First coming to mind is an encounter I had about 3 weeks ago on my way home from work around 2am. I'm halfway there, about to go into the campus to cross through it, when I hear something that sounded like a plastic cup full of soda hitting the concrete across the street at the gas station. I glanced over, a curious bystander, saw nothing unusual. I kept walking, then heard yelling, so I gazed back once more. I saw a group of maybe 5 or 6 college age guys in a group, and it wasn't until about 10 seconds later that I realized 2 of them were fighting. I slowed my pace, heard the other 4 yelling at one of them to cool off, to cut it out, to back away. I slowed my pace, not sure if they could handle it. The victim of the attacker broke away and started running up the street in the same direction I was (on the other side of the street still). I don't know what the fight was over, but as the other 5 followed, still trying to calm the attacker down, he broke off and started running at the first guy. After that, it was a stream of "Andrew" and "do you want to get arrested" I saw one of them put the other in a headlock, by that time I was in front of one of the dorms, still walking slowly, not certain if the police were needed or if 4 people could overpower 1 drunk person. I caught that tip by listening in, the attacker had been drinking. So I hear behind me "this guy is just staring at them" and I had to tell them, I didn't know for sure if they 4 of them could handle it, or if I needed to call the police. I was completely unsure, and didn't want to get a group of people in trouble with the law for simply being stupid with each other. If it were a random mugging, yes I would have called sooner, but this was just a group of friends out late who had 2 people disagree while one was drunk, maybe I'm just too much of an idealist... I ended up calling 911, turns out someone else had already done so and there were already units on the way. Once I saw the patrol car, I went on my way. I just don't know what to think about stupid people and the law. Who knows, maybe they were even underage. I wasn't just another mindless spectator because I was going to call the police if they couldn't handle the attacker, but I hesitated for so long because I just didn't know. I don't know if I'm trying to justify this to the reader here, or to myself.
On a more positive note, I recently was victim of someone who was generous enough to do a huge favor for a complete stranger. 2 weeks ago, I had a Core Humanities midterm, some ridiculous required course in a series of 3 that teach ancient history, renaissance, and american history which all majors must take if they want to graduate. They are all BS courses for 95% of the students in them, I think it's safe to say. So for the midterm, we had to buy some official packet to write all our answers in, a bunch of notebook paper in a blue paperback cover, for 30 cents at the school store. What a waste of money, I might add, when I can get 100 sheets for 5 cents at walmart... But I forgot to buy one, until 4 minutes before the test. Oops. So I audibly say "Oh Craaaaap." and the guy next to me, a really nice and optimistic person, has the same discussion section as me, sits in the same spot every week, just like me, hears, asks what the problem was, and when I mention I didn't bring a Blue Book, says "Oh, no problem, I brought a spare just for this."
...
...
...
...
You hardly know me, I realize it's only 30 cents, but still... I don't know what the penalty was for forgetting to bring a Blue Book, but this random, generous, incredible person saved me from it for no reason other than... what? I truly didn't know.
After getting our grades back a week later, I caught up with him and compared results (I got 80% btw, not bad for not doing any of the reading.) And he explained that someone had done the exact same thing for him last semester in one of his other classes. So I was effectively the next chain in a pay-it-forward kind of deal.
News in my life, I am on the start of a month-or-longer cold turkey cutoff from my computer game addiction. I am currently using my close friend Joey's tiny little netbook, with no ability to download programs nor install content on this user profile. I also agreed to let him put a password on my gaming laptop, rather than taking the step of repossessing my power cord, just in case I do end up needing it and I can text him with a very convincing reason for needing it.
He also helped me clean up the tornado playground known as my bedroom, and helped me buy an actual desk and chair for my room at GoodWill for all of 15 dollars, then transported it, and me, home.
This morning I asked him for help with my personal problems and shortcomings, and he was more than happy to deliver, even at the expense of taking his own plans to do housework and putting them to the side. He gave me advice, drove here and there for me, discussed the sources of my problems and what I needed to do to resolve them, and really lent a listening ear to everything I had to vent about. He even paid for a stop at Taco Bell, with no other request for repayment except that I be happy as soon as I can be and for as long as I can be.
Without sounding like some emotional mess, all I can do is thank him for his selflessness today, and try not to let him down as this month passes. If all goes well, I have a lot of changes in store for my habits, and they should all be for the better.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
I SWEAR IM NOT DEAD
Not yet at least. Jeez, I just read all of my blog posts and some of them had me laughing like a crazy man... I've changed so much over 2 years. Not to mention I actually know how to spell Nicole now, without the h.
