This is your life. Good to the last drop.

17 November 2007

6:01 PM

Well, it's been a few weeks since I've written anything about my life here in LA. I hope I can recount all of it...

I didn't do anything for Halloween, which disappointed me. I'd have gone out to do something, anything, if I didn't have an essay due the next day which I still had to write. Ugh. I hate teachers who give due dates like that. The weekend that followed was homecoming weekend, so everybody was busy. On Saturday, I walked around campus before the game. There was so much going on. Tents were set up everywhere for organizations to use. The ones in the quad were all taken up by fraternities and sororities. I've never seen so much beer pong played in one place, haha. I didn't feel comfortable trying to get in on a game with a random frat, but I did find a guy I knew from my Writing class, and he set me up with one of his friends to play a game with his frat. I played pretty well, considering I hadn't played in awhile. I actually kinda carried the team. I brought us into overtime on redemption, but then we lost by a cup. By then, it was time for the competition cheer squad to perform in front of one of the libraries, so I walked over to check it out. When I got there, they were just setting up, so I helped them lay out the mats. Their performance wasn't bad, but it wasn't amazing, either. Afterward, I helped them carry the mats back to the building they came from, which gave me time to talk to one of the girls about possibly trying out next year. I was told that if I could find more guys who were interested in it, then they'd have coed tryouts. I hope I can find more people.

When I got back to the tent of the frat I was playing beer pong with earlier, they were finishing up because they were running low on beer. It was a small frat, and they didn't have a house on the row or anything, so they were gonna take all of their supplies back to this guy Nate's apartment. Well, they didn't have enough people to carry everything, so I helped them carry stuff, too, kind of as a 'thank you' for letting me drink their beer, haha. The apartment was probably about a mile from mine. They left to go to the game afterward, so I went the other way back to my apartment to watch it on my TV because I didn't have a ticket. I found a few of the guys on Facebook, and on the following Tuesday, one of them invited me to go with them out to dinner. I was pretty excited about this, because it was a chance to get a little farther away from campus than I've been able to go without my own car. We met up on campus, piled into two cars, and drove north. We passed the Staples Center on the way, which I thought was cool, because I had never seen it before. We went to Roy's, a restaurant with Hawaiian fusion cuisine. Apparently, I met these guys at the right time, because on this particular occasion, it was one of the guys', Avi's, birthday, and even though his parents weren't with us, they were generous enough to pay for the entire meal. Long story short, I had an amazing filet mignon dinner with pork ribs and other delicious appetizers for free, and I met a group of guys who are hella cool. We went back to Avi and Matt's apartment after dinner for dessert, which was like, Oreo ice cream cake. Their apartment is pretty nice. They have an XBOX 360 and a Wii hooked up to a huge HDTV, and each guy has their own bedroom. It was Tuesday night, but that didn't stop anybody from drinking a little bit. I stayed sober, but a couple guys took drinks every time they died while playing Halo, haha.

Wednesday was when I found out about Victor, which I wrote about in my last entry. Thursday was uneventful, but Friday was kind of interesting. I went out to the quad again to tumble. I was doing what I normally do out there, but I this time my tumbling encouraged someone else to tumble. I looked over and saw this really cute girl do a roundoff followed by two back handsprings. I applauded her, and she smiled and waved back, so I decided to have a mini battle with her from across the quad. I did a roundoff with like, seven back handsprings or so, so she did the same thing. I didn't really count how much either of us did, but we both proved that we could do a series without struggle. Then I did roundoff, back handspring, back tuck, back handspring, back tuck, back handspring. I'm sure she could have beaten me if she had been practicing every week or two like I have been doing, but when she went, she only did roundoff, back handspring, back tuck. Regardless, I was impressed, so I went over to her and asked her name. Michelle. I asked her if she was a cheerleader, and she said she did it in high school in Texas. I told her that we should tumble together once in awhile, because she's the first person I've found who tumbles who's not on the squad at USC, and I've been looking for someone to tumble with since I've started out here. I didn't want to be a bother by talking too much, so I gave her my card (haha), told her to add me on Facebook, and went back to my own business. I would've looked her up on Facebook myself, but she added me before I got a chance, which I was pretty stoked about. It turns out she has a boyfriend, but it's her boyfriend from high school, who goes to UT. I'm not one to try to break people up, so I'm not gonna push anything on her, but if we hang out every once in awhile, I'll let her know that I'm interested in her, and that if she ever breaks up with her boy, I can always be her rebound ;-D

