The introduction

My only real complaint about the structure of the event is that there are far too many old people talking at the beginning. We have an introduction by a lady I don’t know but whose name sounds familiar so I assume she’s staff — but my brother doesn’t know her either, so clearly she isn’t that important. Why?

Then we have a welcome speech by the principal. Cool.

Then we have a school board trustee talk. Then the superintendent of education. Then the principal again. Not cool.

Here’s how it should go: Introduction by the principal. Done. Who is the trustee? The superintendent? What do they do? I have never interacted with them and I suspect neither have most other students. These boring old people have no business boring us. Period.

The awards

Next came the awards. For some reason, they give out awards, then the diplomas, then more awards. I don’t know why they don’t just give out all the awards at the same time, but that didn’t really bother me.

My brother won the French award, as he suspected he would. Hopefully people are not suspicious because I also won the French award when I graduated and umm… our last name is French. I kind of don’t like this because it makes it seem like we’re immersion kids and people see our name and go “well, that’s not fair”. Anyway, I went up to take my brother’s picture while he was getting the award and he goes and high fives all the kids in the front row. What a goof.

Then he wins the Creative Writing award, which he was totally surprised about. He once again went and high fived everyone and yelled “I’m doing this every time!”. Unfortunately, he did not win any more awards, so he didn’t get do it again. I’m a bit jealous that he got this award because *I* only got one award when I graduated and certainly not the Creative Writing one. Technically, I wasn’t actually in the running for the Creative Writing award because I hadn’t taken that course, but whatevs.

I was going to rant about this teacher here, but I won’t because I did that enough when I was in her class. But I’ll still show you the picture of what I would look like if she came to talk to me since I went through all the trouble of finding it:

Dear Ms. Ramson: My name is not Nicole.

The diplomas

Then they give out the diplomas. The kids have a little card that you write your name on and then give to a teacher backstage to announce your name and a little whatever-you-want-to-say when you walk out. Most people write things like “thanks to my mom and dad for always being there” or “shout-out to Brittany! See you this summer lol!” or “I just lost the game”. My brother wrote “I never wanted to graduate. I wanted to be… (pause)… (with enthusiasm) A LUMBERJACK!”.

It’s always sad when people are getting their diplomas and the crowd cheers loudest for the popular kids. If your name is near the beginning of the alphabet and you’re not popular, it’s still okay though, because people clap out of politeness. But by the time you get to the Ss, people are tired and don’t care anymore, so a couple kids walked out with just the teachers on stage and their family clapping for them.

More awards

Then they have some more awards, like the one for highest Grade 12 average and highest four year average. The kid who won for Grade 12 had a 92 point something percent average. We were told my brother had a 93 point something percent average this year, so I don’t know how that works out. Plus, when they were announcing earlier awards, like for the highest mark in English, we were pretty sure my brother had a higher mark in that too. Actually, I’m pretty sure *I* should’ve gotten the English award as well when I graduated, but whatevs. High school.

The valedictory speech

Next, we have the valedictorian speech. Full disclosure: My brother was in the running for valedictorian and didn’t win, so I might be a little biased, but I think my arguments are still valid.

Does not the valedictorian title traditionally go to the graduating student with the highest average? It clearly did not in this case, because the person who won that award was not valedictorian. Nor did it go to the next highest average, because the girl who won valedictorian received honours (80% or above) but is not an Ontario Scholar (80% or above in best six senior courses), which is presumably more prestigious.

So why did she receive this honour? She was in the musical.

I can understand picking a valedictorian who is a well-rounded good student: good grades, participates in clubs, sports, arts. Cool. My brother isn’t big on extra-curricular activities, so I can understand not picking him for that reason. But he tells me there was another student in the running for valedictorian who fit all the criteria. Why not pick him? If it’s a sexism, equal opportunity bullshit thing, why not have a guy and girl valedictorian, which I heard they were considering?

When I graduated, the girl who was valedictorian completely deserved it. There was one page of the program where all the awards went to her and one other girl. I doubt she ever received less than a 90% in her life. And she was on student council and all kinds of other clubs. I couldn’t believe in grade 9 gym class when we were doing a “dance” unit and I learned that she also took dance class! She’s gone on now to go to university and climb a famous mountain and help third-world countries and all other kinds of crazy stuff. She’s, to put it simply, awesome. She totally deserved it.

