Homework again.

So I made it to my first class (5 minutes late, but that is what work and a med emergency on the T will do for ya).

The professor (freedman) is fine; knows his stuff, seems to care, and teaches the same class during the day - so it is not some night school hack pressed into service. This is a real, wizened, tenured, full professor. How do you like that?

And not to be exceedingly arrogant, but compared with the folks sitting around me I felt like I will have no trouble with this class. Now, maybe not everyone has this pathology of wondering if they are in tyhe top of their class, but old habits die hard, and being back at a 1 piece chair/desk in a drop ceiling aquare tiled classroom has me reverting not back to college, but high school attitudes.

I came in late, having missed the first class, not having done the homework (as It didn't know what it was - I had called the prof to find out what I had missed, but he had not actually told me the homework assignment). Given these relative handicaps, I still ended up picking up on what we were doing enough that by the break my neighbors were asking me for help. Granted, the young lady to my left simply needed help reading what passes for writing that our prof does no the blackboard, but still, as someone who doesn't need to write backwards to keep my notes private, I find I have an edge here. It is worth mentioning that the prof's writing is great when he writes equations and numbers, no matter the complexity or rapidity, but when he tries to write an english sentance, make sure you listen to what he is saying while he writes so you will have some crib to work from in deciphering. The fellow to my left, who noticed me on the T coming in late together from our jobs downtown, did actually comment on needing help with inductive proofs, but I am not such an egg that I offered to help, especially as the prof was doing just that 4 feet away. It's probably not fair to say that this guy noticed me on the T, really what he noticed was my new fly sony clie nx70c pda. Probably similar to the staring I did when I first saw one in person in an intern's hand. First I lusted, then I resented him affording one, then I plotted to be casually nice to him to I could play with it. Finally, to make the seperation easier, I told myself it wasn't worth it, which was convincing just long enough to get me to pay attention to something else. But I digress.

I am seriously enjoying the work. It is light, and generally interesting - discreet math is nice because everything can be related to some real life situation. I can't count the number of times I have found myself putting books in order on a shelf, or how often I have pulled colored marbles out of a bag. Course if I could count those things, I wouldn't be taking this class. But seriously, I get the relevance to programming, I am not annoyed by having to take this pre req.

One of the guys that works next to me doing GUI programming is a Math Phd. I mentioned to him one of the problems classified under 'later' by my prof when he presented it without solution. The next morning, this guy could hardly say hello before telling me the problem had bothered him so much the night before he had sat down and solved it. I guess these things become compulsive if you feed the addiction all the way to a doctorate.

On another note, I need to go snowboarding. It was too much fun last year to let work and general life eclipse such a perfect escape from this dreary season.

Perhaps it is also that my birthday is next week, and as I spent this weekend cleaning, taking out trash, washing dishes, cooking, doing homework, and watching CNN (more on that), I am feeling a bit like an adult, and I don't like it.

Maybe a freezing cold bike ride will work that out of my system. And I could pick up a few groceries.

-A