Yes, I know... there are already about a million reviews of the iPad out there already. Heck, it's almost to the point you can find a review for the iPad 2 already. It's not released yet, but every news or tech site out there seems to think they know exactly what it's going to be, feel, and look like as well as do. Even the Wall Street Journal has put their two cents in. But at this point, they are all still rumors. (Which by the way, as I tweeted earlier today, I'm kind of sick of not seeing any "real" news on tech sites. Everything is so full of rumors about products yet to be released that it seems like we're writing the news before it even happens. Can you say "irrelevant"?) But I digress. I actually purchased an iPad late last year. And yes, I was a huge skeptic when it first came out, so feel free to call me an Apple fangirl. I even have the sweatshirt to go with that role. (I bought one at Apple when I visit their headquarters last fall. So I guess I am a fangirl, having even been to the Mecca itself.) I do find a lot of things to like about Apple. Today, though, I'm just going to discuss the iPad. When it first came out, I found a lot of things wrong with the iPad. It was missing a lot of the things that my less costly netbook had. A LOT of things... a keyboard, a USB port, a full operating system, upgradable storage capacity - the list goes on. And really, isn't it just a big iPhone? So what made me change my mind? Well, I'll be honest. It was somewhat a frivolous purchase. I'll admit, I probably don't NEED half of the tech things I spend my money on. But it's kind of a hobby of mine. If you saw my Google Reader feed, you'd realize what a gadget geek I really am. And Apple has kind of started to fascinate me. Part of the reason for that is my major as an MBA. I've started to kind of turn into a marketing geek lately as well. Logos, branding, companies and how they market themselves... I find it all very interesting. And I've really kind of wanted something portable that I can carry with me as my "go everywhere" computer - something I can just always have with me in my purse. Sure, my iPhone is sort of that. But it's not quite enough. And carrying a laptop with me everywhere becomes a bit much. I carried my netbook with me all the time for a while, but was still finding it lacking. And after having a MacBook for a while, I started to see how the iPad really was the bridge between the iPhone and notebook computer. So I caved and made the purchase. Now, let me admit that I still get my own and others' skepticism about the iPad. There is a lot that it doesn't have. There are times I wish it had an easier way to type up papers or blogs, which pretty much requires a keyboard. I do have a bluetooth keyboard, but I don't want to carry it around all the time. That kind of defeats the purpose of how portable the iPad is - who wants to carry/buy an extra accessory? Same goes for the camera connector kit. If I'm taking my iPad on vacation, shouldn't I be able to easily upload my photos for people at home to see? I have yet to find a good way to do that. And all of these things add up to a lot of extra accessories to purchase, so that your $500+ piece of equipment ends up costing you even more once you get that cover, camera connector, and keyboard. And don't forget headphones, of course you'll need those. But in spite of all of this, I have to say I pretty much love my iPad. If you travel much at all, I highly recommend it as the ultimate travel device to have. On a plane, it is the perfect size to fit on your tray table, especially if you get the right cover/stand. I have a cover that doubles as a stand, and it's perfect. I wouldn't want anything else on the 11 hour flight that I will have back from Moscow next month. With it, I can watch movies that I put on it, read the Kindle books I have downloaded, play an almost unlimited number of games, listen to all my music, or even check my email and surf the web if the plane has wifi. It really is a solid go-to device. And the battery life is amazing. I watched a two-hour movie on it on a bus to Chicago a few weeks back and only used 4% of my battery life. If you have an iPhone, you know how astounding that is. As far as the argument that it's just a giant iPhone - well, yes. And no. Sure, it uses iOS just like the iPhone. But there are a lot of apps that have a very different iPad version from their existing iPhone app. There's a lot of new things you can do with 6 more inches of screen space. I don't know about you, but I honestly don't do a lot of web surfing from my iPhone. A lot of sites take me to their mobile version, which usually has a lot less functionality. And let's face it, normal web sites aren't designed to be viewed on a phone. But on the iPad? Sure - because the screen is the size of a small computer, basically. Another thing that's less than ideal on the iPhone - watching videos. Whether it's movies I've put on the device myself, or streaming Netflix (which is a whole other level of awesomeness in itself), I'm not particularly fond of watching much of anything on a 3-inch screen. I rarely use Netflix on my iPhone if I want to do much more than just listen to a movie or TV show. One convenience that the iPad has over a netbook or laptop that is almost as understated as the battery life is the "always-on" functionality. You can literally leave it on the same way you do an iPhone. No boot time, just press a button and you have everything at your fingertips. And especially with the use of syncing apps such as Dropbox and Evernote and the ability to have my Google Calendar and email on the phone, I pretty much have everything I need for school always with me, which is huge for a grad student. Apps such as DocsToGo enable me to view and edit papers for school even, which I wouldn't even really dream of doing on my iPhone. My goal here is not to sound like an Apple commercial (Apple does a fine job of that on their own). I just wanted to share my own experience as an iPad convert. It may not be worth the money or even be the device for you, but it works well for me, and I'd highly recommend it as a beneficial device for everyone, especially my fellow travelers out there. Revolutionary? Maybe not, but it's a win with me.

