Archive for the 'university' Category

Graduation and Law School.

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John T Davis
on August 23, 2007
in law school, medical and university
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Wow. Two-and-a-half months without an update. So much for putting up something at least once a week, hmm? I’m still not sure anyone actually reads this space, so I could very well be burbling into the void, but that’s hardly an excuse. I could say not much particularly blog-worthy has happened, but that wouldn’t be at all truthful, though I’ve certainly been less active since graduation. I’ve spent the last few months just kind of decompressing after the conclusion of spring semester. Which brings me to my first point.

University Graduation

On Saturday, 12 May 2007, I graduated from my university with a BA magna cum laude in Computer Science, with a Political Science minor. The day was tiring, as I got to the ceremony at noon and it didn’t finish until five* (counting the photo session in the 95 degree heat, which was less than pleasant since we were all in black gowns, but I digress). My high school councillor was among the guests and one of the first to arrive, which was very fortunate, as after four years of intensive liberal arts education I proved myself unequal to the task of properly dressing myself in my graduation robes without help. In my defense, I had lots of attachments to worry about (honor cords, medallions, flaming swords, etc.**).

It was a lot of fun, especially since most of my family and a good number of my friends showed up for the after-party in my apartment. I’ve got lots of pictures. Someday, I might post some of them if I can get digital versions. I think someone’s got them on CD.

Odd things: We were never instructed to flip our tassels, so we never did. There was some reason this was done, but I can’t remember why. No one threw their hats in the air, either. I’m not sure if it was because we were just sedate, or because that was the only part of the whole gown ensemble we were actually allowed to keep (aside from honor cords and medalions) and people were being sentimental.

*The ceremony itself didn’t start until two, but I was allowed to come early and get situated since I have some mobility issues, which was really great. I’m really glad they let me, but I was a bit stiff by the end. I also kept getting my robe tangled up in my walker. Thankfully, there were two very nice people standing near either ramp to/from the stage that helped me get untangled. No Dick Van Dyke moments for me.

**One of these things does not belong.

SMU and Health Updates

I was granted deferral status from SMU for health reasons. I won’t begin attending until August 2008, which will give me time to work on some health stuff I’ve put off for a while. I’ve already started, as on August 10 I had a very large surgical table nail removed from my right foot. It’s left over from a Triple Arthrodesis in 2001. When I had the surgery done I was told the nail could stay in even after all the bones fused back together, forever if I wanted. Which I liked, since the idea of having another surgery so soon after the last one was not appealing. For the last several months though, it started to bug me and be more than a little painful. It was easier to see under the skin than it used to be, too. I can only guess it was starting to shift loose. Anyhow, I decided to have it removed. Really painless surgery, all things considered. No cast (just an ace bandage), and no weight for five days. I’m still not getting it wet, but that’s no problem. If only every surgery could be this easy. As soon as I find a camera, I’ll post a picture of the nail. It was much bigger than I expected it to be.

[tags]triple arthrodesis, SMU, graduation[/tags]

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The End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine).

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John T Davis
on May 11, 2007
in university
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Graduation is tomorrow. Today I was allowed to attend the staff walkthrough so I could make sure the stage was sufficiently accessible for me. The ramps were good, and having an opportunity to practice should prevent any tunnel-vision related mishaps.

In approximately half an hour I’ll be heading to the President of the university’s reception.

My family is starting to arrive. Two of my aunts and one of my uncles are due today at some point, and my parents are in place. As for tomorrow, a brief itinerary is in order. I’m leaving off some of the events (e.g.: robe pickup and return, robing, etc.). Needless to say, according to the official timeline, things are planned down to the minute.

  • 10:30 AM - Commencement Worship Service
  • 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM - Commencement Convocation
  • 4:00 PM - Class Photo
  • 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM - Post Graduation Reception

Peace out. Unless I have time tonight (unlikely) the next time I post to this blog, I’ll be in possession of a BA. Glee.

[tags]graduation[/tags]

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Final Grades.

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John T Davis
on May 8, 2007
in law school and university
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As of 8:30 AM this morning, my grades are in for this semester. Academically, at least, it’s officially over. I’m quite happy. :)

Guerilla Movements in Latin America: A
Senior Seminar in Software Engineering: A
Independent Study (Genetic Programming): A
Communication and Memory: A
Computational Graph Theory: A

Semester GPA: 4.00
Cumulative Total GPA: 3.846 (Magna cum Laude range, for those curious.)

As soon as possible, I have to send an official transcript to SMU that shows proof that I’ve graduated. I’m not sure when that appears on the transcript (right now it just might show that all my grades were in but that no diploma’s been awarded), so I’m going to call the registrar in a few minutes and check on that.

Excitement!

Edit (9 May 2007, 1:10 PM US Central Time): Just turned in a request to the registrar to have my transcript sent out as soon as degree notation has been added.

