Dating the Mysteriously Unexpected

So... I used to date this girl and I pretty much loved her. Not just her, though, I loved our relationship. It was exciting. Partly because I never knew how to read her, and so I had to work extra hard to be extremely suave. But I did a really good job. I just did a lot of things for her that I had never done for anybody else. We interacted on a whole new level. A random rose two weeks after Valentine's Day, inconspicuous text messaging back and forth beneath the table in public places, dancing the night away one night and cuddling up to a movie when we could barely walk the next.

But now that that relationship is over, I am having a hard time duplicating the mysterious sensuality that we shared. "Duplicating" is a poor word choice because I know how terrible it would be to try and duplicate a past relationship. That just has bad written all over it. But I miss the emotion, the thoughtfulness, and the effort that it took to make it as exciting as it was.

Now I'm seeing an amazing new girl. She has a sound mind, a tender heart, a sober mouth, and knock-out beauty. But she is easier to read, much less mysterious, and so I'm struggling to be not boring around her. How do you put a spark into a straight "dinner & movie" date? We're not in a relationship, we're just sort of dating right now (barely even that), but I'm not getting that nervous little urge to surprise her with a clever gesture like before.

So now I am wondering: in a new relationship (generally speaking), if I am not having to be super suave, super romantic, and super spontaneous, then does that mean that we're not connecting? I don't want things to get boring, but I am afraid that my life is just not interesting enough to keep a girl entertained if the relationship does not spark that ingenuity.

I have not thought about this a whole lot, but it's about time for a new post and since I can't get this new girl out of my head, I am hoping that writing about it will give me a revelation to sweep her off her feet. I think maybe it's just a little too early for ingenuity to be necessary or to come naturally, and that with a little time, I might feel at liberty to interact with her more creatively. I will post again on this when it's relevant.

Interpersonal Philosophy x2

Why do boys always act like "hard asses" when they're around their buddies?

Submitted by Natalie Spencer

I spent most of my high school lunch periods sitting by my locker doing last-minute homework or reading my Bible. Or at least that's what I pretended to be doing. The truth is that most days I would have my head down in a book, but I'd actually be evesdropping on the conversations taking place around me. It was easy enough to go unnoticed since I had been a loner for most of my secondary education. I was pretty shy and quiet most of the time ("until you get to know me", I would tell people), a result of some negative social experiences from middle school.

Most of the conversations I overheard were females standing around together gossiping about hair, clothes, and other girls that they didn't seem to care for, and guys standing around in their man-cliques talking about the hottest girls (cheerleaders and their friends, usually), who has the biggest rack, and who would suck "you know what" better than someone else.

So I learned a lot about the social behaviors of men, and here are my findings.

It is pretty simple really. Most guys (I would say 90% or so) lack a basic moral foundation. Treating a girl like a lady is an obscure and invisible notion, and chivalry is all but completely dissipated. Simple gestures such as presenting a flower or a tender gaze are no longer considered intimate or meaningful or necessary. No, for most guys in U.S. in the first decade of the 21st century, the ultimate goal is sexual satisfaction.

So the problem is not that guys change their behavior when their posse comes around, it's that their behavior changes when the ladies come around.

Yes, the sad truth is that guys are, by human nature, driven by lust and greed, and will do whatever necessary to satisfy their impulses with the most attractive girls that they can attain. This is almost NEVER a conscious act, and if confronted about it you can expect a guy to spew out, in as caring of a tone as he can muster, something along the lines of "naw baby, I'm being real." So it goes: they will be "men" when around other men, and compassionate sweet-talkers when around women.

A word of advice to the troubled women? Recognize these alter-egos and withhold sexual activity (anything past kissing) from your relationships. Then the guy's true colors will eventually show through, and he'll either get frustrated over time or you'll experience what true love really is.

But now I don't want this to become a completely subjective boy-hating rant, so let me finish with this.

Boys, by divine design, are prone to be more violent. We are men. We like action movies and contact sports. We fear nothing and shun weakness. We love women but don't want to be one. Women, by design, are softer creatures. Unfortunately many women are beginning to throw in the towel on chivalry and instead are striving for that magazine beauty (unattainable ideal) and positive male attention (fueled by lust), thereby enslaving themselves unwittingly in unhealthy relationships and degrading their self-image. But that's an entirely different blog entry for another day...

