Recently in College Life Part II Category

Starting next Wednesday, I'll be returning to college life after a brief, two-semester hiatus. Now that I work at Vassar, I get to go to school and get my degree free of charge. (Well, technically not free... The class which would ordinarily cost $3,920 in tuition costs me a mere $25.00 fee, plus books)

Vassar, like a lot of liberal arts schools, has some really interesting classes on the schedule, and I decided to get myself into "the Vassar flow" by taking a class which would be near and dear to my heart, FILM215 - Genre (Science Fiction):

The course surveys the history of science fiction film from its beginnings in the silent period (culminating in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and The Woman in the Moon) to the advent of digital technologies. The “golden age� of the 50s, the emergence of a new kind of science-fiction film at the end of the 60s (Kubrick’s 2001, and the “resurgence/revival� of science-fiction film in the late 70s-early 80s (Star Wars, Blade Runner, Alien, The Terminator) are given special attention. Topics include subgenres (end of the world, time travel, space exploration/the “new� frontier, technology/robots/atomic energy), the relation of science-fiction films to their social context and their function in popular culture, the place of science in science-fiction, film’s relation to science-fiction literature (and issues of adaptation), the role of women and feminist criticism, and remakes. In addition to film history and criticism, a small amount of science fiction literature is read. While passing mention will be made to television science-fiction, the course focuses on film.

Man, how cool does that sound? I know it's going to be more than just watching movies all week long, but still -- seriously, that sounds hellishly cool. It's fun to see something that a lot of people (*cough* D! *cough*) mock mercilessly get a serious treatment as a genre of film, with an understanding of its place in the world.

It's going to be a crazy semester -- between working full time, taking a class, trying to work on the Second Edition of "The Book", and trying to have a social life with fiancee and friends -- but I think in the end, it will be so very worth it.

I was looking at my "student records" with Vassar's online system, now that I am accepted as a Spring '06 student, and all that. I found something a little odd:

Apparently I'm on the meal-plan and getting a dorm-room assigned for Spring '06. I called them up and asked if they had married housing available that would support me, my fiancee, four cats and a dog, and if not, then maybe I might have to reconsider their housing plan. *grin*

They boggled at why I'd gotten added to the housing list for a moment, and then cleaned it all up. "Oops!"

When I started back up at Marist, I added a bunch of students' LiveJournals into NetNewsWire. I figured, as a commuter, I wasn't necessarily going to have the best grasp of "the pulse of the campus" as it were, and reading a bunch of fellow students' blogs would be a decent way to keep my ear-to-the-ground so to speak.

This morning, I read an entry from a female student who was excited about her new summer job with the Marist IT department, that was probably going to end up being a school-year position as well. Her excitement and enthusiasm were completely understandable. I remembered getting my first real gig in the IT industry, and how happy I felt about that.

She also said, though, that she felt this pride/fear thing because she was going to be the "first female student IT employee ever," and wondered what it would be like breaking new ground like that, etc., etc.

I posted a comment, asking who had told her that, because back in the 90s, I knew of two different female student IT employees, implying that someone who had talked to her was misinformed. After all, it's entirely possible if she's getting into IT, that she might some day run into the woman who was the first female student IT employee, and that might be awkward.

She gets all shitty about "why am I reading her LJ?" blah blah blah. Her boyfriend chimes in, equally shitty. And it's funny to me because I haven't said an unkind thing to or about her, and yet she feels the only recourse she has is to try and find things to insult me about in return. In other words, because I have seemingly shattered her world-view that she's the Rosa Parks of Marist Female Students, I am now some sort of villain.

Too fucking funny, I tell ya. People need to have the sticks surgically removed from their asses or something.

Had my last class session of the semester tonight, taking the final in my POSC101 class. Tonight, though, the professor handed back the grade my partner and I got on last week's debate.

Now, a little bit of background. A week before the debate, Dan and I had to meet with the prof, go over our opening argument and our rebuttal with him. We provided our opening argument to the opposition side so they could prepare their rebuttal in advance, and they were supposed to do the same with us. (Yes, one could argue that this whole thing isn't really a debate but a series of speeches, but that's what he wants).