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Tripping the Rift: Law School, the End of Senior Year, and Other Things.

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John T Davis
on May 5, 2007
in law school, medical, movies and university
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Law School

It should be taken as an indicator of how hectic it’s been here that it’s taken me a full nine days to post about this after finding out, but I’ve been accepted into SMU Law.

I cannot put into words how excited I am about this. WHen I heard I literally laughed like a crazy person, and my chest was hurting at the end. My mother told me I was going to be the only person who had a heart attack when they found out they got into law school. -_-

What follows is a transcription of how I found out, as I want to be sure and get it down before I forget. It was, as things usually are with me, sort of strange. My application was received February 15. They sent me an email notifying me of this and telling me that my decision would be mailed out no later than April 30, and that they would not give out decision information over the phone or email. I quote: ” SMU policy does not allow decisions to be given out over the telephone or e-mail.” Reading this, I quite naturally believed it, and resolved to wait.

And wait. And wait.

By 26 April, I still hadn’t heard anything, and I was starting to get nervous. Now, I knew that when a law school decides to reject you, they let you know immediately. So the more time that went by, the better I felt I was doing. At the same time, I never expected to have to wait so long to find out, so part of me was seriously wondering if something had gone wrong. Had they lost my application? Mailed my results somewhere else?

So on the 26th (a thursday), I decided to call SMU Admissions. From what the e-mail said, I wasn’t expecting to be told my results, but I wanted to make sure everything was okay–that a gerbil hadn’t escaped from the biology labs, scuttled across campus and devoured my application, or something. It could happen.

Anyhow, the woman who answered the phone was not my admissions councillor, but I explained that while I knew they couldn’t give out information over the phone,I was nervous, having not heard anything, and wanted to make sure all was well. She pauses for a moment, and asks me if I’m in Austin. Well, I’m not, but I’m only 30 minutes away, and I tell her so. She then reads off a Social Security Number, asking if it is mine, and when I respond in the affirmative, she says “you’re on our list of people to call today.” So I immediately think to myself, “they don’t call people to decline admission,” and sure enough the next thing she’s telling me is that I’ve been admitted. She congratulated me and and said a few other things, and I got off the phone and cackled like an insane person. Literally. It was Joker-quality laughter. I immediately called my parents, both of whom screamed with joy in much the same way.

I must admit, I can’t really remember much of what was said in that first phone call after she told me I was accepted. It’s all sort of jumbled up in a fog of glee. So much so I was actually starting to wonder if I’d hallucinated the whole thing, as I literally couldn’t remember half the conversation. After about 40 minutes of this, my admissions councillor called for the aforementioned official notification, which I was on the call-list for. Needless to say, this wasn’t nearly as shocking a conversation, and I remember it clearly. She told me my “admit pack” would arrive by Tuesday at the latest.

Well, Tuesday rolled around, and no package. I was anxious, of course, as it’s one thing to hear it over the phone and another to see the full admission materials. It didn’t help that I knew I had to get a deposit in by the 7th, but had no idea where to send it. The University post-office can be slow sometimes, as it’s less a real post office and more like a gigantic office mailroom, so I was willing to wait till Thursday. When it hadn’t arrived by Thursday, I called my admissions councillor back, and she checked their computers. Turns out somehow my zip code had gotten input wrong, and the package was sent to Austin somewhere. (For once, this wasn’t my fault. I went back and checked my application, and I put the address in correctly, despite Adobe Acrobat’s attempts to thwart me, on behalf of the universe.) She reissued me another package, with the right address. It’ll be here Monday or Tuesday. She also pointed me to the web address for doing deposits online, so all is well. :)

The End of The End of the Beginning (No, That’s Not a Typo.)

Ah. The final twilight of senior year. Well, everything but Capstone is done, and that’ll come to a close on Monday. I’ve got one last independent study meeting, but it’s after grades are turned in, so it’s more an informal wrap-up than anything else. I had made a list to illustrate how busy I was over the last seven days, and I was going to post it here for your amusement, but in my glee of finishing things, I threw it away after checking off the last item. I will say that I was lucky enough to be exempted from what would have been my only written final exam. It was a take home, which would have helped, but it was also due yesterday, and as of Thursday I’d not had time to work on it very much, aside from doing some rudimentary planning, so this worked out great. :) I look back at the last several days and sort of boggle at the amount of stuff I managed to do.

Except for three events, only one of which will effect a grade, next week will be devoted primarily to social engagements and chilling out before the big event. Glee. I … I really don’t think it’s hit me that it’s ending yet. For four years, this has been my home for most of the year. All my closest friends are here, and either I’m about to leave them if they’re staying behind, or like me they’re graduating and scattering on the winds. I’m going to do my best to stay in touch with them, but–I’m not really sure I have words to describe it. Everything’s changing, and it’s wonderful and exciting and a little sad at the same time. Now, I’m going to stop talking about this before I start feeling truly old.