My point is that the genders are meant to be opposites. Complementary of one another. Girls are expected to be emotional, and guys are expected to be emotionless. That's just the way of it. All you can do is recognize the difference between natural behavior and pseudo-intentional facade. Once you can distinguish between the two, you'll find yourself in deeper, more beneficial relationships -- romantic or otherwise.

Interpersonal Philosophy

Why do boys act surprised when flattery isn't enough to make a girl like them?

Submitted by Hannah Lilley

I think it all boils down to a fundamental difference of gender stimulation. Guys are visually stimulated, girls are emotionally stimulated. And which of these would you expect to come first? Visual stimulation from the men, of course. So the guy just feels sooner. Feels good, feels bad. He will be stimulated before she will be, almost every time.

Disclaimer: We're not talking about sexual stimulation, just a stimulation of the senses.

So the guy starts feeling a fondness before the girl. But this fondness is based on a shallow level of stimulation, one in which the girl does not share. At this point his only means of expressing his feelings is verbally through flattery. I mean if he just walked up and kissed the girl he'd probably get slapped, ya know? So he has to verbally express the sentiment.

The girl, however, is not yet "turned on" because she hasn't been emotionally stimulated through meaningful contact with the guy. So she rejects the flattery. The guy doesn't understand that she requires a deeper connection to share his fond feelings. Because he likes her, he assumes that she's started to feel the same way. But their relationship so far lacks emotion enough for his words to mean anything to her.

But with a little more effort, a few more failed attempts, and some quality time spent together, eventually his words will carry an emotional weight that will move the girl to actually being flattered.

World of Warcraft and a Damsel

Was it about a girl? Or was it about World of Warcraft? Well, it was actually a mix. This is a fairytale dream that I had last night. The girl's identity will remain undisclosed.

Imagine real life as if it were a game.

I was walking along a mountainous, snowy highway picking flowers up from the side of the road (farming herbalism, for you WOWers out there). Suddenly a girl jumps out from the woods that are roadside and barrels into me! She is terrified! Of what, however, remains unclear. I calmed her as I stare in disbelief because I know this girl. I have not seen her in a very long time. She looks beautiful. And she is frightened which is great, from a man's perspective, because it is an opportunity to protect her from the bad thing that threatens her and win her heart through battle.

So I hold her hand and keep her close behind me as we step into the woods in search of the thing that so badly affected her. Only there is nothing around.

Suddenly she FREAKS out again that something is right behind us and goes tearing off deeper into the woods. But there is nothing chasing us. So desperately I try to keep up with her and fight off this invisible foe. Gosh, she is so so beautiful. Dillusional, perhaps, but unmatched in her beauty.

I finally catch up to her and tackle her, right in front of a cave entrance. The cave is a single massive room of stone with lava pits and a wide stone staircase of steps descending right down to the middle of this boiling dungeon. So much for invisible foes, for this cave is a city of golems and ogres, inside and out. She begins to run again, this time heading inside (for whatever reason she chose that direction, I have no idea), but I quickly grab her arm and keep her close as I swing my sword (apparently I have a sword) at the ogres that have now approached ("aggroed") from behind us.

Cut scene. (For non-WOWers, this is where the gameplay is interrupted by a cinematic video that you get to watch, usually relevant to whatever your character was doing right before.)

The ogres are defeated, I have proven to the girl that I am a warrior, and we are back inside the house where I am staying. It is not my house, but a friend's house in the mountains. Apparently I am visiting. My friend and his wife are gone, at work I presume, and so I invite the girl to make herself at home as I head for the shower. I don't want to upset my friend as he returns home to find his carpet caked with dirt and molten lava, after all.

But the shower... well it is in the center of the main room of the cabin, and is made of glass. For whatever reason, I forget about the conspicuous nature of this shower and jump right in.

