J's Blog!

Having felt horrid all day, I was compelled to write an educational post on my firsthand experience with combining alcohol with energy drinks. This was a first for me, and it is also my last, as I vow never to touch another energy drink again. Before going into my story, I wanted to share my typical experience with alcohol. I characterize myself as a social drinker who practices moderation, never drinks and drives, usually volunteers to be the designated driver (as I don't need to drink to have fun), and rarely has a bad experience with alcohol. After imbibing, I get sleepy, but I am usually functional again after a nap. With caffeinated beverages, I don't know if my experience is typical. Because these drinks speed up my heart rate, I end up feeling anxious, shaky, and unable to concentrate. I've used energy drinks whilst trying to study, but I end up with an energy-sucking sugar crash that leads into a nap. Yesterday started most jolly, as I cavorted around a well-k...

I've wanted to create an e-commerce site for awhile, but when I first started out, I couldn't fathom the difficulty of programming a website (even if made from a template). Thus, here is a running journal of my progress. Ahem...the journey of a programmer who doesn't really program: December 2011:  Began working on osCommerce (newest build), but it was so buggy that I couldn't even get into the installation portion. I downloaded an older version and figured out how to fix the installation part, but there were admin panel errors that wouldn't go away. Frustrated, I trashed the entire project and vowed to begin anew in 2012. January 2012: Started to research other open source e-commerce sites in mid-January. I was mostly impressed with the amount of features within Prestashop, so I tried to download that. The program had over 5,000 files and took forever to unzip! Also, the store did not install properly. I tried an autoinstaller on my web server, but there were...

April and May abounded with amazing adventures. Vienna (Early April) Sauntered around with my new buddy Walked 75% of the Opera House perimeter Explored the outside of the Schönbrunn Palace I _ _ _ (Yes! I did go there! Early April) Fingerprinted at the airport (most nerve-wracking moment, actually) Visited ancient epic cities and tombs Inhaled scrumptious kabobs and dishes Surprised myself with the strange deliciousness that is their ice cream Wandered around the city with the guys Spoke to random soldier and asked him for a picture, then was rejected Asked for a picture by a random guy, who posed quite sexily Approached by a random youth gal who ended up rowing boats with us around the lake Learned about the history of tribal-styled rugs Feasted on a home-cooked meal with new friends Fell in love with a moment Orlando (Third Weekend of May) Thursday: Thai food, Wonderworks Hands-on Museum, Medieval Times, Downtown Disney Friday: Kennedy Space Center (facilit...

I haven't updated lately because I've been so busy living life! Here's what I've been up to for the past 10 months: Worked at three jobs in different fields. For the majority of 2011, I planned programs for Chinese business people, but I also took on positions that reflected my passions - graphic design/media and marketing. I am currently working at an online start-up and I've learned a lot about blogging, link-building, and SEO! My friend and I started up a YouTube channel in March 2011. Our angle? Offering our unique viewpoints and commentary whilst vlogging at events and retail locations. We actually made several genres of video - stop animation, parodies, and...others that are more difficult to categorize. Well, what a ride it's been! I've gotten to know some awesome YouTubers/filmmakers/artists, as this is a tight-knit community. It's such an inspiration to be surrounded by so many talented individuals. Some traveling was had, as I journeyed to t...

1) I began this dream in an urban neighborhood. I walked between two buildings with a roof connecting them. There were random box-shaped steps at the end of one hallway. When I attempted to climb up the steps, I would turn around and there would be even more steps to climb. There was a break in the dream, but I finally walked out of the hallway onto a green patch of grass. I saw a tall building or steel tower (also boxy in shape). I looked up, and four men in orange hats attempted to coordinate some last-minute building infrastructure processes. However, at an inopportune moment, I looked up and saw a slab of concrete fall down. Luckily, it did not hit any of the construction workers. I was standing about a quarter mile away from the building, but in an instant, I saw a whole floor topple off of the building and yelled to the workers. Somehow, the entire building fell apart, but the workers neither reacted normally nor ran away. I turned away before I saw any more building pieces hitti...

At the risk of disseminating too much information...I had the worst monthly pain in my history. Let's skip over the womanly details and go straight to the strange, hurty stuff: I had the the worst headache last week. It was the weirdest sensation I have ever experienced, outside of almost-fainting. I had been working, mostly walking around and looking at a piece of white paper with writing. After a bit of walking, I saw some squiggly wavy lines at the corner of my right eye. These wavy lines resembled the heat mirages that you might see when driving down a road in sunny California. I was a bit confused about why I was seeing things, when I started to notice that I couldn't read my paper. The numbers and letters were whited-out by some neurological light. It was most curious. Ten minutes later, I was begging to lay down. I had a migraine with sharp, indescribable pain that prevented me from doing further work. I began to feel nauseous, a harbinger of wahness. About twenty minu...

The last time I blogged on this account was about a month before I left for China. In the months between March and December, I have: Completed 10 Toastmasters speeches and achieved the Competent Communicator Award, Worked at Expo 2010 Shanghai as Student Ambassador; three months afterward, I was promoted to Finance Associate, Traveled throughout China, visiting cities new to me - Xiamen, Qingdao, Tibet, and Tianjin - as well as some old favorites, Arrived home to experience the monotony of funemployment and some side adventures, And spent more money this holiday than during any other. I'm such a consumer @_@. In blog posts thereafter, I hope to detail some of my adventures in Shanghai/at the Expo/after the Expo. Even if I can't verbally express the fun I had, I will no doubt be able to spam my blog with 80+ gb worth of photos. >:D