Pop goes the Cupertino 'bubble'

Residents often refer to living in Cupertino as living in a bubble. But it seems that the uneventful days of Cupertino are past. Barely a week ago, two major international events happened in Cupertino. One was the shooting spree of Shareef Allman; the other was the death of Steve Jobs. Both are pretty cataclysmic events in themselves. What's even scarier is that they both happened on the same day.  The Cupertino bubble not only popped, but popped with a bang.

Resist hate

Just when everything seems to be back to normal, something else happens.

Failed college essay

College essays are difficult work

I wrote many attempts for college essays, but a lot are simply not not good enough. So I'm posting all the rejects on here. Just because they're bad college essays doesn't mean they're badly written. Well, some might be.

Here is one. I liked the story.

Viewing the Room

Theatrical release poster from 1985 film

Although the tradition of Grand Tours-- fashionable youths roaming the European continent-- had ended, one cannot help but feel its spirit lives on in the gaggle of on-lookers and sight-seers crowding St. Peter's Square or the Florence Cathedral every year. Tourism, no matter what era, remains the same.

However, a traveler on the early twentieth century will have an experience more akin to the Grand Tours. At the turn of the century, even as class barriers begin to crumble, travel was still dominated by the middle class. A female traveler in this era, for example, would travel with a chaperon—no respectable young female will be without one. She, like her itinerary, would embody convention.

That is the basic premise of A Room with a View, by E.M. Forster.

Newsgate

The phone-hacking scandal of News Corp has already engulfed Britain and has every chance of spreading across the Atlantic. Accusations of phone-tapping into victims of 9/11 have surfaced, and the FBI is investigating these allegations as well as corruption charges. 

In honor of Independence Day

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.