Other Things

Had an infusion on Friday. The last one I’ll have at the Austin clinic. Already feeling better. :)
Spider-Man 3’s out. Looks to be awesome. I won’t be seeing it for at least another week, as I want to let the crowds die down a bit.

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The Charge of the Light Brigade … or not.

Published
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John T Davis
on April 20, 2007
in movies, rant and university
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For my Communication and Memory paper, which I will discribe in full detail later, I’m analyzing the film representations of the Charge of the Light Brigade. To this end, I procured a copy of the two films about this event, the 1936 version and the 1968 version. I’m writing about the older movie tomorrow, so I watched it tonight.

Well, I just watched a movie called The Charge of the Light Brigade. There even was eventaully a charge, made by a brigade … with about nine minutes left to go in the film. The first two hours were about some love affair in India and some evil sheik that massacred a bunch of people. With 15 minutes to go no one had uttered the words “Light Brigade,” and I wasn’t convinced I was actually watching the right movie. I’m not entirely sure this evil person actually existed, but even if he did … wow. My brain is trying to escape out my ears. This movie is represented as being “a historically-inspired fictionalization.” I’ve researched the actual event thoroughly, and I can say with certainty that it would have been better known as presenting an “alternate reality.”

The good news? I planned to slam the movie as being historically inaccurate, so that’s not going to be a problem. It’s going to be easier than I ever imagined.

The bad news? I’m terrified that people will watch this movie and think they’ve got some idea of what happened in the Crimean War. Every historical aspect of this movie, save the fact that the British Empire ruled India and participated in the Crimean War and the Battle of Balaclava specifically, is as far as I can tell completely wrong. Even the uniforms were out of whack.

If you watch this movie, be aware that everything you see is basically fiction. It does not reflect recorded history in any meaningful way. It does not reflect reality in any meaningful way. You’re better off looking at Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, including Ann Coulter.

New life goal: Invent time machine for the sole purpose of going back in time and taking vengence upon everyone involved in this film, for the sake of the entire human race. Yes. Good plan. I hear that such a device may have other applications, like settling once and for all what killed the dinosaurs, or who killed JFK, but these queries surely pale in comparison to the vital importance of erasing The Charge of the Light Brigade from existence.

The fact that Warner Brothers had a Research Department whose sole purpose was to come up with historical background information for films and they … excreted … this thing is quite frankly terrifying.

My brain is litterally hurting after the epic struggle between the part of me that knows what really happened and the part desperately trying to pay attention to the film enough to write about it. I’m going to bed now, before my brain starts analyzing the myriad plotholes and implodes.

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Today is My Birthday.

Published
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John T Davis
on March 1, 2007
in administrivia, birthday, momentary lapse of intelligence, movies, the merch and university
. 0 Comments

Aging like a fine cheese…

I’m twenty-three today. Woot, indeed. I brought cake to my back to back CS classes (two and a half hours of upper level Computer Science fun) and saw to it everyone was properly sugared up. They seemed to enjoy it. By earning their loyalty now I will be able to use them to great effectiveness when I launch my bid for world domination. Between them and the flying cybernetic attack squid, nothing shall stand in my way. Except maybe a really large deep fryer.
Family members called to wish me well too. :) Is it strange I was excited about being twenty-three because that’s Michael Jordan’s number?

Musketeer? Musketeers? Would you like a side of cleavage daggers with that?

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned the seven dollar DVD sale at Buy.com. When I found it, I immediately plucked up the Disney version of The Three Musketeers, which I thought was a great movie when I saw it last. The catch? I get it and decide to watch it last Friday and it turns out I have never seen this movie before. Ever. Turns out I was looking for the very different The Musketeer, a very different movie that a lot of people pan, but I just happen to love. At any rate, the Disney version was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I was surprised at just how violent the movie was, for a Disney flick. There were stabbings and blood and people died.

And may I say, thank heavens. In a movie about the best of the best a detachment of infantry soldiers, there should be some serious violence. This is implied by the fact you have a few hundred people cavorting around with swords and guns and daggers that pop out of their cleavage–which is incredibly frightening to me because those daggers are sharp and no one seems to look at what they’re doing when they put them away. Since a lack of realistic violence usually ruins PG/PG-13 action flicks for me, I was very impressed.

Needless to say, I now have The Musketeer on order. I need to also get The Man in the Iron Mask to complete my musketeer experience. And also because it’s proof that Leonardo DiCaprio is capable of acting soullessly evil, and acting it well.

In terms of fictional swordsmen, though, as cool as the Musketeers were (they were officially disbanded in the 19th century), the Jedi still reign supreme, though Nick Parker runs a close second.

Wow. That whole ramble went on a while, didn’t it?

