Spring classes actually started yesterday, but I won’t have any classes on Wednesdays. All my classes are CS, but a couple of them (Algorithms & OS) have a reputation of being the most difficult in my major. My hopes are that Computer Security will be fun as well as challenging, I won’t drop any classes that I’ll later regret doing so, and that I can keep up with the blogging.

At the time of this post I am registered for…

• CS 470 – Unix System Admin
• CS 560 – Algorithms & Analysis
• CS 570 – OS
• CS 574 – Security
• CS 635 – Advanced OOP
• ENS 146 – Surfing

Instead of a final exam in my OOP class (CS 535), we had a final project… a final nightmare of an assignment that I do believe I have spent more time on than any other individual project prior to this final one for that course. If you want to read the specifications for the project it is here. Basically we had to design and delivery a textual based adventure game built in Smalltalk, and yes it was a pain in the @$$ to do! And let me clarify, the coding was not overly difficult, but considering that it was an individual project (we did NOT work in teams) it was A LOT of coding and when finished I had 12 classes not including my GUI for the game. I’m not complaining, I’m proud that I was able to implement everything and the fact that I lost many hours of sleep to finish the damn thing… just saying that it was a monster of a project.

So I just pulled up VisualWorks, connected to my repository and discovered that my project had been graded… 96/100!!! My professor (Dr. Whitney) noted that my Player class “does a bit too much”. Basically my player class is doing some things (getter and setter stuff mainly) that I should be asking those classes to do.

Well I feel like those hours… days… parts of my sanity… were not spent in vein. I don’t know what my final grade is yet, but I think I’ll be good. I just wonder how much the other students stressed over this thing…

Here I have come hitherto to pass my final judgement. I must surrender and admit to there being nothing more I can add to my canvas and be more satisfied with its completion. Knowing how so tirelessly my hands have been at work and the focus that I have invested into this task I have burdened myself with in so that I am blind from all else occupying my attention… I must cease, and stay my hand from writing a single line more or even one token. Now I must accept that I have journeyed so far and that the judgement of my quest is no longer mine alone, I must release my work and let it continue on down this path and return from passing the gaze of critiques eyes through which I cannot see. There is nothing more needed of me, save for branding my work and for the final time… I save the file.

Well you cannot be victorious all the time…

About a month ago, my artificial intelligence professor (Dr. Joseph Lewis) made announcement to the class that the sequel to our course, Artificial Intelligence II, may possibly be added to the Spring 2012 semester schedule. However, shortly thereafter the CS department decided not to add it to the schedule. I felt fortunate enough to have the opportunity to afford the first iteration of the course, and I was not going to settle without the second and not be heard by the admins. I sent an email to the department Chair (Dr. Leland Beck) in hopes of there being some possibility to see AI II make it to the upcoming Spring schedule. From my discussions with my professors I seemed to have started some debate over the matter, but too no avail to my advantage…

Today I received response from Beck stating that the course may yet be offered in the summer, post my expected graduation this coming May, but after much debate it simply will not make the Spring schedule. And I can settle with that, I’ve said my word and will simply choose alternate electives. I hold nothing against the “decision makers”, I only continue to wonder what I might have gained from the course.

Well, AI I was brought back to life merely weeks before the beginning of this last semester, but not this time it seems… Oh well, that’s just the way it goes this time.

So earlier this week I learned from our ACM club adviser, Kris Stewart, that officers of the club have available to them the use of the TA office of the CS department in the GMCS (Geology Math & Computer Science) building. As I am the vice chair of the ACM, and as I am always looking for a good place to study I was pleased with hearing this, and wondered why we had not been notified of the opportunity earlier…

I got my key for the room today (GMCS 549) and I don’t think anyone has utilized the spaced for much more than storage since 2008, a shame really. It’s not the biggest space, no windows, and the 2 computers in there would better serve to prop the door open. However there is a whiteboard, and in the words of my adviser “it’s your room to use” and so I will and I expect I will be there often next semester deep in studies. Oh man, I want to finish this semester before I start blogging on the nightmare to come in the Spring.

It’s not an office all my own, it will be a shared space. But I will use it to the advantage of a good place to study. I do want to look into getting some nice computers in there though. Perhaps some manufacturer is willing to donate some machines for students to use…. We’ll see…