Anyway, let’s put all that aside. Let’s say that this year’s valedictorian is a total Lauren and she totally deserved it too. But…

Her speech sucked.

She tripped up a lot and handled it unprofessionally. She made shout-outs to all her friends (half the graduating class). Inappropriate.

You know how during stand-up comedy routines, the person says something like “I recently got married” or “I recently lost ten pounds” and then the crowd claps? Or if they don’t clap, the comedian waits a little bit for them to clap? This girl did the same thing after saying something about her family being loving and supporting and awesome.

Hello. We do not know your family. We are not going to clap for them.

Sources tell me she also ripped off the other valedictorian candidates’ speeches, which I can’t confirm, so I won’t dwell on it. However, when making shout-outs to teachers (which is cool, because everyone knows them), she certainly came close to ripping off my brother.

Anyway, whatevs. Totally unprofessional.

And while I’m at bashing my high school, I would like to mention that if you are a university-bound student, do not go to Hill Park Secondary School. You will get screwed over. They cancel upper year university courses. They schedule things like Grade 12 Communications and Grade 12 Computer Science (both computer courses) at the same time. They cater towards the workplace-headed students; this is why they have a Skateboard Building course.

There are good schools out there. I took summer school and had the pleasure of being taught by a teacher from Parkside named Mr. Baker; he was awesome. Please consider going to a more “scholastic” school.

(Apologies to Mrs. Kasik, Mrs. McEachren, and Mr. Stewart: you were cool. Thanks.)

Most people did nothing. I, sick person that I am, sat there every day happily doing work. Well, except during my last project, which I now suspect was only because I had to use a Mac. It was also June, and June is not a time to be in school. Which is something I like about university. By the end of the year, I didn’t feel like giving up and not giving a shit, which I always felt by the end of the year in high school.

But, I digress! — And hey, I used that word and I used it properly, even if you, like I, don’t know the actual meaning when you first read it.

Seriously tho.

My first project for the class was a website. I figured it would be dumb for me to just make a website. For one, I could finish it in one class (you know, if I really wanted to). Secondly, I wouldn’t be learning anything. And this is kind of… school. And that’s kind of (but not really) the purpose of school. So, instead of just making one website, I decided to make a bunch of websites.

…Sigh.

It was a lot of work, and I lingered on this project for longer than I should have, but again, it turned out nicely. I was also forced to teach myself Javascript because I couldn’t use PHP and MySQL like I usually do. So I was quite happy about that too.

If you’d like to play the mystery game I created, then click here.

Just a warning, it miiiight take awhile to solve. There are things to read (yes, read, eww) to help you solve the mystery, but a lot of it is (probably) bullshit. Me sitting beside you and prodding you would allow you to finish in half and hour, if I remember correctly. If you actually want to “get into” the mystery, it’ll take a little longer. And I’m seriously afraid no one will ever actually understand who did it/where it ends without my telling them.

Good luck, gumshoes. Comments appreciated.

We were doing a project in grade 6 science. Hard to believe that was nearly a decade ago. We were supposed to research one of the, at that time, nine planets, and for reasons unknown to me now, I picked Neptune. I guess I just liked it because it was so blue. This was before my favourite colour was green, you see. And the name “Neptune” just sounds spacey. Neptune. Neeeeptuuuune.

Back in those days, Ask Jeeves was my search engine of choice, though I do recall, on that particular day, using Dogpile. I guess certain names just appealed to me. But Ask Jeeves, that was where it was at, man.

Until one little remark from my science/math/art/music/drama teacher made me change my ways. You know, I never got that. My class had two teachers who taught us all of our subjects, where all the other classes had a separate teacher for the arts and gym. It kind of screwed us over for the next two years in music class, but, alas. I was going to say “I digress”, which would indeed be appropriate here (I had to look it up because I had no idea what it meant and I was surprised to learn it means “I’m rambling”), but that’s not really what I mean to say. I more mean to say “but, whatever” but “but, alas” sounds much better, doncha think?

Anyway, my teacher was talking to the class in general and she said — well, I don’t remember exactly how she said it, because this was like half a lifetime ago. But she said something like “Google: that’s what they use at the Smithsonian!” and I was like “wow, the Smithsonian! That must be smart people!”.

