First Day Back
So, it's my first day back at school, and I'm proud to announce that I'm already bored out of my mind between classes. I've been on campus for a whopping two and a quarter hours now, and already I've had some interesting experiences and observations to share with the world. Scary thought, eh?
The University Drive Narthex
I miss the days of yesteryear, when our church threw the word narthex around as if people actually knew what it meant. The narthex, for those who weren't around then or have simply never heard the word before, is the tiny room thing that sits between the lobby and the sanctuary. Think of it as a combination usher hangout, sound/light buffer, and de-pressurization chamber (for those really powerful sermons). It really serves few other purposes, aside from connecting the cry room and the kitchen to the sanctuary.
Today as I was walking from my car to class and waiting to cross University at the dual crosswalk just west of the bridge, I realized that the two crosswalks form a unique traffic phenomenon. You see, these two crosswalks are spaced as if they were at an intersection; however, no street intersects University at that point. So, you have traffic lights and crosswalk signs that act as if there's a complimentary set of lights and signs that don't actually exist. The inherent problem, of course, arises with yellow lights. People attempt to run the yellow light and make it past the first crosswalk, at which point they realize that there's a second crosswalk. By this time, of course, the light is red and large, unruly mobs of students are attempting to cross the street. As a result, the car is stuck between the two crosswalks in this dead space, feeling stupid for trying to run the yellow light and making a fool of itself in the process. This phenomenon reminds me of the narthex-you can make it in one set of doors but you still won't be home free, so if you try to squeeze in as they're closing the outer doors, so as not to appear late for church, you're still stuck having to open the second set, and as a result you gain nothing. Thus, I've decided to start referring to the space between the two crosswalks on University as the University Narthex. I think it's a fitting name...
Some people...
The other lovely experience I had today was in my first class of the semester-CSE 120 (Digital Design Fundamentals or somesuch) at 7:40 AM. I arrived about 15 minutes early and joined the growing handful of people waiting outside the classroom, which was locked. At 7:30, the door clicked, and the card reader next to it changed from red to green. I thought that was pretty cool, namely that the door automatically unlocked for us, and we didn't have to wait for a professor to show up. The room itself consisted of about 50 computers, weird little Dell things with decent flat panel monitors, at angles facing inwards in pairs of two at tables. I sat down and class started, and a little while later this guy comes in and sits down in the chair next to me. After uttering a few rather loud complaints about how he "froze [his] [expletive deleted] off getting there," he tried to log on to his computer and wasn't able to because it wasn't working. Instead of moving to another seat, he asked me if he could get on the computer in front of me real quick to look something up. Of course, me being me, I let him do so, and after taking about 5 minutes to just get logged on to the stupid thing, he proceeded to look up his schedule. All of this of course was happening as the professor was lecturing, which was mildly annoying.
Upon seeing his schedule he muttered a few more expletives and as far as I can tell proceeded to drop/add a class from his schedule, and then write down his other classes. Okay, I thought, he's almost done. Not so. Then he logged on to Facebook, and started updating his info on there. Lovely. A few minutes later he finished, mind you without logging off of the computer, and I figured my nightmare was over. Later, of course, he asked to borrow a pencil to use for the pre-test thing we were given. With nobody else around to give him one, I felt obligated to, and as is to be expected I never got my pencil back. Argh, how annoying.
I'm a programmer, dangit
My job has been interesting of late. I still enjoy work 95% of the time, but lately I've been a little frustrated with my role relative to the others working there. The big thing I've been working on lately is a big logon script in VBScript. My hatred for VBScript aside, I made good progress on the script, learning how to interact with SQL Server 2000 and ADO in the process, and I pretty much have it complete now. The frustrating thing for me though was the fact that my boss gave me pretty tight deadlines for getting the script done, and would then proceed to ask me to do menial tasks like set up computers or troubleshoot people's problems. While I'm technically paid to do just that, it bugs me because not only are there two other people now who do that full-time (and are much more efficient at it than I am), but when I get distracted from programming it takes me a while to get back in "the zone" and program efficiently again. Thus, every interruption I have usually halves my efficiency for about thirty minutes afterwards. Given that I'm usually only at work for a few hours at a time, that's a major chunk of the day gone, especially when the menial tasks take a good thirty minutes to an hour to complete themselves.
