Incoherent Mutterings

I got an email from The School a couple of days ago saying “Hey, the spring class offering is up and registration starts 10/19!” Well, ain’t that peachy. I haven’t finished paying for *this* semester yet. So I make with the clicky and check out the schedule. You know that class I bitched about that I need, that they refuse to teach in Round Rock, that they sent a survey about the week AFTER the semester ended in the spring about offering it at Round Rock? Yeah. Not being taught in Round Rock. To borrow from a forum meme: fuck this gay earth.

I am really, really sick of this shit. Why don’t I just quit? I’m a little over half way done. I’ve put far more money into this than I want to talk about (let’s just say an average of $2000 per semester)., and goddammit, I’m going to finish what I start! Ignore the piles of unpainted and half painted mini’s on @aelerelean’s shelf. And the only-glanced-at thank you cards I was going to make. And the barely looked at parts for the bass pedal mod for Rock Band.

I digress.

So, like I said, I made with the clicky and checked out the schedule, came to terms with the fact that I will start off the semester angr, and thought “well, as long as I’m gonna wanna kill people anyway, I might as well take three classes in the spring.” I check the schedule. There’s nothing in Round Rock I can take outside of what I’d already picked. And there’s nothing in San Marcos outside of hell-class I can take either. No really. I even made a list of what’s available and why I can/can’t/won’t take it:

Internship: not applicable, I have a job.
*Adv Operating Systems: 5pm in san marcos 2x a week. Can’t leave work that early.
Networks: taking now
Design of programming languages: took it
Adv Human Factors: 5pm in san marcos 2x a week. Can’t leave work that early.
Algorithm Design: took it
Crafting Compilers: don’t wanna, really hard, but I might, I’m so conflicted
Database Theory: Spring 2010
*Advanced Internet Info Processing (perl, cgi, etc): need 5332, same time/day as 5332
Adv Artificial Intelligence: Spring 2010 (hell class)
**Digital Forensics: conflict
Web Services Engineering: conflict, not interested
Programming Practicum: not needed, took it
Adv Data Mining: boring as fuck
Neural Networks: no interest at all
Adv Computer Graphics: will never take another class with this man ever again. ever.
GUI: took it
Survey of Software Engineering: took it
***Formal Methods of Software Engineering: not particularly interested
Software Engineering Practicum: not doing the SE track, don’t need it. In fact, I already have a job in my field. I should get credit for this course. I “practicum” SE every day. and fuck that guy, too (different guy from GUI)
Independent Study: erm. No. not applicable.
Thesis A/B: not doing a Thesis. so, not applicable

Notes:
* – GOD I WANT TO TAKE THIS!!!!
** – Eh, that sounds moderately interesting
*** – I could possibly be persuaded if there’s really nothing else

So, there you are. That’s my school career in a nutshell. And I pay for this. Willingly. Out of my own pocket. No scholarships, no work reimbursement, no sweet sweet blackmail money. I’d say “FML” but in the grand scheme of things, it’s nowhere near that bad.

All semester we were supposed to be working on this incredibly detailed project for a UI class. Remember, UI. User Interface. Pretty pictures and buttons to help users do shit without tearing their hair out.

This highly detailed project was discussed all semester. Very little UI learning was happening. We did one assignment using the software we had to use to design the UI for our project (10 minutes), one assignment on evaluating other interfaces (not bad, actually), one writing a calculator using PHP on a webpage (the fuck?) and the other 10 assignments were for the project: design documents, specifications, all the piff and fluff surrounding any Software Engineering class project.

Oh wait, THIS ISN’T A GODDAMN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CLASS PROJECT.

The orject itself was to simulate something called a set-associative cache. Got something to do with how memory is used/allocated. I didn’t get it when I took the computer architecture class in the 90’s, I didn’t get it when I took a different computer architecture class in 2006, I didn’t get it when he explained it all semester. I might be stupid, I don’t know. But when you explain the same thing and change up the terms during the explanation and go off on a tangent while never getting back to the point, I’m not going to understand you. I would dread when people would ask him questions. Namely my group members. Who have done such fun shit as:

1. Not turn in an assignment when they said they would
2. When, after listening to an explanation of something not project related (like, “when is the status report due?”), asking the same goddamn question that was just fucking answered. This person was in my Tuesday night class as well.
3. After not hearing a peep all week, calling me and trying to set up a meeting a 4pm on a goddamn Sunday. Our assignments were due by 11:55pm on Sundays.
4. Not reading emails. Like, blatantly ignoring what I just fucking said.

