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diaryDiariesA weeklong electronic journal.2NA=1154&NC=1192&DI=4098&PS=58313&PI=7315diaryfalsefalsespacernotembeddeddiaryHer Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of JordanHer Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of JordanQueen Rania of Jordan in New York.Rania Al Abdullah0I've met many celebrities this week, but the message that will stick with me most came from a little Indian girl.Woke up this morning, and the first thing I did was phone my son Hashem to see how he was feeling. He was napping, and I didn't get much out of him, but it was still comforting to hear his sleepy little voice. I can't wait to give him a big cuddle.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno200892423004PMWednesdaySepSeptember149/24/2008 6:30:04 PM633578634040000000200892610610PMFridaySepSeptember139/26/2008 5:06:10 PM633580311700000000diaryMaking Lipstick JungleMaking Lipstick JungleLipstick Jungle:A bad day on set.Andrew McCarthy0A bad day on set.Dec. 10, 2007—I find that in acting, one out of every 10 days is a breeze, a joy. Everything feels easy, carefree. I am in a zone where I don't really have to do too much, I'm relaxed and aware, and every choice seems inspired, and everything falls into place, and happy accidents occur left and right.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno20082453427PMMondayFebFebruary172/4/2008 10:34:27 PM633377432670000000200828121109PMFridayFebFebruary122/8/2008 5:11:09 PM633380694690000000diaryAt Home in ShanghaiAt Home in ShanghaiAt home in Shanghai.Deborah Fallows0Some tips on how to get by in China.I'm keeping my guard up even along my familiar path to school. I turned off busy Nanjing Xi Lu onto Qinghai Lu, which is a big sidewalk but is nonetheless overrun with bikes, scooters, and the occasional Buick (luxury car of choice) with tinted windows. Passing a fast-food restaurant and watching preparations for the lunch crowd, I had an epiphany: China is dangerous.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno2006111315906PMMondayNovNovember1311/13/2006 6:59:06 PM6329902314600000002006111711200PMFridayNovNovember1311/17/2006 6:12:00 PM632993659200000000diaryAdoption Approved!Eric WeinerA weeklong journal of a hopeful father-to-be.Eric Weiner0A weeklong journal of a hopeful father-to-be.Today is the big day—our court hearing. The judge will decide whether or not to approve the adoption. Not that long ago, these hearings were a mere formality, handshakes and smiles all around. But we've been warned to expect a real grilling.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno2005121912458PMMondayDecDecember1312/19/2005 6:24:58 PM6327059549800000002005122770514PMTuesdayDecDecember1912/28/2005 12:05:14 AM632713071140000000diaryA Visit With an Author, Activist, and Dickens FanTamara ChalabiA weeklong journal of a writer in Iraq.Tamara Chalabi0A weeklong journal of a writer in Iraq.The waiting game began when the last ballot box filled up. Waiting doesn't seem to be something people do well or enjoy. There is a tension in the air that rises in crescendo with every complaint about ballot-rigging.nonotruenonotochyperlinkno2005121213134PMMondayDecDecember1312/12/2005 6:31:34 PM63269991094000000020051216120827PMFridayDecDecember1212/16/2005 5:08:27 PM632703317070000000200311442731PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:27:31 PM631781584510000000200311442731PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:27:31 PM631781584510000000falsetruefalsefalsefalsefalsetrue20011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001103090133AMTuesdayOctOctober910/30/2001 1:01:33 PM631400292930000000By xAlex RampellxRampell, AlexAlexRampellfalse13746978-623-6301180 Main Street c/o Phillips AcademyAndoverMA01810USAAlastair is his real name111139620011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101875329PMThursdayOctOctober1910/18/2001 11:53:29 PM63139031609000000051_Staff Contract199811995500AMMondayNovNovember911/9/1998 2:55:00 PM630462021000000000331220011018111443PMThursdayOctOctober2310/19/2001 3:14:43 AM6313904368300000002001101875329PMThursdayOctOctober1910/18/2001 11:53:29 PM631390316090000000Alex Rampell is a high-school senior at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. He is a member of the student council and president of Rampell Software Inc., a company he manages from his dormitory.DayOfWeekxEntry05        Tonight shouldn't have been a difficult night. I really should have finished my homework earlier but, again, I didn't. As soon as I returned from my last class at 1:50 p.m. today, I ate some lunch and then quickly headed out to the music building, where I was to take a practice test to help get me "up to speed" in the course. The test, to my surprise, took an unspeedy 90 minutes to complete, and I was probably the first person to finish.        