Change to the GITI v2 Plan

Early this morning at around 6am, before I went to bed I began rethinking the GITI v2 project.
I have decided that the best thing to do is to change the focus of the project and bring it back to being primarily focused around me. I am a fairly unique person and so far am the only one capable of seriously using GITI. GITI started as only being able to support a single user, ME. Through the development of what has become known as GITI v.1 the focus went to being a multi-user system that could possibly be released as open-source. I think this decision was made because I didn’t see GITI as being a valuble use of my time if it was only for little me. Well, little me has some pretty substantial life issues as well as some odd compulsions that can only be answered by GITI. Because of this I will be refocusing GITI v2 to being for me and based on the concept of making my life easier and more managed.
One of the major things that confirms that GITI isn’t for anyone but me is the way I adapted the Education module to handle college level assignments and courses and not high school level once I began having college courses. If GITI is my private utility, then I can advance it without fear and let it further be an expression of me. I guess GITI is sort of like art, it reflects the mood and vision of its creator (me).
I know I sound extreamly selfish in this post, but oh well, this is my life, my blog and GITI is mostly my code (im not that great at PHP, had to steal some from Chris ;-).

Life Zoom

Ever notice that in your life you can’t quite see everything at all levels all the time?
I recently started working on my life analysis/diagnostic outline as I mentioned in a previous entry. As I have gotten deeper into it I decided to look back on my previous analysis, there are drastic differences in what the goals look like. This time the goals are a lot more future centered instead of here-now centered like the old analysis. In the current analysis I focus on things like graduating from UNCC with my degree, this is at least 2 years away and as many as 4 years away. The older analysis is more “me” centered, it goes into things like my personality and the level of stress I was handling at the time. The difference between the two documents is huge, but when i look back, so are the situations. There is a notation on the older document that states that I was handling what I considered to be “chaos” at the time, which would tend to make me more here-now focused. I am not sure why the current document is being constructed, I guess I feel that my priorities might be a little unclear and in need of analysis.
Another thing that is occuring with me in the new analysis is that I am not as involved with my academic career anymore, this is because of the change in academic format. There is a lot less day-to-day stuff to handle. I am now just responsible for learning the material and being able to repeat it for a test. I felt much more involved in high school, and even during my Summer College education sabbatical where I did electronic courses requring me to learn information by myself. My original passion for learning I had in the Spring with Interpersonal Communication and Intro to Ethics has not fully returned yet. Some components of the environment have not yet been met. I need an environment where it is more than just lecture. I like dicussion based courses where I truely feel involved and like I have a reason for being in the room. As much as I have a problem with being in social environments, I love being in a classroom where I can know all of the students and be able to have intelligent discussions with them. High school had a feeling of administrative pressure, and the ever-present peer-judgement. I still love learning, but I am having adaptation issues in my present life and I need to figure out what is truely right for me.
I will continue working on the analysis document for the next few days and try to see what I do need to change in my life. I am pretty certain that it doesn’t involve me getting a job or leaving UNCC. The major aspects of my life at the moment are pretty much set in stone and I am happy with them. The minor things need some work yet, and thats probably why I can’t get the analysis down to that level yet. I need to drill further in my conciousness to find where my problems are and where my goals are hiding.

