Well, bugger
I had a huge scare last night as I was trying to fall asleep. The hosting and domain for this site expire on the 24th unless I make the appropriate payments. Well, I've been going with the two year payment for hosting which is something along the lines of $190. The yearly payment is $110. :neutral: The monthly payment is $10.95. Looks like I'll be on the monthly plan for a while because of the month of no work and that these payments are due the DAY BEFORE direct deposit goes through. Thankfully, the decision to not only host with Dreamhost but also register my domain through them as well gets me a free domain registration until I cancel hosting. Which only saves me $9.95 a year, but that means I won't be paying ~$21 by the 24th, just ~$11. I can handle $11. I just have to pay another $11 the next month... and the next month and the next month... Eventually I should have enough money to pay the difference between what I've paid and the total for the two (maybe I'll go one?) year plan.
I missed work Tuesday morning, but went in Tuesday afternoon. Erika had Victor and I putting up table tents (the little foldy guys you see on the tables in the cafeteria) advertising that if you register early you could win one of two iPod Touches. I arrived at work thirty minutes past three, but I'm going to give myself an extra thirty minutes because SSV is warm as hell on a clear day. Stupid people building buildings with glass all over the place. It's like a greenhouse, only for melting people instead. Especially the fifth floor. Psych is cancelled tomorrow, so that's even more time I can work. I should hopefully be able to get up early enough to work from 9-11:15, go to Software Engineering, get lunch, then work anywhere from one to two until five. That'll make up Tuesday quite nicely.
Odd: IIT hasn't cashed the check I gave them for the second part of the housing deposit.
I need to check out the Dreamhost Panel more often! Apparently I can install four different Google apps onto sugardeath.net as well as use Gmail for all hosted email accounts. Like, actually have a gmail interface, but at mail.sugardeath.net instead of gmail.com. :shock: I dunno if I'd do the gmail thing, at least not for the main sugardeath domain, but it's still pretty cool. I'm gonna play around with the calendar now. Hm. I did the calendar thing and it looks like it's gonna install all of it. But it looks like I can easily disable a bunch of them if need be. I even get Google Docs! WTF Awesome!
Anyway, I feel better now that I've discovered how little the monthly payments will ream me (even if I don't get a discount like I do with the one year and two year payments). This means that I can also take out money to payback Health Services and hopefully not overdraw / cause the housing check to bounce.
The psych make-up is gonna be emailed to me at 1:30 on Friday. I'm taking an extra hour of lunch from work to take this exam. I should really get to studying tomorrow (today). I slept a lot today, kinda missed most (all) of my classes. It was such a nice day, too! 70 degrees fahrenheit!
I have $119 in bonus points remaining on my account. This is because I rarely visited Global Grounds or went got extra food above the meal plan from Center Court (or even just visited Center Court beyond the two transferrable (lunch?) meals per week). I think I will get a salad or something in addition to two hamburgers and a pop from Center Court tomorrow. Stick the salad in the fridge, eat it when I get hungry again around eleven or twelve at night.
I have two more breakfasts this week. Because I slept through both lunch and dinner on Sunday and lunch today, I get a total of three extra meals during the week. I used one breakfast Monday morning, and will try to use the remaining on Thursday and Friday.
Update faster DNS! I wanna play with my calendar and other things!
I really need to start looking up sources for my com paper and figure out what the hell is expected of me for my precalc paper. Seriously, wtf? Papers in math class? The topic I chose for my com paper is basically "email and its effects on other forms of communication in the workplace." "Other forms of communcation" being memos, bulletins, gossip at the watercooler / at lunch. Also the (in)formality of email and whether the in(formality) of other forms of communication have changed as a result of the introduction of email. Seven pages. I think we need eight sources or so, half of them have to be hard sources (i.e. non-internet sources). That'll be fun. This will be an insanely dry topic that I will have to somehow stretch out into seven pages. Are there even that many sources that discuss this? I should really start working on this.
