This chapter is closed!
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Grad School
I'm officially done with grad school!! I ended up graduating with a 3.53 GPA.

That's great and all, but now I gotta work on getting some certifications so I'll get hired!!

Spring break baby!!
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Grad School
Well tomorrow we are off for spring break. We are going out to Breckenridge, CO for a week of skiing and drinking and all around good times!

When we get back, I'll retro post to fill yall in on what all we did...at least those things that I want on the Internet!! :)

You have got to be kidding me!
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Grad School
Yesterday was the last day that I could order my cap and gown without a penalty. So I went to do it and nearly had second thoughts about going into IT.

It cost almost $60 to RENT the cap and gown, with nothing fancy, to wear for a total of a few hours! I'm thinking of opening up my own cap and gown business...you only have to work three times a year...and if you can make $60 per student times 5,000 students times 3 ceremonies...that's $900,000 a year!!! And that's for working only 1 school!

Insane!!

I can't take any more! ! !
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Grad School
Oh boy, I had a feeling that my Information Security class was gonna be a problem the very first day when the professor made snide remarks about Bush and the "Domestic Spying Program." She brought it up twice, and I turned to a friend of mine in the class and told him if she continued this way all semester, we would have problems.

Well...we now officially have problems. She made another comment last week, and I asked her why she was opposed to us spying on our enemies. She gave me a strange look...you know the kind...where she was surprised that some one would question her all-knowing power as a professor. She made some Democrat-like answer that made no sense, so then I had to throw out the tiny little fact that we weren't spying on "Average American Citizens" like she tried to claim. Let's just say, the debate didn't last long...she quickly changed the subject.

Then today, she made another comment, but I guess she checked out what I said because she conceited the point I made previously and also correctly identified that we have been tracking International calls...not Domestic ones. The debate stopper this time was the little fact that out of the billions of calls that have been made since 2001 when this program started, less than 2,000 have been tapped. It is kinda hard to make the point that the government is abusing its power in this matter with that little tidbit.

HR Management
Topic: Grad School
This class is the last elective that I need to graduate. I was debating between this class and a computer graphics class...which I think would have been really cool! But after talking to a couple of students who have had the professor, I decided against it and registered for HR Man.

I missed the first week because the class meets Monday nights, and I didn't add the class until Wed. Then the next week we didn't meet because of MLK. So the third week was my first week.

Now, I don't know how many of you have a graduate level education...but I'm going to share some of the wisdom...the gem, or pearl of wisdom that I gathered from that first class:

Prof: "If you know that you are going to need to hire some one to fill a position...the first thing you should do...is make sure that you know what you need."

Me: "Duh!!"

But the scariest part was that as I looked around the classroom, everyone (mostly MBAs) that had a laptop was typing away and anyone that didn't was busily writing it down. Now maybe it is just me, but doesn't everyone do that before they go to the store anyway? Is this really something that needs to be stated during a class where I'm paying over $200 a credit hour?!

Keep coming back for a free education from RDU!

Summer Semester grades.
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Grad School
I forgot to report on my grades for the summer semester. I got an A- and a B. The A- came in the class that I was hoping to get a B in...so that was a nice surprise.

The B came in a class where the professor was a complete dumb ass. This woman has some supposed real world experience in IT. But she was going to fail my group because she couldn't figure out that her particular computers problems couldn't possibly be addressed in our documentation. If the installation manual for any given piece of software was taking in to account every possible error for every possible computer problem, no one would bother reading them, and then no one would bother printing them.

This woman knew that she was restricted on her computer from installing new software by the network administrator, but tried to blame us because our installation documentation didn't tell her how to contact some one to install it. Then she didn't have a data file that was not only required...but was the sole reason I had to write the damn program to begin with...it was part of step one in running the program. She still tried to run the program, and said that our program had errors. Yeah...user errors!!!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have her in any other classes...if I do, I will walk out and drop the class. There is nothing that woman can teach me that I want to learn!

Please...just shut up!!!
Mood:  down
Topic: Grad School
Oh boy!