So, I finally saw The Social Network.  (I was actually somewhat jealous of friends of mine that got to see it the weekend that it came out because I didn€™t make it that weekend.  I actually wanted to see it with Ricky, especially since he€™s been talking about how good he expects it to be for months now, but he backed out on me at the last minute.)  I went to see it with Seren on Monday, who initially had no interest in seeing it, but decided she would after hearing people talk about how good they thought it was. It really was a great story.  Now, who knows how accurate it really is, as I€™ve heard that Mark Zuckerberg actually opposes it, saying that it shows him in a pretty negative light and is actually much more dramatized than how it really happened.  But honestly, I never really saw his character in the movie being all that bad of a person until, well€¦ later on in the movie.  I don€™t want to spoil anything for those that haven€™t seen it yet. What I did pick up on about Zuckerberg€™s character is that he makes no apologies for who he is.  And that he has his own ideas and thoughts about things and will only go with what he really believes in.  And to a lot of people, that makes him a jerk.  His character actually reminded me of something that I heard a trainer for a workshop that I was in say one time.  The workshop I was a part of was pretty intense, and without giving too much of it away for anyone that might take it someday, I will say that it included giving the other people doing the workshop with you a lot of feedback about how you experience them.  One of the things our trainer expressed was that people in the Midwest are just too nice, or basically too polite.  We were afraid to really give each other our honest opinions for fear of hurting one another€™s feelings.  And he was right, we were. I€™ve realized that what my trainer had to say about people in the Midwest was actually pretty true.  And to me, this is a reason why people would think that Mark Zuckerberg€™s character in The Social Network was a jerk, too.  In general, he didn€™t really seem to care about what people thought of him (well, other than wanting to get even with/impress a girl or to get into the clubs).  He was€¦ well, weird.  He wore hoodies and Adidas sandals to business meetings.  And he didn€™t give in, even when his best friend had some pretty good ideas about what to do with his business.  Was he a jerk at times?  Yeah, maybe, especially in that later part of the movie that I don€™t want to give away.  But honestly, he was just real.  He said what he thought and was passionate about things he was into and made no apologies for his opinions. There€™s someone else that reminds me a bit of Mark Zuckerberg€™s character in the movie that€™s like this.  His name is Ricky, and I live with him.  He is probably the most opinionated person I know, and he makes no apologies for his opinions (even when they are wrong).  Can he be a jerk?  Sure.  But I€™ve learned to live with and love the realness about him, because yes, people in the Midwest are too polite sometimes.  Too often I see people be consistently €œnice€ to those around them, and then go off having a completely different opinion of those they were just nice to, having not shared how they really feel.  It€™s not that we hate each other and are just fake nice to each other€™s faces, it€™s that we have grown so used to the idea that what is always best is to be polite.  We use it as an excuse to not say what we really think for fear of hurting each other€™s feelings.  And maybe, we€™ve also let this make us thin-skinned€¦ when someone says something to us that€™s not so nice, we react.  We let it affect us, either doubting ourselves and/or just thinking that person is a total jerk.  When maybe, all they are really doing is being real with us. I know I€™m not always perfectly real, either.  Too often I keep my thoughts and opinions to myself because I don€™t want someone to think bad of me, or to think that I€™m not nice enough.  But am I really doing that person a disservice by not being real with them?  Here€™s the thing€¦ whether you are nice or a jerk to someone, you really can€™t control what they think of you anyway.  People€™s opinions or thoughts about you are always going to be based on their own filters, how they see things, their own experiences in life, and their own personality.  And while things you do or say may make them think differently, you really have no control over what they think of you, because it€™s always going to be based on just that€¦ what they think.  So why not risk letting them think what they think about you (since it€™s always a risk anyway), and just be real?  