Also, what the hell is up with my CS487 group project? I emailed the defacto leader of the group about when we can get together to work on the next deliverable and he never replied to me. OK, cool. Shouldn't we be coding by now? I am still confused as to how/why we're going to interface PHP with Java. Also, why Java for a game? Let's just go C++. Cross-platform hoo haa, that's what. I appreciate it, but... Java? For a game? The prof sent out our current grades on the group stuff. He also mentioned that a member or two has indicated that another member is not pulling his weight. Excuse me for being sick. At least I emailed the group to let them know about it. Perhaps I should do those self-evals o_O They just seem dumb, though. Do a self-eval on your contribution to this plan of the design of your game. What. "I contributed these sections. I wrote words. Perhaps I could have chosen better words in certain parts of the text, perhaps I could have phrased things differently." Sure, OK. No? I also need to do a self-eval for the last group presentation in com. I understand those kind of self-evals: "I talked to fast, I didn't look at the audience enough, I tripped over this phrase."
Speaking of com. Supposedly we're going to start presenting on our papers next Wednesday, despite the fact that he extended the deadline for the proposal of the paper topic to last Friday. Meaning, most people haven't even started their papers (perhaps even their research?) because the majority of the class turned in their proposal's ON FRIDAY. We are kinda behind in the class, though, so maybe he'll give us some extra time. Gehrs is usually pretty cool. He basically gave me a free A for ITM460 last semester. I approved of that.
Bauer called at 1:37PM on Tuesday, despite our agreement that 1PM was the time for the conference. He did most of the talking and I did a lot of "mmhmm, ok, yeah." He's recommending the CIS degree because then, if I choose to do so later on, I can go into a Master's program for the full CS program. With an ITM major I would only be able to go into a Master's for ITM. CIS requires a minor, which will be ITM. He says that I should have enough electives to take a second minor, but I think I'd rather not take two minors. He gave me a recommended schedule for Fall semester, but said nothing about Summer. He did email me a list of the ITM minors (which are slightly different than the ITM Major specializations), so I guess I'll be choosing my summer classes from those, seeing as how I only need to take one more specified CS class for CIS. There are about two CS electives and three or so CS Technical electives. He suggested I talk to the Career Management Center and give them my resume because I said that I was interested in a summer job. I should do that soon.
Why do I feel like I've already this? I haven't. The last mention I made was on Sunday.
Anyway, with CIS I have to take Physics 1 and Chem 1, but they shouldn't be too terrible. I can take Physics 1 with Corey next semester if our schedules line up.
Maybe I talked to someone about this? Incredibly in depth? Not like me...
The 'wake' light on my alarm clock is flickering.
Figuring out how I am going to pay for my website has actually relieved me a lot more than it should have. I should be relieved by doing the important things, like studying for my Psych exam, working on my papers, not sleeping through classes, clearing my holds so I can register for Summer semester and soon Fall, getting out more, working more so that I have money to spend on the important things: like the soap and shampoo that I am running out of; balls, I am going to be incredibly tight on money until my next paycheck comes in... Looks like I won't be paying Health Services their $10 until I get paid. They can wait. It's only $10. Now, if they accepted credit card, I would have paid when they handed me the freaking pills. But alas.
The Google Apps site says that Google Email is being "updated" and that it'll take up to an hour. I click on 'Email' and there is a button labeled "Disable Email on this domain." That does not sit well with me because of the Dreamhost warning:
IMPORTANT: You need to register at Google Apps for your Domain, then re-create all your email accounts with them first, or your current email will break.
Seeing as how I did not choose to install Google Email, though, I should be fine, correct? We'll find out come the morning.
Practically all of swads is going to the Spring Formal this Saturday. Money and lack of interest have prevented me from buying a ticket. I went last year. Dances really aren't my thing. Also, I've got no one to go with. I'm sure that if there were someone that wanted to go with me and I were slightly interested in them, I would jump up and buy a ticket. But as it is, I shouldn't be spending the money anyway. I'll just play video games or research while everyone else is out... having fun... :sad: :sad: :sad: :sad:
Nah, it'll be cool. I play grindan gaems on PSO with Paul S. Douchebag. It'll be fun. Like old times on when we played online on the Gamecube. Fuck, I love PSO. Especially when it's free :cool:
Besides, I'd need to borrow another fancy pants jacket thinger. I borrowed one from Noah for the formal last year, but I'm nearly 100% sure that Noah is going with his girl this year (hey, if I were dating her and she wanted to go, I wouldn't say no; also, rhyming).
Enjoy yet another huge ass post (what's an ass post?).
