah).

Do I think the majority of the population will really care about this? Probably not, but I feel like ranting, and I’m getting back into blogging, so think of anything that happens as “potentially bloggable”. Don’t worry if you don’t understand any of this problem either. As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t exactly the most useful kind of math. In fact, I can’t wait for vectors to be over, so I can get back to practical use math that I might actually need for anything Actuarial Science related.

Math with numbers is so much easier.

WARNING: This post is a rant. Its sole purpose is for me to organize my ideas and become more angry about bane of my life.

I think I figured out why I’ve been sucking so much at life my past couple years. I obsessed too much over chess-live. I’ve been trying to quit the past couple months, but I would still log on once every few days when I could have been doing something better, because I was simply too addicted. I just wasted hours tonight aimlessly rushing in standard and playing lots of games of lightning for the sake of messing my my normal thinking and wasting some of the most crucial time of my life, the last days before college applications are due. No more. I requested that my tags be removed in my profile, and am uninstalling the software right now. Chess-live can be considered the root of my downfall.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the server was a bad place. It was simply bad for me, because it became an obsession. For those of you who don’t know, I easily obsess over things (for example, this blog right now), but I get over them pretty quickly. Most of my obsessions are in phases. Chess-live was an exception.

It all started around the beginning of 2005. My life was not perfect, but was managable at that time. I played on chess-live the healthy and intended way before this time; I logged on occasionally to play a few games only for the sake of playing. Playing was fun but my no means addictive. I didn’t have many friends on the server, so I was able to log off whenever I felt like it, because I was usually not engaging in a conversation. Anyway, I started to chat and began to like the server around the beginning of 2005. I met Gerard10 (Gerard, I’m not blaming you) and talked to him a little. At first, I thought he was kind of annoying, because he talked to me a bit too much. Before long, I enjoyed chatting and logged on to chat instead of just to play. A couple months later, I met Acerook (I’m not blaming you either). He was kind of annoying too, but we immediately bonded simply because he was also Asian, and we had a couple good starting conversations. Shortly afterwards, I began chatting with just about everyone, and I was hooked.

At the time that I was overly enthusiastic about the server, I decided to apply for staff. Tsgarp agreed to give me SR (Service Representative), and I was thrilled. At around the same time, Gerard got alrightnow to give me TM (Tournament Manager). Boy, two new tags!

I have never been free since I received those tags. When I first got them, I made sure that I was the one who helped every single newbie and answered every single question in the help channels. In fact, I would secretly get a feeling of jealousy inside if some other SR beat me to a question, although I tried not to express it. I became obsessed with tournament making too. I even ran the long and annoying USCF Quick Rated ones often more than once per week.

Here’s a little side story: I remember that shortly before I became TM, the required number of managed tournaments to be promoted to level 30 was 30 (Those of you not from chess-live staff are probably lost right now. This isn’t important. But then again, I doubt anyone is actually going to read this post). It changed to 100 sometime around the time that I began TM, but dvdlpz (I’m not blaming you either) promoted me to level 30 anyway after I had 30 tournaments. Then, dabigpig (I’m not blaming you either) complained about my promotion, so I was demoted again. I can’t believe something this stupid could invoke such strong emotion. I practically cried with anger/I don’t know what emotion, because 100 tournaments seemed ridiculous to me at the time. I think the 100 tournament requirement may have been what truly made me addicted. When I was trying to reach that goal, I became obsessed with making tournaments. After I reached it, the obsession continued (if it did not worsen), because logging on and making tournaments became part of my routine.
Although being staff was tedious, I somehow enjoyed it and spent my full afternoons and evenings on the server, often neglecting my homework or studying. I became named SR of the month and TM of the month after my first month of staff. Though these titles truly do not matter much in life, I was ecstatic, because it appeared that I had accomplished something. Having those two titles just made me want to do aimless work even more. On top of that, chatting in channels 5 and 48 (the staff channels) became the highlights of my days. Thus, during the first semester of my junior year (when I first got staff), I wasted valuable studying time in my most important year of high school. I’m blaming chess-live for any grades lower than A that I may have gotten that year.
If I got anything in return, then it would be an attitude adjustment. Before I was addicted to chess-live, I was a pretty ambitious student. I remember that I was able to sit at my desk and study everything step by step until I understood. This has been an impossible task ever since I got my tags. My attention span for anything important has grown short, and I am now incapable of studying. Maybe there is still hope left for me to revert to my old attitude if I quit the server now. It will be a challenge, but I hope that the coming college application deadlines will push me in the right direction.

