mental manifestations

One of my Computer Science professors gave us this piece of advice her last quarter at RIT before retiring: “Invest early and don’t have children.”

Recently, my sifu has asked me to help out with the kung fu school just to have an extra body. Partly the reason why I chose my current apartment location was to be closer to the school (and work) and avoid driving lots of extra miles each day. Since I am so close anyway, there isn’t any reason for me to not help out (barring availability) so I have been showing up on Saturday mornings to help throughout the day.

The one bit that has been feeling very awkward is the pee-wee class which ranges in ages from 3 to 6 years old. The reason why it feels so awkward teaching them is that I have no idea how to deal with them. I’m not even really teaching them per se as I am refining little things and generally helping the kids get the idea of what they’re supposed to do. Eventually, I learned that sometimes you just need to physically pick the kids up and move them. Some of their vocabulary isn’t fully fleshed and without any guidance, they will just end up staring at the ceiling or lying down on the floor. I don’t want to yell at them (not that there is any reason to), but I don’t understand to what degree I can “scold” them. Having some of the parents there makes it even more awkward, but it wouldn’t be that much different if they weren’t there either. Teaching some of the older youths is not so awkward and much easier. They have the capacity to do various things on their own and comprehend what you’re doing. Communicating with them is also easier.

Still, there is somewhat of a disconnect between my new role (even as limited as it is) and how I feel right now. I’m still a student of the school, but taking on this new leadership role is forcing me to become more proactive too. Beforehand, I had always just let other “staff” or “senior” students handle things. It really hasn’t felt like much time has passed since I started doing kung fu even though it’s been a little over a year, and I’m somewhat a “senior” student. It’s a number of things that contribute to that — being an adult over 18 years, the level and progression of material I know, and the time I’ve spent there.

When I was growing up, I always thought that I would try to stay a kid. I still need to mature a whole lot mentally (I’m just starting to shed my “college kid” mentality), but this new role is also starting to make act more “adult” so I can be a role model for the younger kids. For the ones in high school, the difference is a little more blurred between me and them. They’re still kids, but they’re also in high school (and most of them are beyond my current level anyway). Sometimes I feel old, but it almost isn’t an issue since we bond over so many other things. Age only really comes into play because of we adults have more experience and wisdome (hopefully) to impart on the younger ones when the need arises.

Last weekend was a tax-free holiday in Massachusetts, and it’s not very surprising that throngs of people would go out to spend ginormous amounts of money on consumer goods. I had spent part of the day going out and looking mostly at furniture. I only went out to get an idea of what I wanted and to shop around. Jordan’s Furniture has really nice furniture but feels overly elaborate and overpriced. That was the only chain I stopped at that day. I had been in and out of other furniture stores like Bernie and Phyl’s, Bob’s Discount Furniture, and IKEA.

Right now, I feel so weird shopping for furniture. I do find it fun to look at all the various things, but most of what I see makes me feel like it shouldn’t belong in my new apartment. Even though I’m nearly a quarter of a century old, having been a year out of college, I still haven’t fully adjusted to being an “adult” yet. I don’t feel like the college student that I was, but I don’t feel like a “real” grown-up like the people I looked up to when I was a kid.

Nearly all the furniture I’ve seen feels like what my parents would’ve bought when I was a kid, when they dragged us around to go furniture shopping with them. All the furniture I’ve seen feels like it should be in someone else’s house, someone older who has a real home and lots of money. I’ve been living at home with my parents for a little over a year saving up some money. I do have money that I can use, but I am still in that college student mentality of trying to be cheap. I know it’s okay to spend more on some nice things, but I don’t want to look like a cheap college student anymore nor do I want to look super-fancy-pants rich and feel like an idiot.

Now that I’m renting my first apartment post-college and being on my own (so to speak), I’ve been itching to try and be more independent from my parents who have always been so supportive of me. The caveat is I’m still young and single, and who knows what will happen in the future. It is probably not the best decision for me to buy super-fancy, extra nice things (not that I have nearly enough room for it anyway). I can get by on living cheaply but not too cheaply.

