Allen Lew's Thoughts

The Los Angeles Daily News has written an article about student debt after college. Here’s a summary taken from United Press International off this page:

Liberal arts major are finding it more difficult to pay off their loans, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. The study’s authors recommend those entering college pick the jobs they want and then pick a major to get that job. A study by the Wichita State University in Kansas and the University of Memphis in Tennessee found there are some majors that do not map into jobs that pay highly enough to support the debt that students are incurring. For example, theater and communication majors earned the least after three years in the workplace — barely $30,000 on average — but racked up some of the biggest student loans, an average of $17,814. Study author Steven A. Harrast an accounting professor at Wichita State, says, “It seems to be flying in the face of economic theory.”

Another interesting excerpt: A C student at graduation might have $8,000 more debt than an A student, according to the study, which asserts that students accrue an average of $4,402 in debt each time they drop one grade-point.

Just something to think about.

Click here for responses from the commmunity.

I can’t believe I missed some easy questions from Trivia Cafe

How did I miss these?

3. Born in New York in 1980 to an Ecuadoran-born father and Irish-American mother, she lived in Texas, Japan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. At eight she was runner-up on TV talent show Star Search, at 12 she joined the New Mickey Mouse Club, and at 19 she won the Grammy Award as Best New Artist. Who is she?

4. Identify the cities that were capitals of each of these countries in the year 1900:
a. Turkey
b. China
c. Russia

5. What character from the Peanuts cartoons loves to play Beethoven on his piano?

6. Name the author of each of these works of literature:
a. Catch-22- (actually, I got this one)
b. Don Quixote
c. Little Women- (actually, I got this one)

Here are the answers

From May 12-21, it was nothing but review sessions and finals. There were some interesting ones things brought up at a biology review. The plant biology professor, Dr. Feldman, is really good, but you always feel like you are missing something after listening to his lectures. He always says “you won’t need to know that for the exam” or “that’s the way it goes at least in terms of this class.” It just bothered me that we don’t know the total picture from that class, but it’s okay I guess. Then came the biology final on Friday, May 16. Me and Matt had a plan to wake each other up at 7:00 AM, since the final was at 8. I woke up and called his room. Interestingly no one answered. I even went over to knock on his door and nothing. Assuming that he had left already, I decided to leave too. Well turns out that his roommate turned off both his alarm clocks and unplugged the phone from his room, making Matt get up at 9. He was furiously ma, who was the likely suspect, at his roommate, but then realized he had to go take the final. I had gotten back and heard the news from Lauren, who he had woken up on the way to the final. Matt did do well on the test though, but I couldn’t help but feel guilty that I didn’t knock harder or something. Exams were grueling, as they seemed to pill on and on. I probably made my schedule too hard this semester. Oh well can’t think like that now, as it is done.

I saw the Matrix Reloaded on Wednesday, May 21. Interesting movie, but I think they tried to hard to be intelligent in this movie. There seems to be some pseudo-intellectual writing going on trying to make themselves sound smart. But all in all, very good movie. A must see of course. And make sure you stay all the way to the end until the credits are over, as there’s a little surprise for those of you patient enough to wait. By the way, if you got lost in the architect scene like I did, here’s a transcript of the conversation (much thanks to bigmonolith for finding it). And here’s an article about the philosophy and the intelligence of the Matrix.

Before the movie, though, me, Joey, Dave, Kyle, and Chihyon went to Mel’s Diner for dinner, just trying to have fun talking about silly things like “a ball being able to go through the earth in 45 minutes.” I still wonder how that works. We had fun and I met up with Jason and Chuck, two guys I knew from Bravo High School’s Academic Decathlon team. We tried to catch up and see what we were all doing. It was nice seeing them; hopefully I can see them again.

Well I headed back to LA on Thursday, May 22. I missed my 3′ o clock flight, due to the bad ankle and my overall attachment to everything I own. I mean I didn’t even want to throw away those free comic books I got from Free Comic Book Day. Gee. Well I said my goodbyes as I rushed out. Man, airport security was rough on that weekend and I showed up late, but luckily I got booked on the 4:50 flight, without having to pay extra. I then talked to some lady about how airport security is tight and told her how people can hide guns in cell phones, in case you didn’t know. Well I got on the plane and enjoyed the ride. Got back home and moved my heavy junk up and down. Ouch, but it’s nice to be back.

