Friday, February 26, 2010

Day 19/75-20/75 That white stuff.

What a strange couple of days.

Yesterday I went to that nonmath class, finished the test and then crashed another class I didn't have. Well... kinda. I was standing in front of the bulletin board outside the music office when I got snagged by my advanced Pro Tools teacher. He dragged me into the lab room and showed me what we did in class (which consisted of dissecting the "I'm on a horse" video that aired during the superbowl. It was a lesson in working in a linear fashion vs non-linear. It worked pretty well) It's nice having a teacher that can start a class early, show you what you missed the day before (due to cold) in about 30 minutes and then send you on your way. He's a pretty cool guy.

After that, I trudged through the sleetrainsnow to grab food at Mcfatthighs. It was there that I had a revelation. While thinking about how I could improve my resume and this improve my chances of getting down to Savannah, where it was somewhat warm and snow-free, I devised a project that would involve 2 schools and an event from my past that I owe quite a lot to. It originally started as a large project for me to work through, and then became a large project for me oversee and have many other people work through. I don't know why but in my mind I have the image of me as an octopus stretching out my 8 arms which each terminate in a person. I'm weird. Anyway, that project is in its next phase: approval from those people above me, but not at the very top. After that I'll probably have to talk to the man at the top, and then another man at a different top. I dont make much sense huh? You'll all find out soon enough, suffice to say that this plan is genius.

The MTA however is anything but. Last night on my way home I stood on Main St. for 45 minutes waiting for the Q25. In Snowmageddeon. It sucked. I also came to the revelation that maybe I don't have the best shoes to deal with this kind of weather.

As for today, as you may have noticed all NYC schools are closed. Its a good thing too because I didnt wake up until 4 anyway. So much for that schedule I was talking about, but that'll happen when you don't sleep for 2 days. I will cut this blog short because I don't really have much to write about. Until tomorrow loyal reader...

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Day 19/75 This is how its *not* supposed to be done

It's 6:08, I've been up all night, I'm burning incense, listening to Incubus, and I have to be at school in 2 hours.

Instead of sleeping I decided it was a good idea to write my resume for this place. That's where I plan on going after this one horse school. I want a BFA in sound design, and they have it. You may have noticed (if you took the time to click the link) that the school is in Savannah, which is a beautiful city, and is in Georgia. Yeah, the state with the peaches, and many episodes of cops. Its also the current residence of my ex, but we wont go into that right now. The one bad thing about Georgia, is that it's not New York. Well... that's not the bad thing, I'm glad it's not New York. It's probably why I like it down there so much. I love New York, but I'm so tired of it, I need a change of pace. Anyway the reason that it's bad is that my life is in New York. My friends are here, so is my family. If I could transplant everybody to Georgia for the 4 years (maybe) I'll have to be there, I would.

Anyway, I digress. From what? I don't know. It's late (early?) and I'm rambling.

Resume = done. Or at least what I think is done. For the moment. I should probably have a couple people look it over and point out all the mistakes. Yeah... that's a good idea.

Now for the rest of today: My first class is Math 321. Which isn't really math at all. There are no numbers. Zero. See that, I could have put this: "0" but instead I wrote out the word. Why? To fully illustrate the lack of numbers in this class. If I had a calculator, it would probably off itself because it doesn't have anything to do. Ever. I had a calculator a little while ago, it was like $200 and had all these cool apps, and it was even a phone. An iphone to be exact. Now its an ipaperweight.

TANGENTS! I go off on them. Back to the non-math class. Its called statistics, and its at 8 in the morning. Who takes a statistics class (with no numbers) at 8 in the morning? Me. On the upside, as I've said to anyone who follows my facebook, at least the teacher is a bit attractive. Having something nice to look at that early in the morning is nice. It takes away some of the sting of being awake before the sun comes up. However, as usual with all good things, there's a rather annoying downside. She's the kind of person? That has to end every sentence? With like? An upward inflection? On top of that she says "like" "stuff" "junk" and "you know?" more than any teacher I've ever had. Other than that, she's pretty nice.

I have a theory about this particular class. It seems that in the math department of this school, MAThreeTwentyOne is a hazing ritual of sorts. It seems (I took and dropped the class once before) that whoever teaches the class is either new, or inept. It seems like before you go off and teach whatever obscure math class you happen to specialize in, you have to teach this. Maybe its a general teaching thing, maybe not. Then again, I haven't really felt any math teacher I've had since junior high school has been anything special. Maybe its just me.

Now, in MAThreeTwentyOne where there are no numbers, there are Tests. Tests easy enough that I can show up 15 minutes late and finish 10 minutes early. The rest of the class doesn't seem to find it as easy as I do. Maybe because I paid attention in grade school, maybe not. Anyway, we reach the end of the allotted time for the class and the teacher announces that she underestimated the complexity of the test and that we'd have time in the next class period to finish up. I may be mistaken, but I believe the point of a test is to have the students answer questions with which they have no prior knowledge of, to the best of their ability. Congratulations Ms. MAThreeTwentyOne, you've just broken rule #1 of tests. Everyone who didn't study, now has seen the test and knows what to look up in preparation for today's "take 2." Brilliant!

I'm coming off a bit harsh, because she is really nice and I'm sure she's only doing it this way because she thought she made the test too long, or too hard. But I've been in the NY public school system long enough to see that her naivety is only going to hurt the class. Those destined to fail, will still fail though now they have a bit of false hope and instead of dropping the class, they will hang on and ultimately have a lower GPA as a result. Or, I could be completely wrong.

Enough about MAThreeTwentyOne and onto ET920, or the class that I cant explain to anyone outside of my major. The name of the course is Electronic Techniques. What the hell does that mean? I don't know. It would have been better if they just called the damn thing Circuitry, or at least Electrical Engineering. ET920 has *a lot* of math and numbers. Unfortunately, it's all the math that I took in junior high school. The funny thing is that when I took it in junior high school, they told us we had to learn it then because when we got to college we'd need to know it and they wouldn't teach us it then. We'll Mr. junior high math, I'd be careful at the post office, I've mailed you a kick in the face. I hope it gets there soon.

In ET920 we spent the first 2 weeks reviewing standard notation, and then the teacher disappeared. Last week our Tuesday class was canceled, and Thursday was a Monday (thank you CUNY.) This week, Tuesday was again canceled, and so is today's class. I think that he fell down the stairs and broke *everything*. I know that's mean but in my mind that's the only plausible answer.

And with that it's 6:52 and I should get my ass to the bus. To be continued...

Fresh Start

Okay so, trying out this blog thing again. I've gotten off track and its time I start over. I should've started when the new semester started but 18 days in isn't so bad. Anyway, for the most part this will be a blog of may day-to-day life with recording bits strewn about. I'm hoping to have at least a post a day. If people like a particular subject I'll spend more time on it, otherwise it'll just be my daily rambles.

On the schedule for tomorrow: Math class with attractive teacher, canceled class after that, and then into the city to hang out. I'll expand tomorrow when its not almost 4am. Hopefully this will be the last late night post, I'm trying to get back on schedule.

Disclaimer: Very frequently I'll be voicing my opinion on people in my life and it's possible that said individuals may be disturbed or upset by that opinion. If you are a person that is easily offended, stop reading now. I have somewhat of a dry humor and sometimes people mistake things as insults. Rule number 1 of reading this blog: take everything I say with a grain of salt. I don't aim to upset anybody, but if you happen to piss me off or something, you'll probably read about it here.