Personally, I believe that if you're going to ask me to program, let me sit and write a program without interruption. When I'm done, you can have me do other things, but if you want my program done well and done right, you'll leave me be. I guess I live in an ideal world though...
The University Drive Narthex
I miss the days of yesteryear, when our church threw the word narthex around as if people actually knew what it meant. The narthex, for those who weren't around then or have simply never heard the word before, is the tiny room thing that sits between the lobby and the sanctuary. Think of it as a combination usher hangout, sound/light buffer, and de-pressurization chamber (for those really powerful sermons). It really serves few other purposes, aside from connecting the cry room and the kitchen to the sanctuary.
Today as I was walking from my car to class and waiting to cross University at the dual crosswalk just west of the bridge, I realized that the two crosswalks form a unique traffic phenomenon. You see, these two crosswalks are spaced as if they were at an intersection; however, no street intersects University at that point. So, you have traffic lights and crosswalk signs that act as if there's a complimentary set of lights and signs that don't actually exist. The inherent problem, of course, arises with yellow lights. People attempt to run the yellow light and make it past the first crosswalk, at which point they realize that there's a second crosswalk. By this time, of course, the light is red and large, unruly mobs of students are attempting to cross the street. As a result, the car is stuck between the two crosswalks in this dead space, feeling stupid for trying to run the yellow light and making a fool of itself in the process. This phenomenon reminds me of the narthex-you can make it in one set of doors but you still won't be home free, so if you try to squeeze in as they're closing the outer doors, so as not to appear late for church, you're still stuck having to open the second set, and as a result you gain nothing. Thus, I've decided to start referring to the space between the two crosswalks on University as the University Narthex. I think it's a fitting name...
Some people...
The other lovely experience I had today was in my first class of the semester-CSE 120 (Digital Design Fundamentals or somesuch) at 7:40 AM. I arrived about 15 minutes early and joined the growing handful of people waiting outside the classroom, which was locked. At 7:30, the door clicked, and the card reader next to it changed from red to green. I thought that was pretty cool, namely that the door automatically unlocked for us, and we didn't have to wait for a professor to show up. The room itself consisted of about 50 computers, weird little Dell things with decent flat panel monitors, at angles facing inwards in pairs of two at tables. I sat down and class started, and a little while later this guy comes in and sits down in the chair next to me. After uttering a few rather loud complaints about how he "froze [his] [expletive deleted] off getting there," he tried to log on to his computer and wasn't able to because it wasn't working. Instead of moving to another seat, he asked me if he could get on the computer in front of me real quick to look something up. Of course, me being me, I let him do so, and after taking about 5 minutes to just get logged on to the stupid thing, he proceeded to look up his schedule. All of this of course was happening as the professor was lecturing, which was mildly annoying.
Upon seeing his schedule he muttered a few more expletives and as far as I can tell proceeded to drop/add a class from his schedule, and then write down his other classes. Okay, I thought, he's almost done. Not so. Then he logged on to Facebook, and started updating his info on there. Lovely. A few minutes later he finished, mind you without logging off of the computer, and I figured my nightmare was over. Later, of course, he asked to borrow a pencil to use for the pre-test thing we were given. With nobody else around to give him one, I felt obligated to, and as is to be expected I never got my pencil back. Argh, how annoying.
I'm a programmer, dangit
My job has been interesting of late. I still enjoy work 95% of the time, but lately I've been a little frustrated with my role relative to the others working there. The big thing I've been working on lately is a big logon script in VBScript. My hatred for VBScript aside, I made good progress on the script, learning how to interact with SQL Server 2000 and ADO in the process, and I pretty much have it complete now. The frustrating thing for me though was the fact that my boss gave me pretty tight deadlines for getting the script done, and would then proceed to ask me to do menial tasks like set up computers or troubleshoot people's problems. While I'm technically paid to do just that, it bugs me because not only are there two other people now who do that full-time (and are much more efficient at it than I am), but when I get distracted from programming it takes me a while to get back in "the zone" and program efficiently again. Thus, every interruption I have usually halves my efficiency for about thirty minutes afterwards. Given that I'm usually only at work for a few hours at a time, that's a major chunk of the day gone, especially when the menial tasks take a good thirty minutes to an hour to complete themselves.
Personally, I believe that if you're going to ask me to program, let me sit and write a program without interruption. When I'm done, you can have me do other things, but if you want my program done well and done right, you'll leave me be. I guess I live in an ideal world though...