September 2004 Archives

My first week of test results are in and they look pretty good. Logic is a 90.625, Abnormal Psychology is 90, and Intro to Physics is 101.

I was really suprised by all of the scores. I felt that Deductive Logic should have been a higher score. I prepared for the test and I understand the material, but I guess I got careless when I was taking the test and missed a few things or didn't think something out fully enough. Abnormal Psychology I wasn't expecting to do so well in because I didn't really study, I missed a night of class and I don't really ever take decent notes. With Physics I was almost certain I had screwed up 2 of the 10 problems. I guess I was wrong. I understand Physics pretty well, but it is very math based and I never do that well with any form of math.

I am still waiting for scores for my English 1102 paper and my Western History and Culture test. I think I did well on the paper, but I am pretty sure I didn't do well on the Western History and Culture test. I will post my devistation when those scores are availible.

Getting It Together Interface version 2 (GITI v2) is now in an almost functional state. I have fully implemented the Education module on the v2 test site. A lot of the componentes are merely rigged together to function now, but that will be chaning soon. I have a lot of work still left to do, but the existing GITI modules are converting to v2 with minimal effort. I have moved away from the module-specific design of GITI v1 and moved toward activity-centric (add, view current, view all, etc). This should be make the navigation easier for the user as well as for administration and development.

The next step in the development of GITI v2 will be actually establishing the menus that will be attached to my cute little tab items. Once that goes into place there is nothing that GITI v2 can't do that v1 can. This is where the project becomes a truely forked code base, once I transplant all modules and convert them they will start taking on characteristics of v2 and become farther from v1. I am having problems controlling myself on v1 when I do something really cool to v2, I feel like I need to do it to v1 also, but I have to remind myself that v1 is to be locked except for bug fixes and extending functionality where it is imperitive that such functionality exist. For example, if I write decent custom field value modification code, then I will connect it to v1 also, if it is compatible. I spend a lot of time on GITI as both an end user and a developer, mostly as an end-user. Because I am the #1 GITI user it is a lot of fun watching things in the GITI code break as I manipulate GITI. One huge difference in v1 and v2 is that v1 was the only GITI that existed during its development, there was no stable code, only the crap I was producing at the time. Since then GITI has grown and has become mature in v1. As I develop v2 I can spend a lot less time worrying about time management (an imaginary clock ticking, reminding me I need GITI running by X time), and more time developing high quality functional code.

My vision for GITI eventually is something like the borg queen, an all-knowing entity that makes everything make more sense and has a desire to get as much information as possible. One aspect of the borg queen that I don't want in GITI is the lack of free will. The GITI user should have complete control of scheduling and be able to manipulate it as they like. GITI needs to be very reliable, but also allow for flexable scheduling and alterations in a user's schedule.

The biggest pain with GITI will be the conversion and intergration of the Address Book Dastabase system. It was never desgined for a multi-user situation, especially not like GITI. The end-user portion of the utility WLL NOT be changing, it is how it is because thats how it is. The admin components will likely become less adminish and more of a split end user system. At the present time ABDB (Address Book DataBase) relies on the information in the database itself for authenticating users for updating their info. One thing that I have given thought to is integrating the addressbook table and the users table of GITI, having a single reposity for all information, and sort of making all users peers of each other. In doing this I would probably find it neccessary to have a seperate GITI contacts tool, which is sort of duplicate, but sort of not. At this point I just don't know. There are so many aspects to explore for the module. GITI and ABDB work perfectly for me at the current time as they are because they are both designed to be focused on me and my needs. One thing is certain though, if I make ABDB become a multi-user tool I will have to make the username system a little better for it, so that more than one user can have the same real name as another. I know that if I didn't then in the first week of GITI being accessible by more than just me we would run into John Smith syndrome.

Many more lines of GITI remain until I can rest...

I have been doing a lot of theoretical thinking in the past few hours. What is the Freshman 15 truely? In all reality I should be affected by the freshman 15 because this is my first semester on a real university campus. What is the origin of the "Freshman 15" term?

Being the student of Psychology that I am, my analysis leads me to believe that the "Freshman 15" is linked to a psychological cause based on the newfound freedoms and independance experienced. It could also be the body's physiological response to the stresses placed on the person during the time. Like a lot of things, the freshman 15 seems to be affecting me in the reverse of what it is supposed to. It is supposed to be a 15lbs weight gain during the expanse of the first year of college. So far I have lost about 5 pounds from my total weight since the semester began. If I go to the total opposite, a loss of 15lbs, I will be a little concerned and will find a way to correct the situation. My body does seem to be finding its own way to balance things recently.

Another possibility for the Freshman 15 is that it is a fallacy of college. Just one of those myths that start from a few isolated cases. The food on campus isn't good enough to gain 15lbs from.

I personally intend to take whatever messures are required to make sure that I stay healthy throughout my college career. I am currently attempting to shape my body and make myself stronger and healthier than before. I want to use this time (college) to enhance my body as well as my brain. I like how my body is coming along so far, I need to be more focused on the health aspect of it than on the physical appearence. I could easily become ego obsessed and loose my mind with making my body harder and more shaped.

I really shouldn't be bloging at this hour...2:30AM and all is not well in my world.

This evening I began a quest, a quest for the perfect minor for me. I will most likely graduate from UNCC (or wherever) as a Management Information Sustems major, but I am deeper than just that. MIS is the degree for me to have to be a professional in my prefered working area. I don't want to work in Psychology, I just want to experience it. I would really love to officially declare a minor, but I don't know what to declare, there are so many decent minors for me. The options are as follows:

On this blog there are some things that I avoid mentioning about my life because it is something that somehow doesn't pass my mind as something that should be public knowledge, but yet with other blogs I read, such things are open and discussable. Maybe I am afraid that someone might read my blog who doesn't know the information about me (such as family members, etc) and then my interactions with that person might be changed drasticly. My name doens't exactly blend in to a pool of names, it is very distinct and recognizable.

Perhaps it is time for me to open myself up a little on this blog and just let my purest thoughts pass to it. Of course my more private events would remain private. I can't live my life fearing what other people think of me. Ive done that for way too long. There are people in my world who try to push me back into my life of being overly self concious, such as Kyle Mulligan. His criticism scares me, his opposition to me enrages me. I can't let people like him have that type of control in my life.

My bigest problem with me feeling like I am constantly being judged is the fact that I know there is always someone doing it and that they always have a negative opinion. The person is myself. I am usually the quickest to find flaws in myself and want to eliminate them. Last night was a very unusual situation for me. I was sitting here like I do every night, talking to people online and doing other stuff. I was working on some Physics homework. I allowed myself to get over-stressed on the homework and on other thoughts in my mind, at that point I cracked and found every flaw in myself and identified it. From that point forward I began having this disorganized thought pattern. It is very atypical for me to have many thoughts out of sequence or not logically arranged. I began to panic when that happened, most people who are attentive to my online statuses knew it. I have to learn to be less concerned with perfectionism and more open to being a flawed human. In my years before UNCC I was able to handle most things that were thrown at me and theings I couldn't were flawed in some way. My ideal self (super ego) has been transformed from its high school version of wanting only to be accepted and high achieving, now to its college version which is more perfectionistic than ever. I MUST have an A in all classes, I MUST be present when it is physically possible (exclusion for overrides by my need to be paranoid). In my first 27 hours of college credit I have perfect scores, a 4.0 GPA. I was dealt a swift blow when my 28th - 30th hours were completed with only a B. This displesased my super ego greatly, putting more stress on my ego to excel at everything it does. My question to myself is where is my Id in all of this? Superego is definately accounted for, and the ego obeys superego, where is the Id to throw illogical desires into my life and make me not so perfect and squeeky-clean all the time? Last night I found myself planning a spring trip for hiking in the mountains as a fun and relaxing way for me to enjoy myself with a friend. All of my previous "perfect" role models in high school, Matt Lamb and Guy Broome, primarily, have started social drinking now that they are at college. My primary presenting-self would find great embarrasment in ever doing anything like that. But why? Why I am I not now normal? Can I ever be normal or am I doomed to live this life of needing to be perfect based on my pre-disposed images of perfection.

