It’s off to a fast start for sure this semester.
My PhD adviser wanted me to start working on his research as soon as I got back, which seemed like it would get in the way with my classes and my other Master’s project. However, since I hadn’t done that much on my Master’s project, I switched my project to working with him. There was a lot of shuffling around involved with that, but it’s all taken care of now. My course project for Wireless Networks and Master’s project will now be one and the same, which will make life a lot simpler and allow me to focus on just a few things. The project entails data aggregation and dissemination among nodes in a mobile wireless sensor network. It should be interesting, but it will probably be hard and my adviser seems to have really high expectations while I feel over my head. I have a ton of papers to read for work related to my project and have to give a report to my adviser by Monday.
The only thing is that I might not finish with the project by the end of March, which is when everything is due if I am to get my Master’s degree in May. But now, it doesn’t matter as much if I get it in the summer since I’ll still be in school. As it is, I’ll be spending the summer in Williamsburg doing school work anyways. Since it looks like I’ll be in Williamsburg for awhile, I’m really thinking about getting an apartment by myself and getting rid of the school meal plan. I’ve had enough of the whole institutionalized lifestyle.
My advisor let me pick out a laptop and order it through the department so I can have something to use for TinyOS development. I’m surprised he let me do that. Not only that but he just handed me $500 worth of motes to screw around with. I guess it’s nice having funding. With respect to the laptop, nesC and TinyOS have trouble with Macs because some Java USB/serial communication libraries aren’t implemented for them. So, I can’t use my Mac. I’ve got a desktop with Windows on it that I use for games (when I’ve got time) and I also used last year for this, but I can’t bring that into the office to do work, so my advisor just cut me loose on the IBM/Lenovo website. If they ordered what I spec’d out, I’ll be getting an X61 with a 14 inch widescreen and XP instead of Vista. It comes with the new Intel Santa Rosa platform too. The 14 inch seems like it is the best combination of performance and size and I’ve heard nothing but good things about IBM and Lenovo. I like my Macbook too, but for a Windows computer, this would probably be my first choice.
Classes are all at weird times this semester. I have Theory of Computation at 3PM on Mondays and Wednesdays, which is when practice starts. That class is a normal lecture/homework type and hopefully it won’t be too hard. My Wireless Networking class with my adviser is on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the morning, which is the first time I’ve had a morning class in awhile. That gives me Friday off, which is nice, but Thursdays suck — my TA assignment is to conduct two intro Java labs back to back from 1-5. With class in the morning that doesn’t leave me with much free time. I also have to meet with my adviser once a week after class on Tuesday. So things are a lot more than the usual go to class, sit through a lecture, and do the homework. I’ve got a big project to work on, meetings, and two labs to administer.
The labs on Thursday were interesting — I had to play teacher for four hours. Being an intro programming class, some of them are going to have trouble later on. The lab consisted of just setting up the Eclipse IDE and copying a hellow world program to a file and running it. A lot of people had to be spoon fed stuff and were asking for help on seemingly simple things, like finding a configuration setting in a preferences menu. To learn to program, you have to absorb the material on your own. It’s not something that you can memorize or have someone tell you how to do it. When they start doing actual programming, some are really going to have trouble, so it’s going to be up to me to help them through it.
One of the guys in the lab knew my sister from somewhere, which was interesting. He said I looked like her. I never get that. When I’m somewhere with Katie, I’ve had people think she was my girlfriend. Conversely, when I’m with my girlfriend, I’ve had people think she was my sister. Weird. Also, Sarah asked me after the labs last night if the lab students addressed me by last name. None of them did — it was all first name. I just wrote my whole name on the board and didn’t say anything about how I wanted to be addressed. I then commented to Sarah that the students were all the same ages as everyone on the team that I associate with and we have a more or less peer to peer relationship. But then as I’m running through campus this morning one of my teammates walking the other way addresses me as “mister”. Then I realize he and several other guys do that on a fairly regular basis. I never really thought about it before.