I keep going back to the book The Four Agreements.  I really like what the actual four agreements are, because I think they are great rules to generally live your life by.  And one of them is €œdon€™t take anything personally€.  I think that if everyone followed this rule, we might not worry so much about being polite or hurting each other€™s feelings.  Because what the agreement is about is what I just said above €“ that what people say about you is really just a reflection of what they have been through in their life.  It€™s just their interpretation of you, and it€™s always biased, because it can€™t not be.  So when someone says something about you, just remember that.  Not to say that you shouldn€™t listen or pay attention to what they say, because it is good feedback and you could learn from it.  But it€™s never the €œbe all, end all€. So, Midwesterners (or anyone out there reading!), maybe you could take a lesson from Mark Zuckerberg the jerk.  And that is that it€™s okay to be yourself without apology.  Not that it€™s okay to be mean to people just to be hurtful or a jerk, but it IS okay to be real.  And who knows, it might even make you a billionaire someday.

It€™s ironic that there would be two movies centering around Facebook that came out at the same time this fall.  Well, at least here in Indy they came out at the same time.  One was actually a limited release and just made it to our market this weekend, perfectly in time to coincide with the other €œFacebook movie€. The two movies I€™m referring to are Catfish and The Social Network.  I€™m sure you€™ve heard of The Social Network.  Who hasn€™t?  If you are on Facebook, I€™m sure you have, as it is the story OF Facebook, the much-hyped drama about how the now infamous Mark Zuckerberg started our favorite social networking site a few years ago.  But have you even heard anything about Catfish?  Oddly enough, it seems to be the more accurate/true story. I first heard about Catfish from a preview that I saw at another movie I caught recently in the theater.  I think it might have been The Town, actually.  But the trailer for Catfish stuck in my head€¦ it basically gave you the premise of the movie, but then ended in such a way that you had no idea where they were going to go with the story.  Basically, it€™s a documentary of what happens when Nev Schurman, a photographer living in New York City, happens to have one of his photos appear in the New Yorker and receives a painting of it in the mail from an 8-year-old girl named Abby.  Nev ends up becoming friends with Abby and her whole family, who live in Michigan and essentially starts a relationship with her older sister, Megan.  The movie starts to turn interesting when Nev and his friends that are documenting the whole story decide to make the trek to Michigan to meet this €œFacebook family€.  Nev dubs them that because most of his interactions with them have been via Facebook or texts/phone calls. If you know anything about Mark Zuckerberg, you may have heard how he is very big on openness and making the world a more connected place.  The caption on his Facebook page states €œI'm trying to make the world a more open place by helping people connect and share.€  Catfish takes you into the world of what can happen when this is the case.  A world where people are encouraged to share their pictures, friends, and personal lives with their friends, €œfriends€, or even everyone else in the world with access to a computer.  In Catfish, Nev is very open, sharing a lot of himself with his newfound €œFacebook family€.  But what happens when you are encouraged to share and you don€™t like yourself enough to share the true you?  Facebook (and the Internet in general) make it possible to hide the true you behind a computer screen.  You hear people joke all the time about meeting people online and how a young girl could really potentially be some middle-aged man.  And it€™s true€¦ it€™s possible to create a whole new identity for yourself.  Only the one behind the keyboard truly knows. So in a world where Facebook is encouraging us to be open with our lives, how do we know who or what everyone is really being open about?  Is the person you present on the Internet really you?  Is it someone made up?  Is it some other form of you?  Does what your €œfriends€ know and think about you match up to what your friends know and think?  I won€™t give away the movie, whether Abby and her family end up really being who Nev thinks they are or not, but it definitely gives you something to think about.  In a world where we are encouraged to share our lives online, are you sharing who you really are or only who would like to be?