A few minutes later, after the glass is all fogged up by the hot water, the girl slowly peeks in from an ankle-high ventilation hole near the floor (don't question why the shower was designed that way, I'm just telling it as it happened). This time I am the one that freaks out. "Strange girl!" I am thinking to myself as I frantically cover the hole with my foot. She jumps back and I exclaim "what are you doing?!" "You can see right through!" she responds."Well you're up next, so get used to it" I say as I turn off the water and wrap my towel around my lower half. I step out and she steps in. Then I wake up.

No seriously, I promise I really woke up. I'm not censoring the story. LOL

THE END.

Bad Design

I am not the most talented or most creative designer in the world. But I can recognize good ones and bad ones.

Recently I was assigned to collaborate on a design project for the Terry College of Business for their section on the University of Georgia iTunes U.

I received instructions that Terry College was aspiring to stand out from the other segments of the university with an exceptionally good-looking iTunes U page.

So I designed it.

Then I presented it.

Then they showed me the university-wide template to which we must adhere. Which wouldn't be too bad except that 1) it was not mentioned in the beginning, and 2) it sucks. It's an atrocious design. Look for yourself: http://itunes.uga.edu.

The landing page on the web is decent enough, but it lacks rollover button effects and the pictures are not very interesting or personal. Just your generic research & lecture photos. BORING.

Once you open up iTunes U in iTunes, however, it just goes south. While the UGA home page on iTunes is also relatively acceptable, try browsing the categories in the right column (e.g. Business or Arts & Sciences). These templates are not what I had in mind.

Now I am taking it upon myself to make my iTunes U design irresistable and present it again as a "this is what it could be" design.

If UGA is trying to market itself in trendy environments to a young, trendy audience, they need a modern, trendy design to communicate itself effectively. The template they currently have is not trendy. It is outdated. Which is ironic because it's brand new.

Experience v. Direction

You ever have that feeling where you know something is wrong and though you can name several of the symptoms, you can't quite pinpoint the obvious cause?

"Lack of experience" is often a cop-out that company recruiters often use as an excuse to reject potential candidates when they apply for open positions. The problem in fact is likely to be an expressed confusion on the applicant's part of their career goals. If the applicant seems fickle-minded about how what role they want to play in their professional life, the company writes them off as too risky of an investment. They don't want to hire someone that will only stick around for a year or two, they want to believe that all entry-level employees are going to stick around for many years to come. That might not be true of certain companies where business thrives on the energy of young hires to come in, be relevant to a young target audience, and then move on after only a couple of years on the job.

In my case, I do not have enough experience in the "real world" to feel secure about anything I might be doing in 5-10 years. I simply just don't know enough about these jobs. And so the longer I interview with a company, the more and more I learn about them and what they do and the more excited I get. Unfortunately, the interviewing process generally ends before the company recognizes my growing sense of "I want to do this" which recently has resulted in many "thank you but" letters arriving at my door.

So... next time you go into a job interview, make sure you at least *pretend* to be very certain about how much you love the job for which you are applying. For people like me that hate politics and "fake" personalities, it will be particularly difficult.

Building My Own PC Part VI

I finally solved the problem with my video card.

For those of you just tuning in, I bought a new computer about 2 weeks ago from TigerDirect. Well, I actually bought all the pieces required to build my own computer. And I spent 5 hours in the floor of my living room trying to figure out how to put it all together. I did finally get it in working order, except for the graphics card. The motherboard has graphics built-in, so I was able to use my computer (which ran wonderfully) without the super-awesome GeForce 9600, but anytime I tried to plug in the 9600, the computer would not boot.

To make a long story a little shorter, it turns out that the problem was that I was putting the card in the wrong slot. Imagine that! It was the only card I have for the 2 PCIe slots on the motherboard, so naturally I plugged it into PCIE1. After calling XFX (the manufacturer), they told me it actually needed to go in PCIE4. Go figure. But now I'm gaming with full-power sexiness. The only thing I lack is a couple of cooling fans to make sure everything stays in working order for years to come.