Except, that the opposition never gave us an opening argument to rebut, so we didn't have anything for the professor. When we got our grade today, one of the comments on the preparation (and thus, a reason why it got only a B+) was "Good. No rebuttal outline, though."

Seriously, what the fuck are we supposed to do? Fake it? Make up some outline that has nothing to do with rebutting what they're actually going to say just so we could show him an outline?

He told me, when I contested that portion of the grade, that it was "my responsibility to get it from them," and my complaint that I can't make them give me stuff fell on deaf ears.

Oh, man, I seriously hate this. Now I can totally relate to Mark's rant when he got his debate grade.

Tonight I have my last regular lecture session of the semester. This semester has been as difficult as I thought the prior two semesters were easy. I think that's owing in large part the fact that both classes were in my major this semester, as well as the fact that I had stepped up from one night per week to two. Combine that with my hour-each-way commute, a full-time job, a girlfriend, and an attempt at a normal social life, and it was pretty rough.

Next semester, though, I'm taking one class that should be a cake-walk, and one that should be of average difficulty. In the case of the first class, I could probably teach it... the only reason I'm not opting to test out of it is because I want to get my GPA up out of the cellar that my F90 semester put it into. It's worth the tuition to me to get the GPA as well as the credits, instead of just testing-out and getting credit-only.

Of course, I still have a paper to do this weekend that's due the day of my POSC101 final exam, so I guess celebration is not quite yet in order.

I spent a couple hours at the library this afternoon looking for source material for my Terrorism class paper. It's tough, actually. The topic I have has sort of morphed into "The Sons of Liberty: The Origins of American Terrorism". It's tough because there's not a lot of primary-source material for this topic. A lot of it is conjecture, and reading things into other peoples' writings.

Meanwhile, D's girlfriend from the city is up for the weekend, and I totally want to hang out with them, but I know that I need to knuckle down and get this paper worked on (since I don't know how much time I'm going to end up spending tomorrow working on the Tuesday debate in my other PoliSci class). I haven't gotten to see much of her this week at all (and let's face it, the next two weeks don't look all that bright, either, given the course workload I've got to grind through).

I just have to keep reminding myself that in two weeks, it'll all be a hell of a lot better, schedule-wise, and hope that she continues to be as understanding as she was a couple minutes ago on the phone....

I have, upcoming:

Mark, from my PoliSci class, says it all about our class' "debates" (and, you can't even call them debates, because you have to actually help your opposing side by telling them in advance what you plan to say so they can rebutt it... what the fuck sense does that make?).

My partner and I have our debate after I come back from the MySQL Conference. To say that I am not looking forward to it would be an understatement of epic proportions.

Although I did enjoy calling Mike out (the Mike from Mark's post) on his blatantly wrong facts last night. Kinda amusing.

I bought my first audiobook last night. I have a book report on Bel Canto due on Thursday, and I haven't actually read it. I decided that I would make good use of my insanely long commute, and the fact that I can listen to things while I do work at the office, and decided to buy it from iTunes Music Store.

It's worked out pretty well so far. I've got about 6 hours out of the 11 hours of the book "read" so far. (This is not to say that I'm enjoying the book or anything, but just that this is a really efficient way of getting through it).

I was reading a blog post by one of my classmates about the work he's been doing with his journal entries (the same ones that have been consuming the entirety of my day today), and I had to simply say "yes, yes, and yes!" I agree with Mark in every possible respect.

The book in question is Working Poor: Invisible In America, by David Shipler. Let me just say this now, in very simple terms: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.

It will infuriate you at how stupid poor people are, even if you are inclined to want to feel sorry for them.

It will convince you that maybe, just maybe, stupid people should be sterilized.

