jeffrey robert lange

I listen to my iPod and iTunes a lot, and I have come up with a simple star rating system for my music.

1. Star means that I hate the song
2. Stars means that the song is okay, but I wouldn’t play it at a party or for friends.
3. Stars means that the song is good. Not too catchy or like able, but decent.
4. Stars means that I like the song, and I probably know the words or the melody to the song
5. Stars means that I love the song and can sing the whole thing, and the music and lyrics are amazing.

So what do your star ratings mean to you? Do you even rate all of your songs? I am anxious to hear your feedback.

This weekend I will be heading out to Fort Wayne, IN with five of my friends. We have a hockey game and lazer tag planned, but I hope we do more than just that. Also, I’m writing this post using Flock, the coolest thing I’ve seen since ScreenToaster.

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I got my laptop back from HP on friday. I am glad to have my laptop back, especially since I have lots of work to do now with school, IT, and WVUR. It took HP only 2 days to fix my computer, which I think is very reasonable.

As the Fourth of July rapidly approaches, I, along with three of my friends, will be traveling to Washington D.C. to meet up with yet another friend. This trip has been in planning for quite some time now, but the excitement is starting to get to me. I usually don’t get excited about things before they happen, but I have never been to D.C. before, and I miss my college friends, especially my girlfriend. Hopefully our travels will go safely and we don’t go crazy on the 10 hour trip. I’ll be taking tons of pictures and putting them in my gallery.

After a week of rest, I’m back to work at Applied Systems. Most of the people are still in school, so there aren’t many of us interns yet. I’m anxious to visit with my old friends and meet some new people, too. I’m not calling like I did the previous years, so that’s sweet. I can listen to my zune without worry, which helps the time fly by. I think we’ll have a better group this year, plus the layout of our cubicles is more separated, which, in my opinion, helps keep us calm. It also helps that I’m surrounded by really quiet girls. I got 238 activities today, so that’s pretty good. I think I’ve matured a lot since college started in August.

I have but one final left, which will take place on Saturday. I can’t believe that my freshman year is over. It seems like just yesterday that I was worried about making friends in college. Although, I have learned many things, and not only in my classes. Here’s some of what I’ve learned:

1. If you act like yourself and don’t try to be anyone else, people that you will probably like will gravitate towards you.
2. Going to social events is a great way to feel comfortable at college.
3. Getting involved in a student-run organization can be a great alternative to a fraternity or sorrority.
4. Find a study group, no matter how easy the subject is.
5. You won’t only make new relationships in college, but you’ll also break some old relationships that just won’t work anymore.
6. Don’t let the busyness of college block out your essential bodily functions (eating, sleeping, visiting the restroom). Avoiding these necessities only ends badly.
7. Wash your hands every three hours or so, especially after a party.
8. There will be at least one day when you won’t be able to take a shower. It’s okay if it’s just once, but don’t make a habit of it, or you will be soon to lose most of your friends.
9. If you don’t already have a shirt or sweater with your school’s name on it, you will want to buy one as soon as possible. Also, look for free clothes towards the beginning of the year, you’ll be glad you did when you’re broke.
10. Lastly, eat all of the free food possible. Refrigerate it if possible.

I’m sorta glad that I have the next few months off for a few reasons, like catching up with my old friends, getting some time away from my college friends, and sleeping in my own bed again.

Today was the last day of interviews for me. I was interviewing for jobs next school year in the IT department. I interviewed for the Help Desk on Tuesday, and Web Services on Thursday. I only applied to the two fields that I knew I would feel comfortable in. The full time staff member who interviewed me for the Web Services basically told me that I had the job. He was really happy to see that I was interested in the job, and he asked me what position I wanted. This made me feel really good about myself, basically knowing that I have a work-study job next year. I was nervous about the whole “find a job” process, but really it was rather pleasant. My Help Desk interview lasted for a good hour and a half, but it felt like 45 minutes. It was, in one word, fun.

This can only help me with my WVUR webmaster position, and my major. Yay!

I had previously installed Ubuntu Linux on my laptop, and quickly fell in love with it. I feel very secure on this Operating System. Unfortunately, I was using Windows Vista, I was running a anti-virus scan, and I shut down my computer accidentally. This in turn corrupted my Vista OS. Luckily, I didn’t loose anything, except for my original Ubuntu partition.

Last night I re-installed Ubuntu. I’m back! I also figured out how to do some more stuff, like record audio in stereo using Audacity. It’s pretty cool. I’ll write a post on how I can record in stereo later this week. It only cost $110 for me to do it, but you could do it for cheaper.

Today, it is official. I have changed my major.

I am now technically a “New media Journalism” major instead of an Electrical Engineer. Also, I’m minoring in Television - Radio. “Why did I change?”, you might ask. Well, to be totally honest, I didn’t like my physics anymore because it was getting integrated with the calculus that I was “learning”. I put learning in quotes because I was doing poorly in that class. So if you notice that I’m not showing up to Calculus 2 or Physics 2 anymore, that is the reason.

One of the reasons I did want to change majors was because I didn’t know what I wanted what I wanted to do with my career, and I knew that my poor skills in Calculus were going to catch up to me. I would also like to have a career in something that is interesting me right now, as a student. I am now the webmaster of WVUR, SAE, and hoping to get a web team job in IT here at Valpo.

I thought it was smart to change now, as a freshman. Also, you may wonder, “Well, engineering jobs pay more than communication jobs” and you’re totally right, but if you don’t get to the point of graduation because you can’t pass your classes, then it doesn’t matter how much you could make.

Don’t worry though. All of my current classes are going well (all A’s). I will be taking 6 credit hours of classes this summer to maintain my sophomore status.

This well appreciated break started on March 1st. By the second day of March, I was on my way to Georgia. The first stop on our trip was Six Flags Over Georgia. This was my first time going there, and it was much hillier than I expected. Six Flags Great America is nice and flat. We were there for the opening weekend, so not many people were there. The rides there were really good. I especially liked Goliath. The food was good as well. We then traveled to Orlando to go to Universal Studios. I haven’t been there since I was seven or so. That was before they had added the Islands of Adventure section. I can remember that it was in March and they were about ready to open the Twister: Ride It Out ride. All of the rides were great. My favorite coaster was Dueling Dragons. The fire version was the best in my opinion. I went on almost all of the rides, even the Dr. Seuss rides. Tomorrow, I travel to Lindsay’s house in Michigan. That should be fun. All the pictures are in my gallery.