Portrait of the Artist as a Young Geek

Remember when I said I'd be happy if I completed three out of four puzzles in the logic games section? Well, I'm happy.

Not as happy as I could have been; I took too long on the reading comprehension and wound up not answering the last three questions, which I never did on the practice exams. (Well, to be more accurate, I answered, I just didn't read the questions. You don't get penalized for guessing wrong on the LSAT, so anyone looking at my answer sheet will see Bs down the line in a couple places.) Still, completing 18 logic game questions as opposed to my usual 12 more than makes up for it. Unless my wrong answer rate was distinctly worse than usual, I'm in the 90th percentile no problem, and 95th is not a long shot.

We also, thankfully, had a relaxed proctor, who was experienced enough at running these things to handle it without confusion and even break with procedure a little when he knew it would be more efficient without loss of effectiveness. He also wasn't afraid to joke around a bit to relax us.

Only real downer was that we finished at 1:30pm... and I was still there four hours later. I know the cell phone numbers of precisely three people in the area and they're all coworkers, which means they were spending the entire day moving stuff into the new office. (Yes, we've got a new office; more on that later when I'm not exhausted.) So Brian's hooking up the server and Allen's keeping things organized and I don't know what Hacker was doing, but he was busy too, so none of them were free for hours. I should feel lucky, I suppose, that I had a good excuse not to be there (then again, the work might have counted toward my paycheck, so maybe not). I should also feel lucky that Brian was able to get me there in the first place, for which I am grateful, even if I did bribe him with breakfast at Coco's. And I should feel lucky I brought reading material, which kept me occupied for four hours in an empty college building.

Went home, ate, then rewarded myself with Serenity. (That, too, will come when I'm less exhausted.) Tomorrow I also intend to take off. The book says to spend the next couple days relaxing, as I've earned it. The book is wise.

But for those who have noticed a distinct lack of me lately, blame my Web Development course. The final project was due by the end of Sunday, and it kinda snuck up on me (my stint on the streets of Paragon City didn't help there). That plus a miscalculation in how long cranking out five pages would actually take led to near-disaster. Anyway, to cut it short, I spent a good chunk of Saturday planning and writing the content, then started with the actual code Sunday around 2pm...

And was still at it 12 hours later. By 3am the screen was getting blurry, so I said screw it, this one's going to be late, and promptly crashed. Slept until noon, finished it up the next day, turned it in late with apologies, and then blew off all of Tuesday with some Baldur's Gate 2.

Still got an A, somehow...

The one advantage of working part-time at a concrete company is that it's part time. In fact, I realized my schedule was flexible enough to include some classes at the local college this semester. After further investigation, I discovered I was broke enough to qualify for a waiver of about 95% of my fees, which means I can take an unlimited number of classes for 16 bucks (plus $20 for a parking permit and an as-yet-undetermined amount on books). I picked out four I thought would be especially useful for padding my resume: Advanced Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and Databases. (Don't know how I got out of UCI without learning anything about the last subject, but considering how many ads I see in the paper for people with knowledge of Oracle, I'm seriously regretting it.)

I was going to work on my thesis yesterday. I really was. Then suddenly, then of all times, I got inspired about how to do a little scene in Asunder (latest fic project). So I decided to work for an hour on that... and next thing I knew it was 2:30am and I had five more scenes plus the entire general layout written. And no thesis work done whatsoever. Great news for people like thunderphoenix, who I know have been waiting for the completed version, but really bad for my thesis progress. Especially since now I'm too exhausted to even think straight.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should just drop from the project entirely. There are other people on the team, and I seem to be, if anything, holding them back. I've already had to apply for a personal thesis extension, while the overall project deadline remains steady at about two weeks from now. And it's not like a thesis is required to graduate; it just gives me that nice pretty "With Honors" slapped on the diploma. Not to mention the team leader probably couldn't get more fed up at me...

...then again, maybe it's just the exhaustion talking. *sighs* I'm meeting with the team in about half an hour anyway... we'll see what happens.

Tough. I'm doing it again. You see, all the digital arts courses fall under the studio arts department. And are majors only for the purposes of registration; any non-major (that's STUDIO ART major) has to slug it out with all the others on the first day of class. That combined with the limited number of courses that meet the digital arts requirements in the first place, and it takes way longer to complete the minor than it should.

