Moving On

So I’ve been a bit absent from this space for a while–school commitments have largely demanded my attention with two midterms last week. Sometimes I truly amaze myself: I had managed to confuse the exam dates for each test with the previous class date. I had thought that my Numerical Analysis exam was on Monday when it was actually on Wednesday, and that my Calculus III exam was on Tuesday when it was actually on Thursday. Brilliant, I know.

Despite my staggering ability to undermine my education, my confusion worked to my advantage–the classes that I thought I would be taking exams were actually devoted to reviewing for said exams. So, I was able to reaffirm the content I had so frantically been studying over the weekend and brush up on some of the finer points of multivariable calculus and LaGrange interpolation.

The tests themselves went reasonably well–I actually enjoy test taking. There’s just something fun about sketching out three dimentional shapes and writing elegant solutions to problems when you actually know what you’re doing. The results came back this week. I earned a 73% on the Calculus, which, considering the fact that I fear failing this class more than death, was quite satisfying. I fared better in Numerical Analysis with an 87.5%.

I also met up with a student advisor with the Dean of Student Affairs last week. She assured me that, assuming I pass my classes and file my graduation request form that day (which I did), I will actually graduate in January. Though the commencement ceremony won’t actually be until May 2004, I will officially have graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Finally.

Needless to say, after five and a half full-time semesters at County College of Morris, the loss of 20 credits by transferring to Rutgers University, and another five and a half full-time semesters there, I did a little happy dance leaving the office. In ten weeks, I’ll officially be a free man.

What am I going to do with myself then?

Learning to Dance

I praise the dance, for it frees people
from the heaviness of matter and binds
the isolated to community.

I praise the dance, which demands everything:
health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.

Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people,
who are in constant danger of becoming all brain,
will, or feeling.

Dancing demands a whole person, one who is
firmly anchored in the center of his life,
who is not obsessed by lust for people and things
and the demon of isolation in his own ego.

Dancing demands a freed person, one who vibrates
with the equipoise of all his powers.

I praise the dance.

O man, learn to dance, or else the angels in heaven
will not know what to do with you.

St. Augustine

In Case You Missed It: Procrastination Edition

Stuff I’ve been reading while I should have been studying…stuff you’ll probably read when you should be sleeping.

Heather Armstrong: Good Dog. Sasha is trying to convince me to go XHTML 1.1 Strict.

Ken Womack: Dear Hollywood. Movies…They’re, uh, worth it.

Ethan Marcotte: The Eolas matter. An open letter to Mike Doyle: bite me. Thank you. Ethan is one of my new favorite web designers.

Pentrix: Leigun. Stuff to learn before I graduate college.

Six Apart: TypePad’s Official Launch. A few of my friends that have been asking about how to start a blog should head on over to Typepad and kick the tires.

Mozilla QuickNote extention–not a bad way to edit CSS.

TopStyle Lite–but this is much better. ;-)

RealVNC–techies, go download this software right now. RealVNC has now solved two real-world problems for me on the fly. Very few pieces of software can lay claim to such feats.

Michael Barrish: The Plight of the Orange Juice Container [PG]. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before. I will be famous not for my writing but for my method of finding lost things.

Simon Willison: IE6, italics and horizontal scrollbars. IE users: notice that annoying horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of your screen? This is actually an IE bug: text that is italicized and aligned to “justify” will make IE think that it will extend off of the page. Just one more reason to switch to a better browser. Solutions for a workaround are welcome.

Peter-Paul Koch: JavaScript. Because JavaScript is always harder than it should be.

Stuart Langridge: Plus ca change. I’ve just noticed how, after browsing around Mark’s site, how irrationally annoyed I’m already getting when I can’t step from one page to the next using the toolbar on other people’s sites. I, too, installed the Firebird Link Toolbar and became irrationally annoyed that my site didn’t work like Mark‘s. So, naturally, I irrationally spent several hours adding <link> tags all over Our Story. Oh, but it’s so worth it. :-P

Mark Pilgrim: Friend of a friend. Something else that I discovered I didn’t have: a FOAF profile. I’m still trying to figure out why this is cool…

FoaF Explorer: Ken Walker. …but, hey, it couldn’t hurt.

Movable Type User Manual: Rebuild this template automatically. I went through every index template on Our Story and unchecked this box for every one I didn’t think was worth rebuilding automatically. You shouldn’t have to go wax your car now in order to wait for your comment to post.

Sean Boisen: Why I Blog. If you want to know why I blog, you’ll want to read chapter two of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Jess Morrissette: Roger Wilco’s Virtual Broomcloset. This site is Roger Wilco’s Virtual Broomcloset (a.k.a., The Virtual Broomcloset, The Broomcloset, Wanda)–the web’s first and foremost site devoted to providing hints, information, and lots of other neat stuff for fans of Sierra’s Space Quest series. Mmmm…nostalgia.

Noteworthy Xian Church/Organization sites:

* emergingchurch.info – A touching place for the emerging church
* Bruderhof Communities – Content. Rich.
* Forth Worth Presbyterian Church – It’s a church website! It’s a blog! It’s both!