To pass the time over summer, I’ve been trying to earn money in various ways. One stupid way I’ve been acquiring money is playing nickel trivia on Amazon.com. Answer a question and get a nickel. You can answer 4 a day fro a maximum of 20 cents a day. Quite sad, but when you think about it, it’s $50 dollars after a year. That’s a lot of cash. Now for real money, me and Fabian went out looking for jobs on Tuesday, May 27. We went just about all over Alhambra and Santa Anita Fashion Park (now known as Westfield Shopping Mall in Santa Anita) in search of employment. Let’s see we tried at all the following: Radioshack, Mervyn’s, Hallmark, Spenser’s, Foot Locker, Staples, Baskin Robbins, KB Toystore, and more. I’m still filling out applications. Wish me luck and hopefully the next time you read this I’ll be employed.

I went over to Lincoln High School on Thursday, May 29 to get a reference from Mr. Schauer. Alright, an old English teacher may not be the best reference, but I’ll take it. Then, I decided to walk around and visit whoever else I could. I walked around and said hi to UC Berkeley alumni, Mr. Zapata. I told him I was majoring in Biology and he was saying how that’s probably the up-and-coming field. I told him that it is, but not the traditional biology of field observations. Instead, it is the more quantative and mathematical aspects of biology that are the fastest developing right now. More physicists and chemists continue to turn to the subject to study things like ion channels and protein structure in order to get their field up-and-running once more. For example, understanding ion channels of cells can help in the creation of nanotech robots, as they are very orderly microsystems. I thought I was boring him, but he’ll listen to anything that helps him understand his investments better he said. I also saw Ms. Troung, the guidance counselor and told her about the 40+ credits I got from AP exams. Then I saw Sam Chau, Linda Him, Helen Yu, and Ngay Ngo, graduating seniors like I was last year. It was interesting briefing them on some of life adventures through my first year of college (some of which you might have read on this site). It’s funny that I’ve talked to Linda more in that one afternoon 1 hour more than I’ve ever talked to her the entire time I was at Lincoln (which makes for a grand total of 1 hour in my life). Finally, I caught up with Mr. Wong, my ex-history teacher, and talked to him about college and sports and stuff. Then he left and went to say one quick hi to Ms. Paulson, another teacher I had. She was preparing a biological field trip for the Math/Science magnet in Mammoth Mountains, so I really couldn’t talk to her. But all in all, that was a fun little visit I had.

Then today, Friday, May 30, I went back to the mall to turn in the applications. I got one interview at 9:00 AM on Monday at Champs Sports. That ought to be a fun job working with shoes and clothers and I hope they have good discounts. Wish me luck.

Funny Quote-Jay Leno-“Who wrote Handel’s Messiah?”
Jaywalk all-star Kip-“I’m sorry; I don’t read books”
Two reasons why that’s funny: 1. Jay gives him the answer (Handel) and 2. Messiah is a music piece.
Extra, Extra, Read all about–Philosophical questions about the Matrix-and all the thought provoking material it presents

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Maybe I should write one long journal piece and just rant about everything I know about one topic. But that’s not the way I think I guess. I periodically like to just of little things and they might go on a while. Yet I kind of like jotting things down in short bursts. Here are some:

Studying an old midterm, I realize how the simple things really do matter. For example, my history midterm I got marked off for not saying that the Beagle was a boat. Now that is just silly, but so relevant at the same time.

You know a review session sucks when a GSI loses you on the first problem. That’s what happened at a physics review on Saturday when the GSI tried to explain conduction and failed miserably.

The Simpsons is increasingly trying to make references that may be outdated too quickly. Like the Enron ride joke, Britney Spears, and the stinky flower; these allusions to things that may not be funny in the next 5 years. Not a lot of references to classic movies like Wizard of Oz or All in the Family, things people do not tend to forget. That timelessness it once had is now gone.

It’s good to be home except for the 56k slowing down my journal upload times and such.

Must get more readers for this website.

I didn’t empty out my locker in the bathroom at my dorm. Opps. No big deal, except they’ll have to break my lock to open it. Damn I needed to get better organized when it comes to packing that’s for sure.

Stupid ankle. How come you hurt so bad Wednesday night?