Jelousy and Its Relation to Life Change

This week I have snapped at more people than I think I have in my entire life. Usually I can attribute my harsh outburts like the ones this week to some unusual mental occurance. This time I cant, because the cause is way too visible to me. I have become jelous of most people I know. I feel like I am being self-supressed. There are some people who I consider to be superior to me (instructors, Chris, etc) who I don’t have a problem with being more accomplished than me, but people who I consider to be “peer” or below who do more with their lives than I have done make me insanely jelous. At the current time people who have some type of technological superiority (real or implied) and people with jobs are the main components that set me off. The primary person with a job that pisses me off is my father. He has a job and eagerly throws that in my face as often as he can. Other people do it more subtly and don’t get a verbal assult from me as quickly, this would be people like Jake (in CA) and Tim (at UNCC). They don’t realize what they are doing to me emotionally until it is too late. There are yet others who can talk about their work all day long and not bother me, this would be people like Ryan (my lab partner) who don’t gloat and are more laid back than I am. I guess for this problem the best solution is just for me to actually get a job. I have plenty of spare time in which I could work, I just choose not to, because I feel that I can do better on other things in my life without working. This is definately an internal issue that will require some life change to resolve though. I am getting too bored and getting too jelous of people who have jobs and are better at anything than me.
On the more positive side, there is now a plan of action in place for me to complete my MCSE by Marth 4, 2005. Microsoft Exam 70-217 will be scheduled for Thursday, December 9, 2004 at around 2PM. Exam 70-219 (my much feared design exam) will be on some day in January or February, or in the event of me getting behind in my scheduling I will take it on my March 3rd or 4th (my birthday). I don’t know when I will upgrade myself to MCSA and MCSE on Windows 2003, but it shouldn’t be too long after I complete my Windows 2000 certifications. I will likely upgrade MCSA by summer 2005 and not worry too much about MCSE. I have decided to work on my MCSE because I need to focus on something other than purely normal academic stuff. Chris continues to remind me that I am blinded by my education and dreams of doctoral graduation, he is very correct. I let myself get too involved in anything I do. My excentric personality is always what leads me to a dead end. My life isn’t as simple as I try to make it sometimes. I need to spread my mind wider and explore more of my life, not just opperate in tunnel vision all the time.
Paradise is only a state of mind, Chaos is the state of reality.

Free Time – The One Event I Can’t Schedule

I just arrived on campus a few minutes ago, prepared to go to Deductive Logic, and sort of excited about it. Upon arriving at McEniry 122 I discovered a note stating that class was cancelled due to Mrs. Dr. Presler being ill. I now find myself with an hour of free time before Physics. My first instinct here was to begin finding things to fill this time, such as take care of registering for my credit by examination a few hours ahead of schedule, but then what would I do in that block of time? It is my natural tenancy to want to schedule things and fill blocks of time simply because they exist. I am finding that at the moment, doing nothing (grabbing a soda, being in Barnard and wasting time) seems to fit this time nicely. There are other things I could be doing now, such as going to the gym, running around the track, reading additional material for my classes, or any number of things for the excersizing of my body or mind. At this point though, I think it is best for me to just chill and enjoy one of the carefree moments I have while on this campus.
The rest of my day is still scheduled to be mostly normal I believe. Dr. Naeini is on campus today, I don’t know about Betsy but I would assume that she is here also. Between Physics and English I will take care of my registration for credit by examination with the College of Bussiness Administration. I originally planned to get the registration done on Monday, but that sort of fell through.
I have been very lax about blogging recently, but I don’t particularly care, this doesn’t have to be a once a day thing, I just like doing it occasionally, such as right now when I am inspired to write something.

Lack of Posting

It has been a few days since I last posted. It is likely that this blog will end up not serving the purpose of documenting the best times I had in college, because so far whenever something fun or exciting happens I end up not being at the keyboard and don’t feel like writing much about the event when I get back. Friday after my classes I went to see my best friend, Chris. We went to do a few things he needed to get done, then we went to the mall and did some other stuff. Not an extreamly exciting time for the typical college student, but I enjoyed it. Saturday was spent on sleep recovery and cleaning up my living area a little. Today (Sunday) was spent with Chris again, but this time at my house. We set up a linux server and reorganized my closet. Sometimes with the way Chris and I interact I feel like I have known him my entire life. Best friends like him are hard to find.
The point of this post which I was eventually going to get to was: when the blog gets quiet, there is no reason for alarm amoungst the loyal citizens of the Internet. Between entries I live, if I live through an entry period, then I am doing better than is usually expected.
Curtis’s Daily Checklist:
– Eat
– Sleep
– Breath
– Blog
– Homework
It seems that simply living isn’t on my list of priority items for each day. Perhaps I need to schedule a time to reevaluate my priorities. Where would that fall on my daily task list though?
Who decided that 24 hours in a day were enough, and that humans require sleep?
Sleep is inefficient and a waste of time. We musnt sleep, FIGHT THE UNCONCIOUS MENACE!

