Nerdfest 2010: The battle of Rachel vs. Wireless Internet Charges

Earlier this week, I attended the AccessData Techno Security conference in Myrtle Beach, SC. I'd like to take this moment to subtitle this event "Nerds on the Beach."

Unfortunately, my father was attending the conference and I was not, and therefore I did not get to hear the one speaker who analysed all 2500 computers from this little trial you may know of called the Bernie Maydoff trial. In fourteen days. And within two days, he had enough evidence to convict. I did, however, get to see R2D2, my personal counterpart.



On this trip, I also discovered that, despite staying at a resort, wireless internet is not free. My first thought was "well, I'll use another network that isn't the hotel's." Brilliant idea? Nope. My second thought was "GOGO GADGET: iPHONE!" I was going to tether. I was going to iPwn the shit out of paying for internet (pardon the pun).

The Challenge: Tether iPhone to MacBook WITHOUT jailbreaking.

It took two days and almost three hours of trial and error, and I ended up with...error. My first method of action was to update the carrier settings on my phone from my laptop, which would allow tethering. I went around the beach with a flash drive in my pocket, aiming to gather the carrier files at the business centre. In a brilliant fail of thriftiness, the hotel charged for business centre access as well as wireless. After eventually commandeering the files from a Starbucks, I tried to update my phone.

Thanks, Apple, for updating iTunes and OS 3.0.1 so that I can't get those files onto my phone.

So then I tried installing two profiles that would supposedly allow internet tethering. I'll spare you the details, but after about three hours I went to bed with a low battery and a high level of frustration.

The next day, my father came back to the room from his lectures. The last one had been Computer Forensics On A Mac. In the Q&A session at the end, one patron asked about internet tethering.

Turns out it's AT&T's fault. No tethering of the iPhone currently works.

So OTHER than checking to see if something will work BEFORE delving into problem-solving, I maintain one statement as an absolute moral opinion:

I refuse to pay for wireless internet at a place where I am paying for a good or service. I will use my phone. I will proxy around it (also unsuccessful, by the way). I will tether (if that ever gets back to working). Who's with me?

Stand strong for what you believe, folks.

Things I Learned This Week

So I've decided to do a semi-weekly recap of what I've learned, since I'm stubborn and have to learn everything the hard way. Also, I'm a compulsive list-maker. This seems to be the perfect match.

1. In Java, it takes one hell of a lot of code just for the compiler to output "Hello, World!"
2. If a recipe ever says "fill the muffin cups all the way up," IT IS LYING. Your muffins will look like Vesuvius. This isn't a problem, but it makes your baking experiment that much more combustible.
3. There is a BIG difference between "target heart rate" and "maximum heart rate." Don't mistake these, or the crossramp trainer will try to kill you.
4. Plastic bag anywhere near frying pan = very, very bad idea.
5. I cannot leave Barnes and Noble with only one book, no matter how hard I try.

Alright. That's it. For more life lessons...tune in? Eh. This will not be a list blog. Real post shall be coming soon.

Things I Learned Freshman Year of College

Freshman year of college is over, and I honestly think I've learned more in these nine months than I have in the entire 19 years I've spent on this (at the moment, freakishly hot) planet. Here are the lessons I've learned about love, life, and music:

