Later, But At Least I Did It

So I guess the first thing to say would be that I’m sorry it’s been so long. Several of you have emailed me and I’ve replied to a few of you that I would be sending something out soon.. but that soon has yet to come, until now. I would like to promise you all that I’ll be more consistent with my emails, that I won’t forget to write them, that I will have time for you.. but I can’t. What can I say? I’m human.. and a young one at that, haha. For all I can say right now is that this email’s going to be long.. and I’m going to try and send out another one next week, so take off your shoes, slouch a little in the chair and grab something to drink, cause this is going to take a while.

When we first left our adventurer, she was embarking on- wait a second.. I can’t even remember the last time I wrote one of these. And why am I calling myself an adventurer?.. Okay, ya know what, I’m just going to fill ya in as I remember stuff, okay? Coolies.

First thing I remember is that I’m a college student still. Yes, I haven’t dropped out and they haven’t decided I’m awesome enough to just hand me the degree (yet). I’m taking five courses this semester (which is almost over) and almost enjoying them all. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not enjoying my Computer Structure’s class. There are few in that class that are. Scratch that, none are. It’s essentially a class about the, you guessed it, structure of a computer. Like how electrical signals move through boards and flip little switches and make things happen.. we write programs in binary.. I seriously dislike that class. I take my laptop to it every lecture and play games or do other homework. It’s what the department calls a “pre-req” for another class.. it’s what we call a hoop. Other then that, though, I like all my other classes. I’m taking two history courses (zomg, I love them..), another computer course (not bad, tough but fun), and a business systems course (database design, whee). I’ve already enrolled for next semester. It was going to be all computer science courses, something that will drive me crazy.. so I have a history course scheduled in there too for the fun of it, though I may have to drop it because of the credit load, we’ll see. I’ll describe those courses later, like when I take them or something.

Oh! The other big news in the classes department is that they want me to help teach a course next semester. They designed a web development course around my research from last year and I’ve been helping them do it.. and they want me to help teach it. I was considering for a while using that as an excuse to get more independent study credit (I’m already getting some this semester for the work I did last summer), but I’d have to pay for the course’s tuition, and that’s just a waste of money. I’m really excited about the whole thing.. but slightly nervous. They’ve never done this before with an undergrad student and I think most of my students will actually be older then me. It’s kind of an ego boost.. but at the same time I’m freaking out a little, ya know? So yeah.. that’s that exciting news.

Hmm, let’s see.. I’m still doing research for the universities. I say ‘universities’ because I’m doing research with CSU and UNCC. My CSU research is a continuation of my research from last year, looking at website usability and navigation. My research with UNCC is also a continuation of my work there from the summer. I’m looking at playing video games at a college level and how game play effects the lives of students, as well as the type of students that are open to using a game in combination with lectures. A spin off of that is looking at the learning that happens during game play and how we might be able to capture that learning power and make it more university related. I’m extremely excited about my research.. like, insanely so. It’s just amazing what I’ve found from interviews with students. I could seriously write a paper on it all, oh wait, I am. It’s not gotten very far right now.. I’ve bitten off more then I can chew when it comes to all that I’m doing.. so I plan on working on that next semester. It seriously just amazes me the things that these games are doing.. and what people are doing for these games. I’ve talked about some of my findings to faculty at CSU and they’re excited about what conclusions I’ll make and how I can help them use those to improve the department. Haha.. I’ve been reminded a lot recently about one of the first things my friends heard me say.. *Flashback* We were walking to the Computer Science building to take a tour on our first day of college and I was talking to Fish and Donovan, who I had just met. Erin and Christy we walking behind us, chatting and listening to our conversation when I declared that my goal was to rule the world.. and that to succeed in doing so, I was going to take over the Computer Science department, then CSU, then the city, then the state, so on and so forth until the world was mine. We all laughed.. *End Flashback* but Erin’s starting to say she’s afraid it’s coming true. I can’t leave evidence of my plans behind.. so I’ll just say here a simple “Whahaha.”

(Okay, so I’m going to toss this out there right now that I’m writing this email on an airplane at.. um.. really high height, on my way home from a wonderful week at Vassie and George’s, or Nanny and Papaw, as we like to call them. I would just like to say that I enjoyed my stay so much and I can’t express how sorry I am that I got sick. Everyone there in Melbourne was awesome, and Betty, I’m sorry I never got a chance to come over and fix your computer. I called a few times, but I’m not good about leaving messages.. so it’s my fault, I’m sorry. Okay, yeah, that’s my two cents, back to the email.)