I had my other class tonight...this one is gonna stink!! It is a three hour class...that would normally be bad enough, but this class, which is titled Operations Management, seems to be more about Statistics so far. The professor yapped for over an hour about terminology and formulas. It is a good thing that I brought my laptop to class or I would have been asleep!

As it was, I only zoned in occasionally...just to see what he was talking about. When I'd recognize a term or two, I'd zone back out again. I only really zoned in when he mentioned the word calculus...I thought this class might contain a bit of a challenge, but then he said we didn't have to really know how to use the formulas because computers have made that irrelevent...then I zoned out again.

But at least there isn't a final exam...although there is another damned group project!

It begins again!
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Grad School
Well, school has started up again...the class I have so far should be fairly easy for me since it is about networking, and that has been part of a previous job. But having to learn it from a book and repeat it properly may make it a little more difficult.

We'll see what my other class is like on Wed.

I'm glad that's over with.
Topic: Grad School
I had to give a presentation on our "working" project yesterday. I spent a lot of time the last week working on it, and even though I wasn't able to get it working completely, I was able to BS enough during my speech that I think we did ok. Now I just have to get it doing what I said it could do!!

That was close!!
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Grad School
Boy did I have a scare today...I've been keeping my schoolwork on my flash drive, and when I plugged it in today...it wasn't recognized by my computer.

A 1 page and a 6 page paper were on it that are due tomorrow. So when I got to school, I tried it on a computer there...and nothing. So now I'm starting to get a little worked up...and I decide that when I get home, I'll fix the Doyle way!!!

So, I get home and after a few minutes, I got it cracked open to look at the insides. As I'm looking at it, I happen to notice a little tiny resistor that broke off and is sitting in the casing. So, I use a pair of tweezers, and a magnifying glass and discover where and how it fits on the circuit board. I then plugged the naked drive into the USB, and pressed down on the resistor. Luckily, I was able to make a connection long enough to copy my files over to my hard drive.

I currently have it glued on, but I will need to solder it back on at some point.

Another semester over, and a new one just begun.
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Grad School
I ended up getting an A and a B+ last semester. Not bad I guess.

Anyway, I've been complaining about my classes not really being new material, and being mostly review. Well, this semester I have a class that is all case studies...and long ones too!! The first set of articles are (date, length): 1985, 12 & 1993, 15 & 1996, 4 & 2002, 2. So most of what I had to read through is obsolete and outdated. But next week's reading is three articles and almost 100 pages!! I don't read that much in an entire semester...let alone one week!!

I'm not sure how this class is gonna work out, if I can somehow pull out a B...I'll be happy!

Did I hear the fat lady??
Topic: Grad School
Well, I've been done with my classes since Thursday...and it sure is nice...no projects to work on right now & no reports to pull out of my ass. And I can spend more time getting ready for the TKD belt testing tomorrow. I've been practicing with my bow staff for the last few days.

I know that I got an A in one class, my database management class, because I got a 100 on the first test, 96 on the second and a 100 on the last one. And I got a 100 on my project and homeworks. But I'm right on the edge of an A in my project management class, so we'll just have to wait and see...

MBTI
Mood:  cool
Topic: Grad School
In class the other day, we took the Myers-Briggs personality type test, and a social type test. It should come as no surprise to most that I turned out to be an introvert! Imagine that! I also showed up as analytical...another surprise.

If anyone is interested, click here to take the cognitive type test.

My full type was an ISTP. I know everyone has done those stupid ones that go around by email...pick a color(or something to that effect)...but this is a real one. Most of those email ones never seem to work for me, but this was pretty much right on the money.

Oh dear, did I get a 100 on that?!
Mood:  on fire
Topic: Grad School
he he he he

I had my first test in Database Management on Tuesday, and me and this other dude were done in about 30 minutes. Well, we got the tests back on Thursday, and I got a 100!!

Oh boy it sure was fun rubbing it in....er...um...telling the wife about it. She just loves to hear my stories about how I do on tests that I do absolutely nothing to prepare for.

New semester
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Grad School
Well, the holiday/winter/Christmas break is over, and a new semester awaits on the horizon. I'm taking 2 classes, one class has 8 people, the other has 6. There is no way to hide in classes that small.

I'm taking Project Management and Database Development & Management. Should be interesting anyway.