For "Perfect Curtis" to be achieved the following must exist:

It finally happened, I am experiencing mental burn out!

At one month into my college career I am feeling as though my brain is having to wrap around huge, ungraspable concepts and we aren't being successful. My primary problem is vectors in physics. I am used to having equations for everything pre-derived for me(thats what we have old guys for right?) and just having to essentially "plug and chug" the numbers. I am having to do a lot more conceptual modeling than i previously would have ever done. I have tried using Google to find information on the topic, but nothing is revealing itself as being very useful. I had a similar problem in high school physics, and I was hoping to be able to find my old notebood and use information in it, but it is no where to be found. Wait, nevermind, found it in the other closet. Oh well, nothing usefull in there anyway. I guess its back to checking Google and attempting to piece together some amount of a clue. Physics test Monday, yippee!

In Dedeductive Logic I am having some minor syllogism issues. It was worse last night with homework than it is now. I feel like I understand it a little better now than I did last night at least. I think I will just need to practice with these, I remember when I was first introduced to oppositions, I thought for sure I wouldn't get it, but now I do. Once Dr. Preseler explained the stuff a little more today it was a lot clearer. I asked her for an extension to the homework, she agreed, so I get to go at it again, this time with fresh knowledge of what I am doing.

Western History and Culture is a class that has only met a few times, the first test is Tuesday evening. I am worried because I don't know the material that well. There are too many things that we have looked at that I just simply cant remember every detail about. I will review thoroughly this weekend and hope for the best. It is really becoming a history class and I just dont have that type of a mental proccess to handle that. I am logical in nature, as such, I work with things like GITI to keep my factual information in order.

With Abnormal Psychology there is a lot of material, but I am doing fine with it and I think I just need to become a little more absorbed into the material (as long as it isnt in the form of a case study).

Writing In Academic Communication is going fine. I am a good writer, all it takes for me is just a little work on some areas where I have preferences away from the accepted standard.

Today in general went OK, with the exception of the fact that my father was home. I was expecting him to be at work and therefore wasn't in my nicey pleasant mood to deal with him. Repreccusions of this unknowledge remain to be seen, but the total result likely wont be good.

For those of you who are familiar with my beverage scale for day judgement: I am presently sipping on a 20oz Mt. Dew Code Red and there is another on standby in the fridge.

Reccomendation for anyone in contact with Curtis in the next 36 hours: stay alert for sudden mood shifts, volitile temperment is likely.

procrastinatus - literally translated it is forward tomorrow. It is sometimes a pleasurable thing, other times it just bites you in the ass. I personally am a big fan of procrasination. I work well under the pressure of a deadline and as such this isn't such a bad thing for me, especially when I don't really mind doing what I am putting off. I am the type of procrastonee who can put things off and get them done if I really want to, but I can also put things off until the 12th of never, if I really don't want to do what it is that I am putting off. GITI is designed for me and therefore designed for people who procrastinate. GITI doesn't give major warnings when something is overdue, it simply presents the list in order of what needs to be done when. The user sets their own pace, draws their own conclusions and sets off their own alarms.

I have been known to put things off for many reasons, pretty much everything except for I have something better to do. Some times I would rather stare into space for 5 hours than get started on my logic homework a little early. A lot of this has to do with my moods I suppose. I have moods when I don't want to do anything, then I have other moods when I am in an overachieving persona and have the need to make GITI's lists show zero items (basicly do everything that needs to be done in the next 15 days). Another thing that makes me procrastinate is my fear of getting started. If I have a paper to write I will likely not start it until I know exactly how the first sentance will read. I can't just start writing a paper and have no idea what I will open the paper with. I can't stand having papers to start with a line that sounds like it should be the conclusion. I have been told by many instructors that I am a talented writer, but I don't see this most of the time when I can't even get started. Sometimes my procrastination is fueled by a pure lack of motivation. Something to do exists, I am doing nothing and there is nothing to make me think that I would actually want to try to start anything. I have had close calls before though when I have felt like I had to get started and I sort of made myself have a pseudo motivation in the form of a deadline to push me towards getting started. Once I am started with something I dont typically end until I finish it, unless it is something that is obviously too time consuming for that. Projects that seem insignificant to me usually end up being done at the last minute because I know how I want to do it and it doesnt involve me actually spending multiple thought sessions on the project. In High school I always hated having the library day for projects. There was no point for me, I always had my research already done and the project couldnt really be easily constructed while I was in the library. Got to love having only inferior technology at your disposal. At least at UNCC I feel like I can do some stuff here. I have a decent Internet connection and the other technology is ok.

I have found that in the event I need a reason to procrastinate I can always find one or create one. Making excuses is an art for for the procrastinee.

Procrastination is an enemy for many students, and simply a temporary block for others, but in some way or another it affects us all.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Can today get any weirder? First I had issues with my vehicle on the way to the campus this morning. This displeased me only slightly because it has been acting strangely anyway and was expected.

In Logic I recieved my test back, it was a lower grade than I expected, it was a 90.25, which isn't too bad, but adds to the general pattern of the day. I am overall doing ok with Logic, but I want to make sure I have an A in the course at the end. I enjoy the course, but today was a day of high stress. I moved on to Physics after Logic, this went better, kinda.... We started with vector quantities and using angles to discover certain details about a problem. This is floating a little over my head and making me feel lightheaded. Physics overall wasn't that bad today, but I am having the same issues with it as I did in high school. I have to keep reminding myself that I have done this before and I can do it again. English was worse than usual. There was an in-class timed writing done in the form of a reflective essay. I am not certain that mine is even legible, or coherent. I don't do well with timed writings, especially not when I have to do it by hand. I need to be able to type to effectively use my time for writing.

The trip home was relatively uneventful. When I arrived at home I discovered that FedEx has been operating differently from their normal pattern, a package due for arrival tomorrow, but arrived at their facility early arrived here today. It adds to the oddity of the day, but is a good thing I guess. I also noticed an oddity with the gate when I entered it this afternoon, it wasn't locked and my father was the last one out. Typically my father always locks anything that can be locked. Upon entering the house and attempting to connect to AIM to chat for a bit I discovered that the AIM network wasn't allowing me to log in, after a while I could log in but without appearing as being there or having access to by lists. That issue was eventually resolved, but not before I was getting myself close to panic attack status.

Tonight I started on my physics homework that is due Monday. I am having issues recalling how to work with angles to determine 2 dimensional motion. This stuff sucks, I dont want to have to do this. Why didn't I just sign up for biology or something? Or maybe use Anthropology as my other science and then take Psychology lab to meet that requirement. I have for now stopped with my physics homework until Friday when I can get more of an explanation from Dr. Naeini as to what I am doing. Worst thing this evening is that I managed to frustrate myself by looking for my old high school physics notebook to get assistance from. I couldn't find it and got irritated, then I felt that I needed chocolate, none is availible in this house, my mother has even depleted her spare supply. I have now calmed down a bit and can now get agitated over the Abnormal Psychology test tomorrow, this should be fun.

What does it mean to be an adult? Is it linked to maturity, age or a set of other factors that must be met?