Exam-U-Nation
I got a 92 on my COM midterm. How the...? The essays were bullshitted to hell. I did them while skipping class the day the exam was due. Ninety-two? This should be good padding if I screw up on the paper, though. Maybe I'll get another grade that isn't a C! Last semester I got all C's and one A. Oddly, the A was in Gehrs' ITM460 class. Gehrs is teaching the COM class I'm in right now. His name is pronounced gears, as in gears and (Spaceley) sprockets and (Cogswell) cogs. For the longest time I thought it was gares, like bears. I mean, it looks like gares. It is totally a German name and German pronouncation rules dictate that it would be pronounced as gares. Unless I am unaware of some hidden rule. Whenever I encounter a new word or name I always try to apply German pronounciation rules to it. Weird habit. Has a surprising success rate.
I took my CS487 midterm yesterday. I didn't think he'd focus so much on the diagrams and so I studied the facts and stuff. He focused hardcore on the diagrams, drawing them especially. He thinks it's because I don't attend class all that often. It's because I placed importance on the material that he did not. Perhaps if I had gone to class more (I was sick, thank you), I would have understood that the exam would be diagram heavy. Oh well, I know what to expect for the next exam now.
If I understood correctly, my first and third CS330 exam scores will be averaged together and act as my second exam score. If I understood correctly. No matter what, I gotta do well on the third exam.
I should receive an email within a few days from my Precalc professor stating when I (and another kid) should come in to take the second midterm make-up exam.
I will receive an email at some point in the future from my Psych professor stating when I should come in to take the second midterm make-up exam. She offered to email it to me if I signed an honor code saying I wouldn't use my book or notes as I completed the exam on my computer. I trust myself in that regard, but it still seems... wrong... Exams are meant to be taken under the professor's supervision if they are no-notes, no-book (my COM midterm was open everything, hence why I have no qualms about doing that one at home. Heck, it was even a take-home exam.). Thing is, she may contact me weeks from now because she just got some sort of internship or something in addition to her actual job as a (children's?) psychologist. She sent out an email to the class stating that her office hours would have to be changed to suit her new schedule. I think she has less total hours now. I honestly have no clue when this will take place and as such don't know if I should waste my time studying yet (time spent studying is never wasted, durrrrr).
Casey recently stuck Rockbox on his iPod. He was ecstatic. This just reminded me of how much I wish there was a Zune port of Rockbox. Goddamn. APPARENTLY THERE IS A ROCKBOX FOR MY OLD SANSA C240, WHICH DAVID HAS NOW. HE MUST TRY IT OUT. THE DEFAULT SANSA FIRMWARE SUCKS BALLS. This is perhaps the main reason I want it:
Support for over 15 Sound Codecs, including OGG and FLAC
I wouldn't have to keep a second copy of my entire collection entirely in MP3. That is a lot of space being eaten up on my Windows partition that could be better dedicated to... games or something. The following reasons are also very nice:
Gapless playback
Fuck yeah, why doesn't the Zune have this already?
Cuesheet support
Hot damn. Amarok gets all bitchy when I want it to play with cue sheets. Zune doesn't support cue sheets, so I can't listen to Matt's Happy Mix '06, for example, because I was using Foobar when I ripped it and Foobar went the whole cue sheet + single gigantic wav file route. I'm sure there's a way to split up the wav based on the cue sheet, but I am lazy.
Doom!
Shit yeah!
Real Time Clock (RTC)
Why doesn't the Zune already have a clock on it?
Unicode support
My Japanese and Korean stuff would show up properly instead of a bunch of boxes and ASCII symbols.
Multilingual Interface - 30 supported languages and counting
Hello, German! The Zune only supports English, French, and Spanish. Lame. Give me a man's language.
Many plugins - games, apps, and demos
I like things that are extendable.
Open Source, so Rockbox is constantly improved
I like things that are Open Source.
Yay for random off-topic thing, eh? I like my Zune again, now that I have all of the remix projects I downloaded, Pirates 1 and 2, Star Wars 4, LotR 2, and Foo Fighters on it. It made me happy when "In Your Honor" came on while I was taking a poop in E1 today.
I am seriously thinking of removing the Dane Cook stuff. I always skip past it when it comes on. I don't even recall how I got three albums of Dane Cook. WTF. I barely even like the guy. I hear he steals his jokes from other comedians. Also, I dislike his delivery and his attitude.
