Ben M. Smith

Well, that was an unexpectedly longer break than planned.  10th/finals weeks and break have been busy, to say the least.

Here’s what’s in store after the jump:

• Cold Drinks with Cool Profs
• Senior Project Presentations
• In-Person Client Meeting
• I avert disaster
• Finals Week
• Driving Home/Break

I finally got a chance to go to Cold Drinks with Cool Profs.  Hooray for finally being of age!  I’ve wanted to go ever since they were first announced sophomore year–not for the alcohol, but for the opportunity to socialize with my fellow CS/SE majors and profs.  I’ve realized for some time that while I don’t entirely “fit in” with my peers in regards to my interests and career goals, and I don’t want to completely ostracize myself from them.  Problem: I’m kind of awkward in larger-sized social situations.  I like smaller groups, to say the least.  I wasn’t completely out of my depth that night, though–my entire senior project team was there, so I hung out with them and we talked much of the night, eventually joined by our advisor (who continues to be awesome) and a few other students.  I left a bit early with  the member of my group I rode over with (I had no idea where the pub was, and trying to find it at night didn’t seem to be the best strategy), relaxed and ready for the next day’s presentations.

Things learned at CDwCP:

1. Whatever beer I sampled was not to my taste at all.
2. I should find out the name of what I’m sampling before I take some so I can remember not to get it again.
3. Strongbow cider is more to my taste preference.  This is my occasional drink of choice for the time being.

Senior project presentations went really well.  Radio has done wonders for my presentation skills–I’m still a little nervous when presenting, but nowhere near as bad as I used to be.  Since last time one of our group members was wearing a suit (he had an interview the same day), I felt I should continue the tradition and at least wear a blazer.  Aside from some minor technical difficulties when demoing our prototype (the simulator was offscreen when the laptop resolution changed, so we had to make a quick fix), we handled ourselves well and were able to answer any questions.  Our client had previously signed off on our use cases, and was very pleased with the job I had done organizing them.  I’m really happy with where we’re at, and although some of the documentation I had hoped to get done by quarter’s end is still unfinished, we’re at a really good place going into this next quarter.

I don’t want to badmouth any of the other teams, but I was really confused by one of the projects.  Two teams are working on a mega-project, one part of the team developing a game maker for educators and another team developing an online distribution system for games created with the game maker.  On paper, this seems like a good idea–educators working from the same textbooks could prepare a game like jeopardy or something that could be shared.  However, in the demo of their project, I’m not sure they’ve done enough to make their program easy to use.  They’ve changed the names of programming concepts such as “objects” and “actions” into theater terms such as “actors”, “costumes”, “props”, etc., but it’s really not clear how one is supposed to use/create any of these things.  While game ideas such as Jeopardy and Number Munchers were tossed out, the demo they did made neither of these.  Looking at it from the perspective of an educator, it still looks far too complicated–I wouldn’t spend the time to make a game when I can just develop questions and draw a jeopardy grid on the whiteboard.  They mentioned getting a group of educators to act as some sort of advisory committee–I hope they find some and soon before they make something no one will want to use.

With the presentation out of the way, there was only one more major event for senior project this term: meeting the client.  Originally I wanted to ask our client some questions about our non-functional requirements, but once I learned the project manager of the other team being sponsored by our client had suggested Sonka’s Pub (again), I realized this was less formal meeting, more informal getting-to-know-you.  I made a note to e-mail the client my questions in the morning.  The best thing I did pre-meeting: Google search the client’s name to figure out what he looked like.  This was amazingly helpful when there are 8 people who know they’re meeting one of the higherups at this company, but don’t know who he is.  As soon as he entered the back area of Sonka’s we were all gathered in, I immediately recognized him and waved him over.  Our client (let’s call him B as continually typing out “our client” is getting a bit ridiculous) is AMAZING.  So collected, so funny, so warm with all of us.  I was envisioning something more formal, but just shooting the shit with him for a couple of hours about Terre Haute, Rose, our projects, etc. was amazingly relaxing.  When he offered to buy drinks, I remembered what I had learned Tuesday and got a Strongbow (I didn’t drive) to enjoy over the course of the night.  I wasn’t drunk, but the drink helped loosen me up a bit so I wasn’t quite so tense with B.  I’d like to think I made a good impression on him.

