Sam's L33t Journal

I'm done with work for the semester! Yeah!

Gave blood yesterday, had a cavity filled today. Wrapping up work along with the medical stuff.

Sketchy cab-driver guy apparently thinks Barack Obama is "communist", "anti-semetic", "arrogant", and "unelectable". Seems ludicrous to me, but I hope this doesn't represent the opinion of the "average American voter". Scott Adams seems to think it does (more or less).

Things left to wrap up:
SCOPE - Report, expo presentation, code walkthrough
OSS - Code cleanup, video demo
Software Systems - Final project report, final exam
Japanese - Final exam

The following is only relevant to the programmers on my friends list, probably...

So, did you know that Java has syntactic sugar for iterating over a collection? So you can write this:

for (SomeType item: stuff) {
    // code here
}

Instead of:

for (Iterator<SomeType> iter = stuff.iterator(); iterator.hasNext();) {
    SomeType item = iter.next()
    // code here
}

I didn't until recently. When did that happen? Was that not around when I was first learning Java?

Despite that, I'm feeling more competent Java-wise lately. I feel that I finally understand the JNI (how to use it, anyways). I even got a C++ API for the multitouch hardware I'm using to play nicely with some Java code.

School-wise, things progress as usual. Work is ramping up a bit (starting on my final project for Software Systems, designing and programming a Linux shell), but I'm still keeping afloat, more or less.

This Saturday there was the Mexico party at Man Hall, celebrating the end of their recent double-secret probation. It was fun, and quite an amazing crowd showed up (more than the whole student population by a significant number).

Second Candidate's Weekend was fun, too, although I didn't have much time to interact with the candidates. I really enjoyed FWOP's production of Into the Woods, though.

So, evidently I decided that having no morning classes was just too pleasant, so I'm rectifying the situation by adding a Brandeis class that meets every morning.

I keep meaning to write a journal entry, then I keep putting it off...

Thanksgiving Break was great. Hanging out with Cleveland peoples, good food (including fresh salsa made by my brother, Corky and Lenny's, IHOP, and delicious Thanksgiving dinner), a rare session of DnD, lots of sleep... I feel rested for the first time in ages.

I had to pay for my train ticket back twice because I either misplaced the tickets for my way back or never got them in the first place. Either way, I was never told that I was supposed to get my tickets for both ways at once. I called Amtrak customer service, and the guy there was either a robot, extremely thick, or just very good at his job as a bureaucracy-enforcing cog. There are advantages to Amtrak, but they certainly don't trail the airlines in terms of hostile customer "service". Anyways, their customer relations people can't give refunds (so they say), so I'm considering writing an angry letter to their headquarters in DC. Probably nothing will come of it, though, so I'll just have to deal with losing the sixty bucks. Still cheaper than flying...

I helped Ginneh with her resume on Monday night, which reminded me why I hate Microsoft Office. OpenOffice may be an approximate clone, but it does seem to avoid some of the more stupid implementation details.

I took up FF XIII again, and it's been eating time I can't afford. Been reading, too.

Still trying to figure out housing for over break, still have lots of work to finish up. I'm going to be plenty busy.

The weekend was good. The conference was very interesting. I also saw FWOP's production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which was quite excellent.

I have a job interview on Friday for ITA Software, a phone interview a week from then for The Open Planning Project, and my information is in to Google, so all is going well on the job search front.

I bought some business-casual clothes, too, so I'm not lacking that anymore. This Friday's interview is casual dress, though.

My first SCOPE design review is tomorrow.

It looks like it's shaping up to be the busiest semester yet. Whether it will beat fall of last year for stress remains to be seen, but hopefully I'll be able to keep things under control. About classes:

In SCOPE, I'm on the Nortel Team with Duc, The Connor, Anthony, and Chris S. The project is something about "tele-togetherness" (like some kind of tele-conferencing for senior citizens?). I'll let you know more details when (and if) I have more details that I can share.

I'm getting started on my AHS capstone, and I think I'll have some interesting stuff to look into. Prof. Jacobson (Brandeis professor who taught "Social Relations in Cyberspace") has officially agreed to mentor my project. Most likely, my final deliverable will be research papers of some sort.

Advanced Japanese at Babson is going quite well. Looks like most of the grammar will be review for me this semester, but I'm getting some new vocab and kanji, and the extra practice is very helpful. My textbook was quite expensive (I couldn't get it quickly for cheap this time), but seems to be pretty good (if a bit overly formal / textbooky).

Sustainable Design could be interesting, although I'm not sure I'm looking forward to the design projects. Ben Linder is an awesome teacher, though, so the class will probably be good.

Also, I've been trying to get on a normal sleep schedule. Currently, I'm going to bed around midnight (trying to work it back) and waking up at 6:30 to exercise with my suitemates before class. It's uncomfortably early, but one heck of a way to wake up. Hopefully, that will help me get into better shape, too.

Bedtime now.

Aside from sleeping late, I've been fairly productive lately. I have new shoes and glasses, I've updated my resume, got my banking errands done, and I've figured out my schedule for the fall (the class I was going to for my AHS capstone was canceled, so I'm back to doing a capstone project). That last item still worries me a bit, but I think everything will work out all right. I'm looking forward to getting back to Olin, though I'm not sure I'm looking forward to having to get up at a more normal houruse. I'm trying to make the most of my last bit of summer vacation.