Zhanga: October 2006

Entries have their own pages now. Click the date to see the entry by itself with its comments.

Friday, October 27, 2006 (4 comments)

math 104? uga must be a way better school than duke. calc 1 here is 2200. that means our calc 1 class is approx 21 times harder than your linear algebra class.

Actually, it means UGA students are about 3 orders of magnitude dumber than Duke students. See, UGA students feel that calc 1 is about a 2200 difficulty, while linear algebra at Duke gets a 104 for difficulty. So UGA students feel that calc 1 is 21 times harder than linear algebra. But since linear algebra is, in reality, about 60 times harder than calc 1, it follows that 1 Duke student is worth approximately 1200 UGA students.

8:52PM

Thursday, October 26, 2006 (2 comments)

I just finished spoon-digging my last watermelon. A few days ago, Issac took me to Kroger and I couldn't resist the urge to buy two (tiny) watermelons for $5.99 each. They were so good.

I am currently one very happy boy.

Well, kinda. Don't ever take Math 104 (linear algebra) here. I did homework from 1-7 AM last night with no distractions and with a Coke boost. That was some intense concentration, and I am feeling really dead right now.

10:25PM

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 (6 comments)

I win:

icydog1: i wish i were your homework, because then i'd be hard and you'd be doing me no your desk
anonymous: except
anonymous: i do my hw on my bed

12:33AM

Saturday, October 14, 2006 (3 comments)

Depending on the success of Amsterdam, more sequels may be made, with Harold & Kumar Go To Las Vegas being a likely candidate for the next installment in the series.

Yes! Not just two, but the possibility of three!

For some reason though, Maylene doesn't like this movie. Outrageous!

2:29AM

Wednesday, October 11, 2006 (1 comment)

I was combing through my spams today, as usual, and this one looked uniquely juicy:

Blake:

I am sure that you realize that you have missed the midterm exam and failed to submit your portfolio for English 100. This means you have a zero for 30% of your grade in the class. You must pass English 100 before you enroll in English 101, which is a prerequisite for most Coker courses.

Right now, your passing English 100 is a long shot, but there is still a chance you could earn a C. I would like to meet with you to discuss your progress. When are you available?

I am sending this email to your advisor, Ze Zhang, and to Robin Richardson, the Retention Coordinator.

dm

Ahh I am going to fail English 100! Actually, I think I am the advisor to somebody who is about to fail English 100? Whatever.

I should pretend to be this guy's advisor and advise him on his academic future. I'll tell him he has my permission to take the next academic semester off or something.

I have a written bowling test over the entire textbook tomorrow. I think that if bowling was a class with normal grades, rather than pass/fail, it would be my worst grade after linear algebra. Bowling is set up in such a way that if you suck at it you can still pass, but you have to take more written tests and write a paper. So I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of that.

I went bowling with my dad and sister over fall break. He beat me two out of three, which is completely embarassing. I shouldn't even be mentioning this.

But the rest of the break was great!

6:08PM

Monday, October 2, 2006 (4 comments)

I think I've finally figured out what I want to do when I get out of college. I am going to be a janitor.

Let me give you some background info. There are seven guys who share one bathroom on this part of the hall. At the beginning of the year, we held a vote to determine whether or not the bathroom would be locked. In order to be unlocked, the vote had to be unanimous. It wasn't. So we have six (I'm guessing) who want it unlocked, and probably one who doesn't. It's annoying to have to bring a key with you every time you have to pee or (especially) shower, so a few days into the semester, somebody stuck a compact clump of paper towel into the door lock thingy (the thing that goes in and out when you turn the knob). That way the door will close but the lock won't catch, so you can just push the door open without needing to use a key or even turn the knob.

Well, the housekeeping staff has been annoying and has been removing the paper towel pieces every few days. Whoever's putting them there usually replaces it just a couple of hours or maybe a day after it gets removed. Well, today the hall got a fun email:

I’ve received several damage reports recently concerning the bathroom on your floor. I’ve listed these below. Please be aware that every time someone on your hall puts something in the bathroom door that has to be removed by housekeeping, we get charged a fee.

[...]

Total Charges to Date: $132.12

Of course, we don't find out that this is actually a problem until today, when $132.12 has been piled up, but that's a different rant. Also for another rant is how this is considered "damage." They must use some definition of "damage" that I'm unfamiliar with. I guess forgetting to flush should count as damage, too.

I haven't found a coin in the lock yet, but I do see paper a lot. The paper takes approximately 4 (four) seconds to remove. I'm guessing that removing a coin would be even easier since you can't accidentally tear it. At $17.33, that's $15597/hour. At $26.40, that's $23760/hour. Let's say I were to do freelance programming. I might make in the range of $80-100/hour for that (just a guess). If I were really good, I might manage to get a 6-digit salary after working in the same place for 15+ years. On the other hand, if I were to remove paper from door locks for a living, then in half a day I could make a whole year's worth of programming money.

Don't even get me started on outsourcing. You simply can't outsource removing-paper-from-door-locks to India the way you can outsource software development. I'll bet the housekeeping got to keep those coins they removed, too. In short, being a janitor > anything I might actually become.

Seriously though, what are these charges for? There are regular housekeeping staff who work here. Surely they are paid by salary and not by how many random items they can remove from random fixtures around campus. Maybe the regular housekeeping staff lacked the requisite skill set and they had to call in contractors to remove the paper with high-precision machinery? I have no idea.

This is so stupid.

1:26PM

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