After talking to Michelle, I stopped tumbling for a bit and joined a couple of guys who were playing frisbee. We tossed around for a bit, but after awhile, one of the guys asked if he could try out my Powerizers. I told him it was fine by me, since I had all of my protective gear with me for him to use. He strapped up, strapped in, and that's where the comedy ensued, haha. He could barely keep his balance without one or two people near for him to hang on to. He fell a couple of times and then decided he'd had enough, and took them off. I put them on after him, and showed him that with a little practice, you get the hang of it, and explained to him that I was just as clumsy when I first started.

Matt texted me that Friday night to let me know that people were going to be drinking at his place later in the night, and that I was welcome. I took a shower, loaded my shoes and ping pong balls into my duffle bag and rollerbladed over to his place. The night started out nicely. I gave Matt $20 to cover beer for the next few times I drink with them. Beer pong was set up out on the balcony. We played 15-cup with two 16-oz. Colt 45's first, and my partner was Brett, the guy I played with in the quad over homecoming weekend. We got ahead at first because I made a bomb (same cup made by both players; counts as the cup made plus any adjacent cups, up to four additional cups), but then the other guys took the lead. We came back a little bit, but I think we lost by two or three cups in the end. Brett was trying to take things slow, but I was still game, so I played Matt heads up in 10-cup, two 12-oz. Coors Light. That game was really good. We went into overtime, and I only lost by one cup. While we played, we talked quite a bit. It was good to finally converse with someone. Usually, Charles and I don't talk that much. I still think it's because he's like, hardcore asian, and speaks Chinese the majority of the time. Anyway, I took a break for the next game, but then Matt and I were teammates against the guys from upstairs, who came down to challenge us. We played with the setup I first played when I started playing beer pong - six cups, one beer per person. I remember that they won the eye-to-eye shot to see who went first, but I wrote it off by saying "That's okay. It's the only shot you'll make all night." Of course, Matt and I dominated that game. We won by at least four cups. We played another game after that, which I think we lost, and after that, I was too wasted to care. I ended up puking in the trash can by the end of the night, and I crashed out on the couch.

I woke up in the morning to loud fucking music blasting through the stereo, which could be turned down not by remote, but by my getting up and turning down the iPod that it was connected to. That pissed me off, but at least I woke up early. Matt was asleep in his room, but he had left a cup of water out for me to drink when I woke up. Being the only one up, I cleaned up the apartment. I grouped all of the plastic cups together and put them in two even stacks on the beer pong table, emptied all the beer cans and started a pyramid with them in the corner of the balcony, and even got bored enough to evenly space the XBOX and Wii controllers on the table, along with the bottles of water that were still partially full. I discovered that I didn't quite manage to get everything in the trash can the night before, so I cleaned up my puke on the chair and carpet as much as I could, but I didn't want to use any towels that weren't meant for that kind of cleaning, so I resorted to using paper towels. I explained my cleaning methods in a note, left it on the chair, and then packed up and went back to my place, where I spent the majority of the day feeling like shit. I puked after I got home, too, which was not nice. The next week in class, Jonathan (the guy who introduced me to all of his frat buddies) told me that my note was framed because, haha. I haven't been over to Matt's place yet, so I don't know if he's bullshitting me or not.

The past week, all I've been doing is schoolwork. There was so much due this week. That's why I couldn't write in this blog. The midterm for POSC which I didn't think I did that bad on... I got a C- on, 73.75%. The last Writing assignment, though, Assignment #3, got a B, which I got pretty excited about. My second midterm in Calculus got a 60%, which was still above the average of 53.76%, but was much worse than the 83% I got on the first midterm.

