Anxiously Awaiting

An unnamed Golden Algae Eater died last night as the result of being eaten by a much larger fish. I am unsure of the culprit, but the Blue Gourami was looking very content earlier today. I shall take a moment to narrate the short life of this fine young fish. As a spur of the moment purchase on Friday, January 26th 2007, this little guy had a fighting spirit to be matched by no other fish. It took 3 minutes for the Petsmart clerk to chase him down and put him in a bag; converse to the Plecostomus that I also bought, who surrendered immediately. After a short ride down I-75 to the TSRB, the unnamed fish was released to his new home–where he promptly started eating some algae on the right side of the tank.

Thank you, unnamed Golden Algae Eater. You were an inspiration to us all, and you will be missed. As for the Gourami, I hope he enjoyed his $3.89 happy meal.

[UPDATE] False alarm. He was hiding under a rock.

So a while back I bought a new keyboard from Newegg. Unfortunately, it was german. Today, I received the replacement from Newegg. It is also……german. I called Newegg and the representative basically told me to RMA the thing for a refund due to errors on their order of those keyboards from Enermax. He credited me 10 bucks for shipping and gave me an RMA number. Unfortunately for me, it costs $12.80 to send the thing back via UPS 3-day ground. My other option would be USPS, but I won’t get the refund for the item until Newegg receives it, and I could use the cash I paid for it sooner. So, I’m taking the 2.80 hit for quicker access to the original amount I paid. Thanks guys.

Long live the Logitech MX Duo.

Friday’s my birthday. It’s been a good year. Lots of cool things have happened; I have made some amazing friends and I have grown a lot. Besides the fact that I noticed a slight recede in my hair line (thanks mom) I don’t feel any different. I’m in better shape now than I was when I was 18, I’m better off academically than I was back then, and I’m happier about life. I have grown quite a bit spiritually as well. God continues to bless me and keep me according to His promises. So with a new year another finite segment of my life comes to a close. Since I’m a little less than 1/3 of the way out of this place, I guess I should make the most out of it =).

Plus, to all my friends: I expect free Ru-San’s on Friday. Mmmmm, free sushi XD!

Work comes in torrents. It appears that this semester, although it be only 17 hours, is going to be busier than last. I need to finish my research work for PURA, start work on my capstone research project, write two research papers, and keep up with four classes. My schedule looks like a sine wave. Only a class and a meeting on Mondays, three classes on Tuesday, a class and a meeting on Wednesday, three classes and a meeting on Thursday, and then nothing on Friday. It seems to me that most of this time spent in meetings could be applied to implementation instead, but I don’t make the rules =D.

Pray for me or I will go insane.

I have started a little group that gets together on Sundays and discusses the dynamics of the wonderful instrument called guitar. So far I have had a blast teaching–overseeing being the more accurate term–the couple of guys who come. That said, I would invite anyone who enjoys playing music to my apartment on Sundays at 2:00pm. We simply practice some drills that I have invented or stolen from the internet, talk about music theory, listen to and analyze songs, and do many other musically stimulating activities.

Through this experience I have realized that I very much enjoy teaching. I like power, I like being right–an obvious trait that sometimes moonlights as a flaw–and I love being a trusted source of information. This combination of characteristics contributes to a pleasure of disseminating information to others, but as said many times before: with great power comes great responsibility. Even in something as trivial as an informal music theory class I am responsible for making sure that the information is correct and valid, else my credibility is threatened.

I have learned a lot about myself from overseeing two very informal drill sessions. I like teaching–although I do not think I could do it professionally; God bless those of you who have–and I want my group to grow in skill and number. It’s a fun way for me to push off the stresses of Mother Tech, and pre-class preparation forces me to learn something that I should already know in my 10+ years of playing guitar.