There’s been a minor revolt in our kitchen.  CS’s cooking has caused 2 of the 6 who normally dine in our apartment on weekends to go out when it’s his turn.  If I have to lay down one more time from eating something he’s put too much salt in, that number will rise to 3.  He was scheduled to cook this week, and when he was describing what he was planning, something involving linguine and peanut sauce, it didn’t look too well.  His logic behind the choice of recipe (I use that term loosely–I have yet to see CS use a recipe when cooking) was that it was low-fat.  I jokingly accused him of saying I had a weight problem, and he said he had been to Baskin-Robbins.  This is a person who has to get belts in the boys section of Walmart because he can not find the right length in the men’s section.  I can find belts in the men’s section, and I’m only slightly larger than he is.  The claim that we need something low fat is ridiculous.  The night he was scheduled to cook, however, he came in at 5 needing something different, since he’d have to get a lot of stuff at Walmart.  I suggested we make chicken cacciatore with some pre-made sauce I had that only needed chicken and pasta, since it’d be quicker and feed the people he had invited from next door.  I went with him to get groceries, then came back and made dinner while he did the dishes that were in the sink.  At dinner, many compliments were paid to our “collaboration”, as CS put it.  To be fair, he collaborated by driving me to walmart so he could get stuff from the pharmacy section of walmart while I gathered the ingredients and cooked dinner, but I’ve learned to choose my battles at this point.  Disaster temporarily averted.

Finals week wasn’t bad.  I only had a paper and a take-home exam due for my lit classes that Tuesday before I was free to go.  The take-home final was done by 11 am Monday, and I completed 3 of the 5-6 pages I needed for the paper by 2.  I wanted to get in to the prof’s office to have him look at what I had written and the direction I was going before he got swamped with requests, so I headed over to his office, expecting a max wait of 30 minutes.  I waited for an hour and a half (the person before me took 45 minutes to have their paper looked at), but it was totally worth it.  After giving me some good pointers on correcting what I had and suggesting some places to push myself, the prof brought up that I almost have a minor in lit.  After this term, I’ll have gained another minor by accident.  That will be three minors total by the end of the year.  I’m pumped about that–I’ve taken classes that have interested me and managed to profit from them.  I’ve really liked Dr. Taylor as a professor–he’s pushed me as a writer because he knows what I’m capable of.  Hopefully my final paper lived up to that potential.  I’m proud of how I did in all my classes–A in senior project and romanticism, B+ in Computational Science, and B in Modernism, and a GPA that’s now getting close to 3.25 territory.  Now to keep this momentum going.

The drive back went pretty well.  It was raining in a lot of Illinois/Wisconsin, but I can handle rain.  The last part of the drive felt like it took forever–I’m sorry, Wisconsin, but you’re boring.  Really boring.  Break’s been pretty uneventful–I’ve done some Objective-C work so I can be of better use during the coding part of the project this term, gone to the chiropractor, gotten my hair cut.  Thanksgiving was fun–since my aunt that usually does Thanksgiving is moving soon, we just did things for ourselves.  The recipe for turkey with stuffing we used from Alton Brown was fantastic, and the stuffing was delicious (I particularly liked that it used dried cherries), and the pumpkin pie we got from Costco was probably the size of my head in diameter, if not larger.  All in all, a good meal that I’m happy to have helped with.  Met up with an old friend from high school today for coffee and a (bad 80s) movie, and although I was really nervous (something they picked up on), I think it went well for the most part.  As I was driving them home, I was entirely honest with them, and things seem to have been reciprocated.  I’m going to try to move things a little further next break when we get together again.  If nothing else, now I know I can call anytime and should message more often.

I’m ready to head back to Rose and attack winter term.  The drive may be long, but I’m looking forward to getting back to the apartment as well.

As a bonus for getting through this blog entry, here’s what I listened to while I composed it:

• Half of My Heart, John Mayer
• Cheap Kicks, Noisettes
• Fire On High, Electric Light Orchestra
• Assassin, John Mayer
• Jigsaw Falling Into Place, Radiohead
• The Fear, Lily Allen
• Every Now and Then, Noisettes
• Too Much Food, Jason Mraz
• We Talk Like Machines, Savoir Adore
• Portions for Foxes, Rilo Kiley
• Party Hard, Andrew W.K.
• Effigy, Andrew Bird
• Too Blue, 7 Worlds Collide
• In My Place, Coldplay
• Fences, Phoenix
• Don’t Stop Believing, Glee Cast

Tags: CS/SC, life, RHIT, senior project

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 28th, 2009 at 1:50 am and is filed under News, life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.