Here are the specs for my finished system:

• Ultra X-Blaster ATX Black Mid-Tower Case
  
• Ultra LSP750 750-Watt Power Supply
  
• XFX nForce 750a SLI Motherboard
  
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Black Edition Processor
  
• ZEROtherm Butterfly BTF90 CPU Cooler
  
• Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory
  
• XFX GeForce 9600 GSO Video Card - 768MB DDR2
  
• Seagate 500GB Serial ATA HD 7200/32MB/SATA-3G
  
• Seagate 500GB Serial ATA HD 7200/32MB/SATA-3G (2 of these bad boys)
  
• Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit
  

Total Cost ($)

    699.97 subtotal

(+)  24.90 shipping

=   724.87 paid

(-)  70.00 rebates

(-)  50.00 gift card

= 604.87

This has been a great experience, and I doubt that I will ever buy a retail PC again. I am officially a do-it-yourself consumer.

Building My Own PC Part V

Still no progress with getting my new computer to display anything when I install my GeForce 9600. The fans on the 9600 are spinning, so there is sufficient power, etc. but my motherboard still does not post. (You know that little beep you here a few seconds after powering on your computer? That's called posting. It lets you know that the motherboard is booting properly.)

I'm just getting frustrated now as I have pretty much exhausted my ideas. For any ideas I have left, I also have strong arguments for why they would not be successful.

I could uninstall current graphic drivers and install 9600 drivers in their stead, but the software that came with it won't install the drivers unless it detects the 9600 as being installed. But I can't use the software if I can't see my screen.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Building My Own PC Part IV

I got Windows Vista installed.
I got World of Warcraft installed.
I did NOT get my GeForce 9600 graphics card installed.

The computer looks like a beast and runs like a champ, but the computer still does not boot up (or at least the monitor doesn't) when I plug in my big daddy graphics card.

In all the tutorials I've watched, this issue is never addressed. I have plugged the monitor into both DVI slots and the integrated VGA slot, with no change.

So for now, it looks like I am going to have to enjoy my system without the extra frame-rate boost.

But when Blizzard Entertainment releases Diablo III (I estimate early-mid 2010), I will need to have figured this problem out.

Building My Own PC Part III

I sat down in my living room floor with 2 gigantic boxes at 8:45pm last night. When I got up from that spot it was 1:30am and I was holding over 70 pounds of computing sexiness.

So I got it all put together, and from what I can tell, it's all put together correctly. The fans are spinning, the LEDs are glowing, but after booting it up to take a look at the BIOS... nothing. The monitor doesn't show anything. *sigh*

So today after work I'll go home and try to troubleshoot why it isn't displaying anything. Hopefully today I can get my Windows Vista installed and various software downloaded.

If anyone can offer potential solutions for why nothing is showing on the screen (the monitor doesn't even come out of sleep mode: yellow light), or any online resources for where I might find a solution, hit me back.

Building My Own PC Part II

Woot! According to UPS tracking, my computer that I ordered from TigerDirect.com on Thursday, November 13 should be arriving today, Monday the 17th. That is incredible! Too bad I don't think that any of my roommates are home to sign for the delivery... so I might have to make a trip to the UPS Store to pick it up, I don't know how failed deliveries really work...

Building My Own PC Part I

I love TigerDirect.com. Great site, great service, super-fast shipping, and really great products.

So I looked nowhere else when I decided that I needed to upgrade my PC. So enough jibba-jab, here are all the pieces that I bought that will be assembled into a sexy piece of machinery:

Computer Case & Power:
* Ultra X-Blaster Clear Side Blk Mid-Tower Case
* Ultra LSP750 750-watt Power Supply

Motherboard + Processor: 2.8GHz Dual Core
* XFX nForce 750a SLI Socket AM2+ Motherboard
* AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Black Edition 2.80 GHz
* ZEROtherm Butterfly CPU Cooler

RAM & Hard Drives: 4GB RAM, 1TB Hard Drive
* Corsair 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz RAM Memory (2 x 2048MB)
* Seagate 500GB Serial ATA HD 7200RPM 32MB cache/SATA-3G
* Seagate 500GB Serial ATA HD 7200RPM 32MB cache/SATA-3G (that's right, I'm getting 2!)

Video Card: GeForce 9600
* XFX GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB PCIe w/Dual Link DVI

Operating System: Windows Vista
* Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

Pricetag: $725
$724.87 - $70 in rebates = $654.87

Stay tuned for updates on this experience!