After that, I talked with some kids in my dorm for around an hour. Directly outside my personal room is a sort of living room, and quite often the eight kids that live in my section of the dorm (called the "pod") just sit around and talk. In my dorm, and in my school, there are kids from around the United States and around the world; for example, of the eight kids in my pod, two are from Saudi Arabia, and others are from Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and Vermont. There's no real substance to most of our conversations, but it's still something that we can do for hours on end without any noticeable boredom. And so, at almost all hours of the day (and some hours of the night), there are kids in our pod, talking, or fooling around, or just procrastinating. This afternoon I was engaged in the latter.        One of the central problems of my day (today or any other day) is that the free time I have is available in such small chunks that it's really quite hard to get work done. After I got back from my music test at 4:45, I had to go to dinner around 6, so I didn't want to start my homework quite yet. And then once I got back from dinner, I had to go to a student council meeting at 7--leaving about 40 minutes of free time. These time snippets, typically no more than 45 minutes long, are too short to get any "serious" work done. Or so it seems. But stack these free periods together, and my day seems overflowing with free time. It's just hard to make good use of it in fragmented form.        My student council meeting today got out around 8. We started working on some of the speeches that we're going to give at the faculty meeting next Tuesday. We're definitely on the right track; I just wish there was some way to "lobby" the faculty, since not a single one of our proposals is asking too much at all. But some are, according to "inside sources," fairly likely to be rejected.        From 8 o'clock onward tonight, my time was essentially wasted. I didn't get to answer any e-mail, I didn't really do strenuous amounts of homework--although I did manage to waste my time in a productive manner (talking, procrastinating with kids in my pod, etc.). I was feeling tremendously tired, and the noise level in my dorm was too high to really get any work done. (My solution was to put on my headphones and listen to Bach at a pretty intense volume, although that didn't help too much.)        I only managed to spend about 30 minutes on my business today; this week I've been fairly delinquent in my business responsibilities (i.e., I had too much homework and got too much sleep), so I'm going to have to spend a lot of time this weekend on this stuff. Even so, today was my best earnings day all week--around $300. Once again, I didn't get a chance to call Miles Gilburne (senior vice president of AOL); this time, the dorm was quiet, but I didn't think I had enough free time to have a complete conversation. (For example, I might not have had enough time between my last class and my music test, especially if I wanted to study at all for that test.) I'll definitely try to get to it next week, when I find the right time. If I find the right time.        After this week, I only have about 10 more days until Thanksgiving vacation starts, a moment I cannot wait for. I really feel that I deserve this vacation (I've felt like that nearly every week!), and now it's finally time that I get one. First on my list is to get plenty of rest, and after I take care of that, I need to work on some software programming that I simply wouldn't have a chance to do at school. I'm planning on working on and finishing two programs during this vacation, and hopefully that's not an unreasonable expectation. But I also want to play some golf, eat some good food, and eliminate all forms of stress. I think that's a reasonable plan. 241998111333000AMFridayNovNovember311/13/1998 8:30:00 AM6304652460000000001998111333000AMFridayNovNovember311/13/1998 8:30:00 AM630465246000000000xEntry04        On Wednesdays we have a shortened schedule, which means that on the one hand I am finished with classes at 11:10 a.m., but on the other hand I don't have any free periods between classes to work on additional homework. That, of course, makes Tuesday night a little more difficult, which caused me to take a nap for part of Wednesday afternoon.        I didn't get a chance to call Miles Gilburne today. I had time, but it was simply too noisy in my dorm to call. After all, I wouldn't want to be on the phone with the senior vice president of AOL, talking about elaborate business plans, only for him to hear profanities and an indoor game of football going on the background. (Not too professional.) This problem comes up every now and then, but typically I'm able to find a time that's just right for taking care of "professional" calls. (That's just about my only way to deal with the problem, as it's not like I can just move to a different "office" space.)        