ADD as a Disability

I was suck in an apartment all weekend with my boyfriend, who ran out of Ritilan, the week before the week before finals week. This week multiple projects and papers are due.

It really is a disability. He can't work or focus on anything for more than five minutes. Television becomes a default. He takes him several minutes to realize he wasted the last few minutes. Typing is almost impossible. He usually has to read the same sentence over several times just to get it. It is impossible to get any school work done, especially under a deadline. Not to mention it's easy to forget to take your medication, and easier to forget to call the doctor to renew your prescription every month. Because of abuses of ADD medication, the government regulates the drug so one has to get a new prescription from the doctor every month and fill it and the pharmacy takes more than an hour.

There are points that I feel like I'm with a child. I actually got an extension on a paper, by a little too understanding professor and I feel terrible about it. I only hope I can make it up to him by doing well in his class next semester. It was not that it was impossible to finish the paper over the weekend. It was impossible to finish the paper and study for a math test, while trying to keep someone else on track.

Now the situation's worse. He called his doctor at 8am this morning and had not received it by the time the office closed at 8pm. He called five times to get a secretary that was unsympathetic that it was almost finals and he had a debilitating condition. His only hope is to call tomorrow morning and request his doctor personally. It's just terrible that with yesterday and today it has been two full days and if he does not get it soon it will take another two weeks for the medication to filter into his system and function properly. I hate the health care system in this country. I hate it so much.

Sunny Days

The weather outside is absolutely gorgeous. And yet I'm stuck inside because of the end of semester homework hurdle.

Fujitsu Lifebook Tablet T4215

I purchased a new laptop from New Egg. It's a Fujitsu Lifebook Tablet.

I understand the Tablet functions use more operations, just like the built in mouse uses more operations in a laptop than a desktop, and uses up more memory because of that. Even still, I have wanted a tablet for over a year. My three-year old Toshiba died and a tablet computer was the only thing I wanted for my birthday. It is the best time in the year to buy a computer (for your money), in the spring (new products launch in fall for the school crowd and prices stay high till after Christmas). And New Egg was selling their Fujitsu below the recommended price.

I will probably publish a detailed review later. I have already found a few nuances with the device.


It looks pretty cool.

I don't understand why more people don't get Tablets. At the moment it really is a niche market, mainly for sleek CEOs, inventory workers, and the occasional college student. Fujitsu is on the more expensive end; a year ago when I was looking at all this I figured I would just have to go with a Toshiba or HP. The HP actually has a very media-strong Tablet, with the personal consumer market, as opposed to the corporate market like most tablets. Even still I went with a businessman's machine, although I did get the one with the DVD burner.

One of the most difficult things I'm finding now is just getting a carrying case for it.

Karma

It always motivates me to see karma work.

A friend of mine has a student position at the university. His manager had been making his job miserable for the last year to try to force him to quit because there is so much paperwork involved in firing someone in the public sector. He did mess up eventually and was told he was going to get fired (or not rehired) at the end of the semester. The boss had to choose between him and his manager, and since his manager was civil service, the student employee suffers. He was transfered to a different manager for the rest of the semester, and decided to work harder to spite his old boss. Since he did so well under another manager, the boss has evidence to mount against the old manager.

Today my friend was told that he was doing so well (and since people who knew him in other parts of the university wrote letters of complaint over his "firing") that he was offered a new position next year in a different part of the department.

Karma. The only defense a student employee has against the rigid system of civil service employment in the public sector. Thank goodness it works.

Standing at the Foot of the Ivory Tower

I was so upset over being rejected for my research grant last fall I had almost completely forgot about another opportunity for research.

In the spring semester they hire undergraduate assistants to help LAS faculty with their research projects. Last year I was too young to participate and there were no projects that interested me. I had completely forgotten about this research opportunity till I saw it advertised in the paper last week. Granted it would not be my own work, but the methodology I would learn would be very helpful, and the glowly recomendation I could get from it would be worth it. I could get into any grad school I wanted, and (more importantly) a step closer to that dream law school I'm after.

It's a project based in the Middle Ages (which I find interesting but have little coursework in) and it's on women (I normally bash anything similar to Women's Studies). It would be very helpful if I knew Latin, which of course I don't. I've had four years of German in high school and have been to the country, but that was several years ago. If I could read the language, specifically hard academic journals I would pretty much have an in (the professor hinted at when I went to talk with her). But even if I brushed up on my language skills I know I would hate to sift through academic journals in another language. Alas, that might be the sacrafice to win the good graces of an ruler attop that Ivory Tower of Higher Academia.

Standing at the Foot of the Ivory Tower

I was so upset over being rejected for my research grant last fall I had almost completely forgot about another opportunity for research.

In the spring semester they hire undergraduate assistants to help LAS faculty with their research projects. Last year I was too young to participate and there were no projects that interested me. I had completely forgotten about this research opportunity till I saw it advertised in the paper last week. Granted it would not be my own work, but the methodology I would learn would be very helpful, and the glowly recomendation I could get from it would be worth it. I could get into any grad school I wanted, and (more importantly) a step closer to that dream law school I'm after.

It's a project based in the Middle Ages (which I find interesting but have little coursework in) and it's on women (I normally bash Women's Studies). It would be very helpful if I knew Latin, which of course I don't. I've had four years of Germany in high school and have been to the country, but that was several years ago. If I could read the language