Wow. Where do I start? I left off in my 3rd semester, y'all didn't even get a breath of my 4th... Or any part of 2013 for that matter, here's to documenting part of a year over halfway done with that year. Huh. Ups and downs abound really. I'll try and cover my 3rd semester's end, what I remember of it... French ended as expected, got an A, didn't have to take the final, and the professor, upon reading an essay I had to write, suggested that I change my major because I didn't sound very satisfied with my choice when he read over my thoughts on it. Proofs ended as a ... B? C? Something like that. I think it prepared me for that nightmare of Analysis well enough. I don't even remember what other classes I was taking. Linear Algebra? The professor was too nice, I don't even remember anything from that class 7 months later. CS 135. Haha. I said the grade couldn't be recovered, I was right, got another C- and not the C that I needed to go on. I lied though. Come 2013, I retook it for a total of 4 times in that infernal class.
Oh 2013. The world didn't end, hope y'all are aware of that. If you aren't, please get out of that bunker, people miss you. I took Analysis, Probability Theory, Computer Science, and Game Theory last semester. CS 135. Guess who actually did 65% of their homework this time? This guy. Granted, I needed 70% or higher to get that C. If the homework total is under 70%, you can almost certainly expect C- or lower, barring extreme circumstances. Just their stupid regulation. The reason I've been retaking it, actually, since I am interested in the subject, and have even started branching out into programming outside of school. I got 105/100 on my first midterm, 90 on the second. The hardest part about the weekly quizzes was motivating myself to go to class on time to take them. Oh, and I also had this class at 9 in the morning, contrary to the last 3 times when it was at 4 pm. Needless to say, I was addicted to Mountain Dew toward the end of the year, as I fought to get my quiz grade back to an acceptable range. But I still only got 65% of my homework done. I was very proud of the last assignment I did, a group project that had 2 weeks to be finished. Got 90/70 on that one. After I turned it in, I stopped by my old CS professor's office and had a chat with him about my last 3 attempts, my reasons for retaking, my reasons for slacking, and what my options could be due to my 65% inadequacy. He started by telling me that, should I get a B in the class overall, not a C or C+, they might just waive the homework cutoff rule for me. An 87% on the final, and guess who is finally moving on to CS 202? I am so relieved. That shiny B on my transcript was the best thing I've done for myself all 2 years.
As for Analysis, that horrifying nightmare of brain ooze last year, it turns out that this professor taught it as if we HADN'T taken 301. Basically reviewing everything we learned last semester, and silently informing us that we literally wasted a full semester learning how to make college level proofs. Toward the end, I was kind of interested, we were finally proving concepts that I learned in Calc AB in high school, so I could remember their applications and make connections to how the proofs were relevant to math in general. However, homework was also 40% of our grade. Death to the Jeremy. I don't know how I scraped out of that class with a D. Technically a passing grade too, I might even sign up for Analysis 2. Maybe.
No, the real nightmare was Probability Theory. Jeez, was that a slap in my face. It starts out as simple as "We have 10 marbles, 4 are red, what is the percent chance that we pick a red marble?" and I leave that class bored witless and thinking I might actually have an easy class. Boy was I wrong. Mid-Semester we were going into CDF's and PDF's and discrete versus continuous random variables which only helped in finding the probability of any given event, then it got even more fun with multidimensional random variables, which could be a mixture of discrete or continuous... Mix in a few combination versus permutation functions to see what the sample size was, and I was a bundle of confusion every time I left that class. Definite retake. Here I was thinking I was done retaking classes when I finished CS 135, guess I really am that inadequate after all. The class also contributed my first official F in college. On the bright side...
Game Theory was the most interesting class I have ever taken, no competition. Learning about the math behind decision making, when all the options are visible, was extremely cool. Everything from the optimal strategy to take if your country is getting threatened by nuclear attack, to the ideal mate for a set of 10 guys and 9 girls, who each have individual preferences. A variation of the "marriage game" is also the "college admissions game" which gives a result based on a set of applicants and a set of colleges, each with their own individual preferences on where to go and who to accept. Turns out that an interesting pattern pops up too, when you switch who is applying/proposing to the other. The percent of people who got their "best choice" is always greater when that group of people were proposing. If the groups switched around, suddenly the first one was only 'satisfied' and the second one suddenly had a lot more 'best choice' results in it. It's a very cool concept that proves that being proactive is the ideal choice, rather than waiting for someone/something to approach you. Especially in a human on human interaction, such as, say, dating? By the end of that class, I was agog with information, though I had only done maybe 4/9 of the homework assignments. The final was worth 50% of the total grade however, which probably contributed massively to my overall grade of B- at the end of the semester. I'm very excited to have yet another class with that professor next semester, Graph Theory and Combinatorics (sorry blogspot, but that is actually a word). Turns out, a lot of things can be represented by graphs, especially when we break out of the standard representation of a line or plane representing 1 variable's relation to others. For example, in Game Theory, we used graphs to represent house owners who wanted to trade houses and couldn't figure out the optimal set up to trade and get their best choice out of the remaining options.
