Finally yesterday, my group and I finished off our final paper. I say it like that when in all honesty, everyone else was done, I was just putting the final edits and making sure it sat right with me. Not that they’re slackers, they worked damn hard like me.

Needless to say, we were practicing a few times through our presentation and I felt like there was something missing at the beginning of it. So I used ChaCha and grabbed myself a quote to open it all off with. To preface this, let’s back up…

In Capstone, the class that I’m in, they do a strategic analysis paper to cap off the class. Every group in every class does the same exact company, so it gives a more objective grading to it for all of the groups to go up against each other in the final competition. Prizes include exam exemptions and extra credit points for participation beyond the class level, and if you win it, there’s gift cards there too, so its not a bad thing.

For this semester, the company was Harley Davidson, and their mission statement dealt with dreams. I wanted a quote to tie in with that. And on my second try with ChaCha, I got the above Garnett quote. And it was perfect.

See, I’m not the first guy people think of when it comes to sports. Growing up, I played baseball some and participated in martial arts. I always played neighborhood pickup games of roller hockey, football, basketball, or baseball, and I followed a few teams here and there. As a whole, though, when I came to college I focused so much on the music that the sporty side of me was somewhat lost behind that. Add to that meal plan, the freedom to buy pints of Ben & Jerry’s and bags of Swedish Fish, and a glowing computer monitor with an instant messenger window open and I barely strapped on my roller blades anymore. Sure, I did intermurals a few times, but mostly my first few years.

So why would a sports quote be perfect? My teacher is a huge Piston’s fan. Salt in the wound, and make it count and work. And because he’s a nice guy who I knew would appreciate it and laugh at it? I used it.

And not only that, but I concluded with the same phrase to tie it right back in.

Did we make it to the semi-finals?

While “anything is possible,” apparently that wasn’t. We weren’t the top team, but I still feel good about my last presentation and paper from my last class as an undergraduate…

That I’m one paper and presentation and exam away from graduation. That is all… for now.

I keep looking up at my calendar in disbelief… As of now, I have three weeks of school left. Well, three weeks of undergrad education left, and then I’m done. And then after another three weeks, I’ll be walking across a stage in a cap and gown, accepting a diploma, and then doing the same thing that afternoon for another diploma. One after the other.

I’ve been going to UCF for about 7 years now. My first day was actually August 20, 2001, which coincided with my sister’s 14th birthday. And at this point, I was an engineering major. I had planned to take calculus and chemistry and a bunch of other classes. As folks know, calculus and chemistry didn’t sit well with me that semester, and after failing both, I switched my major to English in Spring 2002. I started taking a few education classes in the Fall of 2002, and continued with that for a short while. And just as I neared graduation, I added an official minor in General Business. After this, I changed that minor to a second major in Accounting, and then a year later after failing half of the classes and doing mediocre in the other half of them, I was kicked out of the accounting school. Then, in Fall 2007, I switched that over to a Management degree, and now three semesters of that track, and I’m finally able to walk.

And on August 2nd, I’ll be walking twice: English Creative Writing and Human Resources Management.

It took me damn well long enough to get here, and I’m going to relish the moments as I can.

Of course, I still have three more weeks of Capstone, but that’s just an aside…

I’m finding myself looking forward to final exams.

I’ve got one tonight and one in 3 weeks, but because its at the end of the line? Well, I think that has something to do with it…

Is one that many of my friends have heard me rant about before, but because it happened in a presentation last night, well, I felt it was necessary for me to repeat.

Wikipedia.

I’m not some fabulous writer or some amazing researcher, but I can tell you one thing: if you are writing ANYTHING at all, NEVER EVER EVER cite Wikipedia as a reference.

Sure, I know that more often than not when I mention someone or something that I link to Wikipedia here. I think, though, for the basic blogging world, its not too bad to run with and have a comment or two or quickly reference back. Why? Well, if I didn’t know what was what and I read it on a blog? My first instinct is to either Google it or search for it on Wikipedia. So why not just save the work?

Yet, in a research paper? Its completely inappropriate. When you’re researching, the facts have to be accurate, sure, and reputable. People think that Wikipedia is some sort of ultimate online encyclopedia. The issue there, is that its user editable and anyone can write in it or edit it as they’d like. Sure, its moderated, but its not perfectly seamless. I have three examples for you on this one.

