Proliferate?

In an email to my friend I said,

“My Dearest Ossian,

It has been my profound belief that everything happens for a reason and the reason behind everything is the will of God. I don’t mean to be sanctimonious, but as I continue down the path I see more and more of Him revealed to me and that some of the old truisms, albeit somewhat worn out, are very indeed true and their meaning becomes more and more rich with each passing moment. 

The reason that I mention the above is that I remembered when I started going back to school and had decided to try something outside of my wheelhouse…Graphic Communications. In doing so I learned some invaluable skills giving me the ability to work with photographs and using Photoshop, amongst other tools, to manipulate them. Something that I have become quite adept at doing. Of course, I decided that my first true love being computers would always be my true love, thus I returned to the logic. Little did I know how much I would use those skills that I had been taught in Graphics Communications and how they would make so many people happy. I have touched up my parent’s wedding photo, created an "Uncle John" mosaic for my nieces, drawn an image of my brother, created t-shirts from my designs, and utilized my skills to express myself somewhat artistically.

Now I am finding that those same skills are helping me in the current class that I’m in, or at least making it easier for me to manipulate all of these images. Still, I digress, the whole reason for all of this verbose non-sense is to tell you that I have taken a break from my studies and decided to work on a new project…one for you.

Attached you will find a picture that I think may have been left out of the photo shoot. You see, in all of the pictures there are none with all three of you together. Now there is. I hope you like it. I have already printed you a copy and may jaunt up to Staples and have a better one printed out, but I wanted you to have this in advance in case you wanted to send it to your parents. I’ll bring the printed copy with me next time I’m over.

And in these moments, we begin again and start creating our own; our new memories.

Love always,

-J.”

WAH·teeny [wəh-tē-nē]

-adjective, adverb, noun

1. 
   

   The sound aborigine scream while hoping from one foot to the other and gyrating their spear up and down. Usually occurs when they see a white person.

2. A non-vulgar, non-denominational, inoffensive, explicative used when no other words quite fit the situation and something needs to be said. (i.e. “You Wah-teeny!” or “Well, Wah-teeny!” or even “Wah-teeny me!”)

3. Last name of the 1 millionth visitor to Beijing.

Origin:  2010-2010; Unknown, but believed to have occurred when an event of great importance occurred and everyone was speechless.

 

Actually, this is a gibberish word that I came up with last year. It honestly came out of the blue and I have no idea where or what it is suppose to mean, but when I get real tired I seem to say it a lot and  my nieces noticed and began saying it. Now, from what I hear, some of the children at their schools are also saying it. Soon it will probably become a word in the dictionary, similar to the word ‘Yo’, and I felt it should at least have a definition, or two, or three.

Also, since my nieces are spear-heading the propagation of the word I decided to use my Photoshop skills and create a graphic (above) and make them both t-shirts with the newly found word.

I know, first it was “reticulating splines” t-shirt, now it’s the “WAH-teeny” t-shirt. I must have a thing recently for creating off-the-wall t-shirts. LOL.

Anyway, I thought I would share some of my confusion with you, whom ever you may be, that happens upon my blog.

Proliferate?

3:45am, my day started unexpectedly. I had only drifted off to sleep two and half hours ago. I shouldn’t be up already, but I was. So I turned on the coffee and awaited it’s cycle to complete. Then it was into my office and into the melee which was me against my statistics book, statistics homework, lab work, notes, handouts, and practice final.

6:10am, I feel confident in my studies and have twenty minutes before I have to start my morning startup sequence before going to school. At this point my blood to caffeine ratio was more on the caffeine side. I decided to go through all of my jeans to find the ones I could no longer wear and pack them in a bag for a friend.

7:01am I’m cleaned, dressed and ready to walk out the door. My mother stops me and wants to give me a Christmas gift early. It’s a  nice zip-up hoodie from my favorite outlet store, Aeropostle. I quickly take off the pull over hoodie and don the new layer and put my coat back on.

7:27am, I’ve arrived at the parking garage at school. I take my time walking to class making sure that I recite some of the theorems that we may need to know for the final.

7:47am, I arrive to a sparsely populated classroom. I start drilling some of the other students on the theorems and some of the problems on the practice final.

7:58am, the professor comes into the classroom. We were allotted an hour and fifty minutes to complete the final. Midway through that time my bladder decides to alert me that all of the coffee that I’ve consumed that morning ‘must’ come out. I get permission from the professor and literally dash to the bathroom only to find that it was being cleaned at the time. I implored the attendant to allow me access and he obliged, albeit reluctantly. A mad dash back and I ended up finishing only ten minutes before the time expired.

8:15pm, I check online for my grade for the course. To my surprise I achieved an ‘A’ for the course.

And all of this after almost dropping the course on the last day possible to drop a course because I had gotten so behind. So much so that I actually had a stress-anxiety dream about the final. I suppose if I had not had the dream I would have not worked so diligently to catch up and study so hard. So here’s to stress-anxiety dreams! They do, after all, have a purpose.

Proliferate?

If you have taken even the most rudimentary course in accounting then you recognize the formula above. Today I took my final in my accounting 106 course and am very relieved. The instructor gave me my preliminary point total before the final and told me that I only needed to make about 128 out of the 200 points possible on the final in order to make an ‘A’. I was aghast. I had had so much trouble with this course that I wasn’t sure if I would even pass the course. I, however, feel confident that I did well (or at least well enough) on the final to make the ‘A’.

If I have given any negative impressions about my point-of-view on accounting or accountants, please let me clarify. I’ve grown to have a deeper appreciation for accountants and accounting. Even though the math is simple it is still quite a collection of rules, regulations, principles, and knowledge about the inner workings of checks and balances. I suppose the simple math is beyond me now-a-days as I am more abstract in my thinking than in my youth.

