Organic chemistry. Oh joy. It’s especially difficult since I’ve forgotten everything I learned in chemistry. Arrhenius acids and bases, Lewis structures, acid base pairs, all of it gone when I vomited the facts onto the final exams.
Now I have to relearn all this stuff by week’s end.
I just registered for my college courses last night. It’s ridiculous how much these classes cost. It’s even more ridiculous that some of these even require classes to learn. It’s also ridiculous how awful and slow the user interface was.
My summer business didn’t go quite as well as I planned. It went decently, but not great. Seeing those classes was like getting punched in the face. I don’t want to take them. I have to if I want a roof over my head and at least some bread. The hell I would be enduring flashed across my mind several times, at which point my chest started hurting and I had to think about something else.
Completely unrelated stuff, but I found a great new band. One good thing about summer, I’m discovering a lot more great music. It’s a song from The Strokes – You Only Live Once. The alternative video is simply amazing. Maybe I’m a sucker for scifi stuff. Something about the thought of a space probe hurtling off to somewhere we will probably never reach is fantastic. I guess it is like an immortality of sorts. Immortalized through your creations. Even after the Earth has passed (hopefully not in a nuclear holocaust), this creation remains, reaching farther than anything else has.
I also realized that every time I add a book to my lists, it updates one time for each book. Awkward to realize those people I’ve been networked with are bombarded with an endless string of business books. Put an end to that right quick.
So a while back I was thinking about kaizen and applying it to my life. I first learned about this term while reading The Lexus Story, a behind the scenes look at the establishment of Toyota’s luxury division.
I have decided to apply it to my daily life. This post is mostly so that I will have no excuse if I don’t follow through with it. The plan involves the following.
The only problem I see is that setting specific time goals for certain tasks might interfere with the quality of work. Alternatively, it could train you to produce the same quality of work at a faster rate, but it’s hard to say which would result.
I’ve had to put a hold on many things to attend to that exciting thing known as school. It is my senior year, and I’m just three weeks away from three months of freedom. Unfortunately, I was forced to take multiple of AP classes, so I’m overwhelmed with work, not something I imagined happening senior year. But today, all the exams are done, and it’s just two weeks of nothing. Just waiting and preparation for the final exams. It’s rather excruciating because I have a mile long to do list.
It was only last summer that I realized how valuable time was, when I was unable to do anything because of my first job, a 9-5. Every day I would get on the bus, ride 45 minutes downtown. The way back was roughly an hour. So from 7:45-6:30, I could not do anything. That summer I had planned so many exciting things to do. All of it impossible, because of the job. However, it did teach me that I would do whatever I could to avoid this.
Not being able to do all the things I wanted made me regret is having wasted all those hours mindlessly playing video games and Flash games instead of doing exciting things or bettering myself. Since then, I’ve put things in more perspective, and with the help of the revolution that is the internet, hoping that I can achieve all of it.
I originally stored this on Windows Live Labs Listas, but the thing kept crashing and refusing to function, so the list is now on a txt file file on my hard drive. Originally this had a slightly more morbid name, but I saw a similar list a while back, and have adopted this more optimistic one. The “Lifetime To Do List”. You can put your entire life in perspective through this. Here is just a tiny sample of the countless things I would like to do.
So get a lifetime to do list. It will put things in perspective. This summer is especially significant because it is the summer before college. It’s the last opportunity for true freedom. Afterward it’s onto jobs, taxes, etc.
I randomly remembered my first encounter with computers today. My experiences were quite telling of things to come.
In preschool there were activity sessions which we could rotate between. I remember very clearly the first time I used the computer I was rather absorbed. We were provided these Macs (I think) that were loaded with educational computer games. It was some sort of alphabet learning game where the user would type in the right letter to advance the character.
Each activity session was around 20 minutes, so the computer session would come once a day. The computer session time was determined by a little cooking timer on top of every computer. Because I really liked using the computer, after 10 or so computer sessions, I stumbled upon the ever so brilliant idea of resetting the timer to increase my time.
I remember very vividly deciding whether I should do it. The first time I glanced behind my back to make sure nobody was looking and then turned the timer to the left about 5 minutes. After a while, all the timers went off at about the same time, and while the other kids left, my timer was still running. A staff member came and asked me why mine was still running or something, but the guy let me keep playing.
The next time I got a computer session, my intestinal fortitude improved, and I reset it about 10 minutes extra. This time the staff were talking and pointing my way, as I was the only one on the computer in a deserted activity center. But it paid off and they did not do anything about it. After about the third or fourth time they took action, and even though I reset the timer, which they probably saw, I was forced to leave to a different station.
So today while I am no master thief or master of deception, I am pretty interested in the computers. I also don’t need to reset timers to get more time.
The other night I bought a mocha latte at a McDonald’s, which was remodeled a while back to include a McCafe, basically McDonald’s plus a coffee shop. Anyway, I drank it right before I went to bed, and I had the most extreme caffeine rush ever. I was unable to fall asleep until around 3:00 A.M. But while my thoughts were racing I came up with quite a few new ideas for websites. Alas, I’m too cowardly at the moment to spend any of my money to expand that production possibilities curve and make even more money.
But back to the McCafe train of thought. I just now Wikid it and learned that McCafe has actually been around since 1993 outside of the U.S. Not surprisingly, the McDonalds with McCafe earn significantly more than a traditional McDonalds. With stats like these I would have expected McCafe to be introduced to all McDonald’s earlier. With the addition of a McCafe, the entire McDonald’s gets remodeled, and the stores adds espresso machines and a few extra ingredients. With just the addition of whipped cream, chocolate syrup and various flavorings, they’ve added 6 entirely new high profit products to their menu.
In addition, McCafe dramatically improves the image and appeal of the restaurant. The one I went to added a few flat screen TVs, free WIFI, some trendy (laminate) wood dividers and it all looked pretty nice for a hamburger joint. In fact it looked good enough that I suddenly wanted to eat there more than usual.
The drinks are quite good considering that they’re from the factory that is McDonalds. The only problem with the McCafe is that their “handcrafted” drinks slow down the food manufacturing process.
Made mashed potatoes by hand. It was pretty tiring. First boiling, then peeling and mashing.
I was talking to a friend about ideas for stores or restaurants. He suggested that someone should copy the Hooters business model, but target it towards women instead of men. Quite amusing, although I doubt it would be as successful.
School.
There was a massive physics test today. I had a feeling it would be bad the night before after first dreaming about running from a train, only to get hit, followed by being pulled down a staircase by people and topped off by losing a race. During the test, the fire alarm rang halfway through, forcing everyone to evacuate the building for 30 minutes. When all was said and done, the test grades would still go through, but with easier grading. Craziness.
It’s senior year. The previous year the instructors warned us about “senior malaise”, when all the seniors suffer a marked drop in performance, supposedly due to the realization that college is a year away.
I really don’t think it’s simple laziness. I think it stems from uncertainty about the future. How easy can it be to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life with only a high school’s worth of classes? Day in and day out, that’s what you’ll be doing for the next few decades.