1) There’s a classic incident where an individual had written some false information about the Kennedy assassination on a writer’s wikipedia entry. The man’s reputation was drug to the dirt.

2) This past week right after Tim Russert’s passing, a ton of edits were done to his page by people trying to defame him for one reason or another. I witnessed one of them myself when I refreshed the page and it redirected me to this article, with the header “Tim Russert.” I’m sorry, not funny.

3) I was ranting about this same thing and an acquaintance of mine told me that they knew someone who quoted Abraham Lincoln as being “the first black president” because they found it on Wikipedia. Someone had edited the article and put that in and the person happened to find the article after the edit and use it for their paper.

The examples just seem to go on-and-on about issues in reliability and accuracy, but the truth is in Wikipedia’s own words on their reliability. They acknowledge that there is a lot of accuracy in the articles, but that there might be some issues. A good way to look at it is this editorial article from The Guardian from a few years back. While 3 years old, it has the right idea.

The right idea? Use Wikipedia as a springboard. In the two groups that I’m in this semester, that’s exactly what I told my teammates: Cite Wikipedia and we’ll have problems. The honest to goodness best way to use Wikipedia is just to get a general idea of the information and then from there, go to the sources of the article. Its a great way to find what you’re looking for. Think of it like a Google search giving you some prose response, but to cite Wikipedia?

I’m sorry but in my mind, that’s not a good idea. Anyone could go in and switch up a number or two here or there and give you a completely false figure. Change a few “billions” to “millions” and move around decimal points and some scientific articles are worth nothing. Switch up a few names and you change everything.

The whole truth of the matter is simple: its only as good as the information that it cites or the sources it comes from. So maybe, why not just go to the sources?

Thank you ever so much for making something as awesome as your Chai Hai energy drink. While I had one yesterday to compliment the double strength Rock Star from that morning and the Sugar Free Rip It A’tomic Pom from that afternoon, I’ve got two more in my fridge and even though I just finished another A’tomic Pom, you really sound good right about now as I’m finishing off my second Wall Street Journal assignment for Capstone.

You see, my dear Chai Hai, your caffeinated goodness of doom is what will be helping me get through these next few days. With a paper due in my International Management class on Thursday, the WSJ assignment due tonight, a mid-term to do before Friday in Capstone, and a paper to start assembling for Capstone for next Tuesday? This week is perfect for your assistance.

P.S. I might have to call you up again next week, my dear sugary and milky tea energy drink friend: I have two presentations and a final exam next week, and I know that you of all things will assist me. In this modern era, why should I be concerned with this thing we call “sleep” and “well-rested” when I can find my joy contained within your 16 ounce cylinder of recycled aluminum.

P.P.S. Don’t feel bad when I cheat on you with a Rockstar Juiced when I’m on campus. They just don’t have you, my friend… They just don’t have you…

First off, thanks to anyone who might have contacted me about yesterday’s entry… Things are resolved at the decision level, and Sarah and I are working on the action level of it. Of course, that’s not an overnight thing, its a multi-day plan. But I’ll post more about what’s going on come Monday at the latest…

That being said, let’s look at my school week and my two classes in this little entry before a little rant tomorrow…
MAN4600 - International Management: For my Monday and Wednesday nights for the first 6 weeks of summer, I’ve got this class on my plate. Focusing sort of on the same stuff as I did in GEB3356 last semester, this class looks more at the management focus of business and rules that govern management and the management. There’s a group project, and it looks to be just a lot of fast-paced work thinking in a globalization focus.
MAN4720 - Strategic Management: Capstone, as its commonly called. The final class you take as a business major. And this is my semester for it. With 8 weeks, this class overlaps my MAN4600 class, and I attend the video lectures as they tape on Monday morning and my lab section is on Tuesday night. So another two day class for me. But, its interesting. This whole strategy and planning and whatnot really fits me and the way I think. And there’s a case competition, which I’ll talk more about later at some other point.

So there you have it. More on classes to come…

Well, I feel like that. Its one of those moments that I’m sitting here, and I feel like there’s so much going on, but I don’t have the words or directions at the moment to really want to sit down and sort through it.

