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A substantive update which plays at comprehensiveness

Posted by on August 28, 2007


Guitar
When I pick up my guitar of late, I’ve been alternating almost equally between playing tunes with a harmony which must be picked out (such as malaguena or blackbird) and strummy punk or folk songs (such as jesus of suburbia or annie’s song[yeah, I play John Denver. big whup, wannafightaboutit?]). I am pleased that my chord changes are becoming more natural. I can almost feel myself improving. Also, I’ve been working on a way to record myself using my home computer. I am currently using a pair of earbud headphones plugged into the microphone jack. If anyone has any suggestions which cost actually no money(or less than five dollars) I am interested in improving this setup. If anyone wants to hear what I record, you are mistaken.

Rubik’s cube
Not much to say on this front, my drive to improve my time has taken a back seat to other pursuits of late. I pick it up about once a week, for maybe 15-20 minutes. I am still sub-60 seconds on average. Certain persons have suggested that my current cube could use new stickers. This was almost a year ago.

School


All of my courses this semester are absolutely required for my Maths degree with no preferable substitutes available.
Fitness Center
This class is basically a gym membership that I get graded on. Work out on the nautilus machines, one hour a day, three days a week. I do not expect to look like waterfront bouncer at the end of it, though that was goal when he took the course.
Introduction to Fiction
Routinely headache-inducing. My teacher and my classmates are my intellectual inferiors, and it shows. Here’s the problem: This class is designated as “speaking intensive” so there are plenty of people in it who are only interested in fulfilling that requirement, and have no interest in the subject. This generates the painful irony of them taking a class they could care less about in order to fulfill a requirement where they must discuss in depth the topics of the course. They are taking it because they are forced to, not because it’s something they would ordinarily enjoy discussing. Whatever, anyway, you get the idea. Should be an easy “A” at any rate.

“I liked the movie better”: comparing books and films
This class fulfills a fairly empty requirement which is the required progression from the requirement that my Lord of the Rings class filled last fall. This class meets twice a week, for two hours at a time, and virtually every moment is spent watching movies. Seriously. In spite of this, the class is slightly frustrating due to the expectations the professor places on us. We are watching “classic” films, such as Five Easy Pieces and given sheets of sophisticated questions such as “list every time a character does X” -where X is something mundane. We are also supposed to give thoughtful responses to probing questions about characters’ motivations, behaviors, as well as the use of various metaphors and symbols. It’s all a bit much to do, WHILE WATCHING THE MOVIE FOR THE FIRST TIME. I will wind up renting every movie we watch over the course of the semester, so that I can give thoughtful responses. I feel this is the only path to an “A.”

Composition II
Like intro to fic, this class will spend the first half of the semester dealing with short stories, and the last half of the semester dealing with poems. Unlike the other class, this one is taught by a professor who is brilliant, energetic, enthusiastic, a fine human being. Despite my general distaste for reading/writing courses, this course should be a pleasure and a relatively easy “A.”

Programming in Visual Basic
This class should be VERY EASY for me, but there’s some hang ups. The assignments are ambiguously available, the professor is pretty terrible, and the fact that it is a Telecourse(the professor is in the room with me, but we are video conferenced with another classroom in another part of the city) causes me to become distracted with the fascinating technology. If I can motivate myself to do the assignments in class, while the prof is talking about cod-knows-what, I should be able to guarantee my “A.” Come on, I did DI programming in HS, this stuff is VERY easy for me. Should really be a piece of cake.

Programming in Visual C++
Probably my greatest scholastic accomplishment was getting a perfect score on the Advanced Placement test for C++ in HS. But that wasn’t visual C++. We’ll see how well my experience translates when we get our first assignment in two weeks. (Class is proceeding at a snail’s pace with this professor. This course assumes no prior knowledge of programming of any sort.)

So that’s School. Eighteen credit hours this semester and I’ll be done with my associate’s degree in Maths. Onward to real college after december.

Books
I’ve spent more time reading since approximately last may than I can remember at any other point in my life. I finished three books this summer. I am close to finishing two more. There seems to be some sort of reading renaissance going on with me. I’m not making up for lost time, I just feel like I’m finally getting where I needed to be all along. I am ravenous for more. At long last, I love reading.

There now. Between school obligations(as they are), work obligations(as I take them[*pulls collar*]), preferred pastimes(guitar, books, some m:tg), I’ve got a pretty full plate right about now. I don’t feel pressured though, I just wish that when my mother tells me about how she got involved with this radio survey thing and she wants me to fill it out too, and would I please just fill it out with what stations I listen to and when, and is it so much to ask? she should understand that I actually do not care, and I seriously have things I would rather do with my free time. Srsly.

Oh yeah I forgot
Food
I eat chicken strips from fast food almost exclusively. Within the last couple days I have decided to revise this a bit. I am now eating more than once a day, my snacks are becoming more varied, I am eating lots more fruit and when all this is combined with the regular exercise, I feel pretty great right now.

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