I’ve been running at weird times too, sometimes just before class on Monday and Wednesday. Yesterday I got up before dawn so I could be finished before class. That was the earliest I’ve been up to run since the summer. I won’t be able to go to practice much because of my schedule and the work I have, which sucks, but that’s how it goes. I really enjoy going and when I’m in a bad mood seeing everyone makes me feel better. I walk into the locker room and everyone says hi and there’s always some interesting stories someone has to tell. It’s like a scene out of Cheers. Unfortunately, most everyone in the department just sits in the office all day and works. Not many people in there get out much.
I did get to hang out with everyone last weekend since Jason came down from VCU. It was nice seeing him and we went out to dinner on two nights. On the first night we went to Bruster’s afterwards for ice cream and I got this fudge cheesecake flavor that was arguably the best ice cream flavor I’ve ever had. Usually I complain about chocolate stuff being too weak — especially chocolate milk and chocolate ice cream. This flavor was what I think chocolate ice cream should taste like. It had a ton of chocolate in it. Lately I’ve been craving ice cream a lot for some reason. I can only handle it about once a week and it’s only worth getting if it’s good, such as it is at Bruster’s. I would probably get it every week too if I could find someone to go with.
The other night Jason and I went out to a pizza place just down the street from the gradplex, in Colonial Williamsburg. I had never been there before and I don’t plan on going back. We split a supreme and got two drinks and it was pretty crappy for $12 from each of us. It was small and had almost no substance to it. Even a regular chain place would have been better (and cheaper) than that. A bunch of other guys on the team showed up along with some recruits. Seeing the recruits really made me feel distanced from everyone. They didn’t seem very old at all.
It seems everything has really shifted focus from putting equal weight on school and track/cross country to shifting focus to school. Seeing everyone at dinner that night made me realize how much things are changing. It’s a bunch of small changes that have taken place incrementally over time and now they are adding up. I’m not who I was a year ago, and especially not two or three years ago, even though I go to the same school and even see some of the same people every day. I don’t mind these changes, in fact, I welcome them, for it’s time to accomplish something new in my life. Hopefully I can do that by pursuing a PhD.
The weather has really been getting to me, but this is the worst time of the year. Last week it rained and snowed and was freezing cold. This week it’s just freezing cold. Either the cold has been worse than normal or I’m just getting weak — I can’t tell which. I’ve had several nosebleeds thanks to the dry air and my legs are tightening up on my runs. I strained my calf last week in the cold and crappy rain and then this morning about six minutes in something in my knee popped. It was so violent it sounded like someone shooting a cap gun. The rest of my run it felt like something was out of alignment in my knee and now it’s still clicking and grinding. It hurts too. I’m hoping I’ll be okay running tomorrow, but I don’t know. I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams. I haven’t been able to work out since I’ve been such a mess, so I’ll be taking it easy until I feel better.
I came home today since my doctor had a suspicion that I might have the dreaded Celiac Disease and wanted me to see a specialist. It seems they come up with diseases just so the drug companies can sell a drug for them, but not the case with Celiac (yet). It does seem kind of bogus, though. Basically, it’s an allergic reaction to wheat products, which basically means everything. It essentially means if I have it that I am supposed to go on the near equivalent of the Atkins diet. I guess some grains are okay, like oats and rice and I can still eat potatoes without problems, but I can’t see myself giving up stuff like pasta, cereal, and bread. I live on stuff like that. Now I’ve got to get a blood test done to see exactly what’s up. It will be nice to be home for a little again even though I just left. The weekends can get boring out at the gradplex. I really should try to make an effort to find some people in my department that share similar interests and want to do stuff. It’s hard to do that being an introverted computer science type. Like I said before, there’s a gap forming between myself and everyone on the team, and it isn’t just age.
So now I’ve got my work cut out for me: a Theory of Computation assignment, a handful of papers to read and comment on, and some intro labs to grade. The lab grading could be a pain since I’ve got to go through and run 30 students’ programs and look at their code. I have to give them feedback too. I could try automating it with some kind of test script, but it will probably be more trouble than it’s worth. The people at NASA also just handed me some last minute requests, but I’ve got no time for that now. I feel bad telling them that I can’t get to their requests, but that’s how it goes. Now it’s off for me to be a researcher this weekend.
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