Although, I have been following politics in the wake of last night and all of that fun stuffs, and I found this little article fairly interesting. Its a neat little read about the other senators and if they’d be interested in the VP nomination from either candidate. There are some funny responses in there and some interesting other replies too. Edward Kennedy’s is worth a read. Good laugh right there. And some of them, well, when you know who’s saying it, there’s a lot more weight to what’s not said than to what is said.

And soon, I feel like I should talk more about delegates, because there’s an interesting change of a pledged delegate from Clinton to Obama. The whole “shift of pledged delegates” was an idea that Clinton floated a while back, but to hear the reality of it sounds so absurd.

All in all, well, I feel like today I’ve got nothing. Everything is such a blurry haze that I don’t want to sort through it.

Well that, and I don’t want to read all that I have to read for class AND sort through it. I mean, why else would I have been watching American Gladiators this morning instead of 2 hours of MSNBC…

Good morning, dear readers… Or afternoon, rather, seeing I’m sitting down a little later than normal for me today.

Mother’s Day weekend was fun. Sarah and I did breakfast with her mother up in Debary, and called her mother in Utah, and we called my mother over in Spring Hill. So all mothers were covered. It was a very nice day.

And then, this morning. We had some cleaning to do around the apartment, which was interesting to do. From there, I had class. The first day of classes of my last semester. The beginning of the end.

I found it sort of interesting, though. The class I went to this morning was one of the video streaming classes, so while we might be sitting there in class, there are hundreds of students registered and watching the recorded stream of the video online at their convenience. Needless to say, there were only 7 students in class. For me, this was a completely different sort of experience. I had taken a video streaming course last semester, but the seated lecture that was recorded coincided with one of my classes, so I never went. But to be one of only 7 people that this teacher was interacting with in person, and to know that over 300 other students were watching this, not knowing who was/wasn’t in the room? Just surreal.

That’s what technology does for people nowadays, I guess… Lets us be where we cannot, and sets up these weird sort of perpetuating placements where anyone can be anywhere watching anything at the time at their convenience. Heck, its like a DVR, but for school.

Had a good lunch with my friend Davi at the new Chinese place on campus where we shot the shit about politics and the fun stuff with some teachers that we’ve both had, and then here home, to work out some kinks with my iPod. I’ve been having issues with the scrobbling software I use, and I had switched applications, and hadn’t switched everything right. So looks like I’m slowly working on getting back listens that I used to have.

Small things in life keep it going around.

I hadn’t mentioned it at all, but I’d like to share it now…

I got my grades back for the semester on Thursday when I came home from our vacation last week:

Introduction to International Business - A

Recruitment & Selection - A-

Training & Development - B

Business Ethics & Society - B

Compensation & Benefits - C+

As a whole? I’m very happy with that. It ends up making my semester GPA to 3.25, but doesn’t do much to my overall GPA, only bringing it up .049 to a 2.589. Why so low? That year as an accounting major, I didn’t really do better than D’s or F’s in most of my classes. That being said, it dented my 2.8 GPA a bit.

No use looking back, here’s looking to a great summer semester to cap off my collegiate under-grad career…

Hi, I’m Karen. Adam asked me to write a guest post on his site, and I have to admit that I agonized over it for weeks! I really had trouble coming up with ideas. I thought about writing about music, or maybe about books, or something else that Adam and his readers are interested in, but instead, I think I’ll just write a little bit about myself and how I met Adam. Since, as his friends or readers, you probably would love to know more about him. :)

My sophomore year of college was filled with lots of crazy things. Boyfriend drama, friend drama, and who knows what else. There was, however, one key event which led me to meeting Adam. In the spring of 2002, I met some friends who played in a live action role playing game called Vampire: The Dark Ages. It was a subset of the Vampire: The Masquerade game, which, as you can imagine, took place in the dark ages.

Being a creative person, I had a lot of fun playing the game. I met new friends and got to play dress up and act out a character. I absolutely enjoyed it 100%! While playing, I met a really sweet girl named Andrea, who happened to be a student at UCF and really enjoyed gaming with her as well as seeing her around on campus.