And so, from that day on, I used Google exclusively, never looking back, because that’s what the smart people use.

Anyway, the American — and when I say American, I mean the Americas, though sometimes if I’m speaking derogatorily I probably mean just plain American Americans — education system has been criticized for having a short school year and for going easy on us, while over in Japan they’re in school like 24/7 and doing calculus in diapers.

That’s all well and fine — but so is the American system. And I’ll tell you why after I build up to it a little bit more.

I’ve got a test on Friday. I’m going to study all day Thursday. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. I’ve got better things to do. I’m going to cram, like I always do. Like many of us always do.

And what’s so wrong with that?

After all, what are they teaching us in school? I’m moreso referring to high school in this post, so just pretending for awhile that’s still where I am. I go back and forth between wishing I was back in high school and being so glad I’m not. The teachers were absolutely dreadful and the workload was way more than what I’ve experienced in university. But I miss the familiarity, the structure, and the fact that it didn’t really matter unless you wanted it to. I never took advantage of that.

I forget where, but I recently read somewhere on the internet people discussing the busy work they had us do in grade school and how they would never do it because the teacher never checked it. It never ever occurred to me until my extra year of high school that I could just “not do” an assignment or homework. Everything, from kindergarten up ’til grade 12, I did and handed in. And most of the time, I worked hard on it, even if I knew it wasn’t going to be for marks. Actually, I think it was the business classes that made me realize I didn’t have to try hard to get good marks.

Of course, all of these people who didn’t finish their colouring assignments also admitted to feeling paranoid that this would be the one time the teacher would check their work and it wasn’t done. I’m thankful not to have felt that — there’s no way I would sleep the night before — but actually doing the work, unsurprisingly, often caused just as much stress.

Despite all that I learned in grade “13″, I still have that same attitude. Every few weeks in French class, we are assigned to write a five-sentence “paragraph” and two people will write theirs on the board and the rest of the class will correct them. The two people are chosen in advance, so you know when you have to “present” to the class. It just occurred to me this past week that since I wasn’t presenting my sentences, I didn’t actually have to do the assignment until it’s handed in at the end of the term.

I’ve ridiculed high school many times, especially to my younger brother which I know is not the brightest idea. I’ve told him not to worry about the teachers because they’re douchebags and not to stress so much about assignments. I’ve scoffed at the words “learn” and “high school” in the same sentence — and yet, just a minute ago, I admitted to learning in grade 13.

Despite all that I learned in grade “13″…
Jenny, One time a thing occurred to me

I couldn’t tell you about criminal trials in Canada, or how to conduct business in Panama, or what post-modernism even is. And while I could go the same old route and blame the two out of three bad teachers that taught those classes, I’ll instead admit I myself am partly at fault. I don’t remember studying for my law exam, though I’m sure I must have. I don’t even remember — actually, I vaguely seem to recall a creative writing exam consisting of questions created by the students in the class — and wasn’t that the same for business?

Okay, okay, I’m getting off topic.

The fact is, I crammed. And cramming, we already know, is bad. You don’t learn anything when you cram.

But — here’s the point — does that matter? I’m never going to need to know what the meaning of obscure poem “The Memory of a Poem” is or what gift you shouldn’t give someone from Greece, I will never need to access those parts of my brain again.

What I will access, however, what I did learn in those classes were valuable life skills, like bullshitting and making colourful PowerPoint slides.

Alright, I’m being a bit of a smartass and thus slightly damaging my argument, but it’s still true.

Cram all you want, the information itself is not important. The process is. Studying, researching, socializing, that’s what you’re learning. Cramming itself is a great skill to have. It could very well happen that one day, when you go into the “real world”, that you’ll have something thrown at you at the last minute, by no fault of your own, and you’ll have to memorize it. All that cramming put to good.

Now, after all this, I still am unable to justify myself not properly understanding big O notation.

I can’t remember how the song went, except that it seemed to go back and forth in English and French. It was like a rock opera and had a bunch of different sections — like “A Quick One, While He’s Away”. You thought it was another song starting, but then they start yelling about zombies again. And I don’t think there are that many Franglish songs about zombies.