I've done more reading lately than usual. When I was in college, I had so many textbooks that I was supposed to read that I rarely did much reading for pleasure. It's been a bit difficult to get back into at times - I get distracted pretty easily. But my vacation last week gave me quite a bit of time to relax, disconnect... and read. I was in Chicago a few weeks ago and happened to see a book in Jamba Juice that I read the cover on while waiting for my friends to get their drinks. The book was called The Four Agreements, and inside cover was enough to catch my attention so that I had to go to Borders and buy it before the day was over. I read it pretty quickly the first few days of my vacation. I do have to say, some of this book came off as a bit New Age-y to me, and I kind of just glossed over it. But the basic principles of the book - the four agreements themselves - while simple, definitely gave me some food for thought. Ponder the following: Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. Don't Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering. Don't Make Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. Always Do Your Best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret. Pretty profound, at least to me. I mean, they're simple thoughts... but they definitely seem like something good to live by. The book also talked a lot about the other agreements we make with ourselves, the filters that we create or have cast upon us by our circumstances or how we grew up. The things we do in life, our actions and reactions, how we see things, really does have a lot to do with those filters. I think the two statements that had the most impact on me were "don't take anything personally" and "always do your best". As probably anyone does, I do take other people's actions and words personally. But the author of the book is write - usually what someone says or does is way more related to themselves than you or me. And I need to remember that. Feedback is good, but it's impacted by the filters of the person it came from as well. I also have a tendency to beat myself up about a lot of things. I've blogged about this before. That's why what the author had to say about "always do your best" made a lot of sense to me. If I focus on always doing my best, realizing that my best doesn't mean always doing everything perfectly, I have no reason to beat myself up. If I'm sick, my best probably won't be as good as it is when I'm feeling better - but it's still my best in that moment, and if I know that I've done my best, I have no reason to be disappointed in what I've done. I'm adding these two to my commandments, so here they are - commandments #4 and #5: 4. Don't take anything personally. 5. Always do your best.

(Disclaimer: this post is NOT meant to offend anyone. It is not meant to bash on ANY religion or lack thereof, and I basically consider it to be NON-religious. I feel the thoughts I've presented are not exclusive to any religion or lack of religion. They are simply meant to be thought-provoking, so please... no arguments on my blog, only comments. Thanks!) I just watched the movie Revolutionary Road, with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio (and no, it's nothing like Titanic). It's about a married couple in the 1950's that has it in their head that they're "different", that they're not going to become just like the typical suburban family with two kids and a white picket fence. Yet they wake up one day to realize that that's exactly what they've unintentionally become. I really liked this movie, and I recommend it, but be forewarned - it is somewhat depressing. That's all I'll say, I don't want to give away the ending... or any of the movie, really, because it isn't just about the ending. The movie itself is all about the journey this family is on. You should definitely watch it for yourself, but I think I can talk about the premise behind it without really giving any of it away. I loved how thought-provoking this movie was. It really makes you think about life and the meaning behind it. Or rather, the meaning we give to it. Countless people, myself included, generally have had this idea that there is a "meaning of life". A lot of people seek that in religion or in this man called Jesus. Other people seek it in the ideas of Buddhism or enlightment. Others seek it in humanity via the idea of humanism. Still others disregard it and simply live life, not really seeking any meaning to it at all. But what is it? Is there one meaning to life? I was thinking about all of this (yes, I know - how deep and/or cliche can you get, right? pondering the meaning of life?) and started wondering... maybe there just is no meaning to life. Or maybe life is its own meaning. Have I lost you yet? Does God exist? I'm not going to claim by any means to have