I don't presently consider myself an adult. I live with my parents, I don't presently have a job and am reluctant to do a lot of things by myself. Why is that? I wish I knew, but I don't know. I want to be able to do things by myself, but I have just always feared doing anything around a lot of people when I am alone. Could I be worried that I would be jelous, or perhaps afraid of being the odd one out because everyone else would be with someone? I am scheduled to get my hair cut next weekend, this is something I have always had my mother to schedule and I always go with her when I get it done. Shouldnt I at this point, being a person capable of driving, be able to go there by myself and take care of it? I can manage to get to the drugstore to pick up things I need occasionally, but I can't go to see a person I am familiar with without feeling the need to have someone with me. I do fine on UNCC's campus, I suppose because I am an individual amoung a lot of other inviduals, there is no collectiveness here. There are a few groups of people, but mostly individuals.

On another aspect of adulthood, I am a very responsible person and meet all qualifications of an adult there. I don't act abnormally disrespective to people, I don't do things just to do them (a flaw in my personality) and I conduct myself as I feel an adult should. I observe the wild and unmanaged behaviours I see on campus and I can't believe that the parents of some of these people let them out of their sight without a leash of some sort. I could not live a life of being so non-caring of what I am doing or what others may think of me. Does this make me adult-like or just paranoid?

I do not know the answer to any of these questions, all I know is that I am not ready to grow up yet.

Today was one of those short days that you don't expect to be short.

Awoke at 10AM to an alarm clock, a cell phone and a laptop. Im getting better at getting the three to go at the same time. I really need to find a nice loud MP3 that starts with like trumpets or something for my laptop. I opened my eyes to a beautiful North Carolina autum sky, this was adequate motivation to get me moving for the day. I ate breakfast and watched some television while in bed in an attempt to stay warm. Today wasn't one of the warmest fall days weve had.

I drove to campus to take a Logic test (doesn't that sound like fun?). Given that some logic tests are easy, we can not conclude that All logic tests are easy (superalternation). The test was fairly easy and yet still required thought. I at no point was concerned about my grade on the test. I think I did very well. It only took me about 30 minutes to complete the test, so I had about 30 minutes left to do stuff. I went to Barnard labs for a bit, checked my email and dealt with a situation with the Assistant Dean of the college of bussiness administration.

Later I went to Physics, Dr. Naeini took 65 minutes of his availible 50 minute block. We went over homework that I already know how to do. Very boring. The class went by slow and not much was learned.

Went back to Barnard Labs after Physics to take care of some homework and stuff, then it was time for Enlgish. Betsy wasn't feeling very well today so we went to class and exchanged our Peer Review forms and then kinda left. Thats where my day concludes and I returned home.

Not much done since then...

I have a practice of evaluating my instructors in a typed document each semester. Some semesters it stays private (usually the bad ones), this semester it is public. It has been about one month now since classes began.

Mrs. Dr. Judith L. Presler - Deductive Logic - MWF 12-12:50 -
Dr. Presler started off a little shaky with me. I was almost certain she would be the evil instructor. She started off very strict and a little overly professional acting. After the first two weeks Dr. Presler became this kind and friendly old lady, sort of like a wise instructor from ancient Greece. There must be something about philosophy instructors that makes appear the way they do. Dr. Presler and Dr. Morton act a lot alike. Dr. Presler gives reasonable review before tests and writes the test to not be too challenging, but also not a snooze. With the test today I was especially appreciative of the little logic guide with the square of opposition that she gave us. I am still planning for an A in the course, the work is easy, the concepts are simple (and logical ;-), and I enjoy being in the course most days.

Dr. Jeff Naeini - Introduction to Physics - MWF - 1-1:50 -
Dr. Naeini is a lebanese French-Canadian. He speaks English well, but has a heavy accent. Sometimes it is difficult to understand him, but I have had no problems in the course so far. If a student in the course is attentive then any missed words aren't a problem to figure out. Dr. Naeini is one of the instructors who you can tell loves his job. Even though we are in a lecture hall situation with 85 students I still feel like I am connected to him. Homework exists in the course, but is only moderately challenging. The homework really helps me understand a lot of the concepts in the course. Dr. Naeini loves to work with technology, but sometimes it doesn't always enjoy working with him that much. He makes an attempt at using bold new teaching methods. So far this semester I have been introduced to WebAssign and Clickers. I enjoy WebAssign and think it is a valuble teaching tool. Clickers on the other hand are just annoying and should never be used in any serioud academic setting as large as what we have. Dr. Naeini is doing a fine job and is very understanding. My present grade estimate is in the A or B range, depending on the way the tests go.

"Betsy" Newman - Writing in Academic Communication - MW - 3-4:20 -
Betsy is nuts, but is a decent teacher. Betsy is probably the youngest instructor that I have currently. She relates to students very well and tends to act a lot like us. She looses things, gets confused, talks to herself and can be a complete spaz at times. Can anyone think of a better person for teaching me? Mrs. Newman is good at what she does. Her techniques for teaching rely heavily on student involvement, something which a lot of instructors think college students are too old for. Peer learning is one of the most successful ways of absorbing knowledge that exists. Betsy's style is not so lecture oriented, but yet the material gets covered, and no one falls asleep. High school was never as much fun as Betsy's class. I suspect an A in this course as well.

Mr. James Frakes - Western History and Culture: Masterpieces of Western Art - T - 6:30-9:20 -
Mr. Frakes is purely a lecturer. He cares about the subject matter, but isn't directly interacting with the class. Im not truely sure of what I think about him yet, but I think it will be a very dull semester with him. I can make no grade projections for this course.

Mr. Kamran Ahmad - Introduction to Physics Lab - R - 2-5:00 -
Mr. Ahmad is a TA, he directs the lab and is very effective in doing so. He is strict with procedures, but is very helpful. Mr. Ahmad is a very understanding and flexible instructor. I don't know of anyone else who has that much paitience with blonde chicks. Not much else to say about him, he is a TA and my grade is based upon lab attendance and my lab notebook.

Dr. Kieth Noland - Abnormal Psychology - R - 6-8:50 -
Dr. Noland teaches the course quickly, but yet efficiently. He is nice about the way he does things. Dr. Noland does not take attendance because he believes that if we don't attend class we will wreak havok upon our own grades. I have no indication of a grade in the course as of yet, but I think I will do well, I always seem to with Psychology courses.

That concludes the instructor evaluations for now. Maybe this will give my readers more of an insight into the instructors as well as give me a point of reference when I fill out a RateMyProfessors.com evaluation at the conclusion of the semester.

What is the real purpose for sex in our society? How has the way we view sex changed over the past few hundred years? From the coldest and most technical definition sex is for the purpose of procreation. Why do we as a society shield our children from how they came into being? Sex is considered by some people to be a very natural and wonderful thing, while others (most) feel it is something to hide and keep in the unknown. It is obvious from the amount of masterbation that occurs in our society that sex is a thing of pleasure, not just purely procreational. There are very few males that I know who don't masterbate. Some do it just a few times a week, others do it many times per day. It is pleasurable to them with no chance of anyone becoming pregnant. One of the things I find strange in sexuality is that some people view raw, instinct provoked, animal-like sex to be the "purest" and "most beautiful" form of sex. I personally find it disgusting and a little on the barbaric side. We are in a society that values refinement and dignified ways of handling things. We as humans are supposed to have some amount of self control and not have the need to go around humping on each other all day when the urge strikes us. In my world sex should be something that is at least semi-planned between two (or more) adults who have some capacity of caring for each other, not just to satisfy a sexual desire.