I only remember one line from the song, and even that I’m foggy on. It could easily be spelt several different ways:

1. Tue les zombis! (Kill the zombies!)
2. Tous les zombis! (All the zombies!)
3. Tuez zombis! (Kill (the) zombies!)
4. Tuer zombis! (To kill (the) zombies!)
5. Tué zombis! (Killed (the) zombies!)
6. Tuais/Tuait zombis! (Was killing (the) zombies!)
7. Tu les zombis! (You the zombies!)
8. Tue/Tues les zombis! (Kills the zombies!)

The first two make the most sense. The first I think is most likely, because it makes sense and it’s a command addressed to “on” which is “you” in general, like saying “you should look both ways before crossing the street”. It could also be addressed to “tu” as in you, one person, except that it’s rude to call someone “tu” rather than “vous” if you don’t actually know them. Plus, it’s more likely if you’re yelling “Kill the zombies!” you are telling everyone in the general area and not just counting on one person to kill them all.

The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth sentences are grammatically incorrect because the “les” is missing; whether you want to say “zombies” or “the zombies” doesn’t matter — you need the “les“”. And the fourth, fifth, and sixth ones just plain don’t make sense, even if there was a “les“”. Plus the fifth one technically needs “avoir” before it to make it into the past tense (as well as a subject, see below).

The seventh is also grammatically incorrect because there is no verb. Unless “to zombie” is a verb, in which case it would mean “you zombie them”, and that doesn’t make any sense either.

The last one is grammatically correct if you assume there is an implied subject before it (such as I, you, he, or she), so it would actually mean “I/you kill the zombies” / “he/she kills the zombies”.

At least, that’s what my French education tells me.

I’ve tried several times since hearing this song to try to find some mention of it on the internet, but no luck. You do get a lot of interesting sites though, looking for the phrase “kill the zombies” in French. In fact, I found a plot of a new “Lost” episode, wherein Shannon comes back as a zombie and eats the rest of the survivors’ brains, but is defeated by the DHARMA mayonnaise.

I think I’ve figured math out, though. Math teachers at least. No matter what he says about you having to know every example (yes, including the horse one… yes, including the domino one… yes, including the one with cases…), he is not going to put the one that no one understood on the test. And he is not going to make up a new type of question where you have to actually think on the test. It’s not multiple choice, but it’s still memorization.

No matter what your high school teacher that never knew your name and that was grossly uninformed about a certain famous guitarist says, they are not trying to fail you. From what I’ve seen, first year was a baby year. In high school, they were pretty easy on you, grade nine, grade ten, even grade eleven. But grade twelve, sometimes you did have to actually buckle down and work. And now? Year one? It’s like you’re back in grade nine again. Open book tests, drop your worst assignment mark… they’re letting us off pretty darn easy.

I didn’t buy the textbook at the beginning of the year because it was “recommended” and not “required”. I ain’t spending money on some silly old textbook if I don’t have to! Unfortunately, when it came time for the first test, all the assigned practice questions were in the textbook. And so, that for some reason made me think “oh, well I just won’t study then!”. And come test time, well, my paper looked pretty messy. I have no idea how the TA marked it.

Once again, for this test, I was supposed to do the textbook questions. Instead, I redid all of the example questions we did in class. Unfortunately, I got stuck every time and had to look at the answer, thus not really learning how to do it myself. I went through the questions three or four times, but it still wasn’t sticking. I was getting better, but could never get through an entire question without cheating. I knew I wouldn’t just magically understand on the test, but it was time to go, no more studying to be had.

And like an episode of “Big Brother”, I’m trying to throw a curve ball out of you so you’ll be shocked come eviction time; I wouldn’t start out saying how bad I did last time if I honestly thought I did bad again! And while I don’t know for sure how I did yet, at least one of the questions were identical to an example we’d been given — and yes! I did magically know what to do on the test. I had seen every example before, no tricks, just like the teacher said. It was super easy and I was done in less than half an hour.

I suppose since I’m already gloating about how smart I am, I’ll tell you about my linguistics report. Last week during seminar, the TA handed them back at the end of the class as people were leaving. I waited and waited until finally the pile and most of the students were gone. A moment of horror — did I not hand it in? Did she lose it? Oh no!