So summer comes with my GPA of 2.408, not nearly high enough to grab a tutoring job at the school or anything. I can't afford summer classes, being jobless and all. Yeah. Jobless. About that. I didn't get desperate until I realized I wouldn't be able to afford rent on August first if I didn't get some sort of income. Only Kyle's dad saved my hide by intervening and offering to help me get a job nearby. Did I mention he's the General Manager at Circus Circus in Reno? Which is only a 22 minute walk away from my house as well. So he tells me to call him the morning after we visit his house for dinner, Kyle, Kyle's brother, Nicole, and I use it as a sort of family time, with how close we've all gotten, and even gotten to his dad. That next morning, I make the call, and he tells me that he will see what he can find in their total job listing, for which I would meet the requirements. 30 minutes later, I pick up, and he gives me a list to apply for. So I go for it, I am honest with everything I write, there seem to be no problems, and he says he will let them know they should look it over. 20 minutes later, he calls me and tells me that my application was reviewed as incomplete. Missing my address and phone number? How did the system even let me submit it? Those are required fields, I don't even... Whatever. I fill those in, and resubmit. 40 minutes go by, and then I get a call from the Human Resources Department at Circus Circus, they want me to come in for an interview for the BarPorter position. Tuesday, I get a hair cut and buy some decent looking pants that don't have holes in the back pocket from an oversized wallet. Then I spend 2 hours looking around the area trying to find the HR department so I don't spend 2 hours looking the next morning. That was not a fun jaunt. Especially when we had a severe heat warning for the area, with temperatures expected to be around 100 during the day until Wednesday. So Wednesday comes, I head off to the interview and arrive 30 minutes early because I'm crazy like that. They tell me the manager wants to see me in the sports bar, and she will probably be late due to a meeting she had. They give me a copy of my application printout, and I go on my way. While I'm waiting, I read the application. Name, Address, Work History, and there at the bottom, the 3 spots I applied for.
Status: REJECTED
Status: REJECTED
Status: REJECTED
Well. That's... Pleasant. I can only assume those 3 labels were there because of that hiccup with the incomplete application, but I have to admit I was nervous after reading that. I do fairly well under pressure though, and I am a smooth talker, so the interview went fairly well. Turns out I got the position, and based on the way she was talking, they need me more than I need them. I'll be getting a lot of hours, and possibly even reaching 40 per week until the school season starts again. It's only a little more than 7.60 but as long as I get more than 20 hours per week I'll be fine for rent and bills. We even get tips sometimes. All I have to worry about now is paying for school semester 5. I start when I meet their requirements for the job, which are a drug test, background check, alcohol awareness training, gaming license, and appropriate dress code, which include black slacks, a black or white undershirt, and "polishable" black shoes. No idea where to start on the last bit. So now its July 9th, 6 days after that interview, and all I can do now is buy the clothes and shoes, then wait for that call. Thinking back to those 3 status markings though, I can only imagine the lost opportunity had I not known Kyle's dad, and he had the faith in me to make them take another look at my application. Best second scenario: walking 1 hour every day to go flip burgers at Jack in the Box.
So that's my life. My forseeable future. School starts the 21st of August. I have a few FAFSA-generated loans waiting for me to accept them, since I'm not scholarship worthy in my work ethic. Something my old CS professor actually suggested was talking to a counselor about my work habits. Who knows what they'll say, but maybe it'll help me. I do want to succeed, I have not only myself to let down, but everyone who relies on me to stay here. I know I should be self-motivated, but I don't put enough stock into my own being to give that motivation any value. I live for my friends because I see them as being worth more than I could be. So when I have their pressure under me to succeed, it is stronger than my own fear of failure. Heck, I'm not even afraid of failure, I just laugh at it. I hope this job and the coming semester mark a turning point in my life. I'm gaining weight, I'm going broke, and I'm really not seeing a future for myself if I keep walking this path. I need a jolt, a cataclysmic change in my life to point me another way, and I hope that I'm looking right at it.
I'll try to start blogging more, at least once a month, if not more. 9 months of silence was really too long, and most people don't like to read essays.
