succeeding in college

Thinking about stuff that would be interesting to read about, I think about the common thread in almost all the blogs and sites I read: I read them in hopes they will make me more successful. Here, I'm hoping to do just that.

Step 1: Clean your room.
While it isn't necessary to have your home as tidy as the Vanderbilt mansion, there's no excuse for it to be a disaster, either. My mom, every time she sees my room, says "messiness sucks energy out of the room." Even though it sounds ridiculous, it's true. In a messy room, even if all the lights are on, it seems kind of dark and lifeless all the time.
Another reason to cleaning up the room is pretty self-evident: you will make your life easier if you know where to find things and don't have to sort through piles of crap to find it. Finally, it just makes a better impression on visitors when you don't need a bulldozer to make a place for them to sit.

In any case, getting the room clean is way easier than you think. If your room is really messy (like mine was a few days ago), pick a milestone that you're headed toward (mine was a Productions exam). Make a commitment to spend a pretty solid block of time on your room after that. It might sound like something you don't want to do after a big test or paper, but you'd be surprised how relaxing cleaning can be. Turn on some good music while you clean, or invite a friend over.
The main thing you need to do when starting out is make clearly defined piles. For most college students, 90% of the crap lying around will fall into two categories: clothing and books/papers.

Once you have everything separated, dive into it. Fold up all the clothes, throw stuff in the hamper, and don't stop until you've found a home for every piece of clothing. It's tempting to leave stuff out, but don't unless you know you're going to wear it within 24 hours (e.g. a polo shirt you're wearing to a party later that night).
Then, tackle the papers. Separate them into personal stuff (magazines, bills, etc), school papers, and junk. You'll be surprised by how much stuff you can get rid of in a short time just by recycling the papers you don't need. Then, depending on how organized you want to be, separate into sub-piles. Right now on my coffee table I have one pile for each class, RA stuff, general school papers, and mail. I'll discuss what to do with some of that stuff at a later date.
Finally, get rid of dust and dirt with a vacuum and/or broom.

Once you've got the room sufficiently organized, all you have to do is maintain it. A good rule is that you don't go to bed unless your room is satisfactorily clean. While that might sound like a pain, once again, you'll find that it isn't. It usually takes no more than 5 minutes and helps you unwind for the night. If you do this almost every night, the clutter that plagued you never has the chance to build up.

Now that my room is clean, it feels a lot bigger, and is just nicer to be in. I feel like I can actually enjoy it instead of worrying about navigating the obstacle course between the door and my bed.

Feel free to leave comments about how to keep it clean in between classes.

Right now, it's 3 a.m. and I've been studying for taxes for well over 12 hours, so if any of this doesn't make sense, blame the IRS.

I Love Duke Parking

So if you guys know me, then you've heard about my debacle with Duke Parking, but just in case you missed it here's a summary.

I just got a new car, and I bought a Temp Blue Zone permit for it. The Temp permits don't swipe into the lots, so I figured I would just park next to the lots and visit parking services on another day to ask them how the hell I was supposed to park in the Blue Zone. However, that night I come back to my car and realize I got a parking citation for parking in a fire lane. I look around and see no red line or fire lane in my parking space. The next day I figured I could go to parking services to appeal the violation. To my dismay, I found a second citation on the windshield, this time for an improper permit. How I can get an improper permit (which would mean its a parking space) and a fire lane violation is beyond me...

I paid the improper permit and appealed the fire lane violation. I rationalized, wrongly in this case, that a simple sketch showing that my car was parked in a space and not a fire lane would be sufficient. I was wrong. I got an email a few days later saying my fine was upheld and their decision was final. I would have to pay $200 for parking in a non-existent fire lane parking space. I decided to respond creatively, since there was no way in hell I was going to pay the $200. I wrote parking services a letter with pictures explaining my situation and finishing with this:

After receiving an email upholding the fire lane parking violation I decided that I would refuse to pay this fine until they make the parking spaces I parked in look like a fire lane. There is NO red line where I parked. Additionally, in the attached photos you can see clearly that there is a white parallel parking divider. You can also see the illegally parked car behind me that wasn’t ticketed. I understand that your Appeal decisions are final. Therefore I find it only fair that my money be put to good use to make it clearer to other vehicles that the parallel parking spaces they think they see is a well-disguised fire lane.

Throughout the letter I made sure to let them know that I did indeed know that other illegally parked vehicles, and matters of convenience were no excuse for parking in illegal areas.

I'll keep you guys updated on what actually happens. As of now I'm waiting for a call back from the Adjudications manager at Parking Services.

Things I Can't Stand #3: Misspellings on public signs

(If you don't know what's wrong with this picture, go here.)

Maybe I am becoming an intellectual snob, but this kills me. I understand if your spelling isn't that good, it's fine. But if you know something will be viewed frequently by the public, run it by someone!!!

What prompted this post was a trip to the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office (which by the way, only takes cash). While in there, I saw a sign instructing people how to fill out a certain form. It read: "Please fill out only the highlighted area's." I just rolled my eyes at the common error, until I started browsing around the place. I saw a bulletin board with "Sheriff's Auctions" It had five or six flyers with repossessed cars on them. Each one carried the heading "Auction of Personel Property"

Anyone else seen some of these offensive signs?

Barack or No Barack, Pt. 1

OK, so I'm voting for Barack come November. I couldn't vote in the primaries in Maryland because I am unaffiliated, but if I could, I would have voted for Barack, also, like so many other people. Even a few of my friends who are republican are loathe to vote for McCain and are going to vote for Obama.

