Linkstew

In the process of updating my resume last week, I took a peek at the resumes of a few former co-workers. All of them included their final UC Berkeley GPA on their resume, so I figured I might as well.

When I've done hiring over the years, I've always been amused by people who included their UC GPA "to date" on their resume, and even more amused by the people who still included their high school GPA on their resume. Accordingly, I can't even remember for sure if I ever included either of those figures on my resume. I might have at one point, but it's been years since I actually have.

But my final UC Berkeley GPA seemed somehow more conclusive, and the same people who I'd laughed with about "to date GPAs" during hiring had included their final GPA on their resumes.

So I typed "3.277," and then stared at it for awhile.

"That's all I've got to say about the last 4.5 years of my life?" I wondered.

I could probably write pages about any one of the 35 classes listed on my transcript, but in the end,all it comes down to a few assorted letters, which in turn come down to even fewer numbers. The particular grades I already got in some of the classes are already starting to fade, and I was surprised when I looked at my transcript to see that I got a B- instead of a B in some class.

If the particular grades are already starting to fade, for how much longer will I remember the classes? I suppose that's one of the reasons I tried to write so much of it down.

But I'm still afraid that my last memory of college when I'm old and grey will be "3.277."

Yeah, so I've got regular assignments due on Thursdays, which explains why these quotes keep getting passed off as content on Wednesdays. Sorry.

"I'm 28 now, and hopefully I'm still... Shoot! Never announce your age to the class."
-- My CS 160 Professor

One of my goals this semester is to make it to every single class. That might not sound that unreasonable, considering that elementary schools regularly give out "perfect attendance awards" -- hell, I might even have gotten one way back in the day -- I don't really remember...

But when you remember that I'm the guy that went to one half of a CS 170 lecture before deciding not to go for the rest of the semester, you'll hopefully understand why this goal is so "out there."

I just finished week 7 (out of 15) of my last semester at Berkeley, and so far so good. Admittedly, I had to leave one class early one time, and I was late to two other lectures -- but I've been to every lecture so far in some capacity.

Hell, even if I skipped the rest of the semester, I'm pretty sure that 7 weeks of perfect attendance is more classes than I went to in some entire semesters.

I think this might be a sign of a big change my undergraduate career. ;-)

So I'm sitting in CS 160 right now, and 6 people in front of me (out of about 30) are using laptops right now. In particular, these are laptops that are issued to us for a minimal deposit, for use in CS 160. And important to this story, these laptops comes with wireless cards.

So it's true that these laptops are being used "in CS 160," and I suppose that's good. But what's bad is what the people in front of me are using them for. Here's the rundown:

1. The girl in front of me is the only one who seems to have lecture notes open. Even better, she actually looked at the CS 160 newsgroup at one point. However, she's also on IM, and she's written at least two emails. All things considered, a 9/10.
2. The guy over by the wall to my right is browsing around some forum or another. He is also using IM.
3. A guy at the front right of the class is browsing around Amazon, and is also using IM.
4. A guy over at the left is looking at what looks like car manufacturer sites. Oh, and he's using IM.
5. Another guy over at the left is just using IM.
6. And the girl to my left has the dubious distinction of being the only one not using IM. Dubious because she's busy apparently planning a trip. Right now she's buying plane tickets, and earlier she was looking up restaurants and entertainment sites.

If I had my camera with me, I'd do something like Berkeleysucks.com's annoying people in class series, but I reckon that'd be even more disruptive and annoying than all the laptops put together.

What? Who, me? I'm just blogging. But it's not like I'm using a class laptop or anything -- I'm just using my trusty PowerBook! And the only reason I got my PowerBook out in the first place was so that I could experience the irony of writing this entry.

And for the record, I'm not on IM.

10 Evans is by far my least favorite classroom on campus. I'm pretty sure that my attendance rate for classes I've had in 10 Evans is somewhere around 25%, at best. So why do I hate 10 Evans?