1. I didn't know how to play the oboe
2. There is a difference between 17 degrees and -2. It does not all fall under one category of "really effing cold." -2 requires more modifiers.
3. After a while, your friend group starts to act like a family.
4. You can't be everyone's mother.
5. Converse are not suitable winter attire.
6. There is a such thing as a "fall jacket," and it's heavier than you'd think.
7. Case humidifiers are not just a good thing; they're a way of life.
8. When you find true friends, you know it automatically.
9. Listen to all nine of Beethoven's symphonies all the way through at least once before you die.
10. Breathe.
11. Practicing to the exclusion of bodily needs (going to the bathroom, eating, etc.) is not a good thing, though is sometimes unintentional.
12. Go outside. Take a break. Do something else. Clear your head.
13. The people who piss you off gain power over you only if you let them.
14. Being obscenely nice to these people is almost the only way to deal with them.
15. That being said, don't take shit if you're being given it.
16. Sometimes your oboe teacher will mother you. She usually has good advice.
17. Sleep is a luxury. Get it when you can.
18. All-nighters writing code are a really, really bad idea.
19. More than three consecutive hours of writing code at a time will make you batshit insane.
20. Same goes for practicing.
21. If it's getting worse and you're getting frustrated, leave the practice room.
22. There are non music majors at college, but you never see them.
23. This might be because you never leave the music school.
24. Take an outside course every semester. This will make you leave the music school at least once a day, which is good for your sanity.
25. It's okay to take a day off.
26. How you're feeling affects the people around you. Be kind to them.
27. Eventually, you will expect your roommate to show up in your baby pictures.
28. Anything that involves drinking an entire pot of coffee is a bad idea.
29. Joining a professional fraternity will teach you how to professionally stalk people.
30. There's no shortage of two things: bad music jokes and ways the internet can further corrupt your mind.
31. There is a world outside of the music school. It does not understand the extent of a music major. This does not mean they are lesser humans.
32. Not everyone understands concert etiquette.
33. The freshman fifteen is real, unless of course you live half a mile uphill from the music building.
34. People change. They're not going to stay the same as they were in high school.
35. You'll change too.
36. Don't be too proud to ask for help, from students, professors, even a counselor if you need one.
37. There are a hundred people like you at college. Befriend them. But keep your individual identity.
38. Cake batter does, in fact, burn if you spill large amounts of it in the bottom of an oven. This could lead to your dorm catching on fire. Panicking does not help this at all.
39. Exercise, while taking time out of your day, will make you feel better and less stressed.
40. Dorms are loud, no matter what.
41. The nightly running of the sluts happens, even on weeknights.
42. Make as many Hitchhiker's Guide references as you can.
43. Relationships are good, but don't stress out over making one happen. It'll come.
44. That being said, you do, in fact, have to say something if you want it to happen.
45. Three words: challah french toast.
46. After spending all day analysing music, it's okay to listen to mindless pop. In fact, you'll probably appreciate it more.
47. Being pretentious doesn't make you seem smart; it makes you seem like an asshole.
48. Give friends the help you can, but you can't make them accept it.
49. Go on walks.
50. When debugging code, a) Firefox has a debug console, and b) it's usually something obvious.
51. Snow fights will hurt the next day, but are violently fun. They often conclude in sodden pants.
52. Apparently, 18 inches of snow is not grounds for not having class the next day :P
53. Ice is slippery, and it is not to be messed with.
54. Insomnia Cookies takes FOREVER.
55. It takes an hour by bus to go where you could get in 20 minutes by car.
56. You often have the most fun when wandering around without a plan.
57. Remember your ID.
58. Just because you have a reed today doesn't mean it'll work tomorrow.
59. Even if you're just over five feet tall, you can still hit your head on the beam of your lofted bed.
60. Seriously, take out the trash. And vacuum.
61. Live. Make mistakes. It's only these four years when you can use the excuse "I was dumb. I was in college." That being said, don't drive drunk or have unprotected sex.
62. If you don't like what you're doing, you're in the wrong field. Remember every day why you love music.

Alright. That's about it for tonight. I think I'm going to make a weekly list of my mishaps and lessons learned the hard way. Any thoughts?

Family Trees

Sometimes I wonder about my lineage. Not really where I came from as far as parents and relatives go, since I'm adopted and that's kind of difficult to figure out, but my oboe family tree. Both of my teachers are really, really fantastic--and they've been taught by some pretty phenomenal teachers to make them the players and teachers that they are today.

I was talking about this with my friends Stephen (who writes a really excellent woodwind blog), and we realised that though we've never studied under the same teacher, parts of our oboe family trees overlap. We thought this was pretty cool. Below, I have mapped out my family trees and connections. Enjoy!

My Family Tree--the oboe version

Me > Adrian Gnam > Marcel Tabuteau (the year before he died) and John Mack
Me > Paige Morgan > Richard Killmer

Oddly enough, when I visited Eastman and met Killmer, he told me to "tell Adrian I said hi!"

Funny, how the music world is large and small simultaneously.

For musicians: that brief moment when you think "why the HELL do I do this?!?"

My roommate and I were having a conversation a few days before the end of exams. We were both stressed out, worn down, exhausted, overworked, and any other adjective that goes along with being a music major during finals. Such times of stress get you to thinking: Why do I do this to myself? Is all of this work even worth it? And if I succeed, what am I getting myself into?