There's an entire chapter that seems dedicated to "Wow, this single mom was molested by her father as a child, and then she became a crack addict, and she had her kids taken away, .... oh, and she's poor now, and that may or may not have something to do with it, there's no real statistics either way" (yes, that really is a pretty decent summary of Chapter Six)

My journal entry for Chapter Six said it best actually, because for the first five chapters, I was "dubious but willing to listen" as I desperately tried to find points I was willing to concede to the author. The further I went, though, the more convinced I was that all of my preconceived notions about the working poor were pretty accurate. In chapter six, he completely lost any interest I had in believing him. Now, I think he's just a complete fucking hack who somehow convinced the powers that be to give him a Pulitzer for some other book he did (or maybe the people in charge of the Pulitzer were on crack as well, who knows)

All I know is that I can't picture my remaining four journal entries containing anything other than unbridled hatred for this work.

This will be a first in my college life, Part I or Part II. This weekend, I have to spend several hours at the Marist library doing research, both for a debate on immigration in my Issues and Ideas class, as well as for a research project for my America and the Challenge of Terrorism class.

In the various schools I've attended over the years, I haven't seen much of the libraries for academic purposes...

• Indiana Tech (1989-90) - only reason I went there was the girl I was dating at the time worked there. Otherwise, it was a pretty useless library with no books more recent than ten years prior. But I used to abuse their photocopier, because my girlfriend had the key to it.
• Marist (Fall 1990) - They had a library then. I think I may have been in it once. Downstairs, if I recall, was particularly creepy after hours, since it was very poorly lit, and nobody was ever down there.
• Columbia-Greene (1991-93) - I used to check out books for reading because I was too cheap to buy books, but certainly never did any research or anything
• Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne (1995) - If they had a library it's news to me. I never even saw it.

... so this is like a whole novel experience for me, having to remember all those skills I learned like a decade and a half ago about "how" to find stuff. Should be a hoot.

My grades for the F04 semester were posted and it appears to be official.

After fourteen years, I am no longer on Academic Probation. (Or at least, I shouldn't be, now that I have a 2.0 cumulative GPA)

Took my final tonight in my HIST101 class. It didn't seem too hard, which basically means that I did really well on it, or really horrible.

Now I have a couple weeks breather, before my S'05 semester begins. I'm taking POSC101, "Political Issues and Ideas", and another that I'm really looking forward to, actually, POSC392, "Special Topics: America and the Challenge of Terrorism". That last one seems like it should be very interesting.

I mentioned earlier the parking clusterfuck at Marist tonight. I sent off three e-mails today. One to John Gildard, the Director of Security (the person who sent the e-mail announcement) asking, essentially, "what the fuck are night commuters supposed to do?". The second I sent to Timmian Massie, who was listed on the map as the point of contact for general inquiries, asking much the same thing. The third I sent to Timothy Heneghan, the Coordinator of Events and Facility Operations for the Athletic Department (which runs the McCann Center, where the game is hosted), and asked specifically about the "shuttle service" that Gildard's e-mail had mentioned the Athletics Department would be running.

I received responses to none of them, except a message from Heneghan who seemed positively confused wondering what the heck I was talking about. I figure they'll probably answer me tomorrow. That would make sense, obviously.

This didn't leave me with any warm fuzzies about parking this evening, so I decided to call Gildard up. After all, his phone number was in the e-mail he sent. Turns out, the number he gives is just the normal security desk, so I couldn't give him a piece of my mind, but...

Woman: Marist College Security.
Me: So what the heck are night time commuters supposed to do for parking tonight?
Woman: Hold please.
.... hold ....
Woman: Hello, sir? Yes, you can park in Beck.
Me: Beck? The lot that is 100% capacity on a normal night, and is only 1/3 the size of McCann, is now going to handle the capacity of both itself and McCann?
Woman: (listening to someone off-phone) Or you can park in any lot north of Donnelly.
Me: There are no lots north of Donnelly until I get way the heck out by Dyson. Are you seriously telling me that my options are "the lot that is now oversold by a factor of 4, or way the hell out in Lower Slovakia?"
Woman: Well, sir, there's a basketball game tonight ...
Me: I know there's a basketball game tonight, but what about the school's primary purpose - education?
Woman: Well, sir, these things happen.
Me: Not if I was in charge they wouldn't.
*click*

For reference purposes for those who aren't Marist students. "McCann" is one of the two on-campus parking lots for commuter students (and is the only one not situated across the four-lane highway that students seem to keep getting hit by drivers on). Night commuter students are also permitted to park in the "Donnelly" lot, which is especially convenient if, like me, your class is in the Donnelly building. (map)

Marist will be hosting St. Peter's tonight December 6, 2004 at 7:30PM at the McCann Center. A large crowd is expected and all parking lots will be crowded.

