So, I keep wanting to write a blog post, but feel like I have nothing to say. Graduation is looming, so there's something I can talk about. Also, I'm procrastinating at work. This can count as my lunch break.
This is my last semester at CU, and when I'm done I'll have two degrees and a minor to show for it, a GPA above 3.3, a stole, a medal, and lots of thank you notes to write. I'm starting to make plans with my family about the graduation ceremony. I want to throw a party at our house for both family and friends. We'll see how it works out.
I still need to talk to my boss about how sure he is that I'll have a job at Sun after graduation. It's been really nice not looking for jobs, but I know that will have to change pretty soon. The Just In Time internship fair is around my birthday, and ACM is hosting a mini-career fair for CS that I'm helping with.
But, mostly, I just want the semester to be over. I'm enjoying my classes fairly well but Senior Project just drains all my energy. Daniel has heard my rants about this. Come to think of it, so has Amanda... I'm definitely at the "burn out" point of the semester where I no longer want to do any work, and just sit on my ass playing video games as soon as I leave campus. This is fine for my classes, as I only have three, and have been doing fine on getting my homework and labs done. But this isn't so great for Senior Project, where I've been really uninspired to figure out what I need to work on in terms of improving our project (which feels "done" but not "good").
It's also not so great for work. Speaking of which, I need to start a batch process real quick... Ok. My performance at work has been declining as of late, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm feeling overwhelmed in other parts of my life, or if it's because I'm not enjoying it as much lately. I still enjoy doing queries for Amy every month, but it's been reduced to a few commands in my terminal. Even the creation of the zip file is in the script itself. All I do is pull it back to my computer with SFTP. Most of my work right now involves sending emails to people who want queries run. And some of them are grumpy. I also get a lot of email that I have to wade through involving bugs in our current project - which I'm not currently involved in. I've only done the tiniest bit of coding for it, and that was separate from the main part of the application.
I've been feeling more ADD lately, which means I'm having a hard time keeping track of what I'm supposed to be doing; when I can remember, I'm reluctant to sit down and tackle a problem because I can't remember what I need to do to solve it. One of my coworkers asked me to look at internationalization in python; I worked on it a little, and then gave up, because I couldn't figure out how to test my work. I started making translation files to test my hello world program, and gave up because I didn't have all the utilities I needed to create the files. I'm not seeing the whole picture, and it frustrates me.
Being ADD is fine for school; I can switch tasks, I can go do something else and come back later. It's not so great for work. I need to meet deadlines, be productive, feel productive. Even though I probably get things done at a reasonable rate, my productivity comes in bursts, and the rest of the time I just feel irritable and scummy.
Also, I have misplaced my earbuds, and so can no longer listen to music at work. This depresses me. Where did they go??
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
The return.
I realized that I started a post earlier this summer, the day after I posted a link to my work blog. I never posted it, but I think I should now.
"By the way, things I should probably mention:
"My parents are getting a divorce; they separated this Christmas. Earlier this week, my Dad proposed to his girlfriend, Shannon.
"I'm going to Japan this fall; I finally got notified of my acceptance by Kansai Gaidai (the university in Japan), and I bought plane tickets yesterday."
So, it's been a while. The only people who probably still read this know the most important things. That my parents separated about a year ago, got divorced last summer, and that my dad remarried this August, a week after I left for Japan. My dad sent me a care package on Halloween with a photobook and DVD of the wedding. It was probably better that way.
I've basically been in a different life for 4 months. I'm gradually getting back to it, but now I know how I want it to be different.
I don't want to lose Japanese. For a long time I'd sort of given up on it. I received a C- in my last Japanese language class, in Fall '06, and I decided it was time to take a break. I was burned out. I may never be fluent in the language, but I don't want to lose it again. My proficiency in Japanese plummeted while I was taking a break from it. Not speaking or thinking about a language for a year and a half does that to you.
While I was in Japan, I didn't get the immersion I had expected. Honestly, I spent most of my time there speaking and thinking in English. My classes were in English, my classmates (even those from non-English speaking countries) all spoke to me in English, my roommate and dorm-mates spoke to me in English, and those Japanese people I knew also spoke English enough that I would often have half-Japanese half-English conversations with them. I ate lunch with my speaking partners once a week, but they would often bring their Japanese friends, and instead of talking to me, ended up talking amongst themselves in Osakan slang that I couldn't understand, occasionally turning to me and attempting to translate in broken English.
By the end of my time in Japan I could talk about various things, but I still couldn't really understand what was said to me, most of the time. I did have a rather strange one-sided conversation with the taxi driver on my way to the airport the day I left, though. The thing I remember from our conversation was that he disliked old politicians - the new prime minister is younger than the last one, apparently - and that he didn't like Hillary Clinton because she was too old. Yeah... Well, at least the Japanese know the U.S. presidential candidates. More than I could say about Japanese politics. I mostly muttered "yes" "is that so?" "ah" and such while he happily ranted at me. What surprised me, though, is that I actually figured out what he was saying. Often I don't get that opportunity because when someone says something to me and expects me to understand it immediately, I often don't understand the context well enough to guess at the meaning, so they get frustrated and give up, or try switching to English.
