Dynamic Variables

Hello there!  It's been awhile, but I haven't forgotten about my blog quite yet.  Now that the fall semester is over I have a few weeks off to catch my breath and get ready for my final semester I feel it is a good idea to get back in the swing of things.  In May, if all goes well, I will graduate with my BS in CS!  It feels like I have been working towards this goal for a LONG time but it's finally getting close.

This spring I have three classes that I am taking: Operating Systems, Analysis of Algorithms, and a science class on meteorology.  I look at this semester as a final turning point.  In addition to taking three classes, I will be teaching four classes.  I am pretty excited about this and I hope that I do them all justice.  I love teaching and I still feel as excited about it as I did two and a half years ago when I was preparing my first lecture.  Teaching four classes is a little daunting (it's like twice what I normally teach) but I am looking forward to the challenge.

Life is pretty good right now overall.  My job is good, Trinity is doing really well, and I feel pretty happy.  A few months ago I wasn't feeling so content, but after quite a bit of thinking I was able to figure out what I needed to do.  Once the choice was made, it was like a huge weight had been removed.  All I needed to do was make it happen.  And making things happen is something I can do.  I rarely fail when I know what I need to do.  It feels great to be on track again and I am really stoked about moving out on my own (FINALLY!!!!).  I have come to believe that you have to take ownership of your future.  I can't expect other people to make choices for me, it's my life to live and I have to decide what I want and follow through with the decisions. 

There are other exciting things going on in my life but I don't want to talk to much about that here.  Maybe when I come back for my New Year's post!

Well that is all for now, I promise to be back before 2011!

~Syffin

Trepidation and Anxiety

Well. after that brief intermission and about a two or three month break I am back to poor my thoughts and dreams into this poor excuse for a blog.  I am overly tired after having a marathon reading of a book called The Bermudez Triangle.  More on that later, but a warning that this post might be a bit disconnected and strange.  You have been warned.

Life is pretty good, or at least it seems that way right now.  But I can't seem to shake this feeling of impending doom.  My life has been moving in a decent direction for a long time now and I am just not sure if I can continue this pace.  Sort of like a train that is running all out and suddenly the tracks are gone and in their place there is a wall.

I am trying to decide if this somehow relates to school and my job.  I will (hopefully) graduate with my Bachelor's degree after the spring semester.  But what do I do next?  Do I go on to grad school?  Do I try to find a job in the field?  Do I try to extend my current part time teaching job into something more full time?  After finishing my AAS, I knew I had to get  a BS but now the choice is less clear to me.  And frankly some of the effects scare me.  Am I smart enough to attempt to work towards a PhD?  Do I have what it takes?  I realize that this is all part of being an adult but it still scares me a bit.

I also miss having time to do things that are not job or school related.  I have never had a huge group of friends (like less than 10) but the group just seems to get smaller and smaller over the years as we all move into our various lives.  I have my daughter who I love more than anything else in my life.  Some friends have moved away, others have gone off for second shots at college.  Again, all part of life I know, but it still feels lonely.  The few friends I have left in the area where I live almost all live together.  I feel more apart from the group than I ever did before.

Maybe I am just being all boo hoo about having to make a decision about what I want to do in life and this feeling is just ... fear of making a big decision.  I haven't really every considered anything this much.  I just sort of think about things a bit, analyze all of the outcomes, and pick one path.  I did that with Ivy Tech, I did that with IUSB, and other parts of my life.  But I feel very unsure at this point in my life.

The real crux of the matter is that this is not me.  I don't worry about things like this.  I don't fret about decisions and fear making a choice.  And I think that is what scares me most.  I can't just make a decision about this and move on.  And that leaves a huge amount of uncertainty in my life which I think makes me feel like I have my own personal spectre only just a few steps behind me ...

Well, writing this blog didn't particularly help me sort anything out but it did make me tired enough to go to sleep.  I will try to post more, it might help me think everything through.