1. It has uncomfortable plastic chairs.
2. They replaced the old uncomfortable blue plastic chairs with even more uncomfortable white plastic chairs that feel like a plank against my back.
3. It gets stuffy and hot, especially when the class in question is an overcrowded CS class. And when you jam it full of sweating CS students taking a test, it gets damp and hot.
4. It's concrete, so when the room gets noisy, it echoes like crazy. And on a rainy day, the room becomes dank, because there's nothing to absorb the moisture in the air.
5. It taunts me with AirBears reception, with my PowerBook displaying a periodic signal, but I've yet to find a seat in the room where my laptop can get a consistent enough signal to give me net.

I dislike 10 Evans so much that I don't go to classes there. I dislike 10 Evans so much that I'll leave tests without double checking my answers just to get out of there. I dislike 10 Evans so much that I left my review session (for a class that I didn't attend after mid-march because it was in 10 Evans) today early because the chair I was sitting in put a kink in my back.

Thankfully, it looks like I won't have a class in 10 Evans next fall for the first time in two years.

From today, in Astronomy lecture:

"If you could find a bathtub big enough to put Saturn in, it would float."
-- Professor "Raymond"

That made me laugh and made me feel so much better this morning.

Yesterday my first homework assignment of the semester was due in my Linguistics class, but things certainly could have gone smoother.

Though I met with a group of classmates on Sunday afternoon to discuss the assignment, and knew what I was going to write, I didn't actually start typing up my responses until it was so late Monday evening that it was very nearly Tuesday.

All along I knew there was a 5 page limit on how long our submissions could be, but I honestly didn't think there'd be a problem. I merrily tapped out my responses, and by the time I finished around 6:30 am (What can I say, I'm easily distracted! At 4 am, for example, I decided I wanted some new playlists for my iPod and spent an hour playing with that...), I had about 4.9 pages.

"Perfect," I thought.

However, I was a little tired to proof-read my submission, and because the assignment was due at 11 am sharp, I decided to print a copy and go to bed, and proof-read and print again if I had time in the morning.

But when I grabbed the printed pages from the printer, something looked funny. I looked closer, and realized that it was single spaced.

I'd written 5 pages single spaced for an assignment with a length limit of 5 pages double spaced.

You do the math.

I never write papers in Word. Normally I use a LaTeX template that I've developed over the years to write papers with. That template defines all of my fonts and spacing and I just have to fill in the paragraphs and TeX does the rest for me. But for some reason, when I started this assignment, I thought using Word would be a good idea. It never occurred to me that Word was a WYSIWYG editor beyond the part where I was using it to visually determine how many pages I'd written. The last time I used a WYSYWYG editor to write a paper, I was in High School.

So it was still 6:30 am, and I was still too tired to care, so I tossed the single spaced copy in my backpback just in case and went to bed. I woke up at 9 am, and spent the next hour and a half doing my damndest, and the best I could manage was 5 pages at 1.5 space with an 11 point font.

I decided that that would have to do, printed again, and headed off to class. I walked into the lecture hall and up to the podium where the assignments were being stacked, and saw that Professor Lakoff was looking at the top paper on the stack. In fact, it looked like he was reading it. I hesitated about dropping my paper onto the pile, and he sensed my presence and looked up at me.

I quickly lowered my eyes and dropped my paper onto the pile and took a seat near the back.

I hesitated not because I was worried about Lakoff reading what I'd written, but because the print on my assignment was so much denser than that paper that was on the top of the stack. If I'd dropped my paper in front of his nose, the contrast in the density of the text would have been immediately obvious. He would have to be blind not to notice that my paper wasn't double spaced and that my font was smaller.

On Wednesday, I walked into my (Visual) Perception class and sat down by my friend Alert. And right at the end of the lecture, I realized that I was sitting right behind My Evil Twin. I clutched my fist, and shook it at the back of his head, and pointed him out to Alert.

And Alert said "I know. I sat down here for a reason."

So that makes 8 for 8, and the cycle is now complete. I also think that means that if I talk to him now, we'll implode. Or maybe the world will just end.