Fast forward a bit to summertime, and I decided to take entry-level Astronomy to fulfill one of my elective requirements. To my surprise, Andrea was in the class, which I was really happy about because a class is always better with a friend. What I didn’t know, was that I was going to have a second friend, who would end up being someone that I am still friends with to this day, nearly six years later! That person, of course, is Adam.

Adam was instantly recognizable by his hair. In fact, if you’ve known Adam for a while like me, you’ll know that he was basically famous for his hair. It was awesome (and of course completely shocking when he decided to cut it!!!). We got to know each other well and hung out a few times. Sadly, not enough, as I planned on moving to Gainesville at the end of the summer and left Orlando and UCF to finish up my degree at the University of Florida (Go Gators, by the way!).

Being that we had a lot in common - both of us are Jewish, creative, have a similar laid back personality - we’ve stayed friends and kept in touch all these years through phone and IM. I’ve kept up with Adam’s creative endeavors just as he’s kept up with mine - and even been a model for me (I’m a photographer).

Whenever I travel to Orlando, which I do every year or so, I always make a point to try to see Adam if possible. He’s the kind of friend that you don’t want to lose. He’s loyal, kind, and always willing to help a friend in need. In fact, he’s probably one of the most genuine people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. I’m sad that he’ll be moving to Tallahassee, because I’ve never needed to visit there and being further away will make it harder to visit with him in the future!

I know that Adam will go far in life, because he is both a talented and passionate person with a good sense for how to do things. I met him towards the end of his freshman year, and I think it’s neat to look back and see how he has changed and matured since he started college. I’m glad that we’re friends and that I’ll be able to be a part of his life to hear about the many wonderful things that life has in store for him.

So, here’s to Adam! Although I’ll miss you every time I visit Orlando, I wish you and Sarah the very best with your move, and I look forward to visiting you someday in your new home.

For those of you reading who are personal friends with Adam, I think it would be cool if you all shared how you met him in the comments to this entry.

Thanks for reading. :) You can check out my personal blog or my photo blog if you want to know more about me.

With my post yesterday, I realized that I had put off the inevitable long enough.

Starting August, we will have moved. Yes folks, we will finally be leaving Orlando as I’ve wanted for a while. And its right after my graduation and just in time for Sarah to get back to school.

See, I started this blog in late December, weeks after we got the good news. Sarah decided that she wanted to go to law school, so she took an LSAT prep class (Blackstone, which I know she highly recommends) and then took the test in December. And we got a great hanukkah gift this year when she got her score back: 166. For those that don’t know, the LSAT is graded on a bit of a curve, so to put that into perspective, she placed in the 93rd percentile and had 85 out of 100 questions right. That’s damn good. Anything above a 160 or so is pretty much a ticket into any university that you’re looking at, pending your GPA/resumé.

And that being said? We went with Florida State Law School, up in Tallahassee. This, friends, explains that trip that I mentioned a few weeks ago. It was admitted students day up there, so we went up and sat around and listened to them extol everything about the university. We went on a tour of the town. And when all was said and done, we did some apartment hunting on Saturday. Not even two days after returning and our lease was signed for our new place up there, and we’re just letting me finish my semester and then planning on the move. And of course, there’s the laptop hunting, which we find out that XP isn’t as strict a requirement as they make it out to be. Ugh.

So friends, there you go. The reason for me mentioning many times that if you want to see me, you’d better do it before August? Its because I’ll be leaving, still sharing a car with Sarah (because her Dad’s teaching me to drive stick soon), and with a busy work schedule (possibly working two jobs to make ends meet), lord knows that I won’t be able to make it back here much, if at all.

Although, there is a farewell show planned in the works… Details to come…

While watching the news this morning (my usual MSNBC), this pops up as a story. Seriously. Have we run out of news that there’s nothing to talk about? Its like over the weekend when they were dissecting Obama’s scratching hand gesture, the commentators on MSNBC noted that they had run out of things to talk about that they were blowing up the stupidest smallest things. Hence why I linked FoxNews.

But, back to the bear. At this point, I’d like to bring in the expert commentary of my old roommate, Rob Somers. I sent him a text message with the above picture and said something similar to MSNBC running out of news.

