March 16, 2004

Well, when I got up this morning, they actually plowed the road and the driveway. As usual, the homeowners association didn’t return my call from last night. I called them four times last night just to be sure that they knew that I wanted something done. I also complained about the cabinets not being installed over two weeks ago like I was promised but nothing has been done about that and Min was here all day. So I am still incredibly disappointed about that. I think that they sell the stuff to other people for some extra cash and hope that we eventually give up.

So I headed out to Farmington this morning to meet with Ted Miller from Berien Business Solutions. I actually made it all the way out there on time. It is a good thing that I allowed as long as I did for the meeting because we used all of the time and he was running late for his next appointment and I had little extra time before I had to get up to Empire State College for orientation. I swung by the UofR and checked my email before headed up to the college.

Orientation started at noon and ran all afternoon. Five hours of totally worthless information and treating us like we had no clue how to deal with a college. Admittedly, a few future students really did have no clue how to deal with college but the orientation session was not gong to help them in the least. Half of the people there were not going to be helped by anyone and the other half were bored out of their minds with nothing to gain from such a silly session. It was such a waste of time. I did manage to spend a lot of time with professors and mentors and actually got some things moving. But the orientation was practially offense with how stupid they treated us. And having spent time at the college, I knew that a lot of the stuff that they were saying was just marketing crap and completely unfounded. It pissed me off enough and showed me just how full of crap their informational sessions are. Enough that I am not even planning on going to any info sessions about ESC’s grad programs because I don’t feel that I can trust what they say. The grad programs have never looked all that impressive so they have finally managed to push me completely away and I am planning on applying to the far more serious programs over at RIT. It will cost a lot more but at least I can be a little proud of the degree and have an actual MS and not an MA. ESC only offers MA.

I got home and Min made some dinner. We watched some of Joan of Arcadia, which Min really likes. I like the show and think that they tackle lots of good subjects but I often think that they overlook important aspects of the subject matter. I think their mistake is often using big issues to tackle little ones leaving the big issues ignored. And they often take a lot of liberties that, while it would be very hard not to do, seem to be overstepping bounds of appropriateness. But, for example, the episode we watched tonight using major civil rights and child pornography crimes to make characters tackle simple school pranks. They make a big deal out of the high school rivalries but completely ignore the big issues that would have people arrested (and often do) in real life.

Min may have gotten out of work last night but she has to go tonight. She might end up working Friday night to make up for the lost shift. We will see.

I am taking a full course load this semester (my semester is starting towards the end of March.) I am taking two Java courses, an IT management course and my academic planning. I know that that doesn’t seem like much for a “full load” but it is the maximum that ESC allows. Yup, that is right, their max is like 75% of many colleges’ minimums. When I was at MCC, there were students with double that load. Everyone at ESC acts like it is some phenominal load. I don’t understand at all. It is like no one that works there ever went to college themselves. It isn’t like I haven’t taken upper lever classes at ESC before and don’t know how much effort goes into them.

As you can see, the site is marching forward again. I am trying to get real updates back on here. I would still like to see this season be the most ambitious that SGL has had so far. I am doing alright thus far.

I am starting to teach myself Java this evening. I want to get a jump on the semester since I am taking two classes in it back to back. It will be a bit challenging having to do each in only half the normal time but I don’t think that it will be all that bad. While I studied, Min and I watched The Count of Monte Cristo. It is a great story if anyone hasn’t seen it or read Alexandre Dumas’ book. Unfortunately, they chose to use Richard Harris in the film but it is one of his better performances. Guy Pierce rocks as always. This was James Caviezel’s real break out movie even though he had done a couple of decent things before this, this one really put him on the map. Although, obviously, his real fame will always be for The Passion of Jesus Christ which is already one of the biggest movies of all time and still going incredibly strong.

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