This "class" thing is something I've often heard about, and occasionally even checked out for myself. I'd say that in a typical semester, I make it to about half of my classes total. So I'm a month into my seventh semester at Berkeley, and how am I doing?

Well, so far I've attended every lecture of Folklore, which is unheard of for me. I'm pretty sure that after the first month, I'd have missed at least two lectures of a normal class. I'm going to try to buck the record here and make it to every lecture for the rest of the semester.

Then there's the middle ground with CS 188, where I was at the first three lectures, then I missed two, made it to one (but slept through it), and then missed the last two, so that puts me at more or less my standard 50%. As far as the discussions go, I went to one and a half out of four, and don't really plan to go back. I might stop by tomorrow night just to confirm that decision, but it's not a good idea to tell me something is "optional."

And then there's CS 170. I went to class on the first day, but I don't think I stayed for more than half the lecture before leaving and not going back. As I told a friend after the TMBG concert, "I'd say I'd see you in 170 tomorrow, but I'd be lying." In the worst case, my attendance record for the class will be doubled come the midterm next Thursday, but I'm considering going to this Thursday's lecture. Considering, mind you. I've got to balance out my Folklore attendance some how. ;-)

I'm a Dr. Pepper fan, and in Berkeley, Dr. Pepper is a Pepsi product. The problem is that most of campus sold its soul to Coke long ago, and so when I'm on campus, it's far easier to find a coke vending machine than a Pepsi vending machine, and so I'm forced to resort to a Coke to fill my to fulfill my carbonated beverage needs. I don't mind Coke, I just far prefer Dr. Pepper.

For the last three years, though, there was a Pepsi machine in Evans hall serving my Dr. Pepper needs. Until this August, when I went into Evans and found my faithful Dr. Pepper dispensing machine replaced with yet another big red Coke machine. I have yet to check on the Pepsi machines in Wheeler and Soda (hall, that is) to see if they've survived Coke's onslaught, but the outlook is bleak. (The word on the grapevine (being the grapevine associated with my job, not student transmitted rumors) is that the campus cut even more of an exclusive contract with Coke). So now to have a Dr. Pepper during class, I have to plan more ahead and pick it up before I'm on campus.

My Evil Twin has proven to be a worthy nemesis, as he and I, for the seventh semester in a row, share a class together. This time, it's CS 188.

I wonder if he's noticed this yet?

And no, I still haven't talked to him. Nor do I have plans to. What would I say?

"Stop following me taking my classes you adjective noun!"?

Oh, wait, I've got it! on the last day of class next semester (assuming he doesn't spoil the streak), I can say "So, we meet again, for the first time, for the last time!"

And that'll be that.

Last time, I was just contemplating what classes I'd be taking this fall. But now my schedule is pretty much finalized, and I've even survived a week of it, and I want to ramble about the distribution of my classes.

Good news: I don't have any classes on Monday. Bad news: My CS 170 homework is due on Mondays Morning in Soda Hall, meaning I better finish my homework by Friday morning or I'm going to have to make a trip way out of my way.

Tuesdays are pretty nice, with my first class of the day hitting at 2pm, and after two hour and a half lectures I'm done at 5.

Wednesdays are moderately annoying, with a class from 10 to 11:30 in Soda, and a pair of discussions from 4 to 6. Soda is about a twenty minute walk uphill from my apartment, so I basically have to leave by 9:40 to stand any chance of getting there on time, but even sooner if I want to get food on the way. And then, after that mid-afternoon gap, I have to trudge back across campus from my office to Soda, making it all the more likely I'll just skip out on that class completely. I've never had classes past 5 before, so I expect that last hour is going to be pretty painful for me if I actually attend.

Thursday is identical to Tuesday, which is good, because I really like Tuesday.

And Friday is identical to Wednesday morning, with a class in Soda from 10 to 11:30. And then I'm done.

So for the most part, I really like the schedule. My major gripes are just the gap on Wednesday afternoons, that my first class on Wednesday and Friday is in Soda, and that I have weekly homework due on the day I don't have any class.

I've certainly had worse schedules, though, and I'm sure I'll cope.