For and Against Obama

Jesus has been tugging on my heart recently about this upcoming presidential election. I have been in support of one candidate for a couple of months now, but friends and family on the other side of the fence are screaming for me to come join them. I am not one to be easily swayed by unfounded arguments, and I feel like most of what they have presented are just long-held traditional values and nothing more.

I have been struggling particularly with this idea of "redistributing the wealth" as Obama has been quoted saying over and over. At first I supported the idea, because Obama is sternly against corporate greed and corruption of executives. Makes good sense, but I recently heard a convincing story against his plan, involving a waiter that wasn't tipped because the customer "redistributed" his tip to a homeless man outside who is in greater need of the money. Your initial reaction to that kind of story (as was mine) is "that was a jerk thing to do" since the waiter did his job, earned his tip, and got nothing for it. But I understood the point and the relevance to Obama's wealth plan.

So enough jibber-jab, here are my collective thoughts from both sides:

Arguments for Obama's plan:
(1) Wants to tax higher-income households because they are the ones more capable of paying a higher tax.
(2) Fighting corporate greed by taxing them a higher percentage.
(3) Redistribution of wealth is indeed a socialist idea. But he isn't talking about taking wealthy citizen's money and giving it to low-income families. He is talking about funding the federal government by taxing the nation's wealthiest sources.
(4) Higher taxes on businesses will force them to run more efficiently (that's the idea, at least. Many will probably just as soon layoff employees rather than cut executive spending).

Arguments against Obama's plan:
(1) It's not fair. For those that work hard and earn great wealth, they should not be "punished" by being forced to pay higher taxes.
(2) Many low-income individuals are at the bottom simply because they are not motivated to better their situation. Therefore they should not be "rewarded" with lower taxes.
(3) Corruption is probably equally as prevalent among low-income individuals than it is in big business, but big businesses are the ones that make headlines.

In essence I feel like raising taxes on big businesses will probably result in cutting jobs, raising prices, and outsourcing labor internationally. But that is because they will NOT cut executive salaries, reduce wasteful spending, or improve their processes. I would rather love to keep business taxes low, but I'm too skeptical of the executives running the firms. Read Alston D. Pete Correll's Commencement Speech from August 2005 and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

If McCain seemed like he was more concerned about corporate greed and fixing that problem, he would make me feel better for voting for him. But I just can't do it.

Small Group Community

It is a great feeling when a person can step into an inviting group of friends, be completely open and honest, and experience genuine community with those people.

Such is the priviledge that I get every Sunday evening as I meet with my community group from Athens Church. Our group is comprised of 11 guys from ages 23-29, and of those 11 we usually have 9-10 that make it each week.

I think of myself as a social "drifter" meaning that I always sort of drift from social group to social group, always interacting with friends and constantly meeting new people. There comes a point, however, when a person needs to slow down and instead of initiating new relationships, we should be developing the ones that we have. Such as the relationship I have with these guys in my small group.

It is a simple concept, but it is one that I have been late to actualize in my life. And because of it, I have found myself with several hundreds of friends here in Athens, but often with nothing to do on the weekends outside of church and football games.

I will dive into this a little bit more later, as I have a pretty substantial analysis of the psychology behind this social conundrum.

I Hate Politics

And I hate that it is the presidential election season, because due to my roommates being VERY involved in politics, I have watched far more commentary than I care to remark upon. And as a result, I have become pretty opinionated about the topics that are most important in my mind.

So this post is simply to apologize to my readers. It is not my intention for this to be a political blog at all. But I only post when I feel very strongly about something, and until after November there are a lot of people out there that say things that make me (a logical pessimistic realist) want to make sure that everyone has their facts straight.

So, I'm sorry if you hate politics. I'm right there with you.

Politics: Huntley Brown's email comments

You can view the email message (keep in mind that email is a significant source of political propoganda) here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/huntleybrown.asp

And here is my response to this email:

A lot of those liberal issues are things that probably are not going to change in the next 4 years, and maybe never change. e.g. abortion rights, same-sex marriage, human cloning. And in the long-run, though I don't support any of these ideas, I think that eventually society will be corrupted enough that they cannot be stopped from becoming legislated in a non-Christian manner. But not in the next 4 years. Probably not for 20 or more.