The McCann and Donnelly Lots will close to students at 4:00PM.

Other lots will be open and will be filled on a first come, first served basis. Security Officers will be at lots to alert people that the lot is full.

Athletics will run their shuttle service as usual.

You are urged to give yourself extra time to get on campus and parked if you are coming in for the 5:00PM or 6:30PM, class or to the game.

So, if you're coming to a night class, and you want to park in McCann, you're fucked. If you want to maybe park in Donnelly, you're also fucked. You should also expect to be fucked some more because the next most convenient lot "Beck" is also probably going to be full. I mean, it's full on a normal night, I can't believe it's not going to be full on Fucking Hellish Sports Night. There's mention of some "shuttle service", but no real mention of what it is, and I strongly suspect it's "we carry the sports nuts from the parking lots located in the Czech Republic over to the front doors of the sports complex", and not that it's actually useful for getting from said parking lot to, say, a classroom building.

This to me would ordinarily signify "this is a night to skip this fucking class", except that tonight is review for next week's final exam. I kinda suspect that might be an important session to attend.

So basically, the basketball program is completely fucking over most of the parking on campus, interfering with the actual educational process, which the majority of the students actually attend the school for, instead of it being some four-year-long farm system for the NBA.

Fucking jocks.

I got this e-mail this morning from Marist College Security:

At approximately 12:45AM this morning residents of an apartment in the Gartland Townhouses heard a knock on the door. One of the residents opened the door and two unknown white male subjects wearing dark sweats, black knit gloves, and sneakers entered the apartment. One subject was wearing an old style military gas mask, and the other was wearing a multicolored scarf to cover his face. They also were described as approximately 5'5" to 5'8" tall, one stocky and one thin. Both subjects proceeded to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and took food items from the refrigerator and then left the apartment. Neither of the subjects spoke very much during this incident.

Let me get this straight, they staged this huge "home invasion" scenario -- to raid the fridge?

This sounds like a fraternity prank gone horribly awry. Like there were two fratboys sitting aroung wondering who drank the last of the MGD, deciding "Hey! We're out of hot dogs, too... I bet someone in Gartland has some... I've got this crazy idea....."

This evening I went over to the campus for the first "extracurricular activity" I've attended since I went back to school. It was a Halloween-themed event, "An Evening With Death". Death, in this case, as described by Doug Bradley, much better known as Pinhead from Hellraiser.

It was a great "lecture", and I use "lecture" loosely. It was much more "Dramatic Readings" than "lecture", with Bradley touching on all sorts of "death-related topics", starting with a lengthy rendition of "the story that leads into the first Hellraiser movie", and touching on "various peoples' last words", Shakespearean readings on death, interesting things people have put on tombstones, and several short stories that all in some way touched on the topic of death, or the fear of death, concluding with a reading of The Monkey's Paw, a short story I don't think I'd heard since 8th grade english class, but which was much more dramatic now than it was when it was being shoved down my throat back then.

Bradley is definitely a gifted actor, and it's a shame that he'll probably be in "type-cast hell" and never get to really flex his acting muscle in better forums.

I felt like such a geek afterwards, meeting him, shaking hands, etc. After all, the first movie poster I ever owned was a Hellraiser poster I'd managed to convince the local video store to let me have. That poster went to college with me, and got abused far more than it should have and eventually got so torn up that it had to go (had I been more attuned to collecting then, I'd've probably still had it and brought it tonight to get it autographed or something). I also would have felt slightly weird doing the "I was enjoying your movies while the rest of these folks were still wetting the bed" routine, so I settled for a simple thanks for an enjoyable evening, and left for home.

If you see him coming around to your area, I highly recommend taking the time to hear him speak.