I took my first trip to IKEA today. I never liked IKEA furniture mainly because it is cheaply designed and built since their business model is centered around cheap prices. I can understand why IKEA appeals so much to people though. It’s a nice way of looking classy, simple, and elegant without burning a hole in your wallet. There were some sofas from IKEA that I did like. I throughly enjoyed their housewares though — all the little things you can add to your house. It’s just all the other big things that I don’t find so appealing.

Mattress shopping is not so fun. I’m a very picky person and need to try out lots of mattresses before I find the one I want. The fact that it’s all on you makes mattress shopping your job; salespeople are almost useless when doing this because all they can do is make recommendations (and really it’s just all about pulling in sales for them). For the price of the mattress I bought today, I could’ve bought a wicked nice LCD TV. Yes, I’m serious. The one rule I was trying to adhere to was not buying any single piece of furniture that cost more than the TV I plan on buying. I only bought it because I’m moving in a week, have nothing to sleep on, and was getting frustrated with finding a good mattress.

Furniture shopping has been a fun experience overall though. I haven’t made any 3-D paper models of my apartment or furniture to plan things out, but driving around to all the various stores has given me ideas of what I want and many things I don’t want. I’ve found a really nice dinette set that I like and going to IKEA has given me more ideas on how to set up my dining room. I’m still clueless about how to configure my living room, but I’m starting to get a better idea of what to do with my bedroom. I’ve learned it’s okay if things don’t match, but I know I’ll be happy with what I have in the end. I’ve also agreed to let some people help me interior decorate (within reason of course). I think it’s probably better and lot more fun to shop furniture with someone else. Moving out and furniture shopping is just another course of life, and I’m learning all the points that come with it that hard way.

This past weekend, I took a little mini-vacation to go visit Rochester, the place I had called home for five years when I was attending school there. It was odd being there a little over a year after graduation. Everyone I had known there is pretty much gone save a few people. When I was there during the summer, it was always quiet but having other people around always made it fun. After being in Rochester in early August on a weekend near the end of the summer quarter at RIT, it just felt like one big ghost town.

Very little has changed since I had left. Maybe a few retail stores or restaurants have come and gone. RIT now has Park Point (which should have been finished by now) with all the apartments and shops. The Barnes & Noble massively stands out in what used to just swampy grass and trees. Everything was still familiar, but I just felt so disconnected from it all. There was nothing that tied me down to Rochester anymore. I had missed Wegmans (really, nothing else compares to it) and going to Dibella’s (subs haven’t been the same since), but I missed the people more than anything.

I had also taken a side trip to Cleveland and Buffalo visiting some friends there. It’s nice to see that they are all doing well. I didn’t spend much time in either city, but enough to see everyone and hang out for a little bit. Everyone is a lot more grown up now than they were in college especially now that we are all graduates with full-time jobs. It was nice to touch base with everyone to see what they were up to these days.

When I made my stop back in Rochester before I trekked home, I was starting to get that nostalgic feeling again. It’s the feeling that you get from all those fun times you had in college with all your friends and such, and it made me realize how much I miss everyone. Rochester feels like an empty shell now, and since there is nothing left for me there, it’s time to officially move on.

For the recent month and a half, I have been placed in charge of all things webby for this new youth organization in Massachusetts. We’re called Youth A.C.T., a group for empowering youth and getting them involved in their community. We’re still in the process of getting up and running but already have some events and projects going on. From my technical point of view, this has presented me with an interesting problem of how to run this website.

Basically the whole website infrastructure came down to what kind of CMS do I want to run. I had tested out various ones like Joomla! and whatever random ones my hosting provider had. They weren’t too impressive and didn’t fit our needs (read: mine). I had previously worked a little bit with Drupal 4.7 while I was working at the University of Maryland, and that was the first CMS that sprung to my mind. The other was Wordpress which I’ve also had experience with (since it’s what I use to run my blog).

Drupal has incredible community support. There are so many themes and modules so readily available. Basically what attracted me to Drupal (for the purposes of the Youth A.C.T. website) was the Event Manager module. This was perfect since we needed something for online user registration for an upcoming event. I got this up and running within minutes, and since then I have just steadily been putting other useful things together in Drupal.