That totally blew my train of thought.. oh, right, work! I was going to talk about my work now. Okay, so I have three jobs at the moment (6 is you include my research and Halbyte.NET). I still work one night a week at Newsom Front Desk, I’m still a live-in Nanny, and I run the Publications Database for the CS department at CSU. The front desk thing is cake, nothing big to talk about there, and the publications thing is easy too. The live-in nanny gig.. well… okay. It’s just terrible. Awful. Just kidding. Heh. Chris and Vinna (the parents of Caitlin) get this email, so I had to kid a little bit. In all seriousness I love it. Caitlin’s great, the dogs are cool, and the old-farts are fun and not-so old. Personally I think that we’re all doing awesome and I couldn’t be happier. (Okay, that’s not true. Vinna, if you’re reading this, I’d be a lot happier with a king size water bed, big screen TV and a mini-fridge in my room. Oh, and can I have your and Chris’s room?) I’m beginning to see Caitlin more as the kid sister my mom never let me kidnap from another family, instead of the kiddo that I have to pick up from school. I had a tough time adjusting to the family life at first but I think I got the swing of things now. Honestly I feel that I’m not pulling my weight there.. it’s just, too easy. I mean, granted, I’m not saying have me do the dishes every night.. but the whole family there is just great. I feel right at home and I don’t have any problems with looting the fridge or asking for something. Sometimes I feel like I’m cheating them. I mean, here I am, an almost-20 (ahh!!) college student living in their basement, eating their food, using their internet, watching their TV and, oh yeah, occasionally playing with their awesome 8-year old. I mean.. half the time I’m the one that asks Caitlin to play. It’s just.. too good to be true. Watch, I’m going to get home and they’re going to ask me to start like.. waxing their cars or something. Darn my honesty. Darn it.

Anyway.. um.. what else is there?.. Oh! Right. I started a radio station. Don’t get too excited, it’s just an online radio station and like.. our average listener count right now is.. 40 or something, but yeah.. I was playing my game a few months ago and one of the guys I play with was broadcasting his music over the internet so we could listen to what he was (he kept typing the lyrics out, it was annoying cause we wanted to listen to Thriller too!) and I got this idea in my head to start an online radio station. So.. a few weeks later FirFM was born. Fir is the name of the guy that was broadcasting his stuff that day and I insisted that the station remain named after him. Another online friend of mine, named Michele, is helping Fir and I a lot with the station (she’s my other half on the net, honestly) and together we’re making a website for the station. It’s still under development (until I get more time), and once the site’s done, we’re going to do a major advertising launch and try to get our listener count up. We’re hoping to eventually get the station so popular that the advertising and donations will cover the server costs, but we’ll see.

Yawn yawn yawn. What’s next? Wanna know how the gang’s doing? Okay! Berlin, my old roommate, dropped out of college. Beth, Rachel and Tirrel live together still. Tirrel is big into bike racing right now and Beth and Rachel are just doing their thing. Fish and Bria are practically married now.. we just call them husband and wife anyway. I honestly don’t know much more then that about that part of the gang because I don’t see them often.. I hang out with Christy, Erin and Donovan more. Christy and Erin are fellow Computer Science students and together we’re earned the name of “The Trio” in the department. We’re the only girls in our class and we’re all making waves, so we’ve earned ourselves names individually and as a whole. Donovan you all love and remember. We’re back to being the inseparable duo again. He lives with two of his friends a black from campus and I’m well known for just camping on his couch between classes. We do lunch together on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on the weekends we’re usually hanging out. He cut his hair (no more white-fro!) and shaved, so he looks more human now, definitely. Um.. yeah.. not sure what else to say about Don except that he’s my best friend right now… We went skiing two weeks ago, I’ll make sure to include some pictures when I get them.

Perfect timing. We’re about to land and I can’t really think of anything else to write about right now. I mean, I could tell about my week in Florida.. but I don’t really remember it. I was a little out of it with the cold and all, so sorry. I’ll make sure to include some pictures next time and hopefully they’ll tell their own story. Let me know if you didn’t like this new website thingy and I’ll go back to emails. This is just a little easier for me.

Peace, Love and peanuts,
Tar