One of the worst topics that can be covered in academic discussion is "abnormal sexuality". In order to have an abnormal there must be an established norm. How many people have sex in only the form of heterosexual vaginal intercourse? Not as many as would try to claim it im sure. Homosexuality, Heterosexuality and Bisexuality are all normal, but just not to everyone. Those 3 (or 2, since one is a variation of the others) are about as simple and normal as you will find. It is when we probe the depths of all of these variations and begin to look into the different fetishisms and other related interests that exist that we find a maze of different things that people find to be sexually gratifying. The normally thought of things are revealing linguere, and mild bondage. All of which still involve some amount of interaction with the primary sexual desires and the "want" of sexual beings to interact with their partner's sexual organs. Some things that aren't so normal or so thought of in the normal relam of sexuality are things like footwear fetishes, things that involve pain and the more drastic dominance and submission based relationships. Can any of us truely say that these things are not normal or aren't acceptable? With the way this culture tends to do, does it even matter? If we as a society don't care about what goes on in other peoples' bedrooms, then why is it such a problem for someone to be openly homosexual? Being homosexual isn't a direct admission to participating in anal sex with another male, or whatever it is that lesbians to. It is possible to be homosexual/gay/queer/faggish while being a virgin. It is the same as most normal teen guys who are virgins to be considered "straight" even though they haven't "gotten any". It is my opinion that it is better to be homosexual than to be someone who hates everyone and abuses women (or men). Perhaps the problem in this world with all of these tenancies towards violence, backstabbing bussiness manuevers and other assorted issues of ill ethic is that several very natural forms of love are being supressed, some violently. Before you southern baptist bible thumping convervatives decide to put me on your list of people to be burned at the stake (or have you backwards hethens converted to lethal injection?) and added to your email list for your supposed reasons why homosexuality isn't natural, look around you. Dogs have no serious predispostion to either gender, they take what they can get when they get the urge. The thing that annoys me most about the southern baptist clan against homosexuality is that they love to screw with the facts, draw pictures of events occuring where none did. I don't put much faith into a religious group who has a large number of people who wish to kill or do servere harm to fellow humans because of who they love. There is a select group amoung the religion who are ignorant of the truth about what homosexuality actually involves and don't show any hate towards anyone. They follow the real word of God (the one that carries a message of love all living beings). I am of the opinion that real Christians don't seek out members of any group for any reason with the purpose of scaring, hurting or killing them. In this world it is fine to disagree with opinions, ways of doing things or whatever, and you can dislike someone because they are short, have blond hair or whatever you want, but nothing in this society should trigger the need to kill. I think I was near a point before the image of an angry southern baptist bubba popped into my head.

Sexuality is one of those topics that is about as cloudy as origins of the universe and the reason why humans are truely existing on this planet. We all have our own definition of what sexuality is, and what love is. Love is actually very underdefined in our culture. When we were moving from older languages (Latin, Greek, etc) we certainly fucked that up. How did we loose such an important concept? There is more that one type of love and in English all we have is love, LOVE, love, love and love [insert cute little tennis ball icon here]. Greeks had many clearly defined words for love, one for a brotherly, a friendly love, an erotic love and a purely sexual love that was mostly empty (can you guess with one 9 out of 10 college frat guys reccomend?).

In a weird twist to this entry, lets analyze the actions of some of the most macho of straight guys...jocks. The things that go on in a locker room could probably be applied to about 10 shades of sexual harrasment, homosexual activity and pure cruelty. Jocks participate in ass slapping, wet towl snaps, wedgie giving and things like that. There are also other things that go on that are less violent and more normal, such as when football players take time to hug each other and show affection through other forms of bodily contact. One of the weirdest straight guy obsessions has to be the need to inflict pain upon the testicles of other guys. What is up with this? Does it take knocking someone's nuts to establish pure manlyness or something? Jocks are a central figure of another aspect of sexuality. Jocks are the most physically fit of people, therefore they are natureally more attractive to women and idolized most by men (and the opposite). The key to most of the diet and excercise enterprises is the focus on the rock hard six pack abs. Abs are the most central and most relied upon group of muscles in the body, everyone either wants great abs or wants to be sexually involved with someone with them. Its a weird obsession that centers upon humanity's goal of becoming more perfect and being based upon the strongest and most reslient of the species.

All of you are probably wondering what got me started on this, as far as I can tell it was started by a combination of my reading for Abnormal Psychology and the closeted nature of one of my gay friends, even though he has met a guy he thinks might be gay and is attracted to. Sometimes it takes guts and balls to approach things like that, but if everyone in this world wants to be happy it has to happen. I

I leave you all with this thought: In order for your world to more perfect, someone elses must be more scrambled and confusing.

"Welcome to The Interface"
"Good Evening, Curtis. Today is Saturday, September 18, 2004"

It took so many lines of code and so much time coding to get those 2 lines to show up exactly like I wanted. That was over a year ago, when GITI was still under primary development. GITI PIM - Gettting It Together Interface Personal Information Manager has been a primary project of mine since the joint completion of Address Book Database utility in Spring 2003. In my quest to learn PHP I started the project. It is now one of my most prided accomplishments, but I find that its needs are quickly outgrowing its current limitations as well as my developmental knowledge. GITI v2 was esablished a few days ago in its own little development space. So far its design is becoming more complex, but at the same time more limiting as far as GITI module inclusion. Im going with the file drawer approach with little tabs used for navigation, there is potential for more than 1 row of tabs, but moving to 3 rows would be pushing asthetic design rules I impose on myself.

For GITI v2 I invision a smooth design with all menu options availible from all pages via a hover menu. Catagories (or Classes for EDU module) should be located on the side of the page where they can be easily accessed when needed. GITI will have to become a lot more user customizable (for additional users as well as for my own convienience). Because of the reinvention of GITI I will be able to fully utilize CSS and make GITI able to have themes. This could be really cool for holidays and stuff.

In additional to the layout changes I have some proposed modules that could be added: Shipment status (via XML manifests availible from shippers), Recipe Manager (per my mother's request), Wardrobe Inventory (this one might not make it if the usefulness isn't there), Bookmarks, and a re-write of Journal. One of the things I have considered is having the ability to link all items between modules if needed. This would be most helpful between Schedule and Journal I believe. I theorize that based on the concept that GITI keeps a running record of your life, so why not let it also keep your narratives about it stored in relation to scheduled events in your life?

After I started working on the screen shots for my last post (which are still availible at http://curtis.kularski.net/GITI) I determined that GITI is a very good record keeping system for knowing all of my past events and other things. I didn't think of it that way when I originally created it and as such doesn't have nearly as many datestamps in it as it should. I think with version 2 I will have a lot more notations and transaction tracking. I am sort of inspired by IETF's Internet Draft Status tracker for that aspect. Every major action that occurs with a document that is submitted for the RFC Editor is logged. This could be a nice system for tracking the status of different types of records in GITI. Recipes in the theoretical recipe module obviously wouldnt need it, but ToDos and schedule items could use that ability. A lot of the statuses themselves were written to be binary values, but through much experience with GITI I have determined that statuses can't be Yes, No or On, Off. There are a lot of in-betweens. More In-Progress things would probably be helpful.

In preparing for this redesign of GITI I am learning a lot more about practical coding than I ever thought I would. I will be posting more screen shots of GITI as it nears being ready for active use in v2.

I guess I will be off to my world of writing GITI for now...

California has their earthquakes, midwest has their tornados, we, the wonderful east coast of the United States have hurricanes. In a normal year we barely recognize the fact that they occur. The spin up, live for a few days, blow some stuff around and then they go away. This year is a little odd. We are having about a hurricane per week and we are getting tons of rain, some wind and other assorted goodies from these massive thunderstorms. I used to not mind when the occasional hurricane would blow by my way, but now I have a 33 mile commute each direction each day. This is not fun in rain and wind, especially not with the way I drive.