What I can easily do when the noise level rises is answer e-mail, and that's precisely what I did when things got too noisy today. Answering e-mail (for me) is about as cerebrally taxing as staring into empty space, which allows me to respond to e-mail no matter what sort of external conditions exist. Many e-mails simply ask, "Can I have another copy of my registration code?" (it's like a serial number), to which I reply, "Yes. Here it is." And for other types of e-mail, I have generic responses that I just copy and paste. Even so, I can't typically answer more than 40 e-mails per hour, especially since not everything will fit within my generic answers, and occasionally a message will require an elaborate response. Sometimes I also answer some fan mail with more detailed responses, although I'm not always sure what to say. I've actually got mail that reads something like "AlwaysONline is the greatest software program I've ever purchased or used; you are a god." I can't just leave that kind of e-mail unanswered, and I don't have any kind of generic response, either. (Although, in a purely humorous light, I can imagine one: "Thank you for praising God. We will get back to your exaltation as quickly as possible.")        After my nap and e-mail answering session, I went to the school infirmary, as I was still feeling sick. I was diagnosed with a sinus infection and put on antibiotics. Before this year, in three previous years of high school, I had missed only one day of classes due to sickness and had never really been that sick at all. This term has been completely the opposite; I've been almost perpetually sick, which has caused my grades to take a visible beating. Every other year at school, I would put schoolwork first, followed by business work, followed by sleep. And that never created any problems; my grades were excellent, and even when I went to sleep late, I wasn't that tired the next day. Now, I'm finding that in order not to get sick (or sicker), I need to sometimes put sleep ahead of both business work and even some homework. It's a terrible feeling. But so is being sick.        I saw my father tonight. (Some of my friends jokingly refer to my father as my accountant, since he also handles that work for my business.) Typically, because I go to school about 1,200 miles away from home, I don't get to see my family except during vacations (although I do speak with my parents at least once a day). But since my father was in Boston on business, he stopped by for dinner tonight. I would have liked to have spent more time with him, but I simply had an overwhelming amount of homework, which I still haven't finished. It's about time that I got back to reading my Russian homework. 241998111233000AMThursdayNovNovember311/12/1998 8:30:00 AM6304643820000000001998111233000AMThursdayNovNovember311/12/1998 8:30:00 AM630464382000000000xEntry03        I'm not sure how wise my course selection was for this term. Since I'm nearing the end of my high-school career, I decided to sign up for courses that I really wanted to take. One of those courses was Advanced Placement Music Theory and Composition, and while I'm certainly interested in music, my musical "talent" (both theoretically and compositionally) would need to improve dramatically just to rise to mediocrity. I really enjoy the course, but it's frustrating to work so hard with such poor results. Especially when about half the class consists of musical prodigies. (Let's see, there's this one kid named Ludwig, another named Wolfgang, and a Johannes or two. They're all pretty bright.)        After coming back to my dorm, I checked my stock portfolio and then headed to lunch for my meeting with the deans' council. Present at the meeting were all the various deans of my school, along with several technical people, and our student president. I spoke in favor of adding more phone lines to our campus network, arguing that even when the school completes the transition of granting students direct access to the Internet, the phone lines will still be tied up. Right now, about 50 percent of the traffic on our phone lines is modem-related. Since a student with access to a direct network connection will not need a modem, the strain placed on the phone lines should go down. But, many students at my school simply don't have the right equipment to use the direct connection; that means that they will continue to use their modems. And even if students stopped using modems altogether, the strain on the phone lines would still be too great. The downside of installing more lines would be the additional cost incurred, and one of the members of the deans' council brought up some quoted figures from a local phone company.        This summer, I worked for a hedge fund, and one of the things that I did was move the firm to a different phone system; my experience with phone systems allowed me to explain to the deans' council how the costs could be cut down from the "quoted" price. (Nobody should ever pay list price for anything that comes from a phone company.)        