I whipped up a quick little FileReader/BufferedReader Java demo for Linda tonight. I forgot something so simple as public static void main(String[] args). I completely failed to understand what the compiler meant when it said "No main" or whatever. I guess C being the last language I've touched kinda messed with some of the Java idiocies I used to know. Turns out she was supposed to use Scanner anyway (I don't recall ever using Scanner for file reading), though I think my demo helped anyway?
Man, if I do switch to ITM and take ITM courses over the summer instead of assrape Calc 2 + CS, I think I might have time to get back into some DS programming. The only problem with DS stuff, though, is the art aspect. I ain't no artist, k? I can do the programming, but I'd really like the art assets to already be there. I had a hard enough time coming up with the two different arrows and fancy text on the bottom screen of my die rolling app.
Thinking.
in a nutshell
ITM is information technology, very hands on technology classes and applications
you will see they have OS classes in linux/windows admin
Sounds like fun. Really, hands on stuff is fun. Administrating Linux and Windows servers. That is good stuff.
CS is more theory based, you need the math in CS330 in other classes (cs430, CS440)
our OS class is theory of OS, with some particulars about different implementations
Theory can bite me. If the discrete math comes back later on, I think I might have to miss out on that fun.
if the calc sequence and classes like CS330 are challenging for you, the ITM degree is an option.
Hence why I brought it up.
some caveats
- BS in ITM does not satisfy pre-req for most MS in CS programs.
I never really planned on further schooling (the ITM program DOES have a Bachelor's of Science!).
- ITM classes rotate from Rice campus to main campus, so you need to take the classes in the right
semester when they are offered on main campus, or take them remotely via IIT/V or internet to main
campus.
This sounds annoying.
- ITM and CS lead to different poissible career paths. For example MS hires CS majors to do their
design/development, MS hires ITM majors to run their back office servers & s/w. But your degree is
not the only thing influencing your career. Also your summer jobs and interests. In either degree
you need to work on your own to learn the latest technologies
(I assume MS means Microsoft now.) The idea of running back office servers and software has a specific appeal to me. And of course I'm not always stuck anywhere.
calc 2 is very hard over the summer, and if you are planning a switch to ITM I would not attempt it.
There are ITM classes offered over the summer that I could take instead.
Taking calc II and a CS class together is very hard work, I would not plan anything else.
What do you mean, like fun things? Or that you would not go for any other class combinations?
There is no full time equivalent required hours over the summer. Max enrollment is 8 hours
Except that I need at least 6 credit hours to get federal financial aid for the summer.
He totally did not dissuade me from switching majors. And ITM DOES have a BS degree! Damn!
Is This For Me?
I spent about two and a half weeks sick thanks to a nasty case of tonsillitis. My recovery started last Tuesday. I remember a specific point during the day when I was suddenly able to breath through my nose again. It all quickly fixed itself from there. I've still got three more days of penicillin left, for which I owe Student Health Services $10. Now, I wish I could say I did something during this time. Anything. I got it in my head to play some video games while I was sick, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything. I just wanted to sleep and sit on the computer and do nothing all day every day. And I did. I wish I could say I at least thought about things. But no, nothing. Absolutely nothing. I watched TV, I mindlessly browsed the web. I did nothing.
I am having a hard time getting back into the swing of school things. Being out for two weeks will do that. But no, that's not it. I was never into the swing of school things. I can't motivate myself. I am having the hardest time going through these Software Engineering slides to come up with my four cheat sheets for the make-up exam I am taking tomorrow. I have a paper for Visual and Verbal Communication that is due... at some point. There is a rough draft due next week, maybe. We even have to do a presentation on it. The paper is to be about seven pages long with a fair amount of sources (I forget how many, but half of them have to be hard, non-internet sources; not cool). I don't have a topic yet. CS Majors don't do papers, they program. I am scared about this paper because I know myself.
Where is my programming. Why am I being forced to take a Discrete Math class? Why am I taking this class when I'm barely pulling myself through the second semester of Precalc? Why do I have to go up through Calc 3 and then take Differential Equations? Even my fucking Precalc teacher said that there is much controversy in regards to teaching CS majors Calculus.