School Daze

Still incredibly busy. This week I turned in a book review of Che Guevara’s Bolivian Diary and two research paper proposals. One of which involved doing actual research now, as it required a prospective bibliography.

Reading the diary the man wrote during the war that culminated in his capture and death is not only eerie, but somewhat depressing.

For my Guerilla Movements class, I’m doing a paper on Cuba as a positive humanitarian force in the world following Castro’s revolution. In Communication and Memory, I’ll be looking at two movie portrayals of the Charge of the Light Brigade as examples of how a someone presenting a historical memory (e.g.: the Charge) finesses that memory to suit their particular purposes. We’ll see how this goes. I know I’ll get them both done. With any luck, I’ll be relatively sane by the end. Not that anyone would probably notice if I got a little crazier. :)

Administrivia

Some of you may have noticed that unmoderated comment posting (that is, the ability to post a comment without my having to explicitly approve it before it appears) is disabled for those who aren’t registered. I’ve done this to keep a lid on spam. I’m also employing an anti-spam plugin. It’s already blocked a number of spammy comments, which really suprises me, as this blog is not to my knowledge visisble from Google, and I’m not really sure how it’s being found. At any rate, since I’m pretty sure I don’t want my personal blog flooded with Viagra adds, I’m going to have to leave things set somewhat restrictively. Sorry for the inconvience. Please don’t let it dissaude you from registering and commenting. :)

You may have also noticed I’ve changed layouts. I’m much happier with this than I was with the green thing I had before. It didn’t really use screen space that efficiently. All that I really still want to do is get a better avatar system in place. I’d like to be able to switch between them based on my mood. There’s got to be an easy way to do this that I just haven’t found yet.

That’s really all I’ve got for substantive news today. I’m sure I’m leaving out something important, but I have become sleepy and forgetful.

Roll out.

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Published
by
John T Davis
on February 20, 2007
in current events, dreams, medical, rant, television and university
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The Good

I have just received notification that my request to join Pi Sigma Alpha, the scholastic honor society for political science majors/minors, has been approved. Now I just need to send in my one-time membership fee. I had originally planned, about four years ago, to make sure I got into this and Upsilon Pi Epsilon (the computer science honor society). Now I’ve done it, and I’m quite happy. Getting in Alpha Chi, a general scholastic honor society, and Omicron Delta Kappa, a leadership honor society, were both instances of unexpected yay. The four of them together cover every aspect of my life here at SU, so I guess I did something right. :)

The Bad
Last night, a form of the Norfolk virus (that bug that gets people on cruise ships en mass) attacked my roommate and I. Needless to say, I was not only insomiacal, but fevered and suffering from various bodily malfunctions I don’t think I need to describe here. It was really quite horrible. I’m finally starting to feel a little better, though. I’ve been able to sip on gatorade since about 2 without my stomach cramping so bad it feels like I’m going to explode. I haven’t eaten anything today, but since I’m doing better, I might try a Popsicle later.

The dreams were a doozy too. My favorite was the one where I was Ibn, the adulterous exhiled warrior from The 13th Warrior played by Antonio Banderas. I was trying to run away after cavorting with someone (I assume there was cavorting…the dream starts with me completely dressed except for my feet, but we’re both sure panicked while I’m trying to put on my boots.). Long story short, I don’t escape in time and am attacked and fatally wounded by a jealous lover’s dogsnake.

Yes, a dogsnake. It’s a creature that apparently exists in my mind. Think of a giant sized Yorkshire Terrier, but with snake fangs that spit venom. Seriously.

I’m not even going to try to analyze this dream. Yikes.
I am somewhat consoled to remember that in my second dream, which was basically me and some friends yelling at some jackalope in the computer lab who had the nerve to insult my sense of humor and tell me I was a horrible person (yes, I know, weird), I seemed to have a girlfriend.

Incredibly freaky, but way better than having the dogsnake go after my crotch. (This happened, but he missed and got me in the leg. Yay…I think.)

Yeah. Fever dreams are the awesome. ::twitch::

The Ugly

Lord, I wish they’d test the paternity of Anna Nicole’s baby already. This whole thing has gone from interesting to annoying to just plain sick. Do we really need live in-courtroom footage of what is essentially a private matter. I mean, really?

By the same note, all these talking heads who are using Britney Spears’ emotional crisis to belittle her and have experts on to speculate about why she’s going insane and how funny it is, when essentially no one knows what’s really going on, is downright disgusting. I’m specifically looking at you, Tucker Carlson, but I’m sure if I bothered to watch FoxNews or CNN I’d have a bone to pick with some of those guys too. Tucker, if someone in your family has an emotional/mental crisis are you going to call them pathetic?
Idiot.

Also, James Brown is still not buried. WTF?

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Uh oh.

