Floppies

Does anyone else find it odd that in Microsoft Office 2007 applications, the symbol to save is a 3.5" floppy disk? I haven't personally used a floppy disk since 2005.

Digitize music

With the transition of music to a purely digital and
internet-transferred format, it would seem that what constitutes an
album in length would become arbitrary. Where I would have a
conception of an album as having a certain length, physically
constrained by record, cassette, of compact disc length, a format
where the music is purely housed in bytes easily transferred would
only be constrained by concept.

There should never be the need for a double album again. Double the
what? Double the size? A 500 gigabyte hard drive wouldn't notice the
difference. It's just a long album. Long in comparison to what? The
stacks of CDs that I slowed collecting in the early 2000s, and now are
only worth nostalgia in physical form.

Enjoying the weather

It's a super-nice day today. Right now it's 78-degrees F. I would normally be annoyed that I spend my Thursdays inside until 7:00 p.m. in such a nice change of weather, but today one of my afternoon classes met outside. I really don't know if I've had that happen since elementary.

Networking? Shmetworking.

I went to a networking seminar tonight. How un-Mike. There was a powerpoint presentation on how to network to start off. I took some offense that they interchanged "introverted" and "shy" as if they had the same meaning. I would consider myself incredibly introverted, but not shy. I like talking in front of people, even if I don't like them.

Afterwards, we had a mostly unstructured hands-on networking session with local businesspeople. I have to admit, as soon as I entered the second half, I went straight to the snack table.

While I was cramming in a hunk of cheese into my mouth, I realized that if anyone talked to me at that moment, I would look ridiculous trying to speak with a quarter of a cheese wheel lodged in my jaws. So, I hurried up and chewed, forced myself to throw my plate away without reloading the cheese, and prepared to network.

I saw a friend of a friend, so I ventured. She evaporated, but I was left with the person she was talking to, who was actually pretty interesting. Note to self: bringing up interesting non-fiction I've recently read may not be interesting to anyone else.

From there, I went back to the free food and drink, and ran into an old high school classmate. Before I knew it, the seminar was over, and it was way past the time to let Zaida out to potty. And I still never got one of those brownies.

Lessons to take home:

1. I felt a lot less awkward than a lot of other people looked.
2. Do not eat as if survival was a priority when conversation is looming.
3. Introversion does not equal inability to mingle.

Gross, I just said mingle.

I have a new internship

I applied for an internship at the Center for Economic Development and Business Research (which is located on the WSU campus) several months ago, and to be honest, almost forgot about it. So much time had gone by that I assumed they just forgot to close the job opening on the online listing they use. Out of the blue, I received a request to come in to interview. A day after the interview, I now have an internship I had previously given up on, and it's still catching up to me.

It actually works out pretty well, because my schedule at my other job has shifted a bit, so I can now accomodate this internship. It's exciting because I'm working at an office with professional economists doing real research. I think it's a pretty good opportunity, and a wonderful opportunity for an undergraduate. The job is mostly data entry of economic information into a database. However, a person at the job told me the student workers will be snatched up to help with research projects when needed. I'm not expecting anything more than grunt work when it comes to that, but it would probably still give me way more insight than I would if I had never been there.

So, I'm excited. I'm all for new experiences--in particular, those that are outside of my comfort zone. Well, within reason. We'll see.