Part 2 of a 3-part series on January 16
I’ll be headed back to Orono in about 18 hours or so, and I think it’s a good idea for me to reflect on why last semester was so darn hard for me. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I came up with a lot of possible reasons.
First of all, I didn’t really like my classes as much as I had in previous semesters. Not only did I have to totally switch sides of my mind when I, say, did a three-hour CS homework set and then finished up my latest piece of artwork for 2-D Design, but I also found that there wasn’t as much variety in some of the classes as I had thought. Basically, it threw me off. There was a lot more reading last semester than in any others so far – and I don’t really like reading out of necessity.
Another reason could have been (I’ll get this one out of the way quick) my procrastination. I had my first 2-3 AM nights last semester, and that was pretty much because I didn’t start working until 9 or 10 at night. This one’s completely my fault; I was either working on sites, talking with friends, doing my daily contribution for The Obsessed Screen Savers Fan Club, just wasting time on the Internet, posting on Leoville, or doing a host of other things. I never really found a schedule; the one I ended up following made me lose some sleep, which in turn made me less able to do homework, which in turn made me lose some sleep, etc.
Speaking of schedules, the one last semester pretty much sucked. I had classes straight from 9:30 to 3:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays [shudder] – little or no time to have lunch in there. And no classes on Friday sounded like a great idea, but I ended up getting NOTHING done and it was harder than ever to get things done on Sunday. I think I have to at least have to have one class on Fridays, which is what I’m doing this semester (1-2 PM).
On top of all of that, I was still trying to find a balance between my geek side and my social side, and I ended up spending a lot of time on doing each but never really finding a good balance. I definitely learned some lessons in time management last semester, though, so hopefully I can put them to use this spring.
Having a drawer full of papers I had to go through didn’t help, either. Thankfully, I at least got that done over vacation. Now to start working on that growing ToDo list…
Part 1 of a 3-part series on January 16
Since I’ll be starting the spring semester on Tuesday, I thought it was about time to wrap up the one I got done with a month ago. Here goes.
COS 230: Computer Architecture and Assembly Language (Meadow)
I think the bottom line of this course was that it was one of those painful classes that you hate getting through but that’s really valuable in the end. Woohoo, I can do binary/hex/decimal conversions on the fly and I know just how the instruction set of the Intel architecture works. Exciting, eh? Well, the class was kind of boring. Thankfully, it was at the beginning of the day so I was able to stay awake. No offense to Professor Meadow or anything – it’s just a really dry topic. I learned A LOT of valuable info, though – I think in an entirely different way when I program now. I think it really helped me.
HTY 197: Technology & Society (Segal)
When we weren’t talking about the Red Sox or bowling, we sometimes got to talking about the issues concerning technology and society. I don’t think this class was what I was expecting at all, which really threw me off. It gave me a chance to read Frankenstein, though, which was a big plus. There were a few basic concepts that were recurring throughout the entire course; they were helpful to put into perspective.
PSY 330: Social Psychology (Alexander)
OK, let’s think about this: my favorite subject area with my favorite professor at UMaine. What more can you ask for? There were some great people in the class, and the topics were all interesting (she used PowerPoint again, too, so she gained points in my book). I thought I’d be favoring the compliance and conformity sections of the course, but I ended up learning a lot in all areas and, once again, becoming interested in the research that was presented in pretty much every social psych area. Ah, well, I guess I’ll find a way to incorporate it into my job somehow. I can talk all fancy-like now, too, trying to explain why people act the way they do. That helps.
NMD 206: New Media in the Electronic Age (Diluzio)
Well, after the initial confusion about sections and everything, this course definitely expanded the already-vague area of new media for me. We translated a poem into images and sounds, I played a hole of golf from the golfball’s point of view, I turned a light into a children’s toy… whew. There was a lot of hard work in this class, and it definitely made me think in a new way. It gave me headaches sometimes. 