Nite all,
~Syffin

Life Simulator

I am taking a class this semester at IUSB called C335 - Computer Structures.  In the class we are learning about assembly language and taking an in-depth look at how the CPU and other pieces of hardware work.  Now before I took the class I was really looking forward to taking the class because I was really wanting to mess around with assemby.  Now we are using Linux assembly and it is interesting.  The class has an overarching project that we are supposed to be complete.  We are using Kephra robots to help us learn assembly.  To that end we have been writing a simulated CPU in assembly to use with the Kephra robot simulation software.  Writing a cpu as software sounds difficult but really it is pretty straight forward.  All you do is define some memory for the simulated registers, define some memory for simulated memory, and then define a reasonable set of instructions.  Defining the instructions is certainly the bulk of the work here but again much isn't really that difficult.  Given this you would think I would have no problem getting this assignment done.  Unfortuneatly this hasn't been the case.  I have had an almost incapacitating aversion to working on this for some reason.  I couldn't seem to get any resolve to sit down and work on it at all.  Finally I just sat down and did a reasonable draft of the code and I think it is good.  At least it assembles and loads without error.  And it even executes into a seg fault.  I suppose the seg fault is a problem but at least it didn't error before I could run it.

In other nontechnical details, my daughter's birthday is coming up in a couple of days.  I got her a Nintendo DSi with three games.  I think I might go back and get a fourth game but I haven't decided.  I think she will like it.  Her mom and I are split up again, not suprising really.  We haven't really been "together" for a long time.  Perhaps too much has happened for that to ever work out.  Honestly I am too busy and too broke to deal with having a relationship right now.  School needs to be my priority and then probably my health.  I really need to lose some weight.  I am getting to a size where I feel pretty uncomfortable and I think I need to make a change to get back on track.  I use my busy life as an excuse but that really is just an out.  I have no good reason to be this way.

Of course I have been playing DnD a lot lately.  I feel like sometimes our group is backwards.  I always thought as you grew up and matured there would be less drama.  Unfortuneatly I feel like there is only more.  Constantly I feel at odds with my friend Beau because his friend wants to play but can only play every three weeks.  I personally think we have too many people playing DnD as it is but I feel like I am obligated to allow more players.  The same thing with my friend Jarad's girlfriend.  It appears she is going to play as well but again we will have too many players.  The more people that we try to add to our group the harder it is to run and also keep things straight.  Meh I just paused and sent out an email stating I don't want any additional players.  Probably people will complain but I just don't want to deal with it.  Sometimes it pays to be able to be coldly removed.

Defineatly excited about next semester, I get to take two different Politcal Science classes.  One is on War, Terroism, and Reconcilliation and the other is on West European Countries.  I really enjoyed my Intro to Comparative Politics so I am looking forward to these classes.  It's getting late but now that I have my room to myself I think I will be posting more.  I guess I better link a couple people to here as well in case anybody wants to actually read this stuff.

~Syffin

The Places Where I Study

Well currently I am sitting at Barnes and Noble using there lovely free wireless.  I find myself here about three times per week, sometimes more.  Something about bookstores really gets me in a good mood.  I love the smell of books (and also the smell of the Starbucks!) because it just feels right to me.  I always imagined that someday I would own a house that would have a library.  Just a room where I could keep all of my books on shelves and that would smell like a bookstore.  I find it very relaxing and it allows me to focus on what I need to do.

Today I have classes until 4:00 PM and then I have to head back to Ivy Tech to work.  I really enjoy my job at Ivy Tech and I am always glad to be there.  I am not sure if most people feel that way about there job.  I feel very lucky to have a job that I never really dread going to and in most casses I actually look forward to being there.  I have never really had a good idea of what I wanted to do, this job sort of fell into my lap and I have been very grateful for that particular piece of luck ever since.

I suppose one huge difference between my life now and my life before is that overall I am happy.  I think I have finally achieved some degree of balance and stability in my life which has made things much easier for me.

Today I have a test in my M260 class which is a math class that covers probability.  I am not sure how I feel about this class so far but it hasn't been too bad.  Some of it seems pretty inexact as I have a hard time determining what the question is asking.  I have been doing ok on the homework but the second quiz was kind of hard.  I really hope the first test goes better than the quiz did.

Perhaps I should get back to studying.

~Syffin