Hurricane Ivan's eye passed on to land at about 2:45am, I didn't know this until about 11AM when I woke up and found myself glued to Weather Channel. Storms are more interesting when they will be passing by your way and possibly be causing problems in your life. I personally do not want any more rain. When I go to class I have to go outside and between buildinds that don't share a common covering.

I just came back from a particularly long and confusing physics lab, at this point with the hurricane coming closer to us I am contemplating returning home early. I still have another hour left until my next class. It would take extra time to get home from this point because of the excess traffic, but I am starting to think that it would be safer than attempting to wait until late tonight after the rain gets heavy to return. I will decide in a few minutes what my course of action under these conditions will be. I can get just as much out of my Psychology notes that the instructor posts to the web as I can from being in class, so the benefits of staying on campus are not currently justified in the entire safety to education equation.

There is supposed to be rain for the next several days, im not looking forward to it and I would like to return to my nice calm days of summer again. On that same thought, I miss my CPCC classes now. I didn't even have to leave my bed to take those classes, just do the assignments online and have no physical class to attend. That method would be bad for me though, I need to be out here in the world and be around people near my own age, at least closer than my parents who are currently acting about 5 and 90.

I guess I should do something productive, like revise a draft or analyse a nut...ooooh...chocolate, Ive got things to do I think....

Ever notice that no matter what your file structure is never exactly perfect? I just went to prepare to post the screen shots, then I realize d that my structures make no sense. I have to navigate to CMK4's main web server drive to do the action. Shouldn't I just point to Z:\public_html? I think I need to remap some stuff at some point.

Today has been one big puddle of emotions, reactions and moods. This will be quite an adventure for my loyal readers, so either grab on to something stable or grab a pillow.

Lets start with yesterday at 4:30PM when I was enroute to UNCC and the first sign of weirdness occured. It was a perfectly nice day to be driving to UNCC, everything was on schedule and everything was ok with my day (can you not see the horror story plot building here?). I had visual contact with the campus from my position on highway 49 and was waiting at the last stop light before the campus entrance. As I slowed down for the stop my vehicle began a slight shaking and then decided to die all together as soon as it was at a full stop. Me being the incredibly bright person that I am tried to go from dead (switch in on posotion) to restarting the vehicle, this didn't work as it only reactivated the electrical system. Once I discovered that the vehicle really wanted to be off for a second, I shut it down and then performed ignition again. Vehicle resumed as if nothing had gone wrong. I continued to campus, entered successfully and then notified both parents of the possible issue with my vehicle. I started that evening out already nervous about possible issues with my vehicle. I went to class (Western History and Culture: Masterpieces of Western Art) for 3 hours. I was bored out of my mind most of the time with Mr. Frakes's analysis of the pieces we were looking at. One of the pieces we were looking at was the sculpture, "David". While we were on this subject there was an image of "David" on the projector. I counted five seperate times that Mr. Frakes pointed to David's penis. I would consider this abnormal behavior for an art instructor. Eventually time for the course was up. I was in a non-excited but not depressed mood as I exited the class. I returned to my vehicle not sure what to expect: perfect startup, perfect run all the way home (I was going at a fairly rapid pace, so it was a run for the vehicle).

My evening didn't conclude there, I arrived home and began just generally staring into space because I felt like it. At some point Chris requested a call, I made the call and then noticed that I had Logic homework to do. At some point the Logic homework became a group effort as I started reading the questions out loud. Chris is a very logical person and can follow the patterns without any formal logic instruction. I learned 2 things from the experience: 1. Logic is more fun with a partner, 2. Chris hates logic, even though he is great at it. The evening ended a few hours after the homework was finished when I became tired and Chris became non-talkative.

Today began at 10:00AM for me. I awake to an alarm sounding and my television activating. Once I was awake I ate breakfast, began getting dressed and prepared myself for the day. About the time I was ready to leave I heard my car starting and moving out of the driveway, my father decided to steal my car! My father returned about 15 minutes later, but instead of wasting time yelling at him I decided to not waste time conveying messages to the deaf, ignorant, yankee ears. I proceded on to UNCC, vehicle operated normally with the exception of an unusual smell when I parked.

The first order on the agenda of the day was the Psychology study at 11:30. I was on time for the study, amazingly. There were only 2 participants in the session I attended. The study was survey based, a 50 item survey about a stressful event. The event I used was me taking the Microsoft 70-220 certification exam, the only exam that I failed. The study coordinator was pretty cute, she was also very nice and made an attempt to make study participants feel comfortable. The only thing I have to complain about with her is the way she handled debriefing. Debriefing consisted of a 1" x 8.5" piece of paper, for this study it was ok, but for something more in depth i would expect an actual defriefing session before being released.

Once the wonderful little study was over with I hauled myself to the other end of the quadrant of the campus to McEniry for Deductive Logic. We reviewed stuff, we turned in homework, we reviewed some more, we heard jokes about Mr. Dr. Presler, we were dismissed. Physics was a little odd today, I took my new seat today beside Ryan. The Clickers now work with the devices (w00000t!). One of the odd things of the class was related to my new placement in the room. I could see better and it was nice to actually not be right in front of Dr. Naeini, but the back-of-the-room-disturbance-people were right behind me. Some people shouldn't even attend class, they should just stay in their happy little worlds of their percieved perfections and not attmept to interact with people who are different than them. Dr. Naeini is a perfectly nice guy, but for some reason a lot of students feel the need to insult him, disrupt his class and constantly giggle (im thinking the 2 rows behind my seat may actually be the pot-smoking group). The physics class itself went well, there was some knowledge obtained, but towards the end i found myself not able to follow what Dr. Naeini was doing and gave up on the rest of my notes for the day. Once physics concluded I went out of Burson and headed toward Barnard like I always do. I got caught in a cloud of smoke as many students exiting the building began to "light up" for their post-class smoke. I don't know that I have ever been as disgusted with smokers as I was today (combination of circumstance and mood I suppose).

I manged to breath long enough to make my way to the clear air of Barnard Computer Commons and took care of neccesary (one day i need to learn to spell that word) administrative issues, such as entering grades from my Logic class as well as entering the homework for the course. After those issues were out of the way I handled my standard email stuff on my 3 normal domains for mail checking during the day - curtis.kularski.net, uncc.edu and now gmail.com. Two of my accounts (uncc and g) are by webmail only, I am not finding this to be horribly annoying because it means i have to check 3 seperate webmail servers instead of just having CMK4's IMail installation retrieve it at logon. After I finished checking email I spent a few minutes looking at GITI from a truely end-user perspective and found a lot of things that needed to be done to it. There is such a huge difference in using GITI at home where I can call the source code at a moments notice and being on-campus where I can't easily make code changes on a whim. Maybe this is what makes GITI so problematic, I edit without much thought. I found a bug today in my new navigation bar for Education module components, if I submit a form I am taken to my scripts folder, and the links attempt to call the files based on that, this doesn't work as the files it needs are in the modules folder, not the scripts folder. This should be a simple fix though.

When the time arrived for me to leave Barnard I proceded on to my English 1102 course. We recieved back our drafts of our papers today. I have been told I did better than most people, even though Betsy wrote about the same amount on my paper as I did. The woman worries me sometimes. I will be revising the paper over the weekend and preparing draft #3 for Monday and then Tuesday I will work on the final copy for Wednesday's class. We were told to exchange copies of draft #2 with people around us for our peer review stuff. I have 2 decent papers I will be reviewing. I pray for the mental stability of the two unfortunate souls who have ended up with my paper. I am way too technical in it and it is enough to make anyone's head spin. English was dismissed about 20 minutes early. I came home, ate dinner and have pretty much been sitting here since I got home. I am thinking about working on GITI at least some tonight.

