Finished

I have just finished my English paper and earlier this morning I did extremely well on my presentation. This makes my 15th post so all that is left this week is to study for an exam tomorrow.

I am not as satisfied with this current paper as I have been with my previous ones. My other papers were the culmination of days of work and a lot of revisions. This paper, however, was written in only 3 to 4 hours. For the average person, that would be normal but I am very meticulous about my writing. Anyways, the paper is well written and is the correct length so I guess that is all that matters in the end.

Now I get to go talk to the Director of Residence Life and formally quit my Resident Assistant job. Hope this goes well!

I will be deleting this blog next year so don't expect any more posts from me...

Overwhelmed

I am so overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I have to do in the next few days. The three main things coming up is a presentation tomorrow morning, an English paper due tomorrow afternoon, and a final exam Wednesday. Usually I am the student who is on top of everything but that has not been the case lately. Although my presentation is ready, I still have my English paper to finish and the final to study for. I hate when I am behind and I have not been slacking. At least when I slack, I know it is because of laziness and all I have to do is work hard to catch up. But when I have been working nonstop and I am still behind, there is really nothing I can do. My main concern is the English paper. I have got only my first paragraph written and I am a very slow writer. Tomorrow I have only about 3 hours to write it and from past experience that is not enough time. Well everything always works out in the end so we'll see two days from now how I managed to pull all this off.

New Job

So I have officially become an employee of a tech company that develops scientific grade cameras. I will be starting work this Christmas break and will work during my free time next semester. I can now quit my job as a Resident Assistant (RA) and get away from all the ridiculous aspects of working for the Department of Residence Life here at USM. I am very excited about all of this and cannot wait until I am no longer an RA.

I have become increasingly fed up with Res Life at USM during my time as a RA. I feel that the people who work in the department are extremely unprofessional and live in a bubble isolated from the real world. I am pretty sure that all the upper-level employees started as RAs and worked their way to their current position, never experiencing work outside of residence life. This has severely limited the way they see the world and has created a distorted view of their importance to this world. Somehow they feel that their contribution to the lives of college students is the greatest possible achievement of human existence. Little do they realize that nearly no college students benefit from anything they do or even care that about "residence life."

Ugh, I am just so glad I can finally get away from this horrible job.

Busy Schedule

The end of the semester is just around the corner and so are final exams. These next two weeks are going to be extremely hectic but I'm looking forward to them. I've started to compile a list of the seemingly endless tasks I need to accomplish. Below is a list of some of these tasks:

• Figure out why the charge for my Spring meal plan has shown up on this semester's bill
• Wrap up my DBMS class project and create a presentation for it
• Study for DBMS final exam
• Write last paper and three blog posts for English II
• Do readings for World Lit, finish the last couple class writings, and study for the final exam
• Study for Discrete Math final exam and do class homework
  

Blog Posts

So there's just a few weeks of school left and I'm currently shy five blog posts (and just four once I post this).

I've never been a fan of classes with online assignments. The main reason for this dislike is that I find it difficult to remember to do the assignments. All my past experience deals with assignments that require turning in a physical product. However, when there is no longer a physical aspect to the assignment it proves hard for me to remember to do it.

Despite my dislike for online class assignments, I must say that this has been the most enjoyable English class assignment I've ever had. I feel that this is a great way to get students to write weekly and not dread doing so. Also, being able to write about any desired topic makes it much more enjoyable. I am definitely an advocate of teachers allowing students to learn and express themselves through enjoyable, real-world activities such as this.

Website Layouts

I've spent a lot of time lately working on a class project for one of my computer science classes. Basically, the project is a website for the department of Residence Life here at The University of Southern Mississippi. The purpose of the site is to provide an online system for Residence Life staff members.

One aspect of the site that I have spent a lot of time working on is the layout. One issue I have with many sites on the Internet is that they are designed with a fixed width (take this blog for example). That is, the content on the page is always a certain width no matter how wide the web browser window may be. This is fine and dandy with traditional media, such as newspapers, magazines, books, and the like. However, electronic media does not have physical size restrictions as traditional media. Despite this, many web designers still restrict their websites to a predetermined size. Why? I believe it's because many people are stuck thinking about being confined by the physical restrictions of the material world.

I prefer sites that have a layout that flows. If a user chooses to make his/her window 500, 1000, or even 10000 pixels wide the site should fill the entire window accordingly. For example, take a look at the following screen shots of my design:





Notice how the page fills the entire window no matter how wide it is? Now take a look at a fixed-width website:





I find the large, empty white space very ugly and distracting.

Saul Williams

I came across a music artist yesterday that I thought was amazing. His name is Saul Williams and he mixes poetry and hip-hop. I am not usually a fan of this type of music but he demonstrates true talent and artistry in his work. His album "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!" was released today (November 1st) and is freely available on his website. It was produced by Trent Reznor (from Nine Inch Nails) which is really interesting because the two artists have very different music styles. I first heard Saul Williams in the following video on YouTube:



If you're interested in downloading his new album, it can be found on his website.