the market cornered on that one. I don't know that any healthy, sane, truly spiritual person really would. Some believe it because they choose to, but as we all know, there is no definitive proof. At least none that is enough to convince those staunch atheists out there. But let's say he does. I'm also not going to claim to know his agenda or what's on his mind. Some Christians would disagree with me, but I'm going to put out the idea that maybe it's not entirely relevant. Maybe, just maybe, God does exist, and he did create us... he did create the world we are in. But what if he left the meaning up to us? Christian or non-Christian, atheist or agnostic, Buddhist or humanist, what do YOU believe the meaning of life is? What goal do you ultimately pursue? What are you trying to attain with your life? Maybe that's the whole point of this. Maybe we each have different meanings to our lives. What if the point is... not to search for the meaning of life, but to create it? Here's what we have - a magnificent world (however it got here) filled with human beings, animals, plants, and all the things that have been created or sprouted up in-between. Now - what are we going to do with it? We've each been given a life - is it possible that there is no definitive purpose for it? Maybe the point is simply to take what we have in front of us - all the possibilities that are out there (and no matter what you say, I believe that there are exponential possibilities for every life) and do what YOU want with it. No right, no wrong (and by that I don't mean the moral definition of right and wrong), no good, no bad, no better, no worse... just find what you want and do it. What if God is sitting up there watching just to see what people do with all the possibilities they have, and he's perplexed by all of the people spending so much time trying to figure out why they're here or what the right thing to do with their life is? What if he just wants them to create their own meaning with it? Or... what if there's simply no God at all? (I'm still here, I promise lightning didn't strike me after typing that last question.) In the words of Switchfoot - it's your life... are you who you want to be?

So somehow, last night I ended up going to see Billy Joel and Elton John perform together at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis. Not a concert I really would have sought out on my own, but when Allison told me she was looking for tickets, it piqued my interest and I decided to join her, along with Shane. I'm definitely glad I did. In spite of our effort to get tickets the minute they went on sale, the best seats we were able to get were behind the stage. This turned out to be not such a bad thing, though, as our seats were actually mostly *above* the stage, and we were much closer than those who purchased tickets in the center, but quite a ways back from the stage. Or in Valparaiso, as Billy Joel put it. The two "piano men" opened by playing together to a sold-out crowd on two grand pianos that lifted up out of the floor of the stage (answering the question I'm sure others had about where the pianos were when we got there). They were joined by six musicians set up in separate panels behind them, playing various instruments such as drums or keyboard. Each of the panels opened to show these instruments and musicians coming out of the floor as well. I'm guessing that a lot of you may be like me in the fact that you actually know a lot of Billy Joel or Elton John songs, but you don't know that you know them. The duo came together on a few songs to start off with, such as "Just the Way You Are" and then each took their turn wowing the audience on their own. It was fun to see both musicians who have obviously been entertaining audiences for years enjoying themselves and creating such a fun, comfortable connection with their audience. I doubt there was a single person in the crowd who didn't feel perfectly relaxed and at ease watching and listening to them. While we determined that Sir Elton John may actually be the bigger star, Billy Joel definitely rocked the place with his set as well, not only on the spinning (yes, it spun!) piano, but also with his guitar on "We Didn't Start the Fire" (which I can't help but hear as "Ryan started the fire" after that episode of The Office) and his microphone antics to the tune of "It's Still Rock 'n' Roll to Me". The two ended the night playing together again - the last two songs on which they ditched their accompanying musicians and pleased the crowd with "Candle in the Wind" and, of course, "Piano Man". While, like I said, this wasn't a show I probably would've chosen on my own, I'm very glad I gave it a second thought. It was well worth the dollars to see two piano legends perform in front of an admiring audience that just can't help but sing along.