Next week I have a tests in Logic and Abnormal Psyc. The week after I have tests in Physics, and WH&C:MOWA. Anyone who interacts with me should take this as fair warning.

As requested, I am posting GITI screen shots for public viewing. Once they are ready they will be at http://curtis.kularski.net/GITI/v1 for current version (stable) and http://curtis.kularski.net/GITI/v2 for the development project. Development is highly volitile and is totally theoretical at this point.

Current Music: Leann Rimes - Life Goes On (mp3, local\e:\my_music)
In the Queue: Eiffel 65 - Now is Foreever; Europe - Final Countdown

No witty conclusion, just me. Bye Yall!

Today was about as uninteresting as days at UNCC get for me. I was exactly on schedule this morning (in my carefully timed world I can only do this occasionally without being totally screwed), I had no seconds to spare, but at the same time was in no danger of being late. I was in sight of McEniry when I here this familar voice beside me talking on a cell phone. The voice was Elizibeth Park, a friend of mine from Highland. I poked her in the arm and went on, she concluded her cell phone call and chased me down. I don't know that a more convienient plot could have been written for her. She needed help preparing for her Unix Proficiency Exam, and there I was. The time it took me to talk to her cost me my schedule, but no big deal. I agreed to help her after my Physics class. I then went to Logic where Dr. Preseler was just starting to unpack her materials. After Logic I went to Physics. In Physics we made an attempt to use the Clicker devices (little green remotes for responding to questions). The attempt failed and Dr. Naeini assures us that he will have them working on Wednesday. After Physics I met Elizibeth at Smith Building to assist her with the preperation for the proficiency exam. The Unix lab was pretty much empty except for a few students. I was expecting purely command line functionality but was pleased that there was an interface availible. I don't know nearly enough Unix. My function with Elizibeth was mostly as a support role to help her be calm through the material. She is very intelligent, but stresses easily. I helped Elizibeth until 3PM when I went to English. Not much to tell about English for today, we peer reviewed papers and were complemented for being an efficient group, then we were dismissed about 45 minutes early. For homework and stuff I just have to do some logic homework that combines the concepts of the past 2 weeks, Physics has the standard homework due Monday and an English paper is to be completed and ready to turn in as a 2nd draft quality document on Wednesday. Final is due on Monday. None of my other classes really have any outside assignments to be done. I'm a little worried about Western History and Culture, I feel so disconnected from the class.

This evening my focus has been on working with GITI and attempting to develop a better interface for it. That isn't going too well, and so far I have created more new bugs in GITI than ever before. Most of the problems are related to sessions. For some reason the thing attempts to make multiple sessions or at least multiple copies of the same session run at once. Issues occur mostly in going back in pages. Forward linear navigation works fine. The concept of the new GITI will be tested in a few days as it becomes functional and maybe useful. The next step will be to build a navigation system that doesn't run in frames and that can float over the interface. I am seeing something in DHTML or JS. For the most part I just want the thing to work and be more efficient than the current version of GITI.

Why do the developers of MovableType give me the Title field? My entries are usually about my life, from some aspect or another. Today's entry was sort of planned, but has not a central theme to use for the title. GITI's Journal utility, which is used for my personal journal (sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but I dont put my deepest thoughts in my blog), uses only dates to file entries.

I was informed this morning that my father will be working nights this week. I was initially agitated by the news because it usually means more interaction between me and him is required. I realized something though, for most of the week I will be leaving while he is still in bed and then when I come home he will be gone at least until I am in bed. Friday I will be arriving a few minutes after he leaves and have the house to myself for several hours. This should actually be a very calm and peaceful week if all plans are followed correctly.

In my technological world some unexpected (but controlled) shake ups are occuring. I have decided that GITI has a great deal of functional completeness and at this point doesn't really any more code to be stable and functional, because of this I will be focusing on creating a new interface for GITI. Background code will likely remain the same, but the front end will change drasticly, starting with the implementation of CSS. As of 3:45PM this afternoon GITI version 1.0, front end, back end, and database were stored to a backup directory. This is in anticipation of the pending changes to GITI as a whole. It is unlikely that I will do a complete rollback of GITI, but depending on what I do to it, it may be required that both a development and stable version run at the same time. I remember a time in my life (August 2003) when GITI wasn't required and was just a development project for me to work on. Now I rely on GITI for my daily functioning, especially in an academic sense. For GITI's new interface I plan to make it smoother, less framed and somehow not square. I used to pride myself on the fact that any HTTP 1.1 compatible browser could read GITI and interpret it correctly. This was a nice little fantasy, but sometimes technology needs to grow up and developers need to work with what is availible to them. At this point my standard will be verifying that IE and FireFox both can work with GITI correctly. I use FireFox at home because I like it and IE in campus labs, because I have to. This project should be a nice little adventure for me to take on.

In high school the most dreaded word was "homework", in college it is a bit different. Homework is a chance to boost your grade and most classes don't have homework on any grand level. I just completed my 2nd Physics homework assignment, it was challenging, but at the same time I felt like I was actually learning the material. In addition, it was kinda fun. The most dreaded words in college seem to be "pop quiz". Dr. Preseler just can't seem to say it enough though.

As for my non-academic world today. One of my high school friends, Matt Cloninger, gave me one of his GMail invites today and I am now hooked up with that. Not sure what I will use the address and associated space (1000MB) for, but I will find some use im sure. I didn't get too creative with the address, I went with the default of firstname.lastname. This situation gives me an interesting perspective of my own email server though. I have roughly 80,000MB (80GB) availible for my email in actuallity, but I like the idea of having the 1000 MB reserved just for email on GMail. For more about GMail visit GMail.com.

I talked to Jeff a little today from NCSU, I sort of wish I was going to one of the schools in the NC triad area. Matt Creedmore is at Greensboro College, Jeff and Guy at NCSU, Lamb at Duke. There are a lot of HST people in this area too, but none that I want to be around. This current situation feels like I was in port (graduation), but managed to get on the wrong ship (UNCC) and should be on a ship going to the same location as my closest friends (that would be the good ships UNCG, NCSU, Duke and pretty much anything but UNCC or GC. ). If I remember correctly I wanted to be on this ship (UNCC) because it came with familiar quarters (my bedroom, server room and kitchen). I think I want some adventure in my life, I want to be away from all things safe, normal and familar for once in my life. I plan to apply to some of the other schools (including MIT and UC Berkeley) to test viability of my options at this point. I also will be applying for scholarships so I can have more flexibility in my educational options. I would love to go to University of California at Berkeley, it would be fulfilling a dream of mine. Perhaps I will do something that drastic for my graduate school career. My vision of my life is always focused on a single goal that I consider significant, my previous goal of this position was actually going to UNCC. Thats been accomplished, and as such leaves a vacancy for something that needs accomplishing in the academic slot. I am currently working on my fall-back goal of getting GITI completed, but that is a lower priority project that can be extended to being incomplete even if i work on it several hours per day, everyday until my death (lets theorize i will live until like 105 or so). Its nice having a fallback project, but its like having a life goal of making first contact with an alien race, it just isn't practical. As with most of my hobbies I will one day get bored with GITI and declare it finalized.

Back to academics temporarily, I still have a paper to finish in draft form for English by Monday. It is a technical paper of sorts, so I will babble my way through it and try to not make it to polished on the first run through. I tend to write papers and marry myself to the way something is written to the extent that I would be happy with it being written in stone. If I could do that with GITI code we would be making progress. I am looking forward to some of the next papers in the course where we can get really detailed. I anticipate great amounts of fun with Microsoft Word.

