All Narfed Up photography and words by Bryan Villarin

Prepare for bullet points.

• I’m so into photography right now, despite having a simple point-and-shoot digital camera. I’m now selling prints, taking more photos and stepping up from Paint.NET to GIMP. Oh yeah, I love the Epic Edits Photodump Flickr Group.
• I’m getting used to bass guitar. In my opinion, Phantom Scream is undergoing awesome change.
• Target sells Dunkin Donuts coffee! Actually, I’ll want to check Albertsons, CVS and Ralphs - they’re closer to me than Ralphs. (Redlands Daily Facts) My friends now see me as a coffee junkie.
• I’m still using CallWave and Jott, which are both still free at the moment.
• I’m off the GTD wagon. I haven’t given up.
• My mom and I are catching up on CSI: Miami starting from Season 1. We’re on Season 2 right now. We just love how almost every line of Lieutenant Horatio is epic. You can’t forget about the sunglasses, either!

Oh yeah…I officially have my Associates Degree!

My insane friend (and Phantom Scream drummer), James Corsini, and another good friend, Jean Ma, just graduated from high school this evening from my Alma Mater, Rio Hondo Prep. Oh, and I can’t forget Logan Cardona!

My good friend, Jordan Ross, graduates from UCLA tomorrow. Tomorrow night, our band will be playing a few songs at Sean Piper’s high school graduation party. Next week, Logan Cardona will be having his high school graduation party at his house.

Gifts to buy tomorrow afternoon: Four. Good fun!

How’s your weekend shaping up to be?

Edit: Oh yeah, Jordan’s having a BBQ Sunday afternoon to celebrate his milestone.

Today, my co-worker — who also happens to go to Citrus College — told me our grades were online. I was scared, but I logged in a saw that I earned a “B” in English 102 and a “C” in Great Religions of The World (Philosophy 101). Gadzooks!

I thank God and all my family, friends and co-workers that supported me.

Posts written during this semester (Spring 2007):

• Put your syllabus into your calendar
• Lessons learned from a studying frenzy
• Essays and finals galore, oh my!
• One final exam remains
• My finals are over

Yesterday was a blur. The past couple weeks have been a blur. I had to write two 3-5 page essays. I know that sounds short, but if you hate writing essays, it’s tough to scrounge quotes and analysis of those quotes. On top of that, I had an English final on Tuesday, then a Philosophy final yesterday morning. (The official class title is “Great Religions of the World.”)

I have regrets about the semester. I didn’t do as well as I should have. I didn’t take efficient notes like I said I wanted to, which led to a lot of cramming because I didn’t space out my tasks.

The difference between the Bryan of past semesters and the Bryan now is that I still stuck it out. After the drop and withdraw deadlines, I knew I couldn’t go back. I had a few “please see me” notes from Mrs. Eisel after a few of my essays. Some students would freak out or just drop the class. You know, the mentality of “I don’t want to deal with this!” Since I met with my professor, she was gracious enough to offer an extension so I could redo some of my essays that needed it. At my English final, I was actually sad to see her go, along with the rest of the class. How many professors can you say that about?

Cool — so, how did you do?

I won’t lie. In philosophy, I went into the final needing a 78% in order to pass the class with a 70%. There were 20 questions at 5 points each: 5 true/false, 5 vocabulary questions (that asked the definitions of 3 words), and the rest were short answer. Out of the two hours given to take the exam, I finished in one hour. Some of my answers weren’t thorough, but I left no question blank.

I was more fortunate in English, which I wrote about on Tuesday, titled “One final exam remains.”

I’m going to drive out tomorrow to drop off self-addressed stamped postcards to my professors’ offices. That way, I can get my grades before the official ones get mailed out and posted online.

I know you can’t tell from the picture above, but I’m relieved!

This morning, I took my English 102 final. It was pretty laid back, especially because it was open book and open note. I was just shooting for a B or a C. There were a few works of literature that I didn’t read carefully: “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen and “Antigone” by Sophicles. The other two I had to write about were “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry and “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston.

I also received my last essay (on “Their Eyes Were Watching God”) and essay 2 (on Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night“) from a couple of months ago, which happened because she didn’t receive a hard copy. I received a B and a B+ for those two. I was so stoked, you don’t even know!

*** When writing an essay, here’s my tip. While analyzing quotes, ask yourself, “So what?” Don’t leave any question in the readers’ mind about what your point is.

Today and tomorrow, I’ll be studying for my Philosophy 101 final exam on “Great Religions of the World.” It’s cumulative of the whole semester, and I need to have 43 vocabulary words memorized.

Oh, I need to turn in my essay sometime today on “A Raisin in the Sun”. That’s what I’m doing at the Arcadia Public Library right now.

For the rest of you in finals week, keep the end in mind. It’s almost over!

I finally finished reading my last novel for English 102: “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston. I’ll take a break to mention what’s coming up these next couple weeks.