I didn't used to have any aspirations to serve on any form of student government. I didn't think that I would win, and I thought (correctly, to some degree) that the student council didn't do anything. But sometime around my sophomore year, I learned that the simple act of communication can get things done. When my school sealed off all the fire escapes in my dorm, I was roused to action, as I found this act to be, well, not too intelligent. I first tried talking to several responsible individuals in the school, but after that started going nowhere fast, I called the building inspectors and Fire Department for the town of Andover. A week later, my dorm was swarming with bureaucrats trying to assess the conditions of my dorm. Unfortunately, not even these inspectors agreed that our fire escapes should be unsealed (I'm still puzzled by this), but I'm not the kind of person who just sits around complaining about things. I take action.        The first week of this school year, I had a meeting with the director of our dining hall (and his supervisor at Aramark, who drove down to the school to meet with me) to discuss problems with the food. (Many people at my school think the food is like New England weather--it's bad, and nothing can be done about it.) A lot still has to be done, but things are slowly starting to get better. I'm trying to be patient, but all it takes is (yet another) bad meal to get me worked up again.        I've also applied the same sort of action in my business. I've written a few highly popular programs for America Online, and most of them simply make AOL easier (and less annoying) to use, which AOL wants to do anyway.        I routinely get many e-mails from customers telling me that without my software, they would have canceled their AOL subscription a long time ago. Ideally, I'd like to work with AOL, since we seem to have a common goal. So last year I called Steve Case on several occasions. I was never actually able to talk to him, but just recently I received a phone call from Miles Gilburne, a senior vice president of AOL. I've been playing telephone tag with him for weeks, but I hope to get through to him tomorrow. This could be a big development for my business.        Today was yet another slow day for my company. I spent about two hours playing squash today; next week I'm going to have to be ready for varsity tryouts. I'm also working on a long English paper comparing Moby Dick with the Iliad. And I've been working twice as hard in music class to try to enhance my understanding of the material. All these things cut into the time that I have to work on my business. Today was also a pretty slow day in terms of revenue--only about $100. I'm trying to figure out how to start advertising my software in a way so as to target my potential audience, at a reasonable cost. The primary problem facing all my software programs is lack of recognition. I'm certain that there are thousands of people out there who would be willing to purchase my software, if they only knew of its existence. I need to start finding them, since it's difficult for them to find me. 241998111133000AMWednesdayNovNovember311/11/1998 8:30:00 AM6304635180000000001998111133000AMWednesdayNovNovember311/11/1998 8:30:00 AM630463518000000000xEntry02        Today is precisely the kind of day that I would like to avoid. I didn't end up going to sleep until after 2 a.m., and shortly after getting back from classes today around 2 p.m., I was exhausted and took a nap. This term, I've fallen into a pattern of staying up late (to finish my homework, in addition to work work) and then taking a nap. I'm in the wrong time zone.        Earlier this year, around Sept. 15, my company's most popular software program, called AlwaysONline, simply stopped working. AlwaysONline is for use with America Online and performs the very useful function of maintaining a user's connection to AOL (i.e., keeping the user from being logged off). Initially written nearly two years ago to redial each AOL access number up to 999 times (it was impossible to connect to AOL otherwise, since the lines were perpetually busy), AlwaysONline has become my most profitable program to date. Tens of thousands of people use and rely upon AlwaysONline, and so when it stopped working, I had to work around-the-clock to provide a fix. I also had to deal with thousands of e-mails from my customers who wanted to know what was going on.        