On my body structuring project I am getting a little farther, I have been working different components of my abs each day (on a 3 day cycle) and my walks are still occuring. I don't think I will give up this time. I have a goal in mind that I want too badly to do that. If progress becomes substantial then pics will be posted here.

Still no comments to the blog, I guess I will just have to keep writing to myself. My server shows me that some people are grabbing my RSS feed, so i know someone is out there. Come on, readers of my mindless babble, make yourselves known!

Yesterday was a decent day for me, with the exception of Dr. Noland rejecting my requested article for review. I wanted to review an article about the correlation between the stress caused by being male and math performance. Dr. Noland states that the article doesn't meet the criteria of being relavent to Abnormal Psychology. Oh well, I guess I will try again with anoher article (or battery of articles) next week.

Last night I stayed up until about 7AM today, then I got up at 10:30AM to get started on my day. Suprisingly I had energy, and I have energy now. I anticipate a premature expiration later this evening, but I probably have a few more good hours to go yet.

Today was Friday, so it was my short day. I went to Logic this morning, Dr. Preseler was late and she was also in a very good mood. Almost to the point of being giddy. I have never seen her as disorganized as she was this morning. Disorganization of other people amuses me, while me being disorganized or having anything out of place completely annoys me. Dr. Preseler gave another quiz this morning. She thew out the grades from the first quiz because she felt that it was flawed and wasn't a good interpretation of what we know. I wish more of my classes we like hers, I at least know where I stand in there. I know that I am doing OK in her class and at the moment have a good chance at coming out of the course with an A. The next course I had today was Physics, same basic thing as always in there today, took some notes, worked some problems. I am not sure how I will do in physics in the end. There are only homework assignments and 3 tests, then the final exam. Physics is highly mathy, but not as complicated as Biology, so im still glad I am taking the course, but my success isn't gurananteed. I made a decision today about my seat placement in Physics. Ryan (my lab partner) looks extreamly lonely in class, and there is an open seat beside him, so I am thinking about sitting beside him. The seat couldn't be any worse than my present one, I have one-on-one direct eye contact with Dr. Naeini. I feel like I am in the teacher's-pet-seat and it is very uncomfortable.

Since I am reviewing my academic progress lets go for the other classes too. Im not sure how im going to do in "Masterpieces of Western Art"/"Western History and Culture", it seems very lecture driven, which works for me when I am able to pay attention and not be bored. I am not interested in that course that much. Enlgish 1102 is fine. I am grasping the concepts and the grades are all based on papers! That pretty much says "A" to me. I have this weird ability to write in such a way that instructors love. I have always been a more mature writer than most of my peers, for once it makes me not a freak. Betsy and I are getting along fine, she is a nutcase, she knows it and on top of that she is used to technical writing. Abnormal Psyc is the next course. The material of the course will be psychological disorders. I think I will do ok in the class as long as I am able to pay attention, which so far im doing fine at. It is the type of course where I dont feel propelled to take notes. I feel more like just relaxing and listening to what is being said. I am hoping for an A in the course, but with only 4 tests and 5 journals the fates in control of my grades may have other ideas. My lab class is way too early in the day, but overall it is ok. ok, this concludes my academic report.

Today when I finished Physics I exited the campus and came right home. Much to my delight the ugly plastic owl that I got into a fight with last night has been put in the garage and I dont have to look at it. I haven't done much since I have been home in the way of actual doing of things that need to be done (read as: I didn't tell GITI I did anything). I have had a large number of phone calls today, none of which were truely personal. Everyone who called seemed to need technical assistance in some form or another. Anyone know how to get a 900 number set up? Nothing hit voice mail today while I was gone, so no calls to return, YIPPEE!

Between taking phone calls I added some minor changes to GITI's schedule system for how it handles class scheduling with the normal scheduling and I prepped the database table of scheduler to handle multiple occurance types of schedules. I will probably add Class Schedule to it also at some point (merging tables, yes i have a free weekend). the principal aspects of the two schedule systems are virtually the same now that the primary schedule tool will be doing occurance based things. I will still have to add a check and update script to the education scheduler for correcting things after a user has screwed with the dates. Another aspect that will have to be taken care of is the lack of a method for dismissing a reoccuring schedule item. Schedule is the oldest GITI component and it shows it. I am almost tempted to rewrite the whole thing for convienience. With all of the things I am using to reference across the GITI system I might eventually end up having to ask Chris to teach me how to do table joins in SQL. Sometimes I feel so inferior to him. He knows so much more than I ever will about certain things. Of the two of us he is the more likely to be depressed it seems, but yet he is more ambitious than I ever would dream of being. He for some reason is blind to his own accomplishments though. Talented people like him shouldn't feel the need to be confined by the restrictions of society. Society is "Normal", or "average" or "[insert favorite euphamism for the middle 68% here]". People who go above and beyond shouldn't be restricted to the same rules of normal as the rest of the societal drones. Whats weird is that by my own self assesment I can't determine where I fit in. As my overall self am I normal or different? Am I below everyone else? I guess these are questions that I can't validly ask myself.

Norms are very unusual things in the universal context. Humans are supposed to be organized, anything below is unorganized and anything above is a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, why? I myself am starting to worry that I may be approaching being overly organized with all of the stuff I am doing to GITI. I fear breaking GITI because I fear breaking my ability to track events of my life and have every detail scheduled.

Why does no one ever comment in my blog? Does it suck that bad?

I will now return my fine readers to their normal full functioning lives and away from my depressed pit of despair that is my blog....

"Live Long and Prosper" - Wise Vulcan Philosopher

A few months ago I submitted an Internet Draft to the IETF and RFC Editor for review, and I pre-maturely requested publication. In the past few weeks as I have reviewed what went on during that time I have decided that I need to work on some of the weak points of the document and submit it to the IESG once again and actually work with the Area Director and Document Sheperds to get the document up to RFC quality and maybe have a shot at getting it published in the RFC archive for eternity. Its probably a stupid idea, but it will give me an aditional project to put some energies into.

On to another project, I walked longer than normal tonight, which is a definate plus for me. I now just have to get myself to do all of the various crunches, reverse crunches, etc. I have given some thought to building a small set of railings for me to use for suspended workouts. Suspended workouts are very efficient, they allow for upper body workouts at the same time as an abdominal workout.

Today I had my normal Monday, Wednesday classes; Logic, Physics and English 1102. Logic was just logic, as always. Dr. Presler doesn't change much. Physics was another lovely day of notes being taken, and some teaching took place. I am starting to like the way Dr. Naeini is using technology in the course, he can see how all of us are doing and adjust schedules, deadlines, etc based on that to make the course move at the right speed. He actually cares about how we do, which is kinda cool for an instructor at a University like that. English was a wild experience. Betsy had us to act out fallacies that we were assigned to read about. It took nearly the entire class time, but was a lot of fun, plus I think we all know what all the fallacies are now. The rain made today suck a little, but its required, so I guess no complaints can be logically filed against it.

Tommorrow I have my Physics Lab and Abnormal Psychology. This has been a really short week for me. Next week will probably be painful in comparison.

I must now and go in search of future complications of my life...

With the way things in my life have been lately, me being out of the house and in class or other locations constantly it is time for me to rededicate my commitment to my body. Over two years ago(May 2002) I began a series of life changes to make me into a more acceptable me, based on my standards. During the 2002 summer my weight changed from 185 to 135 in just a few weeks, due to me feeling fat, ugly and generally unhealthy. The 135 weight was abnormal and didn't last very long, I bounced up to 145 where I stayed for a while. This year after some growing and muscle gain I am now to 150. When I look at myself I still see myself as unacceptable and fat. I have been trying to convince myself that my weight is normal and that nothing is wrong with me. During early Summer 2004 I discovered the true problem, I lack muscle mass in key areas, such as the abs.