Wow. Where do I start? I left off in my 3rd semester, y'all didn't even get a breath of my 4th... Or any part of 2013 for that matter, here's to documenting part of a year over halfway done with that year. Huh. Ups and downs abound really. I'll try and cover my 3rd semester's end, what I remember of it... French ended as expected, got an A, didn't have to take the final, and the professor, upon reading an essay I had to write, suggested that I change my major because I didn't sound very satisfied with my choice when he read over my thoughts on it. Proofs ended as a ... B? C? Something like that. I think it prepared me for that nightmare of Analysis well enough. I don't even remember what other classes I was taking. Linear Algebra? The professor was too nice, I don't even remember anything from that class 7 months later. CS 135. Haha. I said the grade couldn't be recovered, I was right, got another C- and not the C that I needed to go on. I lied though. Come 2013, I retook it for a total of 4 times in that infernal class.
Oh 2013. The world didn't end, hope y'all are aware of that. If you aren't, please get out of that bunker, people miss you. I took Analysis, Probability Theory, Computer Science, and Game Theory last semester. CS 135. Guess who actually did 65% of their homework this time? This guy. Granted, I needed 70% or higher to get that C. If the homework total is under 70%, you can almost certainly expect C- or lower, barring extreme circumstances. Just their stupid regulation. The reason I've been retaking it, actually, since I am interested in the subject, and have even started branching out into programming outside of school. I got 105/100 on my first midterm, 90 on the second. The hardest part about the weekly quizzes was motivating myself to go to class on time to take them. Oh, and I also had this class at 9 in the morning, contrary to the last 3 times when it was at 4 pm. Needless to say, I was addicted to Mountain Dew toward the end of the year, as I fought to get my quiz grade back to an acceptable range. But I still only got 65% of my homework done. I was very proud of the last assignment I did, a group project that had 2 weeks to be finished. Got 90/70 on that one. After I turned it in, I stopped by my old CS professor's office and had a chat with him about my last 3 attempts, my reasons for retaking, my reasons for slacking, and what my options could be due to my 65% inadequacy. He started by telling me that, should I get a B in the class overall, not a C or C+, they might just waive the homework cutoff rule for me. An 87% on the final, and guess who is finally moving on to CS 202? I am so relieved. That shiny B on my transcript was the best thing I've done for myself all 2 years.
As for Analysis, that horrifying nightmare of brain ooze last year, it turns out that this professor taught it as if we HADN'T taken 301. Basically reviewing everything we learned last semester, and silently informing us that we literally wasted a full semester learning how to make college level proofs. Toward the end, I was kind of interested, we were finally proving concepts that I learned in Calc AB in high school, so I could remember their applications and make connections to how the proofs were relevant to math in general. However, homework was also 40% of our grade. Death to the Jeremy. I don't know how I scraped out of that class with a D. Technically a passing grade too, I might even sign up for Analysis 2. Maybe.
No, the real nightmare was Probability Theory. Jeez, was that a slap in my face. It starts out as simple as "We have 10 marbles, 4 are red, what is the percent chance that we pick a red marble?" and I leave that class bored witless and thinking I might actually have an easy class. Boy was I wrong. Mid-Semester we were going into CDF's and PDF's and discrete versus continuous random variables which only helped in finding the probability of any given event, then it got even more fun with multidimensional random variables, which could be a mixture of discrete or continuous... Mix in a few combination versus permutation functions to see what the sample size was, and I was a bundle of confusion every time I left that class. Definite retake. Here I was thinking I was done retaking classes when I finished CS 135, guess I really am that inadequate after all. The class also contributed my first official F in college. On the bright side...
Game Theory was the most interesting class I have ever taken, no competition. Learning about the math behind decision making, when all the options are visible, was extremely cool. Everything from the optimal strategy to take if your country is getting threatened by nuclear attack, to the ideal mate for a set of 10 guys and 9 girls, who each have individual preferences. A variation of the "marriage game" is also the "college admissions game" which gives a result based on a set of applicants and a set of colleges, each with their own individual preferences on where to go and who to accept. Turns out that an interesting pattern pops up too, when you switch who is applying/proposing to the other. The percent of people who got their "best choice" is always greater when that group of people were proposing. If the groups switched around, suddenly the first one was only 'satisfied' and the second one suddenly had a lot more 'best choice' results in it. It's a very cool concept that proves that being proactive is the ideal choice, rather than waiting for someone/something to approach you. Especially in a human on human interaction, such as, say, dating? By the end of that class, I was agog with information, though I had only done maybe 4/9 of the homework assignments. The final was worth 50% of the total grade however, which probably contributed massively to my overall grade of B- at the end of the semester. I'm very excited to have yet another class with that professor next semester, Graph Theory and Combinatorics (sorry blogspot, but that is actually a word). Turns out, a lot of things can be represented by graphs, especially when we break out of the standard representation of a line or plane representing 1 variable's relation to others. For example, in Game Theory, we used graphs to represent house owners who wanted to trade houses and couldn't figure out the optimal set up to trade and get their best choice out of the remaining options.