Published
by
John T Davis
on February 15, 2007
in university
. 0 Comments

For a while now, I’ve known I have two research papers to write this semester. The Guerilla Movements in Latin America paper is 8-12 pages, and I’ve got a topic. I found out yesterday that the Communication and Memory paper is 9-12 pages. So that’s at minimum 17 pages of well researched … research. Not to mention everything else I have to do.

I may be just slightly screwed. ;)

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I am returned.

Published
by
John T Davis
on February 5, 2007
in medical, television and university
. 0 Comments

Bonus geek points if you pronounced the subject in a really goofy/deep movie announcer voice when you read it. These points are redeemable for … for … look! Monkeys!

Back on campus now. Nice drive, even if the sun was in my face for about an hour (at least). Slight headache aside, I can still see, so no complaints. Saw a really neat tree on the side of the road, but didn’t have a camera. It was these two skinny trees that had, like, fused together towards the top and bent almost completely over, without looking sickly. Wish I had a picture.

I just realized I typed a sentence with the pause-like-pause structure without even realizing it, or doing it on purpose to be funny. I’ll have to flog myself after I post this.

Urologist visit on Friday was … interesting. He wanted me to have a CT scan on Saturday at 9:15 (blasphemy!) and a bladder scope thingie on Monday. Needless to say, that wasn’t exactly how I envisioned spending my saturday and monday mornings. I went to the CT place and they got all huffy when they couldn’t get an IV line to inject the contrast agent to light up my innards, and ended up taking the scan without it. (I was actually secretly pleased with this. I lost all enthusiasm for having iodine injected into my circulatory system when the technician asks me, “Are you allergic to iodine,” I say no, and she responds cheerfully that we’ll soon find out. Thank you, veins, for your prompt and skillful insurrection.) At any rate, nothing evil showed up on the CT, so he cancelled the bladder scope. Victory!

Remember the Teach for America thing I mentioned a while back? Aside from my awesome skill in directing people around campus, I suppose I should briefly explain what it was about. The organization selects a number of recently graduated (or about to graduate) students with varying academic specialties, places them in a rapid, intensive course on education, and sends them out as teachers in various socially disadvantaged areas. Corps members are given a generous stipend in turn for a two-year commitment and hired on as teachers in their districts, receiving full salaries. From what I understood, aside from helping the underprivileged, one of the main purposes of the program is to acquaint those who will go on to be doctors and lawyers and business people with the educational plight in certain areas, so those most equipped to work for change will be motivated to do so.

It sounds like a really great program, and I really like the idea of what they’re trying to do, but given the time commitment involved and other factors, I won’t be applying. Still, I was chosen as a potential applicant because of my involvement with ODK, so that’s pretty cool.

Before I bail, I just want to remind anyone that it’s Covered in Chocolate Week on the Food Network, which is decidedly less kinky than it sounds. :P Right now I’m watching my man Alton Brown make a chocolate mouse. I love watching him because I really feel like I’m learning something. When I watch other cooking shows (that I also love) I just feel like I’m watching a really great performance that will end up making me hungry in the night if I watch it too soon before I go to bed.
Mmm. Chocolate.

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Because I’m smart.

Published
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John T Davis
on January 29, 2007
in momentary lapse of intelligence and university
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So, I met with the Teach for America representative today. More on this later. After our meeting, as I was leaving, he asked me where the campus post office was. No problem. I tell him it’s in the Campus Center, 3rd floor. I describe the building. Can’t miss it. What I don’t manage to convey, because it somehow slipped my mind, is that the Student Union, where we are sitting as I sip my tea and converse with him, is in the Campus Center, and all I had to tell him was to get on the elevator and go up two floors. I think I managed to convince him he needed to go to the administration building. Wow.

It’s times like this I wonder how I got into Mensa.

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That’s a really nice tie. (Or: I spend too much time watching the Food Network.)

Published
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John T Davis
on January 24, 2007
in medical, misc, television, the merch and university
. 0 Comments

The Dinner Impossible guy has a really nice silver tie I wish I owned. Also, I get the impression if I looked at one of his soufflés without the proper respect, he would kill me using only a dinner napkin. Such is his power.

As a (very brief) addendum to my last post, I have not in fact lost all tolerance for cold temperatures, but was suffering from an infection. Antibiotics were thrust upon me, and I feel much better now.

So, my first full week of second semester is almost over. For those interested, my classes are as follows.

Monday, Friday: No classes. Seriously.

Tuesday, Thursday:
9:30-10:45: Guerilla Movements in Latin America
2:30-3:45: Senior Seminar in Software Engineering (Capstone)
4:00-5:30: Computational Graph Theory

Wednesday:
2:00-4:30: Communication and Memory

So far, it’s pretty cool. I’ll admit to being less than thrilled when I realized I have two substantial research papers and a project this time around (not including Capstone, which appears to be just one giant project–not that I have any idea what it’s about: clarification is to come later. I can’t shouldn’t complain, though, as I pretty much brought this on myself. I picked the courses. I have resigned myself to the fact I am incapable of creating a course schedule that’s not academically vigorous. Personally, I blame El Nino.