The results are in

My first week of test results are in and they look pretty good. Logic is a 90.625, Abnormal Psychology is 90, and Intro to Physics is 101.
I was really suprised by all of the scores. I felt that Deductive Logic should have been a higher score. I prepared for the test and I understand the material, but I guess I got careless when I was taking the test and missed a few things or didn’t think something out fully enough. Abnormal Psychology I wasn’t expecting to do so well in because I didn’t really study, I missed a night of class and I don’t really ever take decent notes. With Physics I was almost certain I had screwed up 2 of the 10 problems. I guess I was wrong. I understand Physics pretty well, but it is very math based and I never do that well with any form of math.
I am still waiting for scores for my English 1102 paper and my Western History and Culture test. I think I did well on the paper, but I am pretty sure I didn’t do well on the Western History and Culture test. I will post my devistation when those scores are availible.

IT’S ALIVE!!!!

Getting It Together Interface version 2 (GITI v2) is now in an almost functional state. I have fully implemented the Education module on the v2 test site. A lot of the componentes are merely rigged together to function now, but that will be chaning soon. I have a lot of work still left to do, but the existing GITI modules are converting to v2 with minimal effort. I have moved away from the module-specific design of GITI v1 and moved toward activity-centric (add, view current, view all, etc). This should be make the navigation easier for the user as well as for administration and development.
The next step in the development of GITI v2 will be actually establishing the menus that will be attached to my cute little tab items. Once that goes into place there is nothing that GITI v2 can’t do that v1 can. This is where the project becomes a truely forked code base, once I transplant all modules and convert them they will start taking on characteristics of v2 and become farther from v1. I am having problems controlling myself on v1 when I do something really cool to v2, I feel like I need to do it to v1 also, but I have to remind myself that v1 is to be locked except for bug fixes and extending functionality where it is imperitive that such functionality exist. For example, if I write decent custom field value modification code, then I will connect it to v1 also, if it is compatible. I spend a lot of time on GITI as both an end user and a developer, mostly as an end-user. Because I am the #1 GITI user it is a lot of fun watching things in the GITI code break as I manipulate GITI. One huge difference in v1 and v2 is that v1 was the only GITI that existed during its development, there was no stable code, only the crap I was producing at the time. Since then GITI has grown and has become mature in v1. As I develop v2 I can spend a lot less time worrying about time management (an imaginary clock ticking, reminding me I need GITI running by X time), and more time developing high quality functional code.
My vision for GITI eventually is something like the borg queen, an all-knowing entity that makes everything make more sense and has a desire to get as much information as possible. One aspect of the borg queen that I don’t want in GITI is the lack of free will. The GITI user should have complete control of scheduling and be able to manipulate it as they like. GITI needs to be very reliable, but also allow for flexable scheduling and alterations in a user’s schedule.
The biggest pain with GITI will be the conversion and intergration of the Address Book Dastabase system. It was never desgined for a multi-user situation, especially not like GITI. The end-user portion of the utility WLL NOT be changing, it is how it is because thats how it is. The admin components will likely become less adminish and more of a split end user system. At the present time ABDB (Address Book DataBase) relies on the information in the database itself for authenticating users for updating their info. One thing that I have given thought to is integrating the addressbook table and the users table of GITI, having a single reposity for all information, and sort of making all users peers of each other. In doing this I would probably find it neccessary to have a seperate GITI contacts tool, which is sort of duplicate, but sort of not. At this point I just don’t know. There are so many aspects to explore for the module. GITI and ABDB work perfectly for me at the current time as they are because they are both designed to be focused on me and my needs. One thing is certain though, if I make ABDB become a multi-user tool I will have to make the username system a little better for it, so that more than one user can have the same real name as another. I know that if I didn’t then in the first week of GITI being accessible by more than just me we would run into John Smith syndrome.
Many more lines of GITI remain until I can rest…