My second (and final) point is about McCain's character. I don't believe he is a Christian. Just listening to him the way he attacks Obama throughout his campaign, I feel like he is turning off a lot of Christ-followers (and I'm not even mentioning the threats to Obama during GOP rallies) just because he isn't behaving very appropriately. And I don't know if anyone follows Jekyll Island news (a small island just off the coast of Georgia... if you're not from around here, you will not have heard of it) or not, but lately there has been a lot of controversy over some things taking place there involving corrupted politics and favors to the politically-connected. Reports are that members of McCain's campaign (one chairman in particular) are directly involved.

So... I don't know if Obama is a Christian, nor do I know about McCain. If I had to guess, I think Obama is probably not a Christian, and McCain is probably only a Christian when it is strategic to his purpose. And I may not be right about either of them, but I'd rather take my chances on the one that is campaigning with the most integrity. Alas, these are our 2 candidates and so unlike George W, I have to vote for one based on a lot more than Christian values.

P.S. I can't find a news article related to Huntley Brown's comments, and I don't respect email as a credible source, at all.

Politics: Part Two

I'm back from my meeting, and want to clarify that I am not implying anything about Sarah Palin's home life, that I am just pointing out the potential for her familial lifestyle to suffer while being VP, which ultimately weakens her party's assertion that they identify with the family core.

Continuing my $0.18 worth... I do think that O'Bama lacks a lot of experience to be the next president of the United States. However, as I have graduated from college and entered the "real world" I have discovered that no matter how well qualified a person is for a new position, it requires a certain degree of adaptability for them to become effective in a new role. There is a learning curve to everything, so to speak, and nothing can prepare a candidate for all of the pressures and responsibilities that the presidency brings except for actually being president. Even someone as experienced as John McCain will require a little time to make the proper adjustments.

I dare say that politics corrupts the authenticity that I emphasized in my previous message, and that having a "newer" president might actually be a good thing, because they are more likely, from a psychological point of view, to relate to the average American. (P.S. I don't believe in the concept of an "average American" because we're so diverse but you see my point)

My personal over-generalization of the parties:

When you make a Democrat angry, they become douche bags. Irrational douche bags. They yell at, write-off, and interrupt anyone that even slightly contradicts their personally-held doctrine, sometimes even resorting to the argument of "you're wrong." I find it hard to WANT to agree with people that don't maintain a standard of demeanor, especially on national television.

When you make a Republican angry, they usually become illogical and disoriented. They will often make verbal attacks against the other side that have no relevance whatsoever to the issues at hand, or they will become completely incoherent and not make any sense at all. And a vote of "huh?" is not a strong vote to have.

Am I over-generalizing? You betcha! But I hate politics in general, so I'm pretty much the most unbiased non-conformist you'll ever meet (hooray for the labels being placed on me at this very moment!). But by no means would I place my personal stereotypes on anyone just because of their political affiliation. Although they are fun to play with.

:-)

Politics: Part One

Disclaimer: I am neither Republican nor Democrat, and I hate illogical, close-minded politics. So here is my $0.18 worth... 

I think McCain is too old... not because of the naive argument that "he might die" but because he doesn't grasp the potential of modern technology in small things like... and this is just off the top of my head... alternative energy sources. "Drill, baby, drill" is the policy that reflects the generation-gap between he and I. Drilling is not a long-term solution and so instead of going to war with the Arabs over a commodity, we should work towards something more advanced. Gasoline is old technology.

Palin is really hot, and it is awkward to see her and McCain together on television. I mean REALLY AWKWARD. I think most of the media's attacks on her are completely UNjustified. However, I do think it's a terrible idea for the Republican Party to keep her (and other PR spokespeople) away from interviews. It's sending the wrong message.