I set my Facebook status to "Anthony doesn't like school... sometimes he wonders if he should be doing something else instead..." Becky (from my freshman year of Science Olympiad) suggested that perhaps I should do something else. The problem is, the only something else I can think of doing is precisely what I am going to school for. Well that sucks balls. I want to program. I want to get out there and actually make things. I don't want to be studying methods of formal and informal communication. I will never need to know what series or whatever eliminates a given set. Fuck integrals.
OK, despite how boring my Software Engineering class is, I understand the importance of knowing how the development process works.
Prof. Gehrs suggested I switch to ITM (Information, Technology Management) because there is a severe lack of math and a lot more programming, apparently. I looked at the four year plan for the program (I don't think it's even a real degree), and the only required classes are ITM classes! NO MATH! NOWHERE! NOTHING! There's a ton of elective credits, though. It's basically the Psych degree of the technical world. Once I made that comparison, I decided against switching majors because it would only be a cop-out. I mean, really, the CS degree gets better after this semester. CS351 looks kinda tough, based on how Corey and Phil are talking about the class; but it's low-level stuff that looks fun. They had to code their own shell. That's the kind of shit I wanna do. There's an Operating Systems class later on. That sounds interesting! There are no more CS specific math classes after I get out of CS330... if I get out of CS330. I just have to take the regular math and not fail...
This summer is going to suck. Calculus 2 four days a week from 10AM to 12:40PM. And then I have to take a second class so that I am considered full-time. After all, I do want my awards to apply for the summer, yes? And then I need to get a job for the summer. I didn't apply in time for the CHA position here on campus, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway: one of the fields on the application was "Cell phone number." Kinda hard to be on-call without a cell phone, yeah? I believe I missed the deadline for the summer internship at the Museum of Science and Industry as well. Maybe my app will be out of AMC's systems by the time summer rolls around... October plus six months... maybe... Or I could just apply to every random little place in the city and hope something goes through.
I am officially rooming with Casey this summer. Should be interesting. I have some random roommmate for next semester though. I don't see that as being a problem. Apparently he lived on third east last year. He tells me that the room situation went something like this: Him | RA | Me. Weird. While hanging out with Jourdan before Spring Break, she mentioned, briefly, that perhaps I could live with her and her roommate if they find an apartment near the south side of the city. I stated that as long as I can get myself to school on time, it does not matter if the apartment is on the north side or the south side; as long as it is cheap. There was no more talk of this. I am not counting on it, hence why I have paid the first half of the housing deposit (thanks Housing for not telling us that the fee could be split up! I found this out from friends after the first bit was due! Thankfully there were issues that did not affect my ability to choose a room, yet allowed me to pay only the first half instead of the whole thing.) and why I should be going to work and pulling fifty-bajillion hours to pay the second half by... Friday.
That's another thing. Three weeks off of work (I could have worked Spring Break, but the first half I was lazy and the second half I was sick) and I am in no mood whatsoever to return. I missed work today, Monday, and I am skipping Tuesday as well so that I can maybe work on my Software Engineering cheat sheets some more. Maybe I'll work double Thursday and double Friday. Four hours on Thursday, in two hour chunks. Six hours on Friday, three hour chunks with an hour in between. I'll hit ten hours of work, which is what I'm scheduled anyway. Perfect. Now let's see if I actually do that.
I hate myself and my lack of motivation. I can't make myself do anything. Hell, I even have a hard time of motivating myself to do things that I want to do. As stated, I couldn't get myself to play any video games while sick. I finally got around to playing some PSO on schthack's server and updating the songs on my Zune. Things I have been meaning to do for weeks. Things I have been wanting to do. I have lamented the fact that I didn't have any Foo Fighters on my Zune for the longest time, and I finally got around to fixing that today. What is wrong with me? I can't motivate myself to do anything. Sometimes I think there is something wrong with me. Either that or I just fail to see the big picture, the end goal. I can't even keep myself doing a set of push-ups every day. Something that takes mere minutes and I get too lazy to do it.
Sometimes I wonder why I am in school. Then I get depressed when I realize that the only way to do what I want is to go through school, because apparently I am completely incapable of programming and working on a team unless I go through an accredited school and get presented with a piece of paper at the end of my hopeful four year (though five is largely becoming acceptable) stint of bleeding money. Fucking useless.
How did I let this happen?
Anyway, hell week is almost over! Spring Break is soooo close!!
Apparently we're leaving for Carbondale at eight-thirty Saturday morning. Oof.