welcome to 9am
January 14, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Sitting in 9am discussion for REL131. We have a Dr. for a TA, which is a change of pace. He's the Episcopalian chaplain on campus, and is TA'ing the course because apparently the Religion department has a lack of doctorate students at the moment.
Right now we're talking about plagarism. I've got a little experience with that... USC likes to talk about how it can be plagarism even if you're copying yourself. I've always found that funny.
ah, the days of being a freshman
January 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson
This semester I'm making up a few gen-ed classes I passed up when I first started here at USC. I really didn't want to take them the first time through -- so I didn't -- and I really don't desire all too much to take them now.
GE classes aren't like other classes. They think you're a Freshman, so they're strict. Strict attendance policies, mandatory discussion sections, pop quizes... GEs have them all.
I'm in Religions of Asia right now (both for the semester, and as I write this). If you follow that link and click through to the requirements, you'll find that they "tolerate" one discussion section absense. Well isn't that generous...
I used to tolerate being a student. It was one of those things I had to do -- and I guess it still is -- but now I'm just ready to be done. I want to get out into the world, to do something cool.
How am I supposed to do anything cool when I'm stuck in a room on a Wednesday morning with a bunch of freshman talking about the stuff that we've already gone over in the lecture?
mmmm wireless
January 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Sitting waiting for class to start... This class is BISC 230: Brain, Mind, and Machines. Hopefully this will go short so that I can go get some food. I loved not starting until 12:30 today. I got up around 9:30, read about 30 pages in Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. I'm on page 300 or so at this point, so I won't write anything about it until I finish. At about 915 pages, that could be a little while. So I read a little, messed around on the computer for a while, and then got ready around 11:45. All in all a relaxing morning.
make to the routine
January 13, 2004 by Eric Richardson
Classes start today. I basically have just Tuesday/Thursday classes again this semester (minus one discussion on Wednesday morning), and today I don't start until 12:30. Granted my day today does run until 10pm, though. My classes today: Brain, Mind, and Machine: Topics in Neuroscience, Writing 340 (Advanced Writing for Social Science), Religions of Asia, and History of the American Film, 1977-Present. You know, actually that's all of my classes.
I need to figure out a new routine for having my laptop battery charged up going into my 6pm class. I either need to not use it much in the classes before, or find an outlet during one of my classes. My only real break today is 5:30 - 6, and that's not going to be enough for anything more than a bite to eat.
I'm trying to figure out if Toshiba even sells a second battery for the Satellite A10. I can't seem to find one. They sell the primary battery for $100, though, so that might not be a bad idea to pick that up and just carry a spare to swap in.
still fighting the system
January 12, 2004 by Eric Richardson
I bought a new hard drive today... 160GB IDE drive from Staples for $140. The 120GB was $130, so 160 seemed to be the sweet spot in the price curve right now. Since my computer refuses to boot from cd, I took the drive over to Kathy's, popped it in the place of her drive, and installed Linux on it that way. That part went fine.
Then I grab the drive, bring it back to my place, and throw it in my computer. Success, it boots up just fine. But now a 60GB IDE drive I have music on doesn't want to be recognized. The BIOS had never detected it right, but before Linux picked it up just fine. Now, though, it doesn't.
I don't want to bore this space with a litany of details, but if you're interested click to read on... — Continue Reading...