And his reply?
Its Tickles the Bear! good to see him out for a light jog around town again. lol

And on that note? I’m done with my finals. Two weeks of vacation from school till I have to worry about classes again…

So just when you thought you had your last graduation post from me about ten days back, even more shit hit the fan. Really.

For folks that aren’t familiar with UCF and might read this, when you’re a business major there’s one class you have to take in your last semester called Capstone. You can’t register for it like a normal class. When class registration opens up for you at your normal appointment time, you need to file your intent to graduate after registering for classes. Then, a few weeks later on a specific day, you have either an early registration time (9am) or a regular registration time (4pm). You register for it, and that’s that.

For me, my regular registration was on March 27th, and that meant my Capstone registration was at 4pm. I was on campus yesterday when I was supposed to register, so I went to the business computer lab. It was a stone’s throw away from the Undergrad Advising Office, so if I had to, I could throw a stone at them for messing something up. I sign onto the lab computer and go through all of the motions. And then, as I click “finish” on my registration?

Error: Department Consent Required. You must obtain permission to take this class. If you have a permission number, click Return to Step 1, click the class link, enter the number and resubmit

Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding me.

My friend Jennifer who was trying to get into the same section as I was, she had the same error message. So seeing we were both trying to register at the same time, we went over to the office and tell them what’s going on. I call our friend Nick and he got the same error message. While we’re at the office, an advisor whom I know took a little time out of her day and pushed back an appointment to try to help me (thank you Lisa, if you ever stumble across this), and her thought was that it was because I’m a double degree. She was the fourth advisor to go over my twin audits and said the same thing everyone else said: I’m good to go. Oh really? Geez. So why can’t I register?

Seeing I knew of two other folks with the same error, I went back to the lab and I printed up the error message and I wrote down the section number that I was trying to register for and handed it to the Peer Advisor. “Make a photocopy of this. There are three people getting this same message for this section. You might want to look into it.” Sure, I was a bit snarky with that, but I’m sorry: I’ve been waiting for three weeks for this registration and I’ve been given three different go aheads. I wasn’t going to take it.

So I went in and took my Ethics final after ranting for a good half hour and studying with Jennifer and Cory for it. And after getting out, I got a text from Jennifer that she had forwarded me an e-mail from an advisor:

There appears to be a problem with the discussion section you have selected, as we have attempted to enroll you in the class numbers you had attempted this afternoon and are receiving the error Department Consent Required. Only one student has been able to enroll in this specific lab section. Your information has been sent to our department scheduler for review. I would recommend trying again in the morning after 9am to see if any results have changed since it was after 5pm that she received the email.

Well, that being said, I feel like the paper I made the Peer Advisor take might have been an additional stone in their problem wall. It helped alleviate my concerns of other students registering and locking me out of the class.

So this morning, at about 9:30, I logged back on and attempted to re-register. Success. And hopefully this is the very last problem that I have to deal with from the college at all.

I can now succinctly and clearly say that I will be done and walking August 2nd. No matter what.

As I wrote my entry from yesterday, I started to think about the fact that this semester will very shortly be over. And with 17 credit hours–the most I’ve ever taken in one shot–I feel a bit relieved. Its been stressful juggling 5 classes for me. I haven’t juggled this many since I took 14 credit hours my freshman semester, and then it was Comp I, Intro to Engineering, LEAD Lab, Chemistry, and Calculus. Then again, as a freshman, Calculus and Chemistry wasn’t a combination that I should have taken.

But just something for y’all to follow me with next week as I sporatically post, here’s my final exam schedule:

MONDAY: Studying all day, taking my Ethics final when I feel comfortable enough.
TUESDAY: Studying all day, taking my International Business final when I feel comfortable enough. Tuesday night, I would have a Recruitment and Selection final, but I took that early as allowed.
WEDNESDAY: “Free Day.” Not really, but I’ll be studying all day for my Compensation Final on Thursday.
THURSDAY: 1pm seated Compensation final.
FRIDAY: Whenever I’ve read it and am done, I have a Training & Development final.

And with that all said and done? I’ll be done for the semester… Of course, Monday I also register for my final class at UCF, and then classes start back up second week of May, but that’s a post for another time…