Freshman 15

I have been doing a lot of theoretical thinking in the past few hours. What is the Freshman 15 truely? In all reality I should be affected by the freshman 15 because this is my first semester on a real university campus. What is the origin of the “Freshman 15” term?
Being the student of Psychology that I am, my analysis leads me to believe that the “Freshman 15” is linked to a psychological cause based on the newfound freedoms and independance experienced. It could also be the body’s physiological response to the stresses placed on the person during the time. Like a lot of things, the freshman 15 seems to be affecting me in the reverse of what it is supposed to. It is supposed to be a 15lbs weight gain during the expanse of the first year of college. So far I have lost about 5 pounds from my total weight since the semester began. If I go to the total opposite, a loss of 15lbs, I will be a little concerned and will find a way to correct the situation. My body does seem to be finding its own way to balance things recently.
Another possibility for the Freshman 15 is that it is a fallacy of college. Just one of those myths that start from a few isolated cases. The food on campus isn’t good enough to gain 15lbs from.
I personally intend to take whatever messures are required to make sure that I stay healthy throughout my college career. I am currently attempting to shape my body and make myself stronger and healthier than before. I want to use this time (college) to enhance my body as well as my brain. I like how my body is coming along so far, I need to be more focused on the health aspect of it than on the physical appearence. I could easily become ego obsessed and loose my mind with making my body harder and more shaped.
I really shouldn’t be bloging at this hour…2:30AM and all is not well in my world.

Minors

This evening I began a quest, a quest for the perfect minor for me. I will most likely graduate from UNCC (or wherever) as a Management Information Sustems major, but I am deeper than just that. MIS is the degree for me to have to be a professional in my prefered working area. I don’t want to work in Psychology, I just want to experience it. I would really love to officially declare a minor, but I don’t know what to declare, there are so many decent minors for me. The options are as follows:

  • Psychology
  • Sociology
  • Philosophy
  • Computer Science
  • French
  • Kinestology
  • Mathematics (no, this isn’t a joke, conquering the fear can only be done head on)
    I know my options are kinda wide, but I have a lot of interests and they have been growing for a long time. Philosophy is a new addition to the list. I think I would like to do it, because then I am not limited in possibilities for doctoral studies should I attempt to persue them. The whole doctoral thing for me would be for the purpose of me acheiving that as a goal, and also to have a non-mandatory expansion of my knowledge of a field. Philosophy would be sort of the traditional field for that type of expansion. I have always been fascinated by the ancient knowledge of philosophers. There is a painting, a fresco, “the School of Athens” that sort of exemplifies what I want in my knowledge. The fresco is split in the middle between the schools of thought, Plato on the right, Arestole on the left. Plato being of the more structured philosohies based on math, logic and anything of pure structure. Aerestotle on the left has his group of open minded free thinkers of less defined and less certain rules to the thought. The fresco contains people from Pathagoreous to Socrates. Lots of great minds, the collective genious exemplifies what I would like to one day attain. Having enlightened thought isn’t something I do regularly, but it would be cool to have more capability for that.
    There is so much knowledge in this world to learn and I can never know it all, but I would like to attempt most of it. I am aware that there is a great amount of mystery still left in this expanding universe. As an intelligent individual I would like to persue the possibilities for pondering the greatest mysteries and establish theories for each.
    I am probebly overly ambitious, but who cares, lol.
    Summary of today (since the entry deviated): went to logic, understood most of what Dr. P said. Logic went by fairly quickly. I ran to Physics as fast as I could so that I could be on time for the 12:55 exam slot. I got a little worried when I got to question 3 of the exam and was informed of 25 minutes of the exam time remaining. This really caused me to drop the thoroughness shit and take the test in a fast pace manner. I think I did well, I finished the 10 question test with 7 minutes remaining. It was kinda scary, but not too bad. I hope Dr. Naeini is easy on grading, especially with the formula usage. I know if i made mistakes it was in the calulation portion, i think most of my final answers are right. Enlgish was decent today. Went to class for 5 minutes, went with Betsy to get the DVD player from the library and then we went to the Cone center and started watching “Bowling for Columbine”. We will be analyzing it for argumentation quality. We finish it Wednesday.
    That concludes today, I will finish my minor search and get back to blogging about it once something is clearly defined.