“Oh, I’ve got yours right here” she said as she went through another pile that I assumed she had set aside for people who were absent. She handed me my report and quietly told me “it was amazing“. And suddenly I understood why, by some strange coincidence, my paper had ended up in the wrong pile.

Needless to say, that was pretty damn cool. For one, it was my very first university paper and it was “amazing”?! (Also “flawless” and “awesome”, so sayeth the marking sheet, but I don’t want to brag…) And again, I’m not a linguistics major, but somehow I just excel at this class. I excel at everything, of course, but I’m feeling the recognition, here! Getting good marks on papers just makes me happy, after all that I went through those first three years of high school English — I certainly didn’t hear a “too superficial” in there anywhere!

I’d love to go on talking about amazing little me, but I must go now, for studying and reports await. I’ve gotta actually work at it sometimes, you know.

Normally, I’m quite fond of strict rules and regulations. Honestly. I’m a math student; I like following steps, I like things to be clearly defined, what you can and cannot do.

But when I’m told while I’m trying to write an essay that I need to center my headings, and that they’re supposed to be Times New Roman, size 12, normal weight… it really gets my goat, to use a funny saying.

I like typography. I like playing with fonts. But essays are so restrictive; they won’t let us do that. I understand the reasons, the number one of which is obviously legibility. If I was a professor and some schmaz handed me an essay written in Jokerman, I would throw it right out outright. I understand that if you don’t tell people to use a specific font, they’re going to go and try to be creative by using Chiller or Old English or what-have-you and generally just be a pain in the ass. But what’s wrong with Trebuchet? Verdana? Garamond, Georgia, Avant Garde, Franklin, Palatino, Futura, Helvetica? (Hey, you know, they do sound like Harry Potter spells when you list ‘em all out like that).

And what about people using Macs? I’m pretty sure they don’t have Times New Roman shipped with their system. Okay, okay, they have Times, same thing. But what about Linux users? No Times New Roman there (and come on, I’m not going to illegally download TNR just because some silly professor wants me to! What kind of freak illegally downloads copyrighted fonts?).

Now, again, I understand the reasoning for saying “Times New Roman, period” rather than saying “a plain serif font” (other than the fact that people don’t know what the fuck serifs are, even when presented with a side-by-side (or even layered!) comparison of Arial and Times New Roman, which look nothing at all alike): it’s for consistency. Yes, I get it. It’s much harder for kids to cheat and use a font with wider letters or wider line spacing when you tell them exactly what font they have to use. And I really have no rebuttal to this, because it certainly is a valid point. But I see no problem with my using FreeSerif if I put it in size 11, which is closer to TNR size 12 anyway, and decrease the line height.

Assume I’m not a computer science major who has two computers in their room. Assume I couldn’t afford to run Vista on my computer and instead have to use Linux. You can’t very well tell me I have to go and download a font that actually costs money. Do you even know how to install a font? I bet you don’t you lousy no-good non-techie, you.

Last week, I handed in a math assignment and a computer assignment. It’s a bit nerve-wracking, having to hand stuff in on your own time — “I don’t know, did I put it in the right box? How do I know it was received? What if I don’t get a mark?” — but at the same time, it makes you feel important. I don’t leave my room much, other than going to class or going to eat — which is the way I like it — so, venturing off into the unknown depths of Mackenzie Chown is quite an adventure.

Anyway, no word on the computer assignment yet (and I’d rather like to forget about that “quiz” we had a few weeks ago…) but the professor posted the answers to the math assignment last week. There were a couple of problems that I found I got wrong, and it made sense. Supposed to express it using only the Sheffer stroke, but somehow I thought the NOT symbol didn’t count as a symbol. And then the logical equivalence where I mixed up the meanings or OR and AND. Otherwise, I looked to be in pretty good shape. There were a few translations of logical expressions I had that didn’t seem to match exactly the given ones, but I figured there are probably many ways to express it.

Got the assignment back last class and I got 51/54 plus 4 marks for the bonus question, so I’m in pretty damn good shape in that class right now. Of course, we’ll have to see after the test I have in forty minutes…

Last Friday I had my first real test in Linguistics. I studied the few days before, basically by just reading the entire first four chapters we covered in the textbook, which was dreadfully boring. I don’t know if it helped me, I certainly hope it didn’t, because I don’t want to do that again. The stuff that seemed most important was just reviewing my lecture notes and say, paying attention during lectures? Going to class?