(a draft of my final portfolio for the class is here on the Portfolio Server)
ART 110: 2-D Design (Nadeau)
Art. Why the hell’d I take an art class? I’m still not an artist. Well, really, I had to take the class. And I’m glad I did. It was a lot like my CS class, actually; it was hard to get through but it really helped me in the end. I went to my first art reception. I recreated famous works of art. I learned how to use ink and gouache. I somehow made a pretty darn good piece of artwork. I think all artsy now. I’m more into design than ever. I think it might’ve grown on me. [shudder] Well, whatever the case is, I’m glad I took it but I’m glad it’s over.
On top of all that, I came out with a really good GPA for the semester. I don’t know how I managed that one… the semester was really tough in a lot of ways. In fact, that’s part two of the three-part series: What went wrong?
[sigh]
Funny, I don’t usually disagree with the Supreme Court.
Can I just say that I’m a little ticked off at the number of domains that are parked but not created yet… especially with TechTV people? I mean, c’mon, how hard is it to put up a blog? :p
I WANT TO SEE ERICA ON HEADLINE NEWS! That is all. For now.
I added two new skins today: one that’s the best for mobile or text-based browsers (Light, #4) and one that’s in the style of American Beauty (American Beauty, #5). I have the AB one as my default now; I kinda like how it came out.
I also added two new modules: Search, which gives you pretty much any search capability you could ever want (if you don’t see something you want, e-mail or post) and Donate, which gives one-click access to click-to-donate sites. Check ‘em out.
Oh, and remember, they’re in the Info section. Click Skin the Site or Change Modules.
You know, I could make an Ellen Feiss skin and make it the default for people who come here from a Google search on her… it’d just be a little searching thorugh the URL. I sure get a lot of people through that – just check out the referrers.
Should I be evil? >:)
Hopefully you don’t notice many changes around here – until you look a little bit. Check out the last box in the right-hand column.
Yup, justinrussell.com is now skinnable.
I made three skins today; the default one is the one you’ve been looking at for the last few months. To change it, click on Skin the Site and then click on which skin you want. It’s not very difficult. I was just getting a little jealous of a few other people who had skins, so I thought why the heck not.
In addition to the hours of fun that’ll give you, I’ve also made it possible to change the modules (ie, the boxes in the right column) you see. You can change them at any time by clicking… you guessed it… Change Modules.
I’ll be adding more skins and modules in the future. I have some really good ideas, so stay tuned. If you have any suggestions, feel free to post a comment, IM me, or e-mail me. Now go play; I think everything works right.
Well, it’s officially been over ten years since my family got our first computer. (I’m glad we still had the invoice.) What was it, you ask? Well, as you can see from the first picture above, look at all we got in this sweet deal for under $1600 (these are all my best guesses – my memory of it has kinda gone with the time):
- A Compu-Add (no longer in business) 425slcLP (486?)
- 2 MB RAM
- 80 MB HDD
- 3 1/2 inch floppy drive
- 5 1/4 inch floppy drive
- 2-button serial mouse
- Windows 3.1 (oh yah baby)
- Parallel printer cable
- Panasonic 24-pin dot matrix printer
- Surge protector
What a deal! Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from Christmas 1992; you can click on either to see bigger versions. The first is me unwrapping my first computer (my reaction today if I got the same computer for Christmas: oh, cool, an antique!), and the second shows how short of a time it took me to set it up.
Ah, the good ol’ days – the days I had no idea what the Internet was and I’d never seen a start menu or an HTML fragment.
Time for another round of clips from The Screen Savers!
This round has two minutes of the last two and a half months’ best moments. Be sure to download one of ‘em and enjoy ‘em while they’re fresh. Both versions are the same; the first is QuickTime and the second is Windows Media.
TSS Compilation 3: 3.79 MB MOV
TSS Compilation 3: 3.46 MB WMV
Let me know what you think, and let me know if you have a favorite moment you think was left out.
Another wonderfully creative use of referrers: taking over the world! Click anywhere on the map to take over that part of the world. My color is – you can also just read the instructions if you want.
Found on Leoville… but he can’t win!
