Incoherent Mutterings

Goons can be so very right sometimes:

“Grad school is like the leveling part of an MMORPG- Sure there are interesting projects and a touch of camaraderie (quests, dungeons) but you’re never going to get to max level (Ph.D.) without a long boring grind of tedious, repetitive, often unthinking, and seemingly never-ending tasks. To get through it you don’t ever stop, shunning breaks [poopsock joke here], and isolating yourself to the point even friends become a burden. Finally you get to end game (post doc) but you’re still on the bottom of the totem pole, in danger of being ganked (scooped) and getting paid shit (no dkp) until at last you’re a guild leader (full professor) and finally get to spend your time thinking about interesting problems (raid progression) and yelling at underlings.”

I look up from my keyboard because I hear th bedroom door open. It’s @aelerelean. He’s up. To go to work. Oh god, it’s 7:15am…and I’m. Still. Working. On. The. Report. I gave up on the coding around 5am. I work until he leaves, then get dressed, grab 2 more 5 hour energys and leave. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I get work work. I finish my report. It is surreal. My bullshit river has some serious flow when I’m sleep deprived. As I finish, I realize I have no idea how to submit it. He never said. I print out a copy and take my flash drive. I get to class. and I watch as 5 people show up, two of which put their hardcopy (SPIRAL BOUND) reports on the front table. I put my stapled copy up front. Class slowly fills up. No one has slept. No one. In the middle of lecture he asks “so, who’s not happy with their project?” Not like “Hey, let’s talk about the project” I mean “So here is the algorithm for this search. Now let me draw this node tree. Who isn’t happy with their project?”

Long story short (because I still haven’t slept and I’m hungry): He extended it another week. And even said “Hey if you guys had said something last week, I would have extended it.”

*cry*

And here’s a public apology to my partner. Her code didn’t work either. SHE didn’t want to hold ME up. 🙁

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.