I think I’ll end with that. Or maybe not? No Yes No Yes No Yes. Well right after this stuff:

Interesting Fact-Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. Startling.
Interesting Fact-Apparently Donald Duck saved Kuwait. What? Well a man used an idea he had seen in a Donald Duck comic to save the water supply of Kuwait from contamination. Go figure. Click here for the source.
Extra, Extra, Read all about–Women were the true global explorers-Columbus may have sailed the ocean blue, but women have journeyed further distances over history than men. Read the article and see how.

My last great gift to the floor. Enjoy.
There have been a lot of requests for copies of the Doobies, so just download this document (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader) and print it. Plus, there are some links to some of the events I describe.

The 3rd Floor Doobie Awards

(Please note: This wasn’t meant to insult anyone; it was all done in good cheer.) It’s just sumthin for the floor to look back & enjoy. Have fun!!

The Floor Representative, Senator, Secretary, Cheerleader, and Buffet: Christine
Guy all the girls want as their teddy bear (and the guy we want to kill the most): Jensen
The Tomboy Award: Katie
Guy you’d most like to see without his shirt: Joey
Sexiest in a Towel: Alex
Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fana Bo Besca, the fourth: Shoshana
Mr. Mime-to-Anime-Character Award: Eugene
The Queen of Clean and Ms. Manners =0P: Nikki
The “What is she doing up at this hour?” Award: Kate
Floor Twins: Janice and Jessica
Person who traveled the greatest distance to be here: Chihyon
Have no fear, POTATOE-GURL is here!!: Amy
The “0 grams of fat and that same great light, crisp, refreshing taste” award: Jacqueline
The Official Moral Amelioration Club Sandwich / Most Hedgehog-like Award: Kyle
The Architect of his own demise: Kevin
The “If I got a nickel for every time he said a swear word” award: Andrew
Most likely to be mistaken for a first grader: Daisy
The “Hey you, with the Hair!” award: Geoff
Most likely to assassinate President Bush: Vicky
Most likely to become a Telegraph bum: Nedim
Most likely to trample Tokyo: Patrick Kong
The Vincente Memorial Award: Vincente
Miss Theatre Rice drama queen: Wenjie
One badass mofoe: David
Whatever tickles your pickle: Nicole
Vicky’s Honorary Bitch: Albert
Fun + Intoxication + Sean = Jolly Mishaps
Cutest couple: Eddie and Seungkwon
The “It’s super-funny when it happens to him” Award: Fred
Only one of us that’s crazy enough to come up with this list during finals (with contributions from Eddie & Joey): Allen

And the most dubious distinction of them all: Being a resident of this crazy floor!

Memories To Make You Laugh & Cry…but mostly laugh. =) (For more precious memories, click here)
-Joey makes Tang with plastic bags: “I don’t have any cups.”
-David is Kevin and Kevin is David for Halloween
-Eugene’s zodiac poster: “So what’s your sign?”
-Rearrangement of lounge furniture by fourth floor
-Guy throwing up on couch and carpet in lounge
-Tour groups come to visit 315 and freak (check out this entry and that entry)
-Seungkwon
-Allen’s scary voice on Halloween
-Joey burns cookie… in a microwave…TWICE!!!
-Fred is caught looking at Gay Porn
-Joey prances around in cape
-Sean & Fred battle out The Shower Wars.
-DC Master Thief, The Joey…steals backpack loads of food.
-Fred tries to bust a Joey at the DC…and auditions for a role on COPS.
-Andrew and the “A”…………on the back of his dang head!!!.
-A bunch of them I really shouldn’t say.

Love you all! Thanks for making freshman life interesting…Good Luck!

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It doesn’t seem as though anybody took this quiz, other wise they would have told me what they got. I decided to give them another shot.

Featured Website—Quizie.com-Your source for pointless little diversions that measure how well you fit certain sterotypes. Anyways here’s a fun one:

I scored a 64% on the “how uc berkeley are you?” Quizie! What about you?