In the I’m-a-Good-Capitalist Department, I just bought one of these to replace my aging MX900 Bluetooth mouse. They’re 20 dollars off at Amazon. Also, over at Buy.com they’re having (had?) a seven dollar DVD sale. Dig it.

Also, because I wanted this post to be a little longer, today is Neil Diamond’s birthday. Congratulations, sir. For another bit of trivia, here is a list of gun myths in popular culture.

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Back to school (or not).

Published
by
John T Davis
on January 16, 2007
in music, shout out, university and weather
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As part of my New Year’s resolutions, I hereby swear to post at least one substitantive update to this blog a week. Wish me luck.

So, university was supposed to start back today. I came back on Sunday, seeing as coming back the day before classes begin is undeniably the suck.

But it was all for naught. Central Texas is apparently having some sort of tryst with Killer Frost and Mr Freeze, and perhaps even that master pimp of the cold, Vanilla Ice: ice, ice everywhere (baby). So much so that there were literally inches of ice frozen onto the LR3’s windshield this morning, and my cold-triggered arthritis and Austin-area allergies have combined to ensconce me in a field of tangible pain worthy of a Star Trek mirror-universe agony booth.

In fact, it’s so bad that tomorrow’s classes have been cancelled as well. Seeing as I have no classes on Monday or Friday and only one on Wednesday, this week has turned eerie–the first week of classes has been basically eviscerated–and cold.

So cold.

But at least I have power, and heat–I’m unable to get in contact with my friends in St Louis, who may very well be in the dark. Again. Stay warm, guys.

In other news, the Lethal Weapon I theme as performed by the Anthony Anderson Orchestra is seventeen kinds of awesome. I’ve been playing it over and over, and am surely annoying the crap out of those people unfortunate enough to live with/near me. It’s cheese eighties music, and strikes me as being pre-emo in some ways. Paradoxically, 80s emo is actually upbeat. Obviously, everyone was too happy with their awesome, planet-orbit-shifting hair to really be too bummed out about anything.

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Substantive Update.

Published
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John T Davis
on June 21, 2006
in sports, university and work
. 0 Comments

I’m going to not talk about, for the moment, the Mavs losing last night’s game. I’m not quite as shocked/angry as I was last night…now I’m just calmly disappointed.

I’ve begun working part-time at my dad’s company. I do research; basically I scour the Internets for information my employers desire. It’s nice. I get to hang out with The Big Guy some and will hopefully be able to train my body not to rip, roar, and scream when I have to get up before 8.

I got my final Astronomy grade back: A. This brings my Cumulative GPA to 3.806.

[tags]university, dallas mavericks, work[/tags]

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Prison Break.

Published
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John T Davis
on June 6, 2006
in mac, medical and university
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I’m done. Completely and totally, unequivocally, done. At least until late August. The Astronomy final was more difficult than the mid term, but I still think I came away with an A. We shall see, I suppose.

My body continues its active rebellion. Last night I was struck with some sort of bladder infection/demonic entity, and it’s proving quite annoying. I’m hitting it hard with Oregano and Uvaursi leaves, both in pill form. Amazingly, it seems to be about gone, and I must say, thank you. Seriously, without going into detail, just, ow.

My new glasses are in. They are indeed awesome, though I think I’m gonna have to go to a glasses place and get them to adjust the arms so they have a bit more of a bend at the end and stay up on my nose. I tried to find a picture of them to link to, but all I’m getting is stuff about the hotel and fine leather.

I downloaded Delicious Library a little while ago. It’s book/movie/CD cataloguing software with a twist. If you’ve got an iSight camera plugged into your Mac, you just turn it on, hold up the book’s barcode to the camera, and the information is automatically downloaded from Amazon. All the info you could possibly want on a book. I went through 20 DVDs and 3 books in about 15 minutes. Doing that by hand would’ve probably taken me hours. (Probably the reason I don’t have a meaningful catalogue of my books, DVDs, etc.) Unbearably cool. I’ll probably end up going on a mad spree and putting in the info for all my books, comics, and movies later.

Those who have been in charge of Proteus, the multi-protocol IM client for Mac, for the past few years (and doing an awful job, IMHO…no major release in years, and it’s still not a Universal Binary and doesn’t support group chat and other critical features) are finally admitting they’ve botched it and preparing to open source the whole project, with a firm development team in place. Yay.

I’ll probably be splitting it out of here tomorrow afternoon, barring some unforeseen disaster.

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Koo-Koo-Kachoo.

Published
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John T Davis
on June 5, 2006
in university
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Tomorrow’s the last day of Astronomy.  Assuming I don’t blow the test, which I should have finished by 2, or the paper, which I finished on Saturday, I should have a solid A.  I am quite happy with the course and my performance therein.