I have been working on my abs and other muscles on and off for the past few months, but I think it is time for me to commit to the task and actually take on the mission seriously and develop some muscle. I have no intention of letting my Freshman-15 be because of fat intake. At some point in the next 5 days I am going to establish an official daily schedule for my life which will include time slots for exercise and other tasks that I need to complete during my days. This level of organization will help me stay focused on my current goals. I have committed myself to a project similar to this before and succeded. I can and will do it again!

Let the crunches begin!

No matter where you are, there you are. I fairly decent day today, up until now. I was with my best friend, Chris, for most of the day, but now I am back home. I find myself feeling very alone at the moment. A combination of being alone and my lack of sleep from this morning is leaving me feeling very depressed right now. Everyone I attempt to have a conversation with is either not responding or is on their way to going to bed. Tried calling Chris to talk to him for a few minutes, that didn't work. I don't know what is up with him at the moment, may be the same thing as me, or may be doing something logical like sleeping (as I should be doing). It is 2:15am, I have no valid reason for being awake at this time. I should be sleeping and not worrying about stuff that is going on with my external world or the worlds of my friends and other associated people.

Somehow I just don't feel like I can go to sleep at this point of my night. My friend Jake in California and I are having issues at the moment, and there is presently a problem left unresolved between me and my parents. This type of stuff just isn't designed to wait until morning to be resolved. I can't resolve any of it tonight because my parents are in bed and Jake is being cold and closed minded. I can't go down my messenger lists much farther before I hit the bottom of the barrel for people to talk to. I feel like I just need someone to talk to before I sleep, I guess tonight it will be just me and my blog. I guess I am done now, im going to bed.

I left UNCC at 2PM on Friday and I don't have to be back until 6PM on Tuesday. I visited with family on Friday afternoon and into the evening. On Saturday I didn't do much at all, sort of recovered from my week. Today has just really begun for me, ive only been awake for about 3 hours. Today I will likely work on doing some stuff that is due in my classes next week.

Last night I was talking to Chris on the phone and I realized how much I immitate his behavior in certain areas, such as the way we deal with defective computer equipment or the reactions we have to certain events in our lives. I don't mind this that much, but it is kinda weird how it has started happening without me noticing. Both of us are very excentric at times, but perfectly calm at other times. There are so many times when I am glad that I found a friend like him, there aren't many like him.

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, college causes a lot of changes in a person's life. This was made disturbingly clear to me this weekend when I was talking to Matt Lamb. Matt has always been the quiet guy who does nothing wrong and is the perfect straight A student. This image of him was changed dramatically this weekend when I was informed that he was upset because there were no good parties on campus and he couldn't find any decent alchohol. I instantly found myself reevaluation my previous perceptions of his personality and strength of character. In reevaluating I had to remind myself that people are dynamic and not everyone is as anal as I am about living a clean and healthy life. From birth I have been constantly trained to do what is healthy, right, ethical or proper. In this training the aspect of allowing for some amount of fun and experimentation/exploration was left out. I am too stable, too normal and perhaps too boring as a person as a result. I find myself at times wishing to change the way things are with me, but find that I only come out of my pre-trained shell when forced, and even then it is just temporary.

For so many years I have done only what is required or scheduled for me. Now I am in a situation where I have control of my own life more than I ever have in the past, it is going to take time for me to learn to deal with this in a correct mannor. In the past year everything I have done during my day has been scheduled in GITI. It probably is neither safe nor sane to have every detail of my life electronicly recorded and planned like this.

Until the next unscheduled blog...im out.

In recent years I have collected domain names, let some go, obtained new ones and kept that cycle going. I have had so many domains but so few sites. I am now presented with another new URL that has come under my possession, at least temporarily. I should really think about doing some major web-development. Perhaps since my laptop is with me most of the time now (at least, on Thursdays) I should find a quiet spot and begin a few creations. My newest address is http://webpages.uncc.edu/~cmkulars. This is my campus page, it currently has nothing on it, but maybe one day it will. I am thinking about making a page about my academic interests to fill this space, could be interesting to see what I come up with. The content for the page must be static HTML pages, so I guess I will use FrontPage 2003 as provided by the generous labs at UNCC for this project. I know that just because I have web space doesn't mean I have to use it, but I feel like in my major and areas of interest I should do it. It looks like I am going to have a few hours to kill each Thursday, in addition to my break on Monday and Wednesday. Monday and Wednesday breaks are really more of just breaks though, not a major gap of time. By the time I seek nutrition and navigate across campus there isn't much time left. This is my first blog entry direct from my home away from home, Barnard Computer Lab. Other than blogging I have so far checked email, verified practicality of using CMK4 to host my data, and added some of my notes from Tuesday's LBST2101 course to Microsoft OneNote. I am seriously considering the Dell Axim now, I rely heavily on being in contact with a computer to keep myself organized. My laptop's role has been redefined from what it previously was speculated to be in this situation. Primarily it exists to be useful in a non-class environment (except Physics lab, too many Macs in there) where I can actually utilize its resources over the lab (such as say, SPEED!). I really love being able to have my own personal computer here with me, makes me feel less lonely on campus sometimes.

On a less technical note, I made a social discovery earlier. I don't really lack social skills as badly as I think, this environment just isn't conducive to me being socially active. All of my classes are Lecture classes, and they pretty much are just that, lectures. No time to talk for anyone except for the instructor. English is a little better because Betsy encourages us to interact with each other, especially when she is being spastic. In the physics lab today I started talking to Ryan, the person I assume will be my lab partner for the semester. He is a really nice guy, he is a fire protection major, and seems to know his way around a science lab. For me today the lab sucked, we were expected to messure mass with manual sliding scales. I am an electronic scale kinda guy personally, it is faster, more acturate and doesn't require me to think that much. Press tare, put object on scale and then read the number. The lab instructor is MORE understandable than Dr. Naeini. Kamran Ahmad is his name, he is very helpful, speaks clearly and is very nice to students. My biggest complaint about the lab is that only Mac computers reside in it. I can't take myself seriously if I am having to write scientific reports about experiments on a MAC!. I now know why this campus is on Novell, there are Macs in Burson (as well as college of Arts and Sciences), Unix based systems in the engineering areas and about the only place to find a decent PC on campus is in Barndard or floating around campus in an instuctor's hands.

This concludes my report from Barnard lab, I must now go out into the world, seek caffine and read abnormal psychology.

Pop quizes, placement tests and Credit Exams...College sure is fun. I don't know of a time in my life when I have had so many tests to take at about the same time. At the present time it looks like I will be taking the UNCC Math Department's Placement Test in an attempt to qualify for Calculus, then I will be taking a few exams for credit/excemption. I plan to take the exams for INFO2130 and ITCS1214. I just can't see myself seriously registering for a course called "Intro to Business Computing" or "Intro to Computer Science". The biggest benefit to doing these courses by examination is the ability to have additional elective slots to utilize. Currently I only have 1 elective remaining in my 120 hour plan. Another benefit to taking credit exams is the feeling at the end if you pass. It is a feeling of accomplishment, unlike when you finish an exam at the end of the semester for a normal course. That is closer to "woohoo, im glad thats over!". While I am thinking about these exams it also comes into concious thought that I am still lacking 2 exams from my MCSE. Those are 2 exams I should seriously consider taking ASAP to complete my requirements before Microsoft decides to no longer offer MCSE on Windows 2000.

If anyone is interested in the pop-quiz (which seems less significant now than it did before), it was in Deductive Logic, and I think I scored pretty well on it, but I can't be certain until Dr. Pressler grades them.