Other Results
Nicolle Salvador-68%
Joey Le-56%

Some answers to the quiz

Name: The Monster Mash
Current Roster: Pixie, Sean Jean, Mummy Dearest, Groucho Marxists, and Count Bellfield

The men pictured above have lived a life of failure after failure. Each of them, due to fate or just plain bad luck, have never had success for very long. Here is each of they’re tragic stories and how they all turned to crime:
Pixie: In the land of the fairies, the smallest and most petite are revered, as small stature is a symbol for eloquence and beauty. However, this fairy was born unusually large as a child and never stopped growing.
Sean Jean:
Mummy Dearest:

Groucho Marxist: During the Cold War, America and the Soviet Union had a “anything you can do, I can do better” mentality. Russia built a spaceship, then so did America. The US builds one nuclear weapon, the USSR builds another. This way of thought spilled over into the entertainment industry, though Russian entertainment wasn’t what you would call entertaining. The industry created analogous characters to the ones featured in American movies and television, with little success. One such failure was the Marxists brothers, an analogous version of the hilarious American comedy group. Coming out at about 30 years too late, Stalin jokes just didn’t have the same impact they did in the ’90s. Frustrated with Russia’s lack of appreciation of comedic genius, Groucho left for America hoping to become a star. Unfortunately, no project in Hollywood needed an angry and not very funny Russian, so he turned to a life of crime where he attempted to become the main “pimp daddy” of Hollywood. To no ones surprise, this did not work out and as he moved on to worse crimes such as attempted robbery and theft, the Superfriends ended another less than stellar career. Adding insult to injury was Nash who quickly pointed and insulted the criminal to the media, pointing out how silly the notion of a Russian pimp was. He broods each and everyday for his chance to get the last laugh against Nash.

Count Bellfield: The man who would become the Count actually started out as a happy-go-lucky student at a state college. The student had always dreamed of going to medical school, but realized he needed to do some activities. Torn between study abroad and volunteering at a hospital, he found an option that seemed to kill two birds with one stone: working at the Red Cross in Transylvania. Not a very bright student, he signed on, not knowing about the legacy of the undead who haunt Transylvania.

Tired of being constantly defeated by the Superfriends individually (and just about everyone else), these hard-luck villains, who knew little about success, have now become formidable foes for the team by combining their talents. Nevertheless, our heroes can always triumph over this terrifying team.

There are more pictures at http://photos.yahoo.com/mnk17fx

Click on this link and die.

Are you a girl looking for an apartment? What’s your price range? 500 a month? 400 a month? Does zero dollars a month sound good to you?
Wait a minute, there’s got to be a catch right? Well there is a reason why they are looking for a girl. The person seeking says, “I’m sure there’s girls out there who are students with a tight budget who wouldn’t mind getting the free rent and having some intimate fun as well…I’m not unattractive, and this could be beneficial in many ways.” So, if you don’t mind losing your dignity, then hey it’s free housing.

Here’s the link to the post. But it does leave me wondering who would be desperate enough to post something like this and who would be crazy enough to respond to this.

Thank you Nicolle Slavador for this scoop.

By the way, bigmonolith has started a very interesting discussion on beauty and what makes guys attracted to girls. I haven’t given him my take on the issue, but I think it’s interesting. Take a look at the entry here.

Featured Website-Craigslist-Want to sell something? Well you’re gonna need to put the word out. Don’t have a lot of money to put an ad? Well, this is the place. It offers free classified ads for everything except jobs. Great resource for housing and personal ads (not that I ever read those).

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Not much happened this weekend, except me getting embrassed a few times. You’ve already read about the tour groups (check out this entry and that entry for more) and stupid things the frat had me do (the link). Here are some more.

Note: this is probably going to be one of those entries I add on to over and over. Post some comments or IM me things I should talk about.

Saturday (May 10)-I go down to the Den to spend some dining dollars. I decided to buy $25 dollars worth of soda and snacks and I forget my ID card leaving a line full of angry people. Anyways I run back with Eugene and then we gather up more water. I start just gathering up everything, put a water bottle in my bag, get set to go when I ask, “didn’t we get 2 bottles of water?” The lady sitting at the table says “That one’s mine.” Oops. So that wasn’t that embrassing.
Monday (May 12)– So I sit in physics lecture and I sort of stop paying attention. Professor Jacobson starts talking about sound waves traveling through a room and he goes “how do sound waves travel to the back of the room and reach that guy sleeping in the back?” I’m not 100% sure, but I think he was refering to me putting my hands in front my eyes and slouching in my chair. I was totally not asleep. I got everyone to look back and I think they were looking in my direction. So I basically get singled out in my physics class of a few hundred people looking at me “sleeping.” Did I happen to mention I had a bad hair day? A pretty bad one at that.
Saturday (May 17)-Jensen, Fred, and Sean were throwing things at each other. Soda bottles, couch cuchions, and even apple cores. And unfortunately, I was a casualty. As Fred tossed one apple core and I was on my way to the elevator, the core directly connects with my ear. Ouch that hurt.

