The Moonlighting Student

Linked lists and queues…again?

March 27th, 2007 9:00 pm —  172 views

It was warm today. And rainy. But the warm weather and the rain brings out smells of spring. Something released from the ground I think.

I went to section tonight for the class on “Search and Retrieval.” This section covered data structures. Kind of an odd inclusion but not unfamiliar to me. Though I could tell many in the class were wondering what this has to do with search and retrieval. I was wondering a little myself. This was covered in early computer science programming classes. Interesting, academic, but practical knowledge? I don’t really think so. The examples given in lecture didn’t help develop the appreciation for the subject. They were too low-level. Who cares about head and tail pointers? Conceptually these structures might be useful but connecting them to the overall subject was flimsy and left me feeling cheated somehow. This is graduate school and we’re having to draw the states of an array after push and pop operations?

I couldn’t help but think of Pez candy dispensers (push, pop) and gumball machines as queues. Sitting through section I found myself coming up with all kinds of analogies to describe the concepts and wondering why we weren’t discussing why these things are important and where using them makes sense.

Maybe I’m being to harsh. This is new to material to a lot of people and I can deal with my feelings of it being remedial. I hope for meatier subject matter in the semesters to come.

The drive home was in the pouring rain and I thought to myself that it was better than snow. I got home, opened a Crooked Tree Pale Ale and checked my email. Nothing exciting there. Mostly chatter. I wonder how Baldrick is doing these days and if he is still following this blog.

And sure, I’m worried about my Mother. For many reasons. But Bell’s Palsy isn’t one of them. Again I find myself laying awake at night wondering if there is anything I can do knowing that my options are slim. Talk is cheap. We all have to live our lives the best we know how. Maybe I’m just a cold-hearted bastard. Maybe this is all about learning the things you can’t control. Learning how much of life you can only watch and wait and avoid the passive-aggressive sink holes that try to take over your backyard.

Boy howdy, I’m a cheery one tonight. Better call it good.

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Game theory and expectations

March 22nd, 2007 6:27 am —  798 views

In between reading about game theory, navigation strategy, linked lists and trees, I’ve been reading a lot of science fiction novels. Thanks to Amazon’s recommender system its easy for me to compile a list of strong possibilities based on a recent favorite then head to Borders where I can enjoy the bookstore ambiance whilst I fill my basket with new material.

While I’m reading a book, I find myself thinking about the author writing it. This in turns leads me to querying them on Google and Wikipedia. Which leads me to the author’s blog. Most authors that I look up have a blog and contribute regularly to them. There has always been this disconnect between who wrote a book and the book itself, at least for me, but with the internet and the ability to publish something to the infosphere with little effort, this chasm hardly exists anymore. It makes things different. Books, reading, and the relationship between reader and author stands to evolve into something new.

Registration for fall semester is a week or two away. I met with my academic advisor earlier this week and left feeling a bit unsatisfied. I suppose my expectations are to blame, but I hoped for more input or options or something. I’m not exactly sure. The meeting felt very superficial and almost dismissive. Like I wasn’t an individual but just another student being digested by the system. Though I tried to ask questions and engage at a level where conversation could unfold naturally, it just didn’t happen. It was all business then my time was up. I need to watch myself with these expectations.

When I was a kid my mother developed Bells Palsy that lasted a number of months. I don’t remember it very well but enough to know that doctors could do little to help her. It just had to run its course, so to speak. Interestingly it has returned, but on the other side of her face. She seems to be taking it well, with a certain resignation. Her doctor hasn’t seen it in years and finds it an interesting case. Hang in there Ma.

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Comments and circumstance

March 8th, 2007 6:36 am —  108 views

This blogs gets a LOT of spam in the form of comments. From time-to-time I go do a quick scan and delete them, which I did today. There were 650+ comments, all but one of them were spam. The one that wasn’t spam was a nice surprise. One of my classes from last semester involved a group project. The project itself worked out fine, but I could have handled things better than I did. As such, those that were in my group barely acknowledge my presence these days. I can’t really blame them though. My controlling and aggressive (passionate I prefer to call it) nature can put a lot of people off. I’ve reflected on my actions. I actually look forward to being in a similar situation again so I can exercise different options and not end up with people that avoid me. I’ve considered approaching them to try and make nice but something tells me it wouldn’t matter at this point. An unfortunate circumstance but alas, it is what it is.

But back to that one comment that was such a pleasant surprise. There was a person in our group that didn’t end up completing the semester and had to back out of the group project. I felt for her and could sense that she was struggling with something. While I tried to be helpful I’m not sure I was. Apparently she got wind of this blog, saw a brief mention of the group stuff and recently replied to one my posts from last semester. Brandi, glad to hear from you. By the sounds of it, you are in a much better place. I’m glad for you. Who knows, maybe we will actually talk about this in ten years and reminisce over these experiences. That would be cool.

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