I sat there for a few seconds, curled in a fleece blanket in my desk chair, just thinking. Why DO I do this? Wouldn't a career in something else be more stable? Wouldn't I go to bed knowing all that work would be worth something?

These thoughts lasted less than three seconds.

I believe that any good musician plays music because they have to, because it's in them and it's so ingrained that they can't do anything else. A real musician strives to put himself/herself into the music in every breath they take. A real musician does this because it's who they are. They are, to use a slight cliche', one with the music.

We all got into music for some reason or another, and those of us who stayed probably didn't get into it for the sole reason of "my mother forced me to take piano" or "it was something to do in high school, so I joined band." Those of use who have chosen to do this with our lives do it because music is our way of communicating, of expressing what we feel without words. We take the music someone else has written, use their intent as a guideline, and make the music our own. My hope is that the listener hears both my intent and the composer's and makes the music personal. That's why I do what I do. That's what makes all of these hours that I could have been spending socialising or...whatever non-music majors do with their time (seriously, I honestly don't know right now) worth it. It makes my complete lack of job security okay, because the music is in me and I have to do it.

Now...there are certain personality types that are drawn into being musicians. I'd say that generally we are the misunderstood, artsy, half-crazy ones that are drawn in to spending hours of our lives in a five by five room trying to nail down that passage in La Scala di Seta. I think most of us probably turned to music because it was our way of being understood. The world around us was unrelenting and we found solace, found happiness in music. I think a lot of us who love to perform do it because it's the only way we knew that we could stand out and become known.

I speak for myself mostly, but I'm taking a stab at the general music community. We, as musicians, are needy people. We're artists. We need people to appreciate the beauty in life and the beauty we create. To a degree, we need their approval. We feed off of it. We feed off of pressure and unhappiness and bring it into our music, the rawest illustration of ourselves, and we look to our audience for approval. As performers, that's who we are. Part of the reason we play music is so we can gain that approval we need.

I think that when you grow as a person, you grow equally as a musician. Over the past year, my music-making has become less about "don't you like me" and more about putting myself into what's written on this page in front of me. I hope that in my life as a performing musician I can touch someone with music the way that countless oboists have touched my ears and heart and mind. I won't lie--I still secretly like the attention I get from a solo well-played, even though praise embarrasses the hell out of me.

We play music because we have to. Because we need to communicate--and we need people to hear it.

Debugging my JavaScript at 3am...

Here's why I'm a computer science minor and not a computer science major (you know, aside from being unable to live without music): Debugging my JavaScript at 3am.

It took me three hours, staring at that one document, wondering what the hell I did wrong, going back through the book and trying to troubleshoot my own problem. Turns out...I forgot a space. I guess that's what happens when you spend nine hours coding your fraternity's webpage...in one day. Because you made it your final.

Hi, I'd like to place an order for eight extra hours in the day...

Oh, it's that time of the year, meaning that I just realised that I have my sophomore proficiency jury, the Lambda chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon's website to write for computer science, a busywork final (meaning Intro to Music Technology) and quiz, a theory composition (finally done), a theory final, a piano exam, and a music history final. Oh, and a sight-singing dictation exam and a sight-singing hearing. And practicing.

I don't see how sleep is supposed to fit in here.

Plus, the weather keeps changing. One day it's 80 and beautiful; the next day it rains and is in the mid 40s. My reeds hate me. It's so mind-boggling how a simple change in humidity can make a reed flatten into a pancake or widen enough to let an elephant through (well, a very small elephant). And don't get me started on oboes and temperature...

I play a finicky instrument.

In other news, I have discovered that it is possible to make a decent oboe recording using GarageBand...if you have a very large room that is very quiet and turn the recording volume down almost all the way and use a trumpet filter. After about six hours of recording, I have a pretty decent track of Ferling 8 and the first movement of Vaughan Williams...all for a summer music festival that is desperate for oboists. They accepted me via resume', and this summer I will be studying with the assistant principle oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. How's that for nifty? And odd! On the bright side, it gets me out of Georgia for a portion of the summer.

And in the rush to catch up on sleep now, before the finals madness begins, I leave you with one new ushering quote:

(man tries to walk into the concert hall while Wind Ensemble is playing the Mozart Serenede)
Me: I'm sorry, you can't go in right now.
Him: Why?
Me: They're playing.
Him: I know. That's why I want to go in.

I then politely explained concert rules and resisted the urge to facepalm.