That said, I know I’m not a stellar groupmate, but, fuck, many times I would work hard on a document just to have someone popup and say “Oh, here, I already did it but I’ll add in your comments” and it ends up being complete shit compared to what I wrote.

This project would be perfect for getting a deeper understanding of how caches work during the course of a more hardware oriented class.

Oh wait, THIS ISN’T A GODDAMN HARDWARE CLASS!

So finally, after the pain of the semester where we’re still asking “how in the fuck does the cache work?” in the week leading up to the demo date, I we decide to just demo what we have and turn in the final stuff Friday with the REST of the documentation. Oh, didn’t I tell you? There’s more useless fucking documentation that we had no warning about due Friday (5/15) that he told us about Monday night (5/11). Again, appropriate for a Software Engineering project…which this still isn’t.

The Monday night demo sucks fucking donkey dicks. Greasy, purple, “Scratch n’ Dent Night” at the strip club, donkey show dick. Our project was horrible. Everyone else’s (save maybe two projects) was cool. 15 kinds of awesome. Ours was best demo’d in private. And you burn the machine after it was done. I worked my motherfucking ass off on my part with zero help, zero direction. So I was fucking proud as hell to get OpenGL shit to work. How was I to know that was tanamount to having your teenaged kid run up to you excited because they finally figured out and put together that 25 piece jigsaw puzzle. Fuck. The backend “proper” C++ code got integrated with the UI in QT the day before. THE DAY BEFORE. I don’t think you understand. My UI did NOTHING but show pretty slides I could get this code. I had not seen a fucking lick of it until THE DAY BEFORE THE DEMO. Un-fucking-believeable. So here I am, day of the demo, cramming this shit in to make it do something, anything. I am pissed as fuck. I left class so upset it was unfathomable. The next day, I almost cried, I was still so mad. But at least I thought it wold all be over Monday. OH NO, BITCHES! THE HELL AIN’T OVER YET! I get the priviledge of re-demo’ing this piece of fucking shit Friday. And so do the assholes who’s project worked JUST FUCKING FINE. This is bullshit. Total complete bull-fucking-ass-shit.

I totally got shamed last night.

I was bitching about the horrible class selection and how I might just “take it easy” and take one class. The guy I was talking to said “Oh yeah, I said the same thing. I was taking 4 classes.” Holy fucking shit. 4 classes. And he was working. I’ll just shut the fuck up and take my piddly two classes next fall.

Dear Texas State Computer Science Department,

Really, why do you even bother? “Hey, you can complete your entire BS or MS up in Round Rock! Oh but you might have to go to San Marcos to get classes you might be even remotely interested in. Or the ones that you absolutely positively need to graduate. Oh and all tests required to graduate and to prove you belong in the program will be in San Marcos. As well as any remotely interesting talks, frat meetings, and professor demos. But other than that, you can complete your entire degree in Round Rock! Won’t that be convienient for you working Austin/Round Rock/Georgetown people!”

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

There is one class in Summer Session II that I would love to take. Unfortunately it’s being taught by the same instructor that is giving me heartburn right now. There’s no way in hell will I ever take another class from him. I may not make it to the end of THIS semester.

Summer: Okay, pickings are always slim for the summer. But it looks like ONE professor is teaching damn near everything. Too bad I can’t take any of them.

Fall: One class that fulfills both a core-optional requirement and is a prerequisite for something I really want to take. Great! That’s it. I don’t want to resort to taking classes just for the sake of taking classes. My track is not Software Engineering, so that eliminates 4 classes, 2 of which I’ve already taken. I could *possibly* take Formal Language, but it’s predecessor damn near ate my lunch a year ago and would only serve to add elective credits while I wait to take my last goddamn core class. The rest? I don’t have the prereqs for. My options: a class that will leave me broken, sticky and confused; travel to San Marcos and take that last fucking core class (that has a high probability of being taught in the spring) that will leave me in a bitter fucking mood all semester; travel to San Marcos to take a class I need but be in a slightly better mood; just take one class.

Fuck. I really don’t know what to do.

Shit, this started out as a letter.