Well, firstly, we have a break from classes which means five fewer hours spent at Temple’s Fort Washington campus. Secondly, we have five more hours to spend as we choose. Lisa chose to spend the larger part of those hours with our nephew. I only committed a part of my time to him. I also decided to catch up on some work whose deadlines are fast approaching.

I sometimes find myself questioning the amount which I work. I ask myself what it is my employer wants from me, as an employee. Is it my time? Is it my experience? Is it my skill? These are separate things I think, and yet most employers demand all these things. Since that is the case, I hesitate to work much more than the standard work week, and yet there is a part of me that desires the work. There is a part of me that yearns to produce and create something valuable. Still, my energies need not be directed at job. There are so many endeavors I wish to pursue, and yet I worry about deadlines and expectations. On some level, I don’t care at all about work–not in the way that you’d expect. I don’t care about being fired. After all, Lisa and I lack responsibilities and dependents. On yet another level, my job, which takes up a majority of my time, is an integral part of my spirit. That ineffable quality about me some might call a soul is all tied into the things I do and the people I interact with every day.

This line of thought soon gets tangled in its own tendrils, and I realize I missed half an hour of productive time, and I table further introspection for the next time.

The extra work has meant that I have not been reading lately. Instead, to unwind, I’ve been playing Double Dragon II. I’m very close to being able to beat it with only three extra lives.

I have been contemplating life and its course recently. I feel like doing something totally new, something totally unexpected. Maybe I’ll whisk Lisa away to some foreign land, and we’ll start our lives all over. Can I fight the future and buck the trend with the recklessness of youth?

Classes

• Business Law I
• Business Law II (Hopefully this won’t screw me up)
• Introduction to Entrepreneurship
• Numerical Analysis
• Software Engineering Workshop II

And I’m still holding out for Real Estate…

edit: the class will most likely not be cancelled, because that would probably screw over someone in the class using it as a track class. (We are already in week 2 anyway.)

edit: a track class is a class required for a concentration. To get a CS degree, you need to have three concentrations including Software Engineering, which is mandatory. The Programming Languages concentration consists of 3 courses: Theory of Computation, Compiler Workshop I, and Compiler Workshop II. Track classes are important because they are needed to complete concentrations and graduate!

My math teacher, who isChinese,says “okay?” after every sentence. EVERY sentence. “This is the problem, okay? These are the variables, okay? Define the objective function, okay? It’s subject to these equations, okay? I’m going to say okay after every sentence the whole term, okay?”

This is the first year of teaching for my compiler workshop instructor (you know what that means). Keep in mind that compiler workshop is one of the hardest CS classes. Most of the hard classes start with thirty people and end up with ten (AI), but this class STARTED with ten. Who knows how many will be left by mid-term.

Senior design started, and it should be fun because I am going to boss Yang around–more so than I usually do.

Yesterday night, I was in the Computer Science Lab and I was printing some material for the exam I have today. Unfortunately, midway through the job, the printer ran out of paper. There were no monitors around to help, so I opened the huge recycle bin/trash bin and nearly fell inside trying to get some paper to finish the job.

When I take an exam, I always try to finish first in the room. For nearly every exam this term, I have been either the first or one of the first five to finish. Not only do I like to show off, but finishing earlier than practically everyone else gives you an excuse when someone else beats you. “I got a 97 on the exam, how did you do?” “Uh, I got a 90, but I finished first, so HAHA on you, biatch!” Of course, I would never say that to someone’s face, but my inner monologue chants it over and over again like a battle cry.

Summer term should be much more cakier than this term was. I actually misjudged how hard one of my psy classes would be. It actually wasn’t that difficult, it’s just the amount of work was unexpected. There was a lot of reading that I did not expect to do. We had to read fun books like Human Error and Protocol Analysis woo, interesting stuff, huh

Kosal is graduating, and Hung is walking this term (yes, I had to differentiate). If you see either of them, give them a warm hug and goodbye, because you might never see them again. (Well, you will see Hung, see, that is why I had to differentiate.) If you ever wanted to ask them something that you thought was inappropriate, or just confess your undying love, now is the time to do it. Really. As for me, they know how much I love them, right guys

Finally, the ASA formal is coming up. It would normally not be that big of a deal for me, but my darling bear is going to be my date. She will look elegant and dance the night away with me until she has to leave to make her curfew. =} If you ever get the opportunity to slow dance with the woman of your dreams, cradling her in your arms, count yourself lucky!