A Dream

Children talk about what they want to be when they 'grow up'; dreams of yonder, and sighs of tomorrow. Unfortunately, they don't realize that it implies one little thing: growing up. A dream is affected by situations and external factors that change it, corrupt it. A dream is an innocent thing when being child, even noble sometimes (a firemen, a doctor, an astronaut), just like a child. Then, through the process of growing up, that dream grows up too. It changes: "Well, maybe not a firemen, too dangerous, why not a chemical engineer? I can still deal with fire and maybe save some lives." Then it comes to the point that it's possible that the dream, when grown up, is a completely different dream with a completely different objective then what it had when it was born... just like us.

I don't have or done many things to be proud of. Being an only child was a crutch that until very recently have I been taking away, and I'm not known as being ambitious. But I do have one thing: my dream.

As I stood there, 12 years old, in front of 30 or so parents and teachers, I recited my speech. It was for a grade for the Oral Communication class, about a week or two before I graduated from junior high. I felt a sudden stroke of steadiness in me while I was shaking like a mad man. I had my notes on my hand and the group in front of me. I started. The topic was about my top ten most influential persons; I don't remember them all, although I do believe I included the persons who helped cleaned the school as one of the top ones (I liked talking to them). Everybody was looking at me, not with the comfortless stare that I was accustomed at the beginnings of puberty, but with interest and surprising wonder. I loved it, and I craved it from then on.

I found myself directing small study groups where it was mostly me over at the blackboard explaining a problem, or everybody gathered around me and my laptop seeing how to debug lines of code. My geekiness strived around the fact that it didn't really matter if I masterfully knew the subject that I was talking about, it was about how well I transmitted what I knew about it that made the difference. Einstein, although a great mind, was a terrible teacher because he didn't know how to conduct himself in front of a group of persons.

It was during my high school years that I confirmed my dream, my 'What am I Going to Be When I Grow Up?' story: I want to be a teacher. It hasn't changed after high school; no matter what has happened around me, it just keeps getting harder and harder to steer me away from it. It also really doesn't matter if I'm in a school or not (although, I rather be in one), while for an hour or so I'm in front of a group of people and they grant me that beautiful "Oh! So, that's how it's done." And some decades later, I receive the news that one of my students made it big and became a teacher, and loves it as much as me.

Such is my everlasting dream, and tis' I: the dreamer.

Using a Motorola L6 to Connect a Powerbook G4 to the Internet by UK T-Mobile

EDIT: Sept. 5, 2009. The information presented in this post is possibly out of date. Specifically, the dial-up telephone number is suspected to have been suspended by T-Mobile UK. For information on how to use this same mobile as a GPRS-capable modem in Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6), please read this other post.

I've always liked the idea of being able to connect to the Internet from anywhere. I'm a PhD student after all, the Internet is my life now. The problem is when I'm not near a Wireless Hotspot or an Ethernet port. Cellular Signals are the next best thing: my mobile here in the U.K. has Bluetooth, my Powerbook G4 has Bluetooth. There should be a way to use my phone as a sort of modem for the laptop. Well, yes, apparently there is.

It took some time to figure out, not because it was difficult, but because T-Mobile (my carrier) doesn't give a lot of information for the appropriate setting to make this happen.

As it says on the title of this post, I used a Motorola L6 phone. My Powerbook G4 has Mac OS X 10.4.11 installed. No other software was needed.

First, I paired the phone with the laptop. It's a pretty straighforward process, I just needed to turn on Bluetooth on the Mac and on the phone and make it be discoverable. During such process though, it was important for the Mac to know that it can use the phone as a modem; almost at the end it asks such question. It can use the phone as a modem in two ways; the Motorola L6 and T-Mobile work with GPRS, so that option should be checked.

After that, it will ask for what script/driver to use and other information that T-Mobile for some reason doesn't make public, but I found them and I know for a fact that they work.

Script/Driver: Motorola iR TimePort (7089). (This one took a long while to uncover...)
Telephone Number: +447953968999
Account Name: user
Password: wap

Before you hit that "Connect" button, though, go to Systems Preferences, make it show the Bluetooth settings. Then, under the PPP tab, click on PPP Options and uncheck "Use TCP header compression". Apparently, it doesn't like it when the header is compressed, complains about it quite a lot in the logs to the point that it crashes the pppd process, leaving the device unreachable afterwards (something about failing to open the device file, because of permissions).

Also, be aware that even though I can now potentially connect to the Internet anywhere there is a cellular signal, it is very slow (took almost half a minute to pull up Google.com) and very costly (it is making a call after all) so, even though it's a nice choice for connectivity, it should just be a very nice last choice.

Light

I frequently find myself analyzing what I'm doing and where I'm going. Unfortunately, I also find myself not doing much about it, because it turns out that, as I've seen in myself the past few weeks, I'm a very complicated being. I carry baggage, a lot of baggage. I blame this baggage for what I am, good and bad, but I think it's time I put it to rest:

"The thing with Julia and Hugo screwed me over." No it didn't, I screwed me over. I had nothing to do with this, I'm not part of their life, and they're not part of mine. We're not the threesome that we once were, but I wanted us to still be it, badly; it was me all along making my life miserable, not them... they're them and I'm me. It was nice when it was there, but now it's not, and finally I have come to the understanding that it's nobody's fault. People change, they carry on with their lives; I can't expect for them to freeze in their place while I carry on with mine. Even more so considering that they had each other for so long: it was bound to happen, and I'm truly happy for them. Congratulations if you're reading.

