Graduate School

The University of Central Florida has managed to recruit their newest graduate student. A further financial award came in the mail this morning, and that combined with last night’s email from UNC letting me know they weren’t going to be extending me an offer have sealed the deal. In a few short months I will be a PhD student.

What am I doing?

...some time passes…

Well, I’ve talked with Mark, my mom, and my sister, and they all think I’m making the right decision. I tend to agree, and I have a growing peace with it. Now, I’m just nervous. It’s a good nervous though.

What a Week!

I couldn’t bring myself to call UCF and turn them down. Every time I thought I had my mind made up, some well meaning person said something to make me reconsider. Yesterday, my dentist said “Ok, they offer you paid tuition and a stipend. What’s the choice here?”

So, I’m going to think on it, and pray on it this weekend and make my final decision on Monday. If I don’t die of an anxiety attack before then. This is soooo stressful.

• Can I go back to communal living?
• Should I wait for UNC Update: They rejected me, so this is a non-issue. I was two months late getting my application in, though.
• Do I really want a PhD?
• Will I be happy programming .NET at $SOME_LOCAL_COMPANY?
• Will Margo tell Jack she’s really having John’s cloned baby?

Wait, that last one isn’t me

All you PhD computer science students… give me feedback!

Daylight Savings Time

Who the heck thought this was a good idea?

It’s summer, it’s hot. Who the heck wants to save daylight? I’m all for donating it to less fortunate countries, like Alabama.

See: Standard Time

Home Fixin's

Chad and his lovely bride Mary Ellen came over yesterday to help me work on my kitchen. I’ve been stripping wallpaper and spackling and sanding and generally making a mess most Saturdays for the past two months, all because I didn’t like the wallpaper and wanted a nice yellow paint in the kitchen. That’ll show me!

I’m so glad to have friends like that who will show up and help. We didn’t get much done though. I’m not sure why.

Hey! You know on the bucket of drywall mud where they emphatically state “Avoid Sanding!”? They aren’t just blowing drywall dust up your hiney. It will enter most other orifices, though.

Most of the problem was that I had to sand some of the patches I had made in the drywall, and airborne gypsum ain’t fun. We took a couple of hours cleaning it up. Then we spent a couple of hours masking stuff off, and then we tried the “rolled on plaster of paris texture technique” someone had recommended. It looked really bad, so we didn’t go forward. Good thing I tested it behind the refridgerator.

So, then we ate steaks off the grill. I love my friends, even if I’m a bad host.

My Trip to UCF

The most interesting thing was this statement by Dr. Hua.

As a undergrad, you are taught how to solve problems, and when you graduate, you should be able to solve any problem in the world, thoretically. As a PhD student, we teach you to be a trouble maker.

So, according to Dr. Hua, asking interesting questions is more important than giving interesting answers.

I sorta like that.

Object Oriented Operating Systems

Here is what I had to say on my graduate school application regarding object oriented operating systems.

I am interested in object oriented operating systems for their potential to reduce application complexity. The current abstractions we use for interacting with the computer do not do enough to manage repetitive and error-prone tasks. For example, should application developers have to worry about persistence at all? An object oriented operating system could handle that. Application developers would simply request an object from the backing store, manipulate it in some way, and forget it. There is no need to keep track of different types of memory, such as disk and RAM; virtualizing all memory and having the OS deal with the difference between volatile and non-volatile storage reduces complexity for all software using its services.

Sundries

Well, I’m pretty hopped up on caffeine right now. Of all the legal mind altering chemicals, it’s my favorite.

I’m planning a trip to Orlando to see the UCF CS department. I’m honored beyond belief by their offer, I’m just still debating and praying on what’s right for me right now. I’m going down there Thursday. If any UCF CS grad students are reading this… any of y’all want to give me a real tour?

Yay! Band practice tonight!

April Fools Sucks

• I just finished All Tomorrow’s Parties last night. Well, maybe finished is too strong a word. I think Gibson just got tired of writing, because nothing seemed to be explained or resolved. The whole book seemed to build to a climax that never happened. Weird.
• I hate April Fools Day.