• I’ve got an essay due tomorrow. It needs to be about “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
• Friday, May 11^th, at 11pm, our band (Phantom Scream) has a show at The Airliner Club in Los Angeles. That’ll be the highlight of my days ahead.
• Next Tuesday and Thursday, I have my English and Great Religions of the World finals, respectively. English is open-book and open notes, so that’s okay. Religion is not even close to being like that. That’s why there’s that big gap this weekend. If it’s possible, I’ll be surgically attached to my textbooks and lecture notes.
• I have another essay to fix (for English), and I’m aiming to get it done by next Thursday night. On a positive note, Prof. Eisel was really nice about it. I thought she was going to grill me!

If I can help it, I’ll never simultaneously take two critical thinking classes again.

This is an update to the How-to article, “How to speed up podcasts for free with Audacity.”

In Audacity 1.3.2 (Beta), configuring the batch script is easier. The developers moved the location, though, so you might be lost if you recently updated to this version.

First, setup the chain: File > Edit Chains

In the left pane of the window that pops up, you’ll need to add a new chain. Title it “Speedup,” or whatever you like. With it selected, the right pane should have only one parameter: END.

Select that command, then at the bottom of the window, click Insert. Another window will pop up, and you’ll want to choose Change Tempo. Change the parameter to 25.000000, then click OK. (Later, you can increase the tempo if you’re comfortable.) Again, click Insert, select the ExportMP3 command, then click OK. Finally, OK out of the Edit Chains window.

Then, if you want to run the script, go to File > Apply Chain. Select the chain you just created, click Apply to Files, then browse to the folder where the podcasts are stored. Like I mentioned in the previous How-to, I copy the MP3s to the root podcast folder, so I’m not limited to one show (folder) at a time.

Conclusion

This’ll empower you to listen to podcasts, or any other supported audio files in a shorter amount of time, and you can convert multiple files at once. In addition to podcasts, I also speed up class lectures. 80-minute classes reduced to 64 minutes — awesome!

The past two days, I’ve been studying like crazy for the exam I took this morning. (How’d I do? I’ll be extremely happy if I got a 70. There was just so much reading!)

Yesterday, between 9am and 1am (16 hours), I studied ten hours, napped for one hour, and maybe three hours for meals. I gave myself other small breaks, checking email, going through feeds in Bloglines, etc.

Tuesday, I studied for 4 1/2 hours in the afternoon.

I gotta get this into my head: if you spread out your studying, you’ll make it so much easier on yourself (mentally and physically).

Please learn from me.

I need to say something positive about all this, because it’s not the end of the world.

• I had probably 3-4 cups of coffee throughout the day. But, at least they were all from the comfort of home. If I bought four Caffé Mochas from Starbucks, it would’ve been almost 12 bucks! That’s a little over one bag of coffee beans!
• I took notes from the reading using TiddlyWiki. The learning curve is small, and WikiBar helps with that. (see “How to install a TiddlyWiki plugin“)
• I recorded myself reciting the 34 vocabulary words, which needed to be memorized word for word. Then, I sped up the tempo in Audacity (which doesn’t change its pitch), added a split-second Sine chirp between terms, then listened to it while washing dishes, lying in bed, on the way to school, and right before class. If you listen to a song enough times, you’ll have it memorized; in my opinion, the same logic applies here. You could take this further, but perhaps that should be a dedicated post.

Some surprises are good. However, the ones associated with school aren’t.

I wasn’t keeping track of my syllabus, so I found out that this Thursday, I have yet another huge exam for this philosophy class, “Great Religions of the World.”

How many of you look at your syllabus on a daily basis? How about your calendar? That’s what I thought. The syllabus is reference material. You won’t look at it until you need to, or when it’s too late.

Lesson: The moment you get your syllabus, enter the important dates onto your calendar. When you’re doing your weekly review, you’ll be able to see when that next important paper or exam is coming.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to figure out how to schedule my study times before Thursday. I need an 84 to get a “C” before the final exam. (I also need to make a mind map and checklist for stuff I need to do at the beginning of a school semester or quarter, but that can wait until after the exam.)

You all like having spare time, right? When you’re studying for a test, that’s what it’s all about - time. Well, if you haven’t heard of the Cornell method, I think Gina Trapani wrote a great article that opened my eyes.

Geek to Live: Take study-worthy lecture notes (@ Lifehacker)

So why am I just now going to make sure I take notes in this way? For years, I’ve taken notes in classes. (How much I took is irrelevant. *grin*) For years, I earned mediocre grades when it came time for the tests.

Why? Because I couldn’t study efficiently.

Sure, you can type up almost everything the professor says. You can even record the whole lecture. But when it comes time to study, will all that content help you?

I can remembering buying my Griffin iTalk and Griffin Lapel Mic so I could record all the classes. When I used them, they got the job done. (After a late night, or I was really groggy in class.) When it came time for the final, I never listened to them again - there was too much! Recording a lecture isn’t a substitute for taking good notes.

The last thing I want now that I [should be] back at Cal Poly is to finish and regret not having done better. I think adopting a better system of taking notes is worth the learning curve. This post is for myself, but I know lots of you might be heading in this direction. I just want to help you figure it out quicker than me, whatever it is.

What’s worse? The pain of change, or the pain of regret? Take efficient notes now, or feel the burn of finals week when you’re scrambling for all that study material.