Cut to this quarter. My last. I need one more course to complete the minor. I managed to land a reserved slot in Arts 50 as an emergency backup, but I never thought I'd need it. After all, this is my last quarter (out of five years, no less). But 65C had DOUBLE the student capacity showing up. There were five empty slots... and five Studio Art majors there to snatch them up. Four of them were sophomores and juniors. They got priority anyway. >_< So what could I do but run to my other option: StArt 110 (which some moron scheduled at the EXACT SAME time as 65C...) Thankfully, the professor was holding off signing add cards to the end... whereupon he let everyone line up and signed the fifteen that fought their way to the front fast enough, without regard to major, minor, prereqs, or grade level. He could have added a freshman bio major for all anyone knows.

So that sends me back to Arts 50, which is pure low-level webpage work. It'll count, but I might as well meet my math requirement with an algebra course. I'd seriously consider forgetting about the minor and considering the class not worth my time if that wouldn't drop me below the minimum courseload.

Torii-sensei's final makes me want to take back the nice things we said about him during the review. His class was centered around translating and analyzing a short story called "Yuki Onna" ("Snow Woman"), which was interesting, if a bit difficult due to that fancy language. In prep for the final he told us to focus our studies on the first portion, which was accurate, and that it would be multiple choice... which was a bald-faced uso. When we show up, Ura-sensei is there to pass out a single sheet, which had what we recognized as a two-paragraph passage from the front of the story, translated into English. The assignment: translate it back. (Hear that? That's the sound of eight jaws hitting the floor.) Us level A students were particularly in the lurch, but even Tae was stalling here and there; we had only been able to translate it the other way through a combined effort with the help of three or four tutors and multiple dictionaries of all kinds. Reversing the process as a solo effort was just not possible. I only managed to squeak out a pathetically simplified version of the first paragraph by the time the assigned 20 minutes were over, mostly in hiragana. Torii-sensei is probably going to give an A for effort no matter what we write (please oh please oh please), but I still think that counts as cruel and unusual punishment.

Fortunately, that was the last final. Absolutely nothing today, nothing tomorrow until 5pm... which is when we present our final speeches (oh joy!) Need to get mine thoroughly memorized by then. I also have to come up with three one-page summaries, in Japanese, of three three-page papers I've already written in English, which thankfully we only need to finish "before we leave Japan." So I'll spend the weekend dealing with that and turn it all in Monday. Someone give me a "ganbare!" please.

Fumi-san (the program coordinator) has informed us that in its 7 semesters of existance, the Tsuru program has yet to send a group of yuugakusei back to the States without one of them hooking up with a tutor. Make that eight semesters. Actually, being Mike's neighbor, I've been aware of Marippe dropping by his apartment almost daily for well over a month, but I didn't feel like mentioning it earlier; now that they've made it public, I figure I might as well spread the love. ;D Dunno what they're going to do when Mike leaves for home at the end of the month, but it sort of puts the long-distance relationships I see online in perspective...

Oh, and ( Be afraid, be very afraid... )

And I had to hold off posting this for several hours because LJ was doing maintenance. As was Keenspot. Take out half my online addictions, will ya?

Which has nothing to do with the rest of my post.

As mentioned, two of my classes have "secondary" lectures that slide around in time, prof, and subject as the weeks go by. We just finished the first set of lectures today. Pol/Econ had a series on Environmental Policy, which was mildly interesting, if a bit unnerving (lots of videos that included people with birth defects from some chemical disaster or another). And then there was History/Culture... which did a series on Japanese Pop Culture. Specifically, manga, anime, and monster movies, in that order. (Second lecture included the entire first episode of the classic Tetsuwan Atomu, better known in North America as Astro Boy; third showed the last action scene in Godzilla.) I known it's possible to take courses with similar content back at UCI, but only here could it be required. ^^ Too bad it had to be during the last period of the day.

( This result should probably frighten me... )

[last minute edit:] Make that up by 2!

Because I always pay for it the next day. *yawns*

On an unrelated note: ( here's some boring class schedule info that no one cares about... )

Last week of classes coming up for the term. Next week we have the final exam Thursday, final speech (PANIC!!) Friday. Also Monday off again. (And again the week after, though I would have preferred an entire week to cool down before regular classes started up.) We'll be figuring out what courses we want to take for the regular term during this period... I've already had a few recommendations made by tutors and the rare Tsuru program alumnus who drops by to see the latest batch. I'm most definitely nervous about the prospect of being dumped into courses taught entirely in Nihongo (albeit simplified in most cases), but I've been informed that it's a relative snap compared to the intensive language stuff we've been taking so far. And the tutors will be with us every step of the way.

Still nervous anyway. -_-