Watershed Moments

Guess I'll get this going by saying that I'm a true citizen of the Internet. I have been for about a year and a half, which is about when I started spending more than an hour on the computer every day. It all started when my best friend Jessie introduced me to reddit. It's an awesome community, similar Digg, but much better and in many ways more democratic. At their cores, both sites are about users finding, submitting, voting, and commenting on interesting articles, stories, or pictures. Reddit, though, has a much cleaner interface, quicker loading times, and no system whereby votes on stories can be bought and sold.

I quickly became addicted and started commenting and submitting stories. My comments always did well, but my stories did not. Thus my karma (relying solely on votes on submissions, they are akin to experience points) remained at a paltry 1. Today, however, I submitted an article about Ford's new 76 mpg diesel car. Six hours later, I logged back into reddit and found the little number next to my name now at an astronomical 13! My story was on the second page of reddit! I could hardly believe it; after a year of trying, I had broken the 1-karma glass ceiling!

For what it's worth, karma points aren't. They're totally useless. They don't matter. But it feels so good.

Jessie has 140 karma. I never was the popular one : (

Also, today I paid my first bill for my MIT education. It was truly a family event. Everyone gathered around our kitchen table, watching as I set up a payment account on my brand-new Thinkpad (more on that later!). My dad then sprinted to his computer, ready to read the activation email and follow its instructions for paying. My mom, sister, and grandparents migrated to my dad's study after he called us in to watch him give the first of many payments.

Time for the sappy tie-in: I remember the day Jessie told me about reddit. My English teacher passed back a personal essay. The grade was an A, and on top, she wrote, "This would be good to expand for a college application." And that was the first time I had thought about the application process.

So, first bill, first karma point. It was too nauseatingly fitting. Then I saw the post about the application process for becoming an admissions blogger. The omens were there, so here we are, my shiny new blog.