So summer comes with my GPA of 2.408, not nearly high enough to grab a tutoring job at the school or anything. I can't afford summer classes, being jobless and all. Yeah. Jobless. About that. I didn't get desperate until I realized I wouldn't be able to afford rent on August first if I didn't get some sort of income. Only Kyle's dad saved my hide by intervening and offering to help me get a job nearby. Did I mention he's the General Manager at Circus Circus in Reno? Which is only a 22 minute walk away from my house as well. So he tells me to call him the morning after we visit his house for dinner, Kyle, Kyle's brother, Nicole, and I use it as a sort of family time, with how close we've all gotten, and even gotten to his dad. That next morning, I make the call, and he tells me that he will see what he can find in their total job listing, for which I would meet the requirements. 30 minutes later, I pick up, and he gives me a list to apply for. So I go for it, I am honest with everything I write, there seem to be no problems, and he says he will let them know they should look it over. 20 minutes later, he calls me and tells me that my application was reviewed as incomplete. Missing my address and phone number? How did the system even let me submit it? Those are required fields, I don't even... Whatever. I fill those in, and resubmit. 40 minutes go by, and then I get a call from the Human Resources Department at Circus Circus, they want me to come in for an interview for the BarPorter position. Tuesday, I get a hair cut and buy some decent looking pants that don't have holes in the back pocket from an oversized wallet. Then I spend 2 hours looking around the area trying to find the HR department so I don't spend 2 hours looking the next morning. That was not a fun jaunt. Especially when we had a severe heat warning for the area, with temperatures expected to be around 100 during the day until Wednesday. So Wednesday comes, I head off to the interview and arrive 30 minutes early because I'm crazy like that. They tell me the manager wants to see me in the sports bar, and she will probably be late due to a meeting she had. They give me a copy of my application printout, and I go on my way. While I'm waiting, I read the application. Name, Address, Work History, and there at the bottom, the 3 spots I applied for.
Status: REJECTED
Status: REJECTED
Status: REJECTED
Well. That's... Pleasant. I can only assume those 3 labels were there because of that hiccup with the incomplete application, but I have to admit I was nervous after reading that. I do fairly well under pressure though, and I am a smooth talker, so the interview went fairly well. Turns out I got the position, and based on the way she was talking, they need me more than I need them. I'll be getting a lot of hours, and possibly even reaching 40 per week until the school season starts again. It's only a little more than 7.60 but as long as I get more than 20 hours per week I'll be fine for rent and bills. We even get tips sometimes. All I have to worry about now is paying for school semester 5. I start when I meet their requirements for the job, which are a drug test, background check, alcohol awareness training, gaming license, and appropriate dress code, which include black slacks, a black or white undershirt, and "polishable" black shoes. No idea where to start on the last bit. So now its July 9th, 6 days after that interview, and all I can do now is buy the clothes and shoes, then wait for that call. Thinking back to those 3 status markings though, I can only imagine the lost opportunity had I not known Kyle's dad, and he had the faith in me to make them take another look at my application. Best second scenario: walking 1 hour every day to go flip burgers at Jack in the Box.
So that's my life. My forseeable future. School starts the 21st of August. I have a few FAFSA-generated loans waiting for me to accept them, since I'm not scholarship worthy in my work ethic. Something my old CS professor actually suggested was talking to a counselor about my work habits. Who knows what they'll say, but maybe it'll help me. I do want to succeed, I have not only myself to let down, but everyone who relies on me to stay here. I know I should be self-motivated, but I don't put enough stock into my own being to give that motivation any value. I live for my friends because I see them as being worth more than I could be. So when I have their pressure under me to succeed, it is stronger than my own fear of failure. Heck, I'm not even afraid of failure, I just laugh at it. I hope this job and the coming semester mark a turning point in my life. I'm gaining weight, I'm going broke, and I'm really not seeing a future for myself if I keep walking this path. I need a jolt, a cataclysmic change in my life to point me another way, and I hope that I'm looking right at it.
I'll try to start blogging more, at least once a month, if not more. 9 months of silence was really too long, and most people don't like to read essays.
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