Marist College does "pre-registration" for its classes via the web. It's "pre" in that the students pick the courses they want, without regard for session-limits, etc. Then, they impose the session limits, and classes that are overbooked are trimmed down according to who should have priority for those classes (e.g., is it in your major, are you a graduating senior, etc.)

Pre-registration was set to begin today. Since I got home late last night from bringing the parents home from JFK, I popped onto the Marist Student Intranet to see if I could register. Lo and behold, Spring'05 registration appeared to be live. So I went to register, and got an error message:

Student not eligible to register on the web

So, since I'd had my advisory meeting this semester (that meeting which actually enables you to use the online registration tools), I dropped the Registrar an e-mail, asking what I was supposed to do, because I wanted to pre-reg, and my advisor was out of town this week, etc., etc.

They responded back to me this morning, saying basically, "Registration opened at 7:30, you should be fine now." I went online, checked, and sure enough, was registered for my classes in about five minutes.

I jotted them a quick response back thanking them for the info, and suggesting jokingly, "I guess we should get that error message fixed for next semester, eh?"

I got a response back from them:

There was no error, the web wasn't opened at 12:39 am. Please always view the web for hours of availability.

I felt the need to respond (because, well, that's the kind of guy I am) indicating that the error message WAS wrong, it didn't say "You're a bonehead, registration isn't open at all" (describing a general condition affecting all users), it said "Student not eligible", describing a condition specific to me and that maybe the difference between the two would have prevented me from bothering them in the first place.

I can accept such "not understanding sentence meaning" type nonsense from the general rabble, but aren't the people running colleges supposed to, in theory, be educated a little bit more than average? Aren't they supposed to "get" that sort of thing?

But I wouldn't have thought history to be one of them. One of the following is true:

• My fellow students are morons
• My fellow students are way more tired at 6:30 p.m. than I am and have no ambition or desire to answer questions
• You really do pick up a crapload of information that you don't even realize as you go through life

Now, I'm going to guess it's the last. In my HIST101 class tonight, there were a lot of definitions that my fellow students just didn't seem to have any idea about (excommunication, polytheistic, and heresy, to name a few).

All in all, though, I guess it bodes pretty well for my chance of getting another decent grade this semester, if I'm that far ahead of my fellow students. Just seems like it should be tougher than this.

So this past week was my first week (of a six week Summer-I session class) back in college. Some things I'll have to get used to...

I've been going round and round via the telephone with the Marist folks about parking permits for my cars. They're stickers, but that would be a problem if you had two vehicles, since you can only get one parking permit. After a couple calls back and forth, the answer came, "You can laminate the sticker, and just swap it from car to car". OK, sub-optimal, but it makes sense in a way.

So, today, I drive over to let them copy my license and registration, and give me my parking permit.

"When do you start classes?" asks the girl at the desk.
"Tomorrow," I reply.
"Because any parking pass I give you is just going to expire in about a month and a half."
"Won't I get towed if I don't have one?"
"No, not in the summer."
"OK, then can I get my fall parking permit?"
"No, not yet."
"Can I at least give you the paperwork so you can send me one when it's time, rather than me coming over here again during the day when I'm normally working?"
"No, if I took that, I'd have to issue a pass for the current time-frame."
sigh....

I was speaking with a friend of mine who is out of town on business. He's staying in the Bay Area for the next three weeks. I've got some vacation time that I've got to use before the end of June, and since he has a spare bed in his hotel room, figured, "This would make an excellent opportunity to head back west, see some friends I haven't seen in years, etc." An excellent confluence of "free hotel crash space", "vacation days to spare", and "holiday weekend" to add to the time-off.

Start looking at the flights ... become completely impressed that somehow I can get award airfare for Memorial Day weekend at this late of notice, start planning it all through... go to tentatively start putting checkmarks on dates in iCal until I see...

6:00 PM ECON 150

Which, for a half-summer session that only has about a dozen class-sessions to begin with, really isn't going to go over so well with the professor, I suspect. This higher-learning thing can really put a crimp in your social life.

Were college bookstores always as much of pricks as they are today? I mean, admittedly I last entered a college bookstore about 15 years ago, and even then I wasn't the most stellar of students, but I just don't recall them being as ... well, asshole-like... as they are now.