Anyway, I took my time. The professor said we could leave after 20 minutes if we were done (but we had to come back afterwards to continue the lecture), and since I had nowhere to go, I figured I’d try to stick it out the full hour, and then I wouldn’t have to wander aimlessly around. Going super slow at every question and checking every question afterwards did last me for about 59 minutes, after which I sat outside the hall where some other people were waiting and played Hearts on my laptop. Which, by the way, I’m rather fond of.

I felt good about it. I checked my notes and realized there was one question about formants and tongue height/advancement I had certainly gotten wrong, because I didn’t bother to memorize it. There were two other questions I wasn’t entirely sure of and just guessed at. Other than that, and I hate to use the phrase again, but I felt like I was in pretty good shape.

Today I checked my online account, where they post marks and course information (well, some professors do) and saw that the marks had been posted. The professor also posted a note about the marks, the only pertinent park to this post as follows:

Class average was 31.90 (64%); range: 12 (24%) -48 (96%).

I’ve never seen a teacher post ranges before, which was pretty cool and interesting. Especially considering my mark was 48/50…!

No. Way. Just… no way.

The highest mark in the class? In a linguistics class? By a… computer science major!?!

Oh… my god.

ROFLROFLROFLROFLROFL!!!

Edit: Thanks for the bringdown, math. I love doing proofs, but I just choke at them on tests.

Anyway, I went on over to Rate My Professors to see (again) what people were saying, now that I actually know my professor’s names and all. A lot of the comments surprised me. My favourite professor so far is my Math professor. That class is hilarious. Today he commented that it seemed the room was shrinking since there weren’t that many people there. Someone mentioned that they were giving out free hot dogs and he started walking up the stairs and saying “oh yeah? Where is that…?”. You kind of have to be there for a lot of stuff that I find funny in that class, but it’s really just hilarious. He didn’t have that many comments on the site, and the ones he did have weren’t really great.

My astronomy professor, yes, can be boring and monotone, and everyone on the site complains about how he’s given great materials (galaxies, black holes, all that awesome sort of stuff) and makes it boring. Not at all. He doesn’t make it exciting, but he knows his stuff and I have no problem staying awake in that class. Re-reading the comments, I know understand why “focus” and “it turns out…” are funny. A lot of people mentioned how he doesn’t have a sense of humour and doesn’t smile… and honestly, that’s bullshit. The other day, somebody knocked over a glass or something and it made a loud noise and the professor goes “cheers”. It was pretty funny. And what does it matter if someone doesn’t smile? That’s just bullshit criticism, like pointing out peoples’ typos on the internet.

My French professor is really a very good teacher. Mean, yes. He’s tough on you, which most people probably haven’t experienced before, but you know, sometimes you just gotta be tough. My French teachers in high school never corrected people who said “OOHNE” instead of “UHH” for “un”. They didn’t care. They didn’t care if you said “news” for “nous” or “eels” for “ils”. At first, this class seemed kind of silly. Le, la, les? Honestly? We’re doing present reflexive verbs now. I know. But really, this is necessary. We already have a foundation in French, but it’s crumbling. This class is where we rebuild it the proper way and don’t hire the cheap contractors. (We hire the $4,000 a year ones).

I haven’t really decided how I feel about my Computer Science teacher yet. He’s a funny guy, likes to bash Macs a lot, which I’m fine with, but it’s gotten old. He jokes around a lot, but it seems kind of fake, rehearsed. As the comments say, he does indeed have terrible handwriting. Computer science lectures kinda freak me out. Computer science isn’t a “listen” thing, it’s a “do” thing.

And finally, my linguistics professor. The fact that I can’t understand why anyone would pursue a degree in linguistics aside, she’s seems alright. She seems a bit distant, but seems to know what she’s talking about.

So, all in all, I don’t really have any problems with my professors. Which is a big ol’ change from high school, where pretty much every teacher sucked (with the exception of maybe… four). Of course, I say this now before I’ve talked to any of them personally or had any tests or anything marked. We’ll have to do a re-revaluation soon enough.

