As this semester quickly draws to a close, my instructors are quickly piling on more stuff to do and study:

• I have to…
…draw one or two full sized drawings per day for the rest of the week. This is purely homework and does not include finishing the artwork projects in class, which I think we have one or two more of those to do.
…memorize a three minute conversation in Korean for the spoken portion of the Korean language test, and my partner has nominated me to write the rest of the conversation.
memorize the spelling and meaning of several other Korean words, phrases, and grammatical rules for the written portion of the test. Thankfully I understand most of the words’ meanings already..
study for and pass (IIRC) two additional psychology tests, one of which is tomorrow
pass my karate test to gain my orange belt

That’s what I remember off of the top of my head.

The artwork is due on December 7th, and the due dates for the rest of the work arrives quickly after that.

Today I spent the entire day at the campus library with the exception of a one hour lunch. I done nothing but study Korean. My recommendation to the library would be to get more comfortable chairs (please).

You know, if it wasn’t for the artwork I would still be enjoying this semester. Gods, but I can’t get out of this drawing class fast enough… I’m going to miss the Korean class though.

Well, anyway, I’m enrolled in Korean level 2 for this coming Spring semester. Hah! ;D I am also going to do my best to go to Korea sometime this Spring (or there abouts). Perhaps I’ll even stay there for a year, but that is absolutely undecided at the moment.

Later folks,
~Steph

I’ll occasionally enjoy looking at forum threads (and the like) where folks display their desktops. Being bored & procrastinating as I am:

Get The Motoko Image By Itself

..there be the new desktop view.

I don’t know who the artist is, but that’s one of the best drawings of Motoko that I’ve found. I love the face, hair, the shading on the character, and the look that she’s giving. Of course the character’s figure doesn’t hurt any either, but anyhow, the city in the background is quite a nice touch too. The colors really draw you in.

What can I say? I love strong women.

It all makes for a fantastic desktop.

~Steph

Technorati Tags: desktop, wallpaper, GITS, Motoko, Kusanagi, Motoko Kusanagi, Kusanagi Motoko, Ghost In The Shell, widescreen, widescreen wallpaper, 1680×1050

The new comp is finally running, but with we’re now in the stretch of finals at the university. I may post from time to time during this period, but don’t expect much activity until after the 20^th of December.

Later folks…

A few days ago at my university there was an event called “Tastes & Sounds of Nations”. The Korean Culture Club had music and food available at the event and I really wanted to go, but wouldn’t you know that I got busy and forgot about it. Bah!

There are a couple of pals who would have been nice to hang with as well.

There’s not much else to say, this post is just to vent about how disappointed I am that I missed the event. I’ll have to wait for Spring and Korean Culture Day to attend a similar event and darn it, I don’t want to wait! :-/

~Steph

You know what I think would be a good feature? The ability to upload our public PGP keys to an e-commerce website.

Why would this be a good idea? Simple: You could enable an option that told their system to ONLY send protected, private messages to your email address. What’s the benefit of this? No one could ever successfully impersonate the business, and all of your business with them would be guaranteed to be private.

Just imagine how much grief would be prevented if you could do this with PayPal. If PayPal (and other e-commerce) emails were sent encoded for your public key then there could be no way to mistake a scam for the real thing.

Another use for it is just plain out privacy. I just ordered a new hard drive off of Newegg.com, and as usual I received multiple emails informing me of the purchase process; the order was placed, then it was charged successfully, and so on. Soon I’ll receive an invoice detailing all of the price and purchase information along with the code to track the package.

This purchase made me think of how much business I do with them. In fact, all of my hardware and computer purchases are made through Newegg. That sure is a lot of email coming in with details about how much money I spend on these types of products, and how often I purchase them.

I don’t know about you, but I would feel a little better if this information was kept as private as possible. What if I could send my public PGP key to Newegg? That privacy would be guaranteed, and there would be no way for a scammer to impersonate them.

Frankly, I think that it’s just a good idea.

~Steph

Technorati Tags: email, privacy, e-commerce, ecommerce, holiday sales, shopping, spam, anti-spam

Hello folks,

The computer parts that I ordered will be here today at around 3:00 to 3:30 PM. If all goes well then I should have a working computer again by this evening.

I wonder how many of my pals actually check my blog versus how many of you think that I have simply vanished from the face of the Earth? Heh heh.

Perhaps I’ll chat with a few of you this eve before I have to leave for karate class.

Laters,
~Steph

Just FYI, it’ll be about two more weeks before I get back to my computer. My blogs will continue to be mute until then.

Somehow the processor was damaged and it reports reaching temperatures of around 154 degrees Fahrenheit in only a few minutes. It is not salvageable and I do not trust the new motherboard (a Jetway), so I will be buying a new motherboard and processor.

~Steph