DB: I need to get my textbook for Summer session?
Bookstore Clerk: We don't have any of the Summer Session books yet, we probably won't have them til mid-May.
DB: Can you tell me what the textbook is?
BC: It's {title}
DB: (taking notes on his sidekick) You couldn't tell me the ISBN by any chance, could you?
BC: I'm sorry, I can't.
DB: Can't?
BC: I'm not allowed to.
DB: Oh, give me a freakin break! Can you tell me the author at least?
BC: {author}
[ insert scene of Derek navigating through Amazon.com using his sidekick, ordering a copy of the book from Amazon, and then closing the sidekick, all without leaving the general vicinity of Bookstore Clerk ]
DB: Thanks. It's on its way.

I understand that college bookstores -- who have for generations had a captive audience of people who didn't have any sort of choice in who to buy their high priced books from -- are now under a crunch given the ubiquity of the Internet. So, if they had the book sitting there on a shelf and I was trying to thwart them by going elsewhere for it, I could understand them being all prickish about "No, I can't help you screw over our bottom line."

But the fact is that they didn't have it, and weren't able to meet my needs as a customer. I don't think it's asking a lot at that point to, if you can't help me, don't go out of your way to try and prevent me from getting help elsewhere, because that's just freakin annoying.

How the heck do you pay for college? :-)

My Human Resources Director told me that she believed that something like Pre-Law would be considered "complementary" enough for them to consider it "qualified" for the tuition reimbursement program, because (eventually) you get into things like confidentiality, privacy rules, etc... It might a bit of a stretch, but for the purposes of getting past the signatory process that gets me reimbursed by the company, it's fine.

Is it complementary enough for the IRS, though?

You see, my employer only reimburses up to $3,000 a year. At Marist's present rate of $420 per credit-hour, that's a measly 7 credits a year. At that rate, a four-year degree is in my grasp around thirteen years from now. I think I'll want a couple more credits than that a year, so I see myself paying out at least a little bit of coin to get this done. Obviously, I want to minimize that amount.

So I have to concern myself with questions like "Does this meet the IRS definition of "Work-Related Education". Certainly, if my employer is willing to stipulate (with their own funds) that "[t]he education maintains or improves skills needed in your present work," then I would think the IRS would as well.

But the IRS has other concerns, such as the education cannot "qualify you for a new trade or business."

I would contend a PoliSci/pre-law program doesn't qualify you for jack-shit, because you need another several years beyond that in a J.D. program before you're actually "qualified" for anything. I don't know if the IRS sees it that way, though.

If they don't, do I then suck it up and do the CompSci degree, simply because it's going to be cheaper to get that (with the then-obvious tax-breaks), or do I stick it out, tighten the belt further than it's already been, and get the degree I actually want?

Nothing's ever easy.

After receiving many helpful e-mails from a reader who works at Marist, I am now in touch with the right people, and it looks like I could very easily get back into Marist in short order.

A transcript or two, a check for $75.00, and a letter stating that I was a complete screw-up a decade ago but have seen the error of my ways are all that stand between myself and readmittance to the institution that kicked me to the curb fourteen years ago.

The overwhelming suggestion from many folks seemed to be "go to a community college, it's cheaper". And, while that's true, that's not the sum total of it. Part of it is that I want to prove to myself that if I hadn't been a screw-up I could have made it at the place I got accepted to. To go to a community-college now, I won't have proven that to myself.

Now, like any good college student, I have to pick a major... Going for Computer Science, at this juncture in my career, just doesn't seem to make sense. My resume and experience are going to get me in the door for any computer job, the CompSci degree at that point is just gravy.

Do I pick a major simply by virtue of it being something I'll enjoy, noting that at this point in my life all degrees are of equal value, by and large?

Do I pick a major, like CompSci, that directly complements my existing career?

Or do I pick a major based on creating a fallback career in something else? Something that "complements" well enough to pass muster for tuition reimbursement, but which if the bottom fell out on the IT market (more than it already has) would provide me with some alternate means of starting a second career path entirely?

Decisions, decisions, decisions...