Picture of the Day
I’m Up So High
Since the beginning of the year, I’ve had problems with Advanced Placement transfer credits showing up correctly in my degree audit report. I had seven separate AP scores for tests that I took during high school, but I only got credit for one of them. I tried emailing and calling people asking them to solve the problem, but that didn’t work. I decided to go find out the solution to this problem myself.
First I went to the walk-in advising office for the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I talked with an adviser for several minutes, and she concluded that there was nothing she could do about this problem. She suggested that I go to the registrar’s office.
Apparently, they had to put the registrar’s office on the eleventh floor. I got on the elevator, and after pausing at the 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 10th floors, I finally made it to the 11th floor. I looked out the office windows and realized that this was the highest point I’ve been at in Madison, so I decided to snap a picture.
Unfortunately, the people at the registrar’s office also didn’t know how to solve my problem, and they suggested that I go to the place that actually receives the AP score report directly from College Board, the admissions department.
At this point it felt like I was calling a customer service line for a too-large-for-its-own-good company, and was being forwarded over and over again from department to department. The only problem was that instead of going from line to line like in a phone call, I had to walk from building to building.
I finally made it to the building that was home of the admissions department. Of course, admissions had to be on the upper-most floor, so I got on the elevator. When I looked at the buttons, I realized that admissions wasn’t exactly on the third floor – it was just labeled that way. Apparently there are multiple subfloors between the first and second floors and the second and third floors, making the third floor more or less the sixth or seventh floor.
After finally reaching the admissions desk, I had a small chat explaining my problem, and they told me to fill out a yellow message form that would be delivered to someone that could solve my problem. This sort of defeated the purpose of my elongated trip because I planned on solving the problem in person, but I was rapidly running out of options so I explained my problem for the fifth time, this time in words on paper.
Believe it or not, it worked – the following morning at 6:05 AM, someone re-evaluated my Advanced Placement scores and I got all my credits.
Two hours later, a staff adviser I had emailed two or three days prior to my quest responded to my email saying, “I just checked your account and it appears to be that everything is entered properly, what exactly is the problem you are having?”
(Photo taken using an Apple iPhone)
The Daily Shoot Assignment of the Day
#DS360
Gauges, meters, and turn signals are all indicators. Make a photograph of an indicator that catches your attention today.
Yes, that is a slice of my face in the top-left corner.
The Daily Shoot Assignment of the Day
#DS415
Make a photograph today with a diagonal line leading the viewer’s eye through the composition.
Box or Corner?
The Daily Post at WordPress.com
Topic #5: Do you prefer to talk, text message, or a different communication method?
I dislike talking on my cell phone, and I don’t even have a text messaging plan, so I definitely prefer a different communication method.
Talking and texting can interpreted differently now, however – I am fine with talking online via voice or video chat, and I am also fine with text messaging from my computer. This is generally because I have to give consent to initiate a voice or video chat, and I don’t necessarily have to respond to text messages until I want to, so it ensures that nobody is interrupting something I’m doing as is the situation when I receive a phone call.
My most preferred way of communication is actually email, because it’s less disturbing to what I’m doing at any given moment. It is also easier to keep track of what I have completed and what I still have to do, thanks to GMail’s feature-full interface. Many people are hesitant to send emails about important topics because they feel the general population does not place as much importance to their emails than phone calls, but I am the other way around and make sure all my emails are tended to promptly.
First Snowfall, Winter 2010-11
This is actually the second day of snow, but the first day (which was yesterday) had so little snow build-up that it was difficult to get a reasonable picture.
(via Flickr @ 
(+49) 694-0059
I just got a phone call from a number with an area code that started with a plus sign.
I did not know that was possible.
(via Flickr @ 