Here’s another side story about how much anger/discomfort something so small could cause me. This happened around 3 months after I became staff. Chesschampion became annoying, because he started making a bunch of Grand Prix tournaments but not watching them. The rest of us TM’s were basically running his tournaments for him, but he was always receiving credit. I have to admit that I was a little bit jealous of all the credit he was receiving, but ask any other TM from that time, and he/she will explain to you how annoying this guy was. I was always irritable online, and even in real life, to some degree. I seriously should have quit staff then. I was angry enough but was also too proud to admit that something like that could make me so angry. If I had quit then, maybe I would still have some hope in life left now.

Around the time of chesschampion being so annoying, the User X fun started. David (user x), you were pretty cool. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, User X was trying to express some constructive criticism of the server and pointed out the good and bad staff members. That User X idea was definitely entertaining and helped me openly but anonymously express my hate for chesschampion (on the user x freewebs site that later got frozen). Of course David got in trouble after he admitted that he was User X and got himself banned. He was actually the lucky one. At that point again, I was considering quitting. The fun had settled, and the annoying guy was still a highly ranked staff member. I also missed having David on, because he was one of my better friends on the server. I seriously should have quit then. Why didn’t I?

Wow, this is one of the most disorganized pieces of writing that I have ever written. I shouldn’t care, because I doubt anyone is going to read this far. Ok, going back a little, here’s another reason why I was angry with the way I was being treated on the server but decided to stay in hopes that I would be promoted to a level 50 TM. Acerook got level 50 for using freewebs to publish tournament results and other stuff like that. Chesscham pion got level 50 for being the head of Variant Nights. At exactly the same time, I took on the job of head of Sleepy Night Standard. My job was the most time consuming and difficult of the three, but I was the one who couldn’t be promoted because there were supposedly too many people who were level 50. Maybe the server just hates me. Why didn’t I quit then?

Ok, back to the time of the User X thing. User X’s idea died around the beginning of 2006, when he got caught, and things were a little more quiet for a while. I still logged on to chat with my friends such as dabigpig, chessbomber, glorioso, and npb3 (those were just a few examples. Don’t take it personally if I missed you, not that you are reading this). This was the time of the second semester of my junior year. I was still an active staff member but was not as obsessed as I was before. I still wasted enough time to receive less-than-perfect grades and SAT and AP scores that semester. That definitely vitiated my college applications.

During the summer, my addiction began to build up again. My 18th birthday was approaching in the matter of months, and I wanted to build up a good reputation in hopes that I would become an admin. Some part of me still wanted admin the past couple months, so I was still logging on. I’ll say this again: I was trying to quit. Well, I don’t think I want admin anymore. It would just cost me even more time.

Another side story: The server became messier but quite interesting when alrightnow got busted for cheating at the World Open. His handle was mysteriously deleted or changed, and everyone was wondering why. My buddy npb3, who seems to always know inside information, informed me of the truth. Then, chesschampion tried to re-create the handle alrightnow so that he could have level 75 TM commands (Non-TM people probably don’t know what I’m talking about. Again, none of this is important. I just feel like ranting). That got him banned for a month, which made our rawr group (Nick’s conference) very happy.

Well, I’m not admin now, and in a way, I’m thankful, because I have no reason to be addicted anymore. I’d better not log on again (or at least not in the near future). This post is only a small portion of my story. If I wanted to, I could write a novel on how this addiction was the bane of my life. It’s no better than a drug addiction. Ok, I’m done ranting. It’s 2:12 AM, and I’m tired.