However, there are some things about Drupal that irk me. While the administrative configuration is very comprehensive, it is also quite cumbersome and feels convoluted at times. For some time, I had shrugged it off and learned what I needed to do as I went along. Then there is the case for my other users — the various people (teenagers, young adults, older adults) who would come and also help administrate. Even though I have given them enough privileges to administer what they need to on the site, they are still confused. It is kind of a shock when you grow up in a such a technological age, but there are still lots of people who have no idea how their computer works let alone writing simple HTML code. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Doing a Gallery 2 integration with Drupal was a pain in the ass. Gallery 2 is just very bloated and feels difficult work with to the point where I had considered abandoning it for Wordpress. I understand Wordpress much more, and it may be better for the clueless user. The administrative navigation is a lot simpler and more straightforward (yay for version 2.5!) in my opinion. I bet my marbles WYSIWYG helps out a lot too. The other reason why I would move to Wordpress is because of laziness. I do not have much time outside of work, tai chi, kung fu, and other various activities. I also like to maintain a healthy sleep schedule as well. I understand how Wordpress works (to a degree, enough for me to carry on). While the Drupal documentation is extensive, comprehensive, and everything I’ve always wanted when I look for documentation, I just don’t have the time or patience presently to go through it all and learn it.

If I did move to Wordpress, I would just have to find replacements for the various modules I used in Drupal. There isn’t any built-in event management in Wordpress nor could I find an existing plugin for it, but there is always various tricks I can use to get around its shortcomings. Google Docs is wonderful for creating simple forms and surveys, and our organization (read: I) have already registered a Google Account for e-mail and document sharing (and people are still clueless on how to use Google Docs). While I’ve seen various gallery plugins for Wordpress, there isn’t anything stopping me from using Flickr (and even combining it with a plugin that uses its API). In the meantime, I’m still going to press forward with Drupal and try another album/gallery module. If it doesn’t work out, then I most likely will move to Wordpress. I could even potentially leverage volunteers to create themes (for either Drupal or Wordpress) since I have no artistic eye.

In the time that I spent writing this post, I could have been working on the website. And now I have to go to sleep for work tomorrow.

Being out of school for one year now has really changed a lot in the way I live. The “college life” is not one I can really do anymore. There are so many things that I just don’t do anymore. I’m losing interest in primetime television shows similarly how I eventually lost interest in Saturday morning cartoons when I was younger. There are hardly any games worth my time anymore (except for Nintendo and a few other handfuls). I’m starting to rediscover again how much crap I’ve collected and don’t need. I don’t try to be a stupid, cheap idiot as opposed to being frugal (big, big difference), and I don’t really do random things anymore. The whole lifestyle I had in college — one that everyone falls into just because it’s the thing to do (seriously, just go to Stuff College People Life) — isn’t who I am anymore.

Things change and lose their charm, and we eventually have to grow up. Maybe not now, but at some point. The college lifestyle isn’t really one I would want to jump back into anyway. When I was in my later years of college, I had gone on co-op for a long time with only one quarter of summer classes. By the time I had returned back to campus, the world I was accustomed to there felt so different and alien even with the few familiar pieces. I felt so old seeing all the young and inexperienced freshmen. I realized at some point in college that I would have to make some sacrifices in order to focus on my growing academic workload.

In a way, leaving college was similar to leaving high school. You think you’re ready for the road ahead, and yet there is still so much you don’t know. Then suddenly you’re just tossed into a different situation, and now you have to figure out things all over again. Looking back at high school students now, they are so young and inexperienced just like we were once. I’m now starting to have to deal with more grown-up things that the cocoon of college doesn’t really prepare you for — the kinds of things you don’t learn in classrooms. The freedom is there, but it is not something I have really had to deal with before.

I’m starting to appreciate shared human experiences more and more despite the “socialness” of the web and new emerging technologies. Now I’m starting to look at the housing market (seems like a great time to buy), considering graduate school a little seriously, thinking about the stock market, and trying to take care of myself in general (while I’m still living at home with my parents). There is still a lot of growing up I have to do, and that’s the part I don’t like.

Disclaimer: I may speak generally, but this is really from my perspective. It is by no means a declarative statement on the world.

I think programming in C is actually kind of fun.