"Juarez will always be my home." No... Hugo was the only thing binding me to that city. Even before I left for Manchester, I knew that the house where I have lived in since I was 5 years old wasn't my house anymore, it's my parent's home. I moved to Queretaro and that was my home for a while, now I'm in Manchester and that will be my home for a while. After that? Well, that's for God to know and for me to find out... however, Queretaro seems nice enough.

"I will always be the 'lonely' one." No, Carmen has proven to be the best thing that has happened to me for a long while. If I feel lonely it's because of my own thoughts and needs, I've chosen to feel this way and I think it suits me. It's good to feel lonely, it gives opportunity for introspection and makes the time which I don't feel lonely much, much better: thank you for the time we spent together, baby, I know you're reading (coincidentally, "Wish you were here (Balkce Version)" just came up in iTunes).

Hate, intolerance... it's all baggage. I never thought that blame on others was too, but it is. Makes you think: "feeling light" may actually be a double entendre...

RIAA Satire

I hate it when people come up with funny, genius stuff before I do:

RIAA Declares Using Brain to Remember Songs is Criminal Copyright Infringement (satire)

I loved some of the comments as well: some people thought this was actually true. Unfortunately, it may not only be that the commentators are gullible. As the pace that we're seeing the RIAA handle so-called 'copyright infringement', waving the banner of 'protecting the artist' when they're really just protecting their pockets, this feels eerily possible. Being gullible or not, it's frightening just to think that this may happen someday.

Dave Chappelle's Best Joke

For people living outside of the States (and even for some living in them), Dave Chappelle may not be a known name. But for people receiving Comedy Central through cable television, the year 2003 through 2005 brought to them the Chappelle's Show. This show was very popular, but very hard on Dave Chappelle, not only from the production standpoint, but also from the audience itself, as it usually happens for a celebrity. It involves withstanding the idiosyncrasy of people worshiping you but not listening to you, which apparently is very common in the States. He stated once that:

You know why my show is good? Because the network officials say you're not smart enough to get what I'm doing, and every day I fight for you. I tell them how smart you are. Turns out, I was wrong. You people are stupid.

He left it all (including a salary that only Bill Gates wouldn't envy), and went to Africa to rediscover himself while all the Hollywood gossipers made up stories of him being in rehab or a mental hospital. He came back, and started doing stand-up like he did before his celebrity status and he's becoming one of my favorite comedians. He has done several TV specials, but in the most recent, called For What It's Worth, he really blew me away with two anecdotes. And yes, I'm giving him free publicity, not because he needs it, and even less considering that this blog is actually read by his demographic... or anyone for that matter... it just seems fair, that's all.

In any case, even though the first anecdote is not really a joke, he did hit the nail on asking the question "How old is 15?". He stated four cases: the first was in which apparently R. Kelly peed in one of his 15-year-old fans and was being prosecuted at the time (I think he still is), and everyone was flabbergasted at the thought. Deservedly so, yes, but the case was more in the matter of "Poor girl! She's too young to know any better", and Dave's point is that 15 years is an age in which, well, if you're being peed by someone, you probably already have made up your mind of if you like the idea or not. Then he threw into the table the case of a 15-year-old white girl that was kidnapped for six months; it was later found out that she was being held very near her house. During those six months a 7-year-old black girl was also kidnapped, but she escaped, came back to her house, called the police and had the kidnappers put in jail all in around 45 minutes. Yes, the white girl is 15, but c'mon! A girl half her age could do what she couldn't. "She's too young", you say? Really, how old is 15? And even more so when considering the fourth case: a 15-year-old black boy sentenced to life in jail because he accidentally killed his next door neighbor while practicing wrestling moves.

If 15 years of age is old enough to be sentenced to life, then I think it's alright to pee on'em. That's all I'm saying.

Beautiful! But the kicker came on the second anecdote. It was actually the last joke of the special, and, well, I'll let Dave do the talking in this one (sorry for the expletives, you'll just have to deal):

This' been the best year of my career, by far. I appreciate you guys watching me. Well, I do it for my kids, really, man. And my kids are off the hook. You think I'm a mad mother-fucker, wait 'til you see the two mini-Chappelle's. These niggers are off the hook. My sons are bad!

My oldest son is three. This nigger made me a necklace out of macaroni. That shit's ballin'. He painted the macaroni green and put it on a string. He tied on my neck and he told me he was proud of me. And I got choked up. And he thought I was sad, that's how smart he is. He said, "Are you sad, daddy?" And I said, "No, I'm not sad. You're too young to understand this, son, but this is fucking crazy. You used to live in my balls, man! Now you making jewelry out of macaroni! You're a bad mother-fucker!"

Long live Chappelle's!

That probably has to be the best joke I've heard come out of his mouth. Good for him. Long live Chappelle's, indeed.