I finally got my computer from Steve yesterday. I sorta had to take it from him with the DVD drivers not fully installed, but at this point I really don’t give a damn. The suppliers from which he bought the case, processor, and motherboard, STILL haven’t delivered those parts, so he put together a loaner for me until they arrive. Hence, my previous subject line: buy from Dell. I was deliberating over build-your-own vs. company manufacturing, and the time and stress that it takes waiting for your own computer is not worth the $200 saved. The reason I was pissed off earlier was because Steve said he’d have the computer for me the day before AND the morning that I posted it, and instead, he disappeared off to the Renaissance Faire. So I followed his golden rule of “you want something done, do it yourself” and installed the rest of the drivers, the soon-to-be-Linux partition, and all my software myself.
Saturday night was a really stupid DDR tourney at Pleasanton Q-Zar. The atmosphere was nice, and the Extreme and 5th Mix machines they had there were beest qualluhtyyy, but I didn’t drive an hour to see this guy, who was banned from the DDR Freak community, make a mockery of what some people might take more seriously. I mean, it cost to enter the tournament anyway, so the least we could do was get some accurate (and timely) judging. At least we got a free game of Q-Zar laser tag afterwards (after Sophie, Annie, and I snuck in :P).
Sunday was spent stressing over my computer arriving, and then cooling off for the rest of the day and moving all of my files and programs over. I even got to spend some time playing Priston Tale, a free MMORPG. That’s sorta fun-like.
Today, my sister and I met up at the mall with James, where I was to then pick up a girl who’s visiting from England. The whole premise was pretty weird – my mom was at a party and must have mentioned that I play DDR, then the people who threw the party said that their daughter plays DDR, and then my mom suggested I invite her for a few games. Well as I thought, the girl, Carrie, had only played it once or twice, but it was nice to get to know someone new. I told her about events like Oasis Fridays and the like, which make Marin less boring.
The amazing thing about LiveJournal is that it’s a place for attention. You get a lot of people “subscribing” to your journal and they have to read what you want them all to hear. Yet it’s not like you’ll usually get useful feedback from those who read it. Someone on LJ once said to me “sympathize, don’t criticize,” and I think that’s completely wrong. You won’t get ANYWHERE without criticism, or as I like to call it, analysis and suggestions. If you write posts that get replies like “it’s okay, we’re all here for you, everything’s going to be okay,” does that really help the state you’re in in the long run?
Some people take criticism offensively. If you point out everything wrong that someone is doing, they’re going to end up hating you.
I was talking about comments on people’s own journals. I don’t mean that people should make malicious posts about how they hate someone; what I meant was that you comment on something in which it looks like they’re asking for help on a decision, or at least something that will make them feel better – that’s where you give them suggestions.
If you tell them something that will make them feel better about themselves through ACTION instead of just emotional support, it has a better effect. It’s CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. If the person’s going to deny that they have a problem when they prevent it themselves, then something needs to be done.
Very true! But sometimes a person denies there is a problem at first then later they realize they were wrong. I remember studying something like this in my Psychology & Self-Esteem Class second year…
the prof’s theory was this: people tend to have moods in cycles and sometimes they are in the right state of mind for change and growth, but sometimes not. If you tell them to change something when they are just trying to get by or if they’re already feeling weak, it just tears at them. They might actually recoil away from improvements they would be eager to make if they had just heard it when they were feeling better, ne?
Plus I know personally, I just use a blog to get things off my mind… if people have advice I’m glad to hear it, but even if no one says anything, I just type it out to make some more tangible out of the abstract emotions in my head and see them more objectively.
(and here’s a confession: more than once someone has said something to me in an LJ or blog and I reacted defensively… but then later I realized I was wrong and the change they suggested was good. maybe because I’m a girl or maybe it’s just me, but I’m very aware that my emotions run in cycles ^__^ I’ll spend my whole life concisouly trying to correct that but it’s deeply rooted in the chemisty of my biological structure.)
Yeah, you’re right. I was recently planning to write a blog about how blogging itself is just a good way to relieve stress – I mean, I recently got this stupid “you’re doing okay!” sheet from my doctor, saying that one way to relieve stress is to write in a journal. So even with sympathy, suggestions, criticism, or not, blogging itself is a good way to sort things out.
I guess I just like to speed up the process a bit. Eheheh, I forget that things take time.