Been a while since I've done a proper daylog.
school
I am on the home stretch of this here CS degree, enrolled in 12 hours of classes which will hopefully be my last as an undergrad. Database Systems and Programming Languages are the only two actual CS classes; I also have Modern Algebra for my mathematics minor, and Bioinformatics (hehe, a graduate-level biology class) just for fun. Might sign up for another hour of neuropsychology lab with Dr. Atchley, though she hasn't returned my emails yet. Sometime in the semester her lab RA's are going on a field-trip to see the wicked new MEG setup she has access too, which is more than half the reason I would sign up for more lab time. Unfortunately, the university doesn't offer a minor in Psych, even though I've racked up a full 18 hours. Just for reference, I have a grand total of 154 credit hours to show for my last five years spent at the University of Kansas, plus the hours accumulated in night classes while still in High School. Looking at my transcript, I've been taking college classes since the summer of 1996; seven years total. That must mean I have tenure! Rawk.
Have decided not to apply for graduate school just yet, as my grades don't exactly (or, um, even remotely) warrant an admission to anywhere I'd like to go. Maybe with some work experience I'll stand a better chance, plus have some money to put toward the goddamn fucking ridiculous $100 application fees that schools all seem to charge. Got my GRE scores in the mail the other day, also, which I won't post in a daylog because I have a soul (see: no, you may not see my penis). I will mention that spending n-thousand-hours vomiting forth 200,000+ words into e2 has payed off to the extent that I got a perfect score on the GRE writing assessment, which is somewhat vindicating.
e2
It's been a few weeks since the end of the nodermeet I hosted. As expected, I had a good time and it was enjoyed by (almost) all who attended. This despite a couple of cases of food poisoning, which apparently were not caught at the meet itself but at an unscheduled dinner break on the Saturday during it. All told, 22 noders showed up, a considerably good haul for a meet held in the middle of nowhere. A couple of people have asked me if there's going to be another next year. "Probably not" is perhaps the safest answer, as I plan to move out of the area between now and then. Still, if it turns out that I'm mired in bloody awful KS another year, another meet would be just the thing to break the monotony, so ...
Keeping with the subject of meets and other gatherings, there are a bunch I'd like to go to in late spring / summer. Since I'm trying to get out of debt (well, not counting my five-figure student loans) by the ides of May, I probably can't go to any of them. Bummer. Still, need to plan ahead if there's any chance at all. The list follows; am I missing anything?
Oh, and one last thing. This writeup puts me at level 8, finally. The original plan was to be there by November, but hey.
personal
It's snowing out. I can see it collecting in little tufts on the evergreens, and sweeping in ghostly waves in front of me as I walk to class. Pretty enough that I can forgive the weather for being so bitterly, biting cold.
I think my life may be without any serious drama at the moment. Ex-girlfriends all seem to be, if not perfectly happy, then at least no longer angry or adrift in chaos. Current lover is sane and mostly stable. Friends are mostly the same. As am (mostly) I. We're all a little fitter, happier, more productive.
Yeah. And we're all ignoring the question of what is going to happen in the next, oh, year or so. Some of my people have steady jobs or whatever, or can mooch of a SO that does. But then, that means they're tied to the land, stuck in flyover country for the next k percent of their lives. Myself and my girl are both graduating, though, into a competitive environment with thousands of unemployed CS degrees who have Real Life experience. I have three years of RL experience in delivering pizza, and she has a bit less than that selling doughnuts and tutoring algebra. This sucks. But we'll live. Pizza delivery is not so bad.
Liquidating my stuff, too, futilely trying to get it down to a single large carload that I can drive to wherever I can get employment. Hell, futon mattress alone (I'm tossing the junked frame) negates that idea. Keeper possessions that I can think of include: Media and readers including CDRs, computer, vinyl, stereo equipment, and two ginormous speakers; metric shitload of books; clothes; video games inc 2600, jaguar, n64, SNES, NES, and GameBoy; kitchen stuff; queen-sized mattress; heavy-duty tables and shelves; framed pictures and posters; four cubic feet of rave flier collection; sundry keyboards, drum machines, and other electric junk; plus everything else I've forgotten. That looks like two or three truckloads to me, which is not cool. Still, I'm getting rid of: a few old computers, all furniture, TV, extraneous hardware and kitchen stuff; my entire paper collection of accumulated schoolwork and bill receipts; worthless books (though it kills me to toss 'em); and old clothes. Any suggestions on this process are welcome, I'm new to it, having been something of a pack-rat in times passed.
I think I'm going to San Diego for Spring Break, if my cousin has a spare bedroom or couch space for two people to stay. Is there anything I shouldn't miss out there? Any bangin' club nights, maybe? One thing I definitely won't miss out on is getting to camp for a night in the desert between KS and CA, with no major cities for 200 miles in any direction and the milky way hanging glitter-red in the sky, under a heavy blanket with somebody warm who I love. Looking forward to that more than the beaches or booze or any of that shit, really.
Also, may end up staying with said cousin for a month or two -- $ave up for that down payment on a condo -- if I get a government job in San Diego. Looking to the government in general for jobs; the pay scale is tragically poor (at least at the GS-5 level, where I guess I am), but that's ok because it means the competition won't be as tough. Plus, the US government is well known for never firing anybody, which will be a bonus if my nightmares about being a total fuckup at CS actually come true.
I hear their electronic music scene is bogus, though. Sucks to that. I guess LA is only four hours away or so, and I've heard rumors tat Tijuana has a bitchin' underground scene of some kind ... Funny, since I stopped considering graduate school, this has been probably my top consideration in where I am moving, besides the "any place where I can get a job" factor. As far as I can tell, it's no more or less arbitrary than any of the other reasons people go places, like weather, cost of living, societal attitude, political climate, etc. Still, there's something subtly uncomfortable about ranking possibilities based on their quality and quantity of phat beats. Oh well.
That's it for now, I guess. Peace.