Today’s tutorial was on installing the JDK and JRE and IDE and all those crazy acronyms for Java. So pretty boring.

It kind of sucks, changing IDEs every year. In Grade 10 it was Visual Basic, so it was basically a totally separate course. Then in grade 11 it was Ready to Program Java, which wasn’t even real Java. Grade 12 was Eclipse, and now they want me to switch again and use JCreator.

And you know, I would. It looks basically the same as Eclipse. Pretty straightforward.

But guess what? No workie on Linux. Big surprise there.

Now, maybe I’m just a complete moron, but the guy was going on about how if you’re going to use Eclipse or some other IDE, you should come in early and try it in JCreator before handing it in to make sure it works.

Umm… hello? This is Java. It’s a .java file. A .java file will do the same thing whether it’s in Eclipse or JCreator or Dr. Java or anything. That’s what Java’s about, being cross-platform and portable and all that, right? Like, if I make a JPEG file on Photoshop and have to hand it in to someone who only uses Microsoft Paint, I don’t need to test it in Paint first. It just works. Now, of course, I couldn’t hand in a .psd file to someone using Paint, and that’s understandable. But .java files are universal. Right? …right?!

Anyway, we had a lot of time left at the end of class, so the guy says he’s going to show us a video on cheating from “Mystery Science Theatre 3000″ and I’m like “hellll yeah!”. Funnily enough, I’d seen the original non-MSTK version of it before. But yeah, that’s pretty awesome, watching MSTK in university. During class. In a lecture hall. On a big screen. On YouTube. Sweet.

I hurried on down to the cafeteria to get dinner before they closed. As I was waiting in line, I heard two guys behind me talking about a tutorial and about how one of them was “asleep for the first ten minutes” and that they “just watched videos”. And I was like “hmm! Sounds familiar!”. And then when they said how there were quite a few girls in the class, I was like “bingo. ComSci students”.

I get that that last part was a joke, and I have no problem with that. And they way they said “what are you doing here?” was more just a surprised comment than a “you shouldn’t be here” comment.

But still, I was like, whoa. Sexist, much?

And then I realized… that’s exactly what *I* thought at my first ComSci class. If I’m standing outside of the math or computer lecture hall and there’s a girl there, my immediate reaction is “uh oh… is this the right class?”. And god forbid she be a pretty girl. “Oh shit, what time is it? This class does start at 12, right? Maybe she’s waiting for another class. Is this even the right room number? Where’s my schedule?”

I can’t blame them though, I’m not gonna be a hypocrite. Facts are facts, there’s no disputing that girls and computers normally do not mix. And pretty girls and computers? Is that even possible? Those two dudes speak the truth, even if it’s not politically correct.

And you know? I look at these other girls in my math and computer classes and I wonder why they’re here. Do they really like computers? Or do they just like making MySpace layouts?

But it’s not just the girls. I can’t seriously believe that these 100 or so guys taking computer science enjoy doing this too. They like downloading MP3s on LimeWire and playing WoW. Do they really want to be in computer science, or did they just think this was going to be a fun and easy major?

One of the kids asked if we’d learn any hacking in computer science. The answer was obviously no. And I mean, seriously. Even if they did offer classes in hacking, that’s just not cool. You don’t learn hacking like that.

Learning to hack is like learning to be a ninja. They cant’t teach you that in school.

And what’s with everybody “r we gunna be learning c++? i wanna lern c++! lets do c++!”. I remember in high school someone asked me what programming languages I knew.

Now, I’ve never actually used C++ (or C or C# or…) myself. I think I tried to get it to work in Eclipse once, but gave up. But when I hear C++, I always think of this little quote:

C++ is like teenage sex:

• It’s on everyone’s mind all the time.
• Everyone talks about it all the time.
• Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it.
• Almost no one is really doing it.
• The few who are doing it are
  • doing it poorly;
  • sure it will be better next time;
  • not practicing it safely.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic. I’m trying to come up with a story that I can tell when people ask me if I’m taking computer science and I’ll be like “pshaw, like, no way”. Because being one of like two or three girls in a class is cool, but one of ten is not the same. I’m not special much.

Also, I want to be an astronaut.

Because seriously:

Like seriously. What is cooler than being an astronaut? Nothing. You just can’t top it.