I look at families a lot to determine candidate authenticity, and unfortunately O'Bama wins the battle here. I say unfortunately because it's McCain that is running on personality, not O'Bama. If you watched the conventions, you saw Barack's children on stage with their mother, and how they reacted to seeing him on the video monitor. I don't care who you are, you can't train a 6-year old girl to hog the microphone THAT well and you can't train her to say "I love you daddy" and make it look unrehearsed, unless it is. That was an authentic moment.

Unfortunately again, it's McCain's campaign that is playing the "family values" card, with Palin's small-town virtues being the Ace in the deck. But she has a 17-yr old daughter that's pregnant., and where I come from, that kind of thing only happens either when there is non-consensual activity involved, or when the children do not have a moral foundation. Further, with an infant baby (Down syndrome is irrelevant) and 4 other kids, a really good mother with strong family values should not be throwing herself into the hate-hate relationship that is political media. I think she should stay in the lower tiers of government until her household is a little... emptier, so that she can properly raise her children with the small-town ethics that the campaign is asserting.

More to come soon, I have to get to a meeting...

B.B.A. Management Information Systems

The following is an email that I wrote to the MIS Department Head, Dr. Richard Watson, regarding an article that I read in the Atlanta Business Chronicle about MIS students:

Hello Dr. Watson,

Salutations! My name is Daniel Fowler, and I graduated from the MIS program last year. Now I work for the Terry College as a web developer in the Office of Marketing & Communications.

This morning I was introduced to an article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle entitled “Universities lure students back to IT,” which is being published next week as a front-page headline. I’m certain you know about this article, since you are quoted within, and upon reading it, I was motivated to action and contacted Nicole Lechene in the UGA Career Center. We are scheduling a meeting to discuss strategies for taking advantage of the market shortage of people... well… people like me.

You see, my undergraduate experience with company recruiters was not at all similar to the recruiting experiences that are highlighted by the article as common among most MIS students. I was not attracted to the things that campus recruiters had to say about the jobs that they were looking to fill, because despite the major being marketed as “a business degree focused on IT rather than an IT degree focused on business” (Tian Ross), it all sounded to me like entry-level software development and at least two years of coding. I don’t have experience with many of the programming languages listed in their job descriptions, and because of these things I became lax in my participation with SMIS and other MIS-driven opportunities, feeling as though I had too many hours under my belt to swap to Marketing or Telecommunications... Not that I even wanted to move away from MIS, because my passion for business and technology still thrived.

After graduating I struggled on my own to find the kind of companies that the ABC article heralds – ones that seem to welcome an MIS graduate with open arms. Six months later I was finally offered this contract-position as a temporary full-time staff member. But listening to the article, it proclaims that there are so many companies out there, of many varieties, just waiting for an applicant to come along that possesses the diverse skills and business prowess of an MIS grad. I’m just skeptical based on past experiences that these companies all want to lure me into a cubicle with an entry-level computer and a B.B.A. screensaver, so to speak. Instead, I desire to be what I feel like I’ve been trained to be: a problem-solver and businessman, not a troubleshooter and developer.

I apologize for this lengthy message and the anticlimactic ending, but what advice would you offer to someone like me as I prepare to sit down with a career consultant next week? Please respond at your convenience; I’m in no hurry and value your wisdom a great deal. Thank you in advance for your time.

Daniel Fowler

Social Networks

I love social networks. I have been using the internet to connect with people since long before it was cool to do so. Since you can find me on all kinds of social networking websites nowadays, I just wanted to go ahead and link you to my most active profiles:

Facebook

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Welcome

Hello, while no one currently subscribes to this blog, I wanted to begin with a simple introduction to prepare you for my future posts.

My name is Daniel Fowler, I am a business graduate from the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business, where I studied Management Information Systems. I also received an interdisciplinary certificate in new media from the New Media Institute at UGA.

While I graduated in business, my other passion-filled hobbies are musical theatre and psychology. Here on my blog you can expect posts regarding social online media, technology, romance, and psycho-analyses of various social behaviors.

I will try my best to title each post so that it is relevant to the contents thereof so that if you are not interested in one kind of blog entry (e.g. social online media), then you won't find yourself halfway through an entry about a different topic entirely (e.g. girl problems).

Please comment on my entries, as I love discussion. I promise you that I will read each comment and respond to most. Let's get started, shall we?