So, why?

Why should you vote for Obama? I recently wrote another piece where I talked about how Obama was special for his ability to see both sides of an issue. Only the presidents who had this quality could bring about tangible change.

But there's another quality about Obama that I think is tops them all, and I just put my finger on it today. It's that he doesn't say anything wrong. Some politicians really just say whatever comes to their minds. Some stumble. But I have yet to find a sound bite of Obama just totally bombing on a question.

Not only is he really eloquent in his responses; we already know this obviously. But he attacks everything with a straightforward and rational argument which is doubly better because Bush couldn't argue with the broad side of a barn.

Everytime Obama speaks, it's like he's a magnet for new voters. Faced with a new issue, his response is usually the right one:
On Clinton staying in the campaign even though a number of Democratic heavyweights have asked her to stop...
"She is a fierce and formidable competitor, and she obviously believes that she would make the best nominee and the best president. I think that she should be able to compete, and her supporters should be able to support her for as long as they are willing or able."

Honestly, what better response could he have given? In just one short quote he was able to compliment Hillary, make her look like a saint, yet toss aside any doubt that she is going to win this race. That is eloquence.

Another quote I like is when he addressed his middle and last names: Hussein and Obama, and how they "sounded" like a terrorist. He said:
"When I ran for the U.S. Senate the assumption was that anyone's name that was close to "Osama" doesn't stand a chance. So if somebody thought that tacking on "Hussein" in there would be a killer, then I think they underestimate the American people and the seriousness of the problems we face."

He could have attacked Fox News or Republicans for spreading lies about his name or anything else. But somehow he got past the trivial and managed to twist it back on the people who said these allegations.

Brilliant.

Unfortunately to be continued...

Current Events

-Nude pictures of Nicolas Sarkozy's wife (president of France) are being auctioned off by Christie's. I know it's France, but imagine if this were happening in the US, and an auction house was auctioning Hillary Clinton nude photos. UGH. Then I read more of the article and realized she was supermodel, which begs the questions why this is an issue in the first place.

-No news is good news for the Democratic candidates. CNN is publishing their family ties and have found some strange relations. Personally, I think after ninth cousins, it gets a bit ridiculous. Even I'm ninth cousins with Obama and Clinton.

-Hillary Clinton, in what seems like a chip off of George Bush, said she misspoke about her coming into Bosnia "under sniper fire." Her direct quote was: "I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement." O RLY? She probably just misremembered, or better yet people just misunderstand her.

Back to the Tourney

Look, there's only a few things I can't stand, and one of them is giving me stupid reasons why you picked the teams in the first round that you did. I'm not saying that you shouldn't pick the upset if you want to because they are bound to happen. In fact, in 2001, 41% (13 teams) pulled the upset over the higher seed in the first round. This included a win by Hampton over 2 seed Iowa St., two 13 seeds winning (Kent St. and Indiana St.), and 10 more upsets. This was the most upsets in the first round in the last 8 years. Picking the upsets are more fun, but I also find that winning 100 dollars in my pool is even more fun. Here are some steps that could help you do just this:

1. "Well, three of the four 11 seeds won last year, so I'm gonna have to go with this 11 seed Central-Eastern Michigan-Lansing State University" or some variant of this has been used for years by average bracketpickers. I even heard this used by Mike Golic about ten times in a four minute period on the Mike and Mike show, today. My ears cringed.
Look, there is no correlation between certain lower seeds winning from year to year. Don't believe me? I looked it up and graphed it:

The graph looks confusing, but basically the gist is this: The previous years' upsets have no bearing on the next years' upsets. If anything, there is an opposite correlation. Basically, if there were lot of upsets last year, you better not pick any this year.

2. Want to really pick an upset? Pick Gonzaga. In the past 7 years, they have managed a total of 3 upsets in the first round. But even after that they've never gotten past the Sweet Sixteen. Looks like they lost in the first round this year also.

3. Want to really win your pool? Don't pick any upsets. Don't pick the school that you went to, your friend went to, are in now, is in your state, or most of the people in the pool picked. Pick 148 for your final tiebreaker score (the average composite score of the last 7 years). Pick 151 for the final score if you're a stat expert and don't like outliers when compiling your average (yeah, Maryland-Indiana was the worst championship game in the past 10 years). Know that correlation doesn't mean causation. That means, if you're seeing a pattern and you're playing off it, it will fail you in the end. You can make a correlation between anything...just like this:

Seems like the more profanity in music nowadays is strongly correlated to the number of US Military Deaths in Iraq! That must be what's causing it! No, not even close...

4. The only teams that can be counted on for points every year in the tournament are the teams that have consistent tournament experience, good coaching, and a complete and solid team.
Recently, this list has been dwindled down to: UNC, Duke, Florida (for some reason they came up short this year...), UConn, and UCLA. A couple more are second-tier teams that hang out in the top 25 every year, those being: Kentucky, Arizona, Memphis, Michigan State, Stanford, Texas, Georgetown, Kansas, and the Oklahoma public university system. These can be counted on to round out your sweet sixteen. Good luck picking between them.

5. Think of upsets in cost effective terms. Purely, if you were to pick that 14 over 3 upset, more than likely that 14 seed will lose in the next round. That means you're giving up about 6 points that the 3 seed would likely win for you(2 for the second round, and 4 for the third round) just to get that one point for the upset. That 3 seed has a higher probability of going further and getting more points for you and giving up those points to pick an upset are just not worth it.