I go home this week. I'm pretty excited about that =D
Chris reminded me about www.megabus.com, where I bought my bus tickets back for Thanksgiving weekend for only $60. On a non-holiday weekend, I can actually get bus tickets home for only $30, and in the middle of the week, I can actually got home for only $16. I doubt I'll ever go home in the middle of the week, but that's still really cool. I'm gonna try to take my Powerizers home with me to show everybody. That should be fun.

They finally replaced my broken refrigerator yesterday, which started malfunctioning two weeks after I got here. I'm really glad that they finally did. Now I can have cereal for breakfast every morning, like I used to.

That's it.
Bye.
Vaniah Juniper Schwenoha

You never expect it to happen to you

7 November 2007

11:07 PM

I suppose that can be said of anything.
You never expect to get in a car accident.
You never expect to fall in love with someone.
...You never expect to wake up and be told that your brother was seriously injured.

My sister, Angela, called at about 10:00 this morning, which woke me up. I was pretty drowsy, so I accidentally hung up on her while fumbling with my phone. She texted me, I explained what happened, and she called back. I wasn't really sure why she was calling, so I thought it odd for her to be calling me so early, when normally she'd call in the afternoon to talk or she'd just text me. Obviously, family matters are too urgent to send in text messages. Here's how the story goes...

My brother Victor flew in to Vegas on Tuesday because his friend Walter's dad had recently passed away, and Victor wanted to pay his respects. He was only supposed to be in town for a day, and fly back on Wednesday (today) because he had a meeting or something important to attend. Well, I guess he went out last night, to Walter's house. The way Victor told it, according to my dad, was that Walter's dog, a basset hound, hadn't seen Victor in a long time, so it was uncomfortable around him, and growled at him all night. Victor was just petting the dog, and all of a sudden, it freaked out and bit Victor's face. I would never expect a basset hound to really be capable or likely to cause that much damage, since it's not a particularly tall or aggressive breed. Apparently, though, the dog's bite went through Victor's cheek, and sent him to the hospital, where he received numerous stitches. Angela said he got 23, but my dad said it took 29 to patch him up. Either way, the wound is obviously large. My dad emailed a picture of it to me. If you want to see it, IM, email, or message me on MySpace or Facebook. I'd rather not just post it in here for anybody in the world to see.

Victor's still pretty woozy right now, from what I hear. If not from the sedative they gave him while he was at the hospital, then from the pain killers he was prescribed along with his antibiotics. My dad says his lips are so swollen around the wound that he can't close his mouth, and thus can't even suck anything through a straw. Chewing's out of question as well, so until the swelling goes down, he's going to have to get his nutition from some liquid superfoods that my sister bought for him. He has to stay in Vegas until at least next week, which must have a large impact on his studies and plans back in Fremont.

Angela said my mom's been really brash about the whole situation. She thinks the dog should be put down. I'm not sure how anybody's going to go about that situation. She also thinks Victor's going to need plastic surgery to make his face look the way it used to. My dad called about plastic surgery, but they said they typically wouldn't look at what needed to be done until after the wounds subsided. Angela says that the doctors who stitched him up would have suggested plastic surgery if they thought it necessary.

Angela's pretty rational when it comes to just about any situation. She's capable of looking at the big picture before deciding on a plan of action, as opposed to always acting on first instinct. I really wish I were more like that. She's the one who suggested to me that filing a claim with the insurance company for my stolen computer probably wouldn't be of any use because the cost of the parts wouldn't reach the deductible rate. She's also very educated, which helps in situations like the current one. She went out and bought the superfoods, some mineral water that's better for Victor's healing, and I think some ointments or treatments that will reduce the visibility of the scar. I should start reading into things like that - thing with practical uses - in preparation for unexpected things like this.