There was a post on Slashdot earlier in the year pointing to an article about how Java is a bad language for computer science students. I generally agree with the points the article makes, especially given my CS education at RIT, but there are other considerations that should be taken into account.

At RIT, it is required for lots of majors (some engineering and other computery majors) to take at least Computer Science I through III. Those courses use Java as the introductory language. While Java is not hard to pick up, I don’t think it is as damaging as it is claimed to be. These introductory courses are pretty much meant to weed out the people who clearly can’t grasp computer programming. Sadly, this feels like a bad standard since the weed-out courses at other certain schools at more advanced than what I took as a freshman undergraduate.

Even after the introductory courses, there is still Computer Science IV (also required for many majors) which shifts to C++ and more upper-level courses (e.g. Operating Systems I, Programming Language Concepts, etc.) that these students need to learn. Anytime I have ever taken an upper-level CS course, we were always generally given the choice of using Java, C, or C++ for our projects. There are some exceptions where you are required to program in certain languages for a course or where you have more freedom to choose another language (like Haskell or Python). Generally, I always defaulted to Java. It was the language I knew best since it was the one I used the most. I never bothered to really learn other languages that well since it felt like I was spending more time trying to learn the language rather than do the actual assignment.

By that same token, I wish I had used other languages more often in my projects. I really didn’t understand pointers until I took a 2-credit course called “C for C++ Programmers” and used a book that didn’t feel dry or assume the reader was an idiot programmer (no need to go over beginner crap like for loops). “Analysis of Algorithms” was single-handedly the most useful course I ever took in the undergraduate Computer Science program. Unfortunately, I took it my last quarter at RIT, and it would have been so much more useful and applicable had I taken it earlier. I still can’t believe that course was not required at my university even though it is at other schools.

If I had a chance to do my whole degree over again, I would’ve taken more Software Engineering courses. The computer science curriculum isn’t bad at RIT, and there is much flexibility over what you can take. I just didn’t plan my schedule out very well. Had I read my CS handbook more closely, I wouldn’t have taken so many random upper-level CS topics. The point of Computer Science felt too academic and too theoretical for me, and I wish I had taken more practical things. Theory isn’t bad; in fact, people should learn why things work. Connecting the “why” with the “how” does not come easily for me if I approach from an abstract point of view. I learn much better from doing things hands-on emperically and experimentally.

Before I graudated, my algorithms professor was talking about what the Computer Science Department could do to retain students in the program. I don’t know what the problem is, but it may have to do with the way the entire program is taught. There are certainly many CS courses I could have done without because I didn’t feel like they prepared me at all for the “real world” (i.e. the working world). I think for a university like RIT, it would be more beneficial to do what Joel Spolsky suggests especially with RIT’s reputation and emphasis on the co-op program.

It’s too bad I didn’t land my first co-op until later in my undergraduate career though there were contributing factors to that. An economic recession was occuring at the time and nobody was really hiring, and nobody was really going to hire an idiot second-year student with nothing but a basic programming skill set. I don’t think Java is a bad language to have beginning programmers to use if they want to try programming. I think it is a bad language if you want to have them learn computer science. I guess it’s all about using the right tools for the right problem.

In general, the courses I took outside of the Computer Science program would have been more helpful if they had somehow been more integrated or coupled with my degree. This does not work for all courses (like liberal arts) but applies heavily to mathematics. It is unfortunate that such abstract topics are taught in a such a vacuum without any real, substantial connection to anything. It would have been nice to know why I needed something like statistics or linear algebra for computer science. It would have helped to know why I needed to wait through those boring, introductory courses before getting to the really interesting upper-level courses.

My problem with Java is that it didn’t really help prepare me for the rest of the Computer Science program, yet I still managed to make it through with a somewhat decent GPA. Whenever I look at other great programmers out there, I am immediately humbled by how little I know, and how inadequate my education really is. I haven’t been in the workforce for that long, and there is still a lot I don’t know. I don’t think there is a good catch-all cookie-cutter curriculum for everybody. It depends on what people want to do, and the solution would be to figure out how to nurture that interest. Blaming the issue entirely on the Java language is just a lack of insight on a bigger problem.

Goodbye, ‘07

Hello to 2008

Let’s see what happens