Where Are All the People?

We did another experiment in lab. It was awful. You stare at the screen and watch little dots appear and disappear. And the monitors have low refresh rates. Not everyone is affected by this, but anything under 75 hz or so bothers me; it looks like the whole screen is flickering.

It's finals season. Classes are winding down it is time to severely hit the books. Incidentally, the weather has been gorgeous and I'd rather be outdoors. I bought a necklace at Guess in the mall, then looked up the piece online when I got home and found it was missing one of the charms. I ordered a new one from Amazon and plan to go back and return the broken one. When I paid in the store, they were training a new rep so it took her forever to ring up the sale. Then she tried to wrap it up and just ended up with a ball of wrapping paper. The saleswoman asked if it was a gift and I almost felt guilty saying no.

Spoke to my mother about my plans for next year. I still don't have any. Work or learn or both, I don't know and it scares me to think about it. One thing I probably will be doing is applying to schools. Actually, just applying. In general. If anyone asks what I am doing next year, I'm applying.

"Applying to what?"

"Doesn't matter; I'm applying."

Either for jobs or for schools or simply applying myself to whatever I'm doing. Like now, I'm applying myself to blabbering.

I finally finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha. Good book; made me think a little. I love Amazon.com. I preordered Harry Potter 7. Don't know if I plan to read it, but I'm sure someone in my family will want to. The book is already a bestseller and it won't be out for over 2 months.

I read a curious little article in the New York Times recently from a book reviewer about the pleasures of reading bad books, so I thought I'd give it a try reading books even if they haven't withstood the test of time and emerged as classics. Makes sense: how will you learn to evaluate books if you only read a certain kind? You won't be able to make the necessary contrasts if you don't have what to contrast with. I haven't yet chosen my first bad book to read. Suggestions welcome. Bad books that are worth it, anyone?