Thinking about it, my siblings have been through some painful experiences in their lives. I think my oldest brother Richard was the one who broke his collarbone when he got run over by a motorcycle (I think the story I've heard actually somehow places my other brother David on that motorcycle =x). My brother David crashed his motorcycle when he hit a pothole. That was when I was young, and I remember I would piggyback on him while he would do leaning push-ups against the wall with one arm while his broken arm was recovering. Angela was in a hit-and-run accident when I was very little that put her in the hospital, and she also got pretty banged up when she was riding on the back of a motorcycle with a guy and they ended up crashing. And now Victor's been in this incident, which could result in a significant change in appearance that can't be concealed as easily as the asphalt in my sister's knee. Though, thinking more, I realize my siblings are all very lucky in that things could have turned out worse. Victor could have lost an eye from that bite; Angela and David could have had the same fate as CJ. They are alright, though. They are still capable of using both arms and legs, of moving all fingers and toes. Through it all, my family members have been quite lucky in regard to their injuries.

Well, I wanted to write about some other stuff, but it doesn't really fit the mood of this entry, so I'll save it for a later date. It's better that I got this important stuff down first. I actually wrote a lot more than I initially thought I was going to.

Until next time.
Be safe out there.
Vaniah Juniper Schwenoha

WRIT 140 Assignment #3

Vaniah Schwenoha
Stephan Clark
WRIT 140/POSC 130
Fall 2007/Section 64180
1 November 2007
Assignment 3

The Internet Can’t Make It Uphill In Neutral

Holden McNeil, when attempting to explain the concept of the Internet to his oblivious friends in the adventure/comedy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, states, “The Internet has given everybody in America a voice.” If only the Internet were as simple as Holden summarized it, there wouldn’t be controversial debate concerning the methods in which people should be able to make their voices heard. In truth, the companies that control the usage of the physical resources required to transfer information over the Internet – the broadband providers – are responsible for the distribution of information from those who host web sites – the content providers. Broadband providers control bandwidth – the speed at which information reaches those who access it – in two different ways, both typically based on price. First, they charge different rates for different bandwidths to those accessing the information, which is generally seen as fair because each person is granted equal opportunity to decide which bandwidth to use. Second, broadband providers charge different rates for different bandwidths to content providers, thus deciding how fast information gets out to those who access it. Because, in the latter of the two methods, end-users aren’t given a choice of bandwidth for the information they’re trying to access, there exists the debate on equality of voice. Advocates of what has been fittingly named “network neutrality” desire for everybody’s voice on the Internet to carry equal weight, and want to implement laws that would ensure such equality by requiring broadband providers not to allot higher bandwidths to wealthy content providers simply because they can pay more for it. By establishing uniform rates for all content providers, broadband providers would thus remain neutral in information distribution, and would give end-users the freedom to choose which Internet applications and sites to use, as opposed to choosing preferred applications or sites because they load faster.

The concept of net neutrality seems at first glance to be as straightforward as First Amendment rights to free speech, but in fact, the issue is extremely complex, and requires one to consider many aspects of broadband Internet usage. For example, opposition to net neutrality comes from those who claim that equal bandwidth for all would be economically unnecessary for many content providers and would diminish the overall efficiency of the Internet because of the limited resources available to handle bandwidth distribution. Politically, these proponents of a tiered bandwidth system are in favor of more lenient regulations, while advocates of net neutrality are on the offensive, pushing for broadband providers to have less discretion in the distribution of their bandwidth. Ideally, net neutrality would benefit all users only if the resources available could supply the demand for bandwidth and if those resources were reasonably affordable to be used by all content providers. Until those criteria are met, however, employing a tiered system of bandwidth usage to the Internet serves as the most efficient method of distributing information.

Having a broadband Internet connection simply means having a high-speed Internet connection. Technological advancements yielded the broadband movement, which enabled information to travel across the same copper-based phone network at higher bandwidths. However, the Internet is expanding continuously, and in most areas, technology isn’t. Consequently, the same bandwidth must accommodate greater amounts of information. This dilemma makes net neutrality difficult to accomplish. If it were implemented, bandwidth would be distributed evenly among all available content. Opponents of net neutrality argue that many of applications on the Internet, such as text-based content and still-image websites, don’t need the level of bandwidth they would receive by taking away from the more complex applications, such as streaming video and real-time gaming environments. Taking bandwidth from applications that need it would result in a diminished “quality of service” guarantee between broadband providers to content providers (Singer 36).