AlwaysONline didn't just stop working; AOL stopped it from working. My program allows any AOL user to stay online for as long as he may please, and AOL really doesn't like that idea. Periodically, AOL will take some sort of action to disable my program; AOL's latest attack coincided with the first week of this school year. Within six days, I counterattacked with a fixed version of AlwaysONline, but I forewent nearly all sleep during that time. That really started me off on the wrong foot this term, as I've got sick three separate times (including right now) during the last two months. ******        The math test today didn't go so well. I understand the material, but I didn't seem to understand the test. Up to this year, math has always been one of my best subjects; last year, calculus was a breeze. I still have one more test and a final exam in my math class, so I can still recover, but it's not beneficial to be the underdog at this point in time. Especially with the constant thought of college looming overhead.        Along with about another 40 kids in my class, I've applied to Harvard University under Early Action. That means that in exactly 35 days, I find out whether I've been accepted. Harvard finally acknowledged receipt of my application today, so all I can do is wait and see. I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to sleep easier if I am accepted, since, according to some of my friends at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, college is much easier than Andover. It's hard to disagree with that statement, since there are only so many hours in a day.        Homework tonight went fairly briskly because I only have three classes tomorrow. I have a meeting tomorrow afternoon with the deans' council of my school, to present an argument as to why we (the students) should have more phone lines. Right now, even though all Andover's 800 boarding students and almost all 240 faculty members have a school-supplied phone, there are only 48 outgoing lines for everyone. That means that no more than 48 people can be dialing out at once--a ridiculously low number for over a thousand people. Every night, it's nearly impossible to dial a phone number, which is particularly annoying for me, since I'm trying to run a business. I can't dial out to check my e-mail until the phone lines clear up. The only issue preventing the school from getting more phone lines is cost. But what's the point of the phones if they can't be used? Whether I can use the phone or not, I am still obligated to pay the school for the phone service (which is above the costs of getting a regular phone line from the phone company). So I have my case, along with facts and figures, all set up. Hopefully they'll listen.        I didn't spend too much time on my business tonight--no more than 45 minutes. I needed to get caught up with sleep and with homework, and under these two conditions, sometimes I have to put off my business activities. Even so, I still earned about $200 today, having received 14 payments. The great thing about what I do is that, to a large extent, my company runs itself. Once I create the software, people hear about it, use it, and pay for it. My primary responsibilities are technical support, customer service, and working on new projects. These three things can be shifted around to any time during the day or night. However, unless I devote plenty of time to all these aspects of my business, things will start falling behind; I can only let things slide for so long. And unlike homework, there are no due dates or grades, except ones that I set for myself and follow. 241998111033000AMTuesdayNovNovember311/10/1998 8:30:00 AM6304626540000000001998111033000AMTuesdayNovNovember311/10/1998 8:30:00 AM630462654000000000xEntry01        Technically, I'm a student at Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, Mass. I go to classes five days a week, for about four hours a day, and spend at least five hours a night doing homework. Coupled with sports (squash this term) and several demanding extracurricular activities, my scholastic schedule is pretty busy. But school-related activities are only one part of my daily routine; I also have a business to support. For about the past six years, I've been writing, marketing, and selling various computer software programs to thousands of people around the world. My software programs aren't sold in stores but are freely distributed (as "shareware") throughout the Internet and beyond. People are supposed to pay me a registration fee (between $10 and $15) if they decide to keep using one my software programs but, of course, not everybody is honest. Even so, I've introduced ways to goad users into honesty, through the use of nagging devices (messages reminding people to pay the fee) and a timer mechanism that only allows my software to be used for around a month without payment. ******        Sundays always seems to be the hardest days for me. I woke up around 9 a.m. today and immediately started work--and it wasn't schoolwork, although I do have a Russian paper and an important math test tomorrow. I'm perpetually kept busy by a steady stream of e-mails from customers and potential customers, and right now I'm behind by about 2,000 e-mails.        