The Grades Arrive

First of all, I just wasted a considerable amount of time at ragemaker.net

Second, I just got some extremely good news about my progress so far this term, which I will summarize with the following image I just made. 

Despite how that may come off, my intent is not to gloat.  I'm just extremely happy.  This is really good news for me, as it means it is very likely I will be able to start my grad program on schedule.

I would have been happy with a lot less.  Particularly on the midterm.   The assignments are one thing;  I am fortunate enough to have very knowledgeable friends willing to spend a lot of their time helping me learn and assisting me with the assignments.  Not to mention, I get a week or two to do each one, and I get to use a compiler that tells me when I do things wrong.  So really, I have a fighting chance.

The midterm was different.  It was 4 hours long, 4 pages of handwritten code and I had no friends to help me and no computer to check my work.   I absolutely hate coding by hand.  It's really easy to omit something or use the wrong character somewhere in the line:
     while (*title) sum += *title++; 
and not notice.  Furthermore, half of the test was based around recursion (definition: re·cur·sion (noun): see recursion.) which is a method I have no prior experience with, even on the assignments.  So I basically had to learn it on the test.  I used every minute of the 4 hour period. I was the last person to turn in a test and leave the room. I couldn't think for the rest of the day.

But whatever I'm doing, it's working, and I am so relieved.  I just have to keep doing it for 3 more weeks. Then I will only be taking one class, and I should be able to relax a bit...  Note the operative word in that previous sentence and keep your fingers crossed for me.

Protip: At PSU, "to frown upon" means "to require"

Dear CS163 prerequisites:  In your face!!

Dear PSU add/drop policy: Please die in a fire.

Dear friends and family:  I'm still alive, despite your fruitless attempts to contact me. 

That's an attempt to summarize what I am sure could easily spiral completely out of control and span multiple pages into something that can be read without needing a break halfway through.  I tried to keep it short but that seemed too short.  So here's a slightly longer explanation:

School is kicking my ass this term.  My advisor (who also happens to be the department head, and thus essentially decides if I get into the masters program) told me to take an advanced-level programming class this term, for a language I have no experience with.  He said I would have to work a bit harder than the other students, but that I should be ok.   When I emailed the course instructor to explain my situation and ask what material I should review she told me (in slightly more words) to drop the course, that reviewing the material from the previous courses is not a replacement for taking them, and that PSU “would frown upon” what I am trying to do.  Which is funny, except for the part where—for all intents and purposes—PSU instructed me to do that.

To make matters even more awesome, when I started to figure out what my options were it quickly became clear that actually I didn’t have any.  This is because the course add/drop policies at PSU are completely asinine.  Classes can only be dropped with in the first two weeks.  

•                First week: 100% tuition refund, no “W” recorded on transcript

•                Second week: Whopping 0% refund, completely with lovely “W” on transcript

•                Third week: Census.  Financial aid adjusted to reflect current course load.

It should be noted that the first lecture of the course in question was on a Friday, so I had exactly 10 hours to drop the class if I wanted my money back.  Unsurprisingly, I missed that deadline.  Also, had I dropped a class, I would have become ineligible for financial aid, and had to pay my summer aid back immediately.

So actually, when I said I had no options, I lied a little. I did have two options: 

Option 1: Attempt the class •    Con: Potentially end up with an F on my transcript.  •    Con: If I fail, I will be about a year behind academically. •    Con: Making up 20 weeks of prerequisite material while in an accelerated programming class might be deadly. •    Pro:  Keep financial aid, aka I get to eat and I can pay rent. •    Pro: If I pass, I am still on track to start grad school in a year.

Option 2: Drop it •    Pro: W on transcript is likely better than F •    Pro: More time to focus on other classes •    Con: I will be about a year behind academically guaranteed. •    Con: No eating or rent paying

I know, pretty awesome set of choices, right?  I decided to go with option 1, because it involves eating.

So I have been incredibly busy.  My ass has been saved multiple times by the fact that the professor teaching the course (aside from being less than helpful with that first email I sent) records all her lectures and posts videos online along with all the lecture materials, from all her previous classes.  Also I have incredible friends that have been helping me figure all this stuff out.  And I think I am actually going to make it.  The class is only 8 weeks long.  I only have 3 or 4 weeks left.  And so far, I have completed both assignments and feel like I actually have a shot on the midterm this Friday. 

Anyway I have homework to do (imagine that!) but at least now those first two lines should make more sense. 

Meet Jackson

I've been resisting and delaying my wife's attempts to get a dog with great success for nearly 7 years.  We have come very close a couple times, but in the past few years, it seems like every time things calm down enough to make it a real possibility, some sort of major life change takes place.  And right when you take a new job our move to a new city isn't exactly the best time to get a pet that demands a lot of time and space.

However, aside from her brief yet intense interest in opening our home to a feral street mutt from the Bahamas (I'm completely serious), Beth and I have agreed that when we do finally have a house with a yard, we wanted a golden retriever.  So, when through a fortunate twist of fate we became the proud renters of my sister-in-law's two bedroom house (with a yard) in Multnomah Village, no longer would my reasoning would be heard.  She knew someone who got a great dog from a breeder near Eugene (despite the breeder's horrendous circa-1990s geocities-esque webpage), so Beth contacted the breeder and the next day we were in the car going to Eugene to pick up a puppy.   (Actually it was about 8 weeks later, but this all happened during spring term, when my workload was upwards of 70 hours/wk, so really that whole period of time is kind of a blur.)

When we got there we had a seat on a bench near the kennel.  The breeder then opened the floodgates and puppies came pouring out and tumbling towards us in a manner that much resembled the dust cloud effect used in Loony Tunes to represent a fight.  There were puppies jumping all over the place and running around and causing generalized ruckus in all manner of ways. One of them trotted out of the enclosure, sniffed around a bit, then came over to the bench we were sitting on and laid down near our feet.  To say he was the calmest of the bunch is a bit of an understatement.  We knew right away that he had a pretty good energy level for us.  We lured him into his crate and took off on a nearly 3-hour drive, during which he only whined for the first 5 minutes or so.  We were in a state of shock the entire ride home, as I for one was expecting to be bleeding from the ears after 3 hours of nonstop high-pitched whining.  I was also expecting a veritable assortment of foulness to be emanating from the kennel, as I was sure that an 8-week-old puppy could not hold his bowels, bladder, or stomach (yet alone all three) for 3 hours in a vehicle traveling at highway speed.  But he impressed us both by quietly sleeping through the whole trip.

So I suppose it's about time I introduce the newest member if the family: Jackson.  (And it's time to thank Kane for coming up with such a great name.)

Here (somewhere) he is at 2 days old

and 4 weeks old...

The first picture we have of him.

This is what he looks like most of the time.  By which I mean asleep.

Though sometimes he sleeps like this...

Or like this...

One of his favorite sleeping positions

Passed out dog

When he's awake he is very busy learning to please his humans; He knows how to sit and lay down after only 2 weeks!

He also plays very well with others-- even when they get a bit crazy.

Basically he is just totally awesome and he knows it.

And thats Jackson!

disclaimer: this was supposed to be posted about 2 weeks ago  He has nearly doubled in size since then.  I meant to get this posted sooner but pretty much every priority in my life other than classes has fallen to the wayside as of late.  I think I got in a bit over my head this term.  More on that in a bit...