The next flaw in net neutrality concerns the economic injustices of sharing bandwidth. In the tiered Internet system, broadband providers can establish contracts with content providers such as game companies to ensure that an enhanced quality of service is upheld, and that applications intended to run in real-time can remain usable (Singer 36). Net neutrality calls for broadband providers to “Enable any content, application, or service” to be offered in a nondiscriminatory way, “including with respect to quality of service, access, speed, and bandwidth,” which would result in voidance of such contracts and decrease profits for broadband providers (United 2). Further, net neutrality would prohibit broadband providers from implementing different rates in the first place, since no content provider would receive higher bandwidth priority than any other. To put it simply, net neutrality would require a broadband provider to charge the same fee to a large content provider such as Google or Amazon as it charges to small content providers, such as a local retail business. As a result, one of two consequences could occur. Either, charges for smaller content providers would skyrocket to compensate for the money lost through lowering charges for large content providers, or all bandwidth charges would disappear entirely to accommodate a non-discriminatory Internet environment. In the first case, the small content providers would pay extra money for bandwidth they don’t need while large content providers would receive lower bandwidth than demanded for their applications. Content providers then would “cause content providers to reduce their investment in new [quality-of-service]-needy content,” which would lead to a large technological step backward by getting rid of many real-time and high-definition applications (Singer 40). In the second case, broadband providers would suffer economically, which seems harmful to only them until the resource factor is considered. The broadband providers are the ones working to expand bandwidth capabilities within their networks, and will fail to advance in doing so if their economic resources are cut short. By keeping a tiered system of bandwidth distribution now, broadband providers can keep economic burden off the small content providers and still acquire the funds needed to support projects to expand network capabilities, such as building Verizon’s fiber optic network, which “is… capable of offering bandwidth pipes much fatter than DSL and potentially cable (Weiss 22).” Then, after new lines have been laid down that can support high-speed data transfer for all, net neutrality principles can work efficiently.

Most of the net neutrality debate centers around businesses, but in the end, the end-users are the ones who may be affected most. Under net neutrality, broadband providers would have to minimize services because of resource restrictions, which would result in a deteriorated Internet experience for end-users, who often desire content of the highest quality, such as high-definition video and cutting-edge applications, such as real-time interaction. Economically, net neutrality could place burdens on individuals as well. Consider the two alternative consequences of net neutrality mentioned above. If the first case were to occur, small content providers might need to charge more to those who access their information in order to compensate for their raised costs of service. By retaining a tiered system of bandwidth distribution, only end-users who use the most bandwidth-intensive applications, such as real-time video games, would need to pay premium rates, while those who only access information from “content providers who do not require higher [quality of service], which is the majority of sites out there right now” would only need to pay for their initial service, the price of which being determined by the end-user’s choice of bandwidth (Singer 40). If the second case were to occur, end-users might expect not only a deteriorated Internet experience because of bandwidth restrictions, but possibly also raised costs in initial service, instead of costs set forth by content providers. Broadband providers would lose revenue from contract holders under net neutrality, and might decide to make up for the losses by raising bandwidth charges for consumers. Though, the consumer market wouldn’t stand for costs as high as the $140 proposed by Richard Clarke for Internet service, much less the $466 proposed for Internet and HDTV service (Singer 39). Therefore, prices would go up and disturb end-users, but the increase wouldn’t nearly make up for the money lost through voided contracts from content providers with quality-of-service-needy content, and the hope of laying down lines with fatter bandwidth pipes in the near future would simply turn into another pipe dream. The only way to work toward a more capable network would be to keep a tiered system and keep profits flowing in.

Network neutrality looks like a great idea on paper, but so too do many other systems which do not succeed in practice. With the somewhat chaotic expansion of size and amount of content on the Internet within only a couple of decades, the concept of regulating such a massive collection of services and applications is difficult to go about doing. It seems that, until technological capacity surpasses content capacity, net neutrality will not yield positive results for any particular player in the Internet game, from broadband provider to end-user. Still, there may be hope in the future for net neutrality. Until technology advances further, however, the voices Holden McNeil claimed everyone has will have to range from yell to whisper.