I need to study for said test now.  If I feel like I can think up something interesting to say, I’ll post a ramblicious entry of randomness later.

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And down from the heavens, descended Chuck Norris…

Published
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John T Davis
on May 30, 2006
in medical and university
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I’m apparently somewhat ill. Low-grade fever and everything. Bother. Nevertheless, May Term continues to rock. Got my first test (of two) back today: 97. So far my lab grade is an A, with the one we did today not graded. Tuesday’s lab (also the last day of class and the day of the final, noncumulative, exam) will simply be assembling a Galilean telescope. (Galilean telescopes are the refracting sort, with the viewing lens at one end and the magnifying lens at the other.) Not sure how that’ll be graded, but it could conceivably be fun.

I’ve also made excellent progress on my report. Should have it finished by tomorrow or thursday at the latest. I would really like to get it done before the weekend. Would’ve already completed it, but I haven’t been firing with all thrusters since Friday. Bummer.

That’s really all I’ve got right now. Later days.

[tags]medical, university[/tags]

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Friday Night Highlights.

Published
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John T Davis
on May 26, 2006
in comics, medical, movies and university
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“There’s a bald guy in a wheelchair waiting outside the delivery room to talk to you.”
-One of the Signs Your Baby Might Be a Mutant, from TopFive.com.

Figured I’d start with something to honor the release of X-Men 3: The Last Stand. The comic geek part of me is insisting that in the majority of all cases (primarily first generation mutants), the X-Gene doesn’t activate until the onset of puberty*.

At the same time, a good number of second-generation mutants were born with some, if not all, of their powers. Nightcrawler (Kurt Wagner) being the primary example people should be familiar with from X2.

At any rate, I’ll not be going to see the movie for a week at least. I really want to see it, of course, but my wish to not to die in a stampede of X-fans at the threatre outweighs my desire. For now.

I feel like I aced the Astronomy final. Gonna attack the paper tomorrow.

Phasers on stun. Good luck. Liquid Engineer, out.


* I can remember scads of random trivia like this, but for the life of me I never could get trig functions and the like to nest in my long-term memory. Oh well. At least I know Wolverine’s approximate upper strength limit (800 pounds, comparable with mainstream Captain America), and the current Phantom, active since 1930 (and still in his mid-thirties … gotta love how people age in comics), is the twenty-first.

I mean, that’s useful information. Right?

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The sun is dying. And also BSD.

Published
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John T Davis
on May 25, 2006
in humor, medical, politics and university
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"Now, we talked to Joan Hanover. She and her husband, George, were visiting with us. They are near retirement—retiring—in the process of retiring, meaning they're very smart, active, capable people who are retirement age and are retiring." —President George W Bush, Alexandria, Va., Feb. 12, 2003

I make no secret of the fact I’m not a fan of the policies, practices, or much else about the current administration. And if asked (and I rarely allow myself to be asked outside a political science class, as discussing politics is generally as enjoyable as humping a porcupine*), I try to provide good reasons for why. And those reasons are in fact more complicated than “Bush is an idiot-puppet.” In fact he’s not. He’s very committed to a very firm set of ideas and competent as a CEO-style manager (whether this is a proper way to manage the country is up for debate–I believe it’s not).

Having said that, the quote above is real, and it’s one of many. I think, and I’m completely serious here, a good part of the reason so much crap has been allowed to happen in and through the executive branch is about three quarters of the President’s remarks are so stupefyingly bizarre in terms of syntax and semantics a lot of people are too busy going “What did he just say?!” to ask the proper question: “He just said he wants to do what?” Honestly, as a nation we’re too busy pointing and laughing ("Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country." -—Sept. 6, 2004, Poplar Bluff, Mo.) to pay attention to the really important stuff until it’s too late to stop it. That trend has only recently started to roll back, but at the expense of a horrific quagmire of a conflict in the Middle East and severe erosions of our civil liberties and freedoms at home.

But I swore not to get into a true political rant when I started writing this, so I’m gonna cut it off there. I think it’s a good decision, and shows my mastery of strategery**.

In Astronomy news, we a had a viewing on Tuesday. Got to see Saturn and Jupiter through a 16000 dollar telescope, as well as a globular cluster of stars. Actually hada good view of the ring system on Saturn and the Galilean (the five largest, as seen by Galileo) of Jupiter. So pretty. Tres cool, and not just because I got extra credit just for showing up and looking through a telescope. Test tomorrow. Fifty questions, 35 of which are multiple choice. I’m anticipating an easy victory. It’s so wierd being in a class that’s actually easy. After the last couple years of this-course-will-make-you-raze-a-city-block-with-a-flamethrower level difficulty, it’s a welcome and refreshing change.