It's amazing how many of these e-mails I can answer by simply repeating the text of one of my software programs' instruction manuals. But most people never actually read a manual. Answering e-mail is one of the parts of my "job" that I draw the least interest from, which is why I'm probably going to hire and train one of the kids in my dorm to do it for me.        I'm also tremendously thankful that I no longer have to process payments for my software programs. Up to the end of my sophomore year, all the money that people paid me (typically in little $10 checks and credit card payments) was sent to my mailbox at school, or my home in Palm Beach, Fla. I'd spend a few hours a week recording all the information about the payments in my database, and then I'd take a trip to my local bank and make a deposit. But that was back in the days when earning $200 a week might be considered a good figure; luckily, I foresaw that my business would be growing much bigger, so I hired a company called Kagi to process all my payments for me. Now all the money goes to Kagi, and at the end of the month the company sends me a big check, after subtracting its fee. Whenever somebody pays me, I get an automated e-mail from Kagi. So far this morning, I've got notification of 12 payments, most of about $15. Not a bad start.        Part of the reason why Sundays are hard is because it seems like there's so much time. Why start homework now? But honestly, I'll stop procrastinating later. It's about 10:45 a.m. now, and I'm studying for my math test. It's a lot harder to get interested in linear algebra than in working on some new software products that might double my revenues. And I've got hundreds of ideas that might let me do that--I just don't have the time. I think that I'm a decent programmer, but what's made my business successful are the ideas for programs that I've come up with. I write programs that address a need, that fix a problem that really annoys people. Something that people will really be willing to pay for. I can't do that with linear algebra.        After spending some more time on math, I made my way over to the dining hall for brunch around noon. Quality food has never been my school's strong point, and this meal was no exception. The cafeteria staff starts out with the same ingredients present in "real" food, and yet they routinely manage to produce a wholly offensive form of culinary matter, which tastes as bad as it looks and smells. I just grabbed a grapefruit and part of a waffle. Back to work.        Music and English homework went pretty quickly. Completing these two subjects in a little more than two hours, I managed to sneak in some time for some more e-mails and then some work (programming) on a new software program. This one's going to be big, once I finish it.        From 5:30 to 8 tonight I was in various student government meetings. We (the student council) are running one of the next faculty meetings, and I'm in charge of a group that is going to bring up some "residential life" issues that students want addressed. Since the school exists for the students (we're the "customers" of the school, aren't we?), I don't think we should have to go through such lengths to get things changed. But that's not the way things work; we don't have a say, but we can provide input to the faculty about what we'd like to see changed. And luckily the faculty is open-minded about most issues. I'm going to give a presentation proposing that the dining hall (yes, the same one that I just disparaged) be kept open longer, that students be allowed to order food for delivery after the current limit of 9:30 p.m., and that water coolers be placed in every dormitory (the water here has lead in it). I will also give a separate presentation petitioning the faculty to notify the student council whenever a new faculty committee is created so that a student can serve on it. I spent a few hours last week putting together and researching the feasibility of these various proposals, and my hope is that the faculty will ratify at least two of them.        I managed to watch part of The Simpsons tonight, but now that it's after midnight, I'm starting to regret that decision. Even though I spent the last three hours working on a combination of work work and schoolwork (OK, I admit it, I spent more time on work work), I still have to finish my Russian paper and study some more for my math test. Then, time permitting, I can go to sleep. 24199811933000AMMondayNovNovember311/9/1998 8:30:00 AM630461790000000000199811933000AMMondayNovNovember311/9/1998 8:30:00 AM63046179000000000010MusicMusicM10United StatesUnited StatesU10America onlineAmerica onlineA10HarvardHarvardH10E-mailE-mailE10Vice presidentVice presidentV10SleepSleepS10Advanced placementAdvanced placementA10OnceOnceO10RussianRussianR10SoftwareSoftwareS1A week in the life of Alex Rampell, high-school senior.000023falsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalsetrue2falsefalse42.01998111133000AMWednesdayNovNovember311/11/1998 8:30:00 AM6304635180000000001998111533000AMSundayNovNovember311/15/1998 8:30:00 AM630466974000000000