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Note: I forgot to mention Steve’s Birthday until May 19. Opps.
Thursday (May 1)-Happy Birthday to Steve (The Panda). He turned 19. Took him to dinner at Gypsy’s with Kyle and had an interesting discussion on religion and traveling. Would say more, but I don’t want to go that far in depth.
Friday (May 2)– First happy birthday to my roommate Fred. He turned 19 today. You partied mighty hard last night, as we can see from that note Sean left on the door.
X-2 finally came out that day and I was so glad I was able to see it. I went with a huge group. Our roster was even bigger than the Xmen’s roster: me, Joey, Steve, Eugene, Christina, Kori, Kyle, Callie, Vicky, Shoshana, Nicolle, Kurt, Patrick, and Chihyon. That’s 14 people. Oh wow. And to think we would have had more if those people we invited from the fifth floor had come with us, instead of going to see Identity.
As the for the movie, it was worth every penny. Best superhero movie ever. Just about close to perfect. Just make sure you watch the first one before and go with someone who knows about Xmen.
And Vicki, stop talking about Iceman.
Saturday (May 3)– was of course Free Comic Book Day, a nationwide event where publishers hand out free comic books. The turnout was quite low as nobody seemed to know it was going on unless they were a true comics geek, like me. Because of that, they gave away every free comic they had. I managed to snag all of them except for one, but I didn’t really miss it. I even got an autographed copy of Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things by creator Ted Naifeh, who was there to sign it.
Of course, my heart still lies in the standard superhero fair. So I was so excited when they were giving Ultimate X-men #1, Robocop #1, and many others for free. I was also blown away that the Superman 10 cent adventure for free (okay so I only saved a dime, I still thought it was cool). And if your interested, Batman had his own 10 cent adventure in July of 2002. Read it for free at http://www.dccomics.com/features/bwmurd/ecomic/batmurder1.html.
I took Shoshana to that store, and she probably didn’t enjoy it half as much as I did. She said she had fun, but I just seem to get carried away when I go to a comic shop and ignore everything else but the comics.
Revelation-Wow I took a girl to the holy shrine of geekdom. What’s next, a Star Trek convention?
Sunday (May 4)– was the day I was putting the finishing touches on my history paper. Too bad it took me until 5:00 AM to finish it. That sucks. Too much slacking and too much blogging.
Monday (May 5) and Tuesday (May 6) – Classes. You know the usual.
Wednesday (May 7)-I took a long trip to Oakland Zoo by myself so I could do my bio project. Man that place isn’t half as nice as the LA Zoo. I mean it is so small and all the animals don’t move and the design of the place is so makeshift. It’s just fencing. I don’t know maybe it was more the long trip by myself that made it so boring for me. Still animals are always fun to see at any age. Loved the giraffes. Get back. People ask if I’m feeling ok. I don’t know, am I?
Thursday(May 8)-The worst days of the week. Did nothing but classes and stuff.
Friday (May 9)-Tried to take a nap at 10:30 AM, when Christina knocks on the door. She tells me and Eugene that a touring family read something very interesting on our door. They read that note that Sean had written us last week about Fred getting drunk. Oy. Is it just me do we have the worst luck with these tour groups? First, they come in and see our pig sty of a room (and the Playboy, more on that here) and then they read about college drinking. Those parents must be thinking about home schooling their kid more and more.
Revelation-I knew I shouldn’t have gotten down from my bed. I mean nobody asks for me at 10:00 AM; more like 10:00 PM when they need me to help them with their homework. If that sounded angry, it’s not; I like helping people. But I don’t know, I just noticed that a bit.
The Lakers played against the Spurs today and I got to see them win Game 3 after that loss in game 1 and that rout that was game 2. If they win Game 4 on Sunday (which I think they will), they’re back in this.

Featured Website-America 24/7– Got a digital camera? Need an excuse to take a picture of that cute guy/girl or just an excuse to use it? Try this. It’s a web project trying to collect as many digital photographs in one week into a photo album. Sounds like a great project to be a part of.

By the way, check out “You’ve got to be kidding me #1” for some just odd news links.

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