As a bit of a rant, does anyone else get creeped out when astronomy texts devote significant time to what the solar system will look like as the sun burns out, the galaxy as it dies, and so forth? This stuff is freaking depressing. I know it won’t happen for billions of years so I should (hopefully) be dead by then, but still. It would help if they could be a little bit more clinical about it and write less in the style of emotive prose.

At least they don’t devote a lot of time to the far more likely near term cause of the the end of humanity: comet or meteor extinction level events. It gets about a page or two max and is framed solely in terms of past events. So…um…thanks for that.

On a somewhat wierder note, I also find the Jovian planets in general somewhat depressing. Giant gas balls with no real surface where things just keep sinking forever. Seems like the kind of thing you’d find in an Inferno-esque description of hell. Apparently, I’m the only one who thinks this way, as when I mentioned this to my professor (I left out the comparison to Dante’s work) he gave me an odd look.

Infusion tomorrow to keep the HS from getting worse. My doctor’s also started me on monthly cortisone injections to try to beat down what’s already there. Let us hope it works.

Kind of in a wierd mood. My lower brain is trying to be anxious about my paper over telescopes and related tech (which I’ll be doing this weekend) even as my upper brain knows that this is probably the easiest paper I’ll ever have to write as a student here. The only concrete requirement is that it be 3-5 pages.

In current events, I must say I’m thrilled with the Enron verdicts. Here’s hoping they’re held up on appeal***.

Later days.


*There are a number of documented cases of people trying to fornicate with porcupines and other such potentially damaging animals. Ignoring for the moment the whole sickness related to animal fornication … Darwin at work? Not necessarily, though they certainly want you to think that. More likely an alien plot to prevent the coming of the next great generation of humanity by using mind control to force the forebears of that generation to sterilize themselves in bizarre and distracting ways so no one catches on to the conspiracy. You be the judge.
**Not really a Bushism.
***Why is it the really guilty people, at least in the world of white-collar crime, are the ones most able in terms of fiscal and legal resources to successfully appeal their convictions. There should be a name for this paradox. It should be a palindrome, because they’re awesome.

[tags]humor, medical, politics, university[/tags]

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Because I’m a moron.

Published
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John T Davis
on May 24, 2006
in university
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I just took a bunch of notes in Astronomy. Then I closed the file. Then I wasn’t looking at what I was doing and clicked the “Don’t Save” button.

So stupid. :(

[tags]university[/tags]

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Grades and May Term and Stuff.

Published
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John T Davis
on May 19, 2006
in movies and university
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So, things. Got my grades for Spring 2006 in a few days ago. All in all, I’m very pleased.

  • Linear Algebra: A-
  • Algorithms: B+
  • Designing Interpreters: A
  • US Foreign Policy: A-

Cumulative GPA: 3.799

Is it wrong that I’m annoyed with myself over that one-thousandth of a point? Probably. Perfectionism is a double-edged sword, I suppose.

As for May Term, I’m taking Exploring the Universe, a comprehensive astronomy course under the auspices of the Physics Department. Because it’s May Term (and thus, only about 21 days), it’s looking like it’s not going to be as grueling as the full semester equivalent. For example, we got our syllabus yesterday. He put it together based pretty much on what we as a class were interested in learning about. Also, we won’t be using the telescopes as part of normal labs (because our lab hours are 0900-1130)–all sky gazing/analysis of heavenly bodies is done through a bit of software that can simulate the sky at any time, from any place, in the last several thousand years (and maybe in the future…I haven’t played with it that much yet). Unfortunately, the book was 112 dollars…though it did come with a full copy of said software.

The Da Vinci Code opens today, with X-men 3 (wherein Kelsey Grammer of all people is an action hero) opening next week. I find the controversy over DVC highly humorous. It’s amazing how bent out of shape people can get over what amounts to historical fiction. I enjoy reading/watching things based on Greek and Norse mythology, but that doesn’t make me a pagan. I also greatly enjoyed National Treasure, wherein the Founding Fathers were shown as amassing a gigantic hoard of historical artifacts to rival the Library at Alexandria. That doesn’t mean I came away thinking Washington, Franklin, and the rest were conspiratorial whackos. I mean, the Illuminati goes back much farther than them. :)

Personally, I find the whole thing rather ironic. X-Men as a franchise has always been on some level a race relations allegory. The only thing that changes is how much the writers do (or do not) want to emphasize the point. But the pop culture seems to ignore this completely in favor of staring at the sheer wicked-coolness of Wolverine and oogling Halle Berry, who looks absolutely fabulous as Storm.

(Now, I would’ve paid someone to write in the Logan/Storm relationship. Jackman and Berry could’ve rocked together. The Storm/Nightcrawler stuff was promising, but Kurt’s not even in this movie. Which is a whole other rant.)
Phasers on stun. Good luck. Liquid Engineer, out.

[tags]movies, university, da vinci code[/tags]

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