I think the biggest change that I saw while I was in Japan was a healthier way to live. I don't really like Japanese food, so I had completely different eating habits while I was over there. I like bananas again. While I was there I lost about 30 pounds and I got into what was, for me, probably the best shape I've ever been in. I walked everywhere, biked to school every day, went outside every day, explored shrines, and hiked up a mountain. My life was relatively low stress. I just learned not to freak out or stress about things, because I had to deal with a lot of changes, and to act the way I do at home would have been horribly stressful. Japan was an interesting place, but mostly, it was an opportunity to see how my life could be different, and what I could do with it.
"By the way, things I should probably mention:
"My parents are getting a divorce; they separated this Christmas. Earlier this week, my Dad proposed to his girlfriend, Shannon.
"I'm going to Japan this fall; I finally got notified of my acceptance by Kansai Gaidai (the university in Japan), and I bought plane tickets yesterday."
So, it's been a while. The only people who probably still read this know the most important things. That my parents separated about a year ago, got divorced last summer, and that my dad remarried this August, a week after I left for Japan. My dad sent me a care package on Halloween with a photobook and DVD of the wedding. It was probably better that way.
I've basically been in a different life for 4 months. I'm gradually getting back to it, but now I know how I want it to be different.
I don't want to lose Japanese. For a long time I'd sort of given up on it. I received a C- in my last Japanese language class, in Fall '06, and I decided it was time to take a break. I was burned out. I may never be fluent in the language, but I don't want to lose it again. My proficiency in Japanese plummeted while I was taking a break from it. Not speaking or thinking about a language for a year and a half does that to you.
While I was in Japan, I didn't get the immersion I had expected. Honestly, I spent most of my time there speaking and thinking in English. My classes were in English, my classmates (even those from non-English speaking countries) all spoke to me in English, my roommate and dorm-mates spoke to me in English, and those Japanese people I knew also spoke English enough that I would often have half-Japanese half-English conversations with them. I ate lunch with my speaking partners once a week, but they would often bring their Japanese friends, and instead of talking to me, ended up talking amongst themselves in Osakan slang that I couldn't understand, occasionally turning to me and attempting to translate in broken English.
By the end of my time in Japan I could talk about various things, but I still couldn't really understand what was said to me, most of the time. I did have a rather strange one-sided conversation with the taxi driver on my way to the airport the day I left, though. The thing I remember from our conversation was that he disliked old politicians - the new prime minister is younger than the last one, apparently - and that he didn't like Hillary Clinton because she was too old. Yeah... Well, at least the Japanese know the U.S. presidential candidates. More than I could say about Japanese politics. I mostly muttered "yes" "is that so?" "ah" and such while he happily ranted at me. What surprised me, though, is that I actually figured out what he was saying. Often I don't get that opportunity because when someone says something to me and expects me to understand it immediately, I often don't understand the context well enough to guess at the meaning, so they get frustrated and give up, or try switching to English.
I think the biggest change that I saw while I was in Japan was a healthier way to live. I don't really like Japanese food, so I had completely different eating habits while I was over there. I like bananas again. While I was there I lost about 30 pounds and I got into what was, for me, probably the best shape I've ever been in. I walked everywhere, biked to school every day, went outside every day, explored shrines, and hiked up a mountain. My life was relatively low stress. I just learned not to freak out or stress about things, because I had to deal with a lot of changes, and to act the way I do at home would have been horribly stressful. Japan was an interesting place, but mostly, it was an opportunity to see how my life could be different, and what I could do with it.
Friday, May 04, 2007
No more rulers, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks (post #700)
NO MORE SCHOOL!
<dances around the room>
<dances around the room playing guitar hero>
All I have left is... my 10 page essay, due Monday. Oops. Guess I should start that, huh?
Schedule:
Tonight:
Go out to dinner with Daniel.
Go see Leah's LED clothing light show dancing thing.
Tomorrow:
Drive Dan to school for his final at 9.
Study for astronomy final.
Astronomy final at 10:30.
Lunch, perhaps?
Work on paper, perhaps?
Sci-Fi.
Spiderman 3.
Sunday:
Study / work on paper.
BBQ with the fellows at 5.
Monday:
Physics final at 10:30.
Turn in paper by 4.
Tuesday:
GameDev. KHAAAAAN!
Wednesday:
Review session for 1300 (hey, maybe I should set one up for 2270? Nah. Too lazy.)
Thursday:
Theory of Comp final at 10:30. (Notice how all my finals are at 10:30?)
SWEET SWEET FREEDOM!
Friday:
Party.
Beyond:
Look for an apartment. Crap.
<dances around the room>
<dances around the room playing guitar hero>
All I have left is... my 10 page essay, due Monday. Oops. Guess I should start that, huh?
Schedule:
Tonight:
Go out to dinner with Daniel.
Go see Leah's LED clothing light show dancing thing.
Tomorrow:
Drive Dan to school for his final at 9.
Study for astronomy final.
Astronomy final at 10:30.
Lunch, perhaps?
Work on paper, perhaps?
Sci-Fi.
Spiderman 3.
Sunday:
Study / work on paper.
BBQ with the fellows at 5.
Monday:
Physics final at 10:30.
Turn in paper by 4.
Tuesday:
GameDev. KHAAAAAN!
Wednesday:
Review session for 1300 (hey, maybe I should set one up for 2270? Nah. Too lazy.)
Thursday:
Theory of Comp final at 10:30. (Notice how all my finals are at 10:30?)
SWEET SWEET FREEDOM!
Friday:
Party.
Beyond:
Look for an apartment. Crap.
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