All-in-all, a good day. I just wanted to demarcate this accomplishment, even if it seems small, it has been a stressful subject for me and I am relieved that it is over.

Now tomorrow is another story, for I shall be taking my elementary statistics final. Not a topic to be taken lightly, for sure.  I’ll keep you updated on my results. Keep reading and I’ll catch you on the flip-side.

Proliferate?

If you are familiar with this phrase then you’ve probably played one of the first renditions of the SimCity games. After selecting some options the program began creating your city’s landscape and this seductive intoxicating female voice softly speaks out a status of the program stating, “reticulating splines”. I, for whatever reason, was always captivated and fascinated by this small two worded sound byte. So much so that I took it upon myself to do a little research to find out what the gossamer voiced lady was saying.

According to my research, a spline is basically a mathematical function to create a curve. This is used in many graphics and computer-aided designs include JPG images. You see JPG images lose a little of their resolution because the spline approximates mathematically the curve in a picture, but the calculation takes up less space than would the actual point-by-point plotting of the curved line itself. Here is the Wiki on splines if you would like to venture further into the actual mathematical progressions: Spline (mathematics).

According to TheFreeDictionary.com, reticulating means to make a net or network of. Therefore, what the subtly seductive voice is saying is that it is creating a marked network of mathematically drawn curves in order to render the three dimensional field upon which you will build your city.

I shortly became a little obsessed with splines, not so much the mathematical formulas to create them, but the actual splines themselves. I searched Google images and downloaded several splines images and calculations and used Photoshop to “reticulate” them into a cohesive graphic image that I later horizontally inverted and printed on T-shirt transfer paper. And then of course, ironed the transfer onto a nice white shirt. Being very proud of my design and being enlighten to what was being said on the so antiquated game that it is now free to download, I unwillingly forced the definitions on many an unsuspecting ear about my design and what it all meant. Still, I am proud of my graphic design and thought I would post it on here and share it with whomever wishes to see.

Proliferate?

 

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For there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to lift one if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands.   Rossetti, Christina

Proliferate?

Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are. – Bernice Johnson Reagon

Proliferate?

(Stream of consciousness):

“Captain’s log. Stardate…today…” – Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation

The Lull: Another Friday…my week in review started off with a dismal lull of being ill. I missed my one and only accounting class this week and one of my statistics classes. Both of which have tests next week. There’s nothing like playing catch-up to make one really realize how hard one can push one’s self. I think after this quarter I will either being talking in nothing but word problems or be so sick of them to kill the first person that presents one. LOL.

Unfortunately I was also too ill to give two of my peer-tutoring classes, something that I’d been looking forward to. Still, all-in-all, at least I’m feeling better and I’m actually not as far behind in my school work as I had once thought. So for today, I will have my tutoring class and meet with my statistics instructor to go over some homework to make sure I have the concepts interpreted correctly.

The Crescendo: One good thing did come out of this week, by chance I was able to reconnect with an old friend, old friend…actually my soulmate, on-line. I say by chance because I was using an instant messenger I hadn’t used in a very long time and they were still in my buddy list. We had lost contact for sometime. Phone numbers were lost; communication lines dropped; but now we have each other’s numbers and I check that instant messenger more often. She brought me up to date on her children, her finances, and how she is progressing with age. I of course did the same and the funny thing is that we are about similar in our stations of life. It’s funny when you look back on life at how long it’s been and it seems as if it were yesterday. Of course, now, I sound like an old cliché.

I learned long ago, to enjoy the crescendos AND the lulls because one compliments the other. Well, I’ve rambled on long enough.

Gluais faicilleach le cupan làn. – Gaelic for: “Go carefully with a full cup.”

Proliferate?

On the back of an acquaintanceship’s home made business  card reads; “Power of a leader- ‘True leaders are not those who strive to be first but those who are first to strive and who give their all for the success of the team. True leaders are fi[r]st to see the need, envision the plan, and empower the team for action. By the strength of the leader’s commitment, the power of the team is unleashed.” – Author Unknown.

This conflicts with not only my paradigm of leadership, but also a recent quote that I will para-phrase, “A leader is one who recognizes the poor performers and helps them succeed and to help those who are succeeding to do better.”

It would appear to me that the first quote from the unknown author is more focused on the leader succeeding and powering the team instead of the team being the actual driving force and the leader more of a guide. I suppose that it would depend on one’s point-of-view of how to manage a particular situation. Does one strive to be the first to be innovative regardless of others? Or, does one nurture another’s idea in a group so that they might blossom. It’s a given that the circumstances of a given situation would greatly sway one’s position on leadership, but I believe that overall a leader is one that leads by example and nurtures their team so  that they might succeed as well.

I mean honestly, how many team members would want to work in a team if there was no chance of one day running their own team because the leader holds them back. I’ve been in these situations, all too many times.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know. I’d love to debate this further with someone.

Proliferate?

Well, today was my first day as peer tutor and I think it went very well. There were five students that showed up with varying questions and issues and I was able to juggle them all for over two hours. The session was only schedule for two hours, but I didn’t want to leave them in a lurch. The funny thing is that I enjoyed it so much. It was actually thrilling to go from person to person and get them unstuck from a problem and then move to the next one and get them unstuck and just rotating between them one at a time. I was also surprised at how much energy I had, given that I didn’t sleep much or well the night before. I think that perhaps teaching may be my hidden calling. All-in-all a good day. Let’s hope the other sessions are as productive and invigorating as this one.

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein