Fear the Crab

Well it’s been a long long time, and I can thank school and work for that. I’ve been getting a couple of projects from The Office that are giving me hassles, but in ways that I have no control over. For example, I need to manipulate some files, but unbeknownst to me, I don’t have permission to do that. I (and everyone else, apparently) don’t usually realize this until I’ve spent a day whitening my hair. As far as The Lab goes, it goes. I’ve noticed they’re sending me to some dentists that aren’t under my jurisdiction of “town.” It’s only been a couple of times, but since I don’t do “Leeward” I have no idea where these dentists are. I make sure to act dumb when they call, too, just so I can hear them fumble around trying to give me directions.

Speaking of white hairs, Maile noticed I have one growing on my neck, in the beardy area. It’s kinda bright when I let it grow out some. But it’s not in a sexy-sexy place, it’s sorta right under the mandibular angle (for you anatomy freaks), so it just looks weird.

In Animal Crossing news, I’ve been spending some time drawing textures. I made a couple of Mashimaro designs, the University of Hawai`i athletic logo, the Decepticon and Cobra and Star Wars Empire insignias, and my current fave, GIR in a dog suit. The GIR design I especially like, because from far away it actually looks like him. It’s too bad there’s no way to “trade” designs with other people short of having to actually visit their towns; I know a couple of people who might be interested in ’em. Of course, when these designs are put on a shirt or umbrella, the results are very humorous. But I think they look neat on signboards strategically placed in strategic areas.

My summer class is going.. okay. There was a bit of a problem with my most recent homework assignment. I had to get input from the user, and it seems the code would “catch” the carriage return and pass that to the variables, making the whole thing look funny. I had to incorporate a dummy variable to grab those annoying newline characters so that the real variables could get the proper data.
But this opened up another can of worms. I’ve set up the code so that it will only accept a certain amount of characters, truncating the data so that it will always fit. It seems to work fine when I test it, but when two or three distinct variables are processed (one after the other), the previous variables lose their data as the later are assigned. And I have no idea how to fix that.

I just finished off lunch, some suck-ass chicken katsu that came from the cafeteria. Bleah.

Next semester I hope to take ICS 312, which is supposed to be a continuation of the C class I’m taking now. I was planning to go for 311, which involves more theory, but the prof who’s teaching it in the Fall is, while uber-smart, kinda hard to understand. By which I mean that only if the student is also uber-smart will the student learn anything.

So, since I need 6 credits to continue working for ITS, I’m going to take Spanish at Leeward. Oddly enough, Maile is also going to take Spanish because she needs the credits, too. We’re going to be taking the same class at the same time. I think it’ll be fun!

I have an urge to get together with all the old folk that have some connection to DFS. It’s been a while since I’ve been out, and I consider a month as a long time. What with all the schedule changes, though, I imagine it’ll be hard to arrange. And while I’m on the subject, why am I the one who always seems to coordinate these things? Maybe that’s why I’m getting more white hairs than a Maltese.

Just kidding.

I’m at work early, contemplating whether or not to start now or wait an hour. I assume starting now will mean I get to leave early. I suppose if I did decide to start early, I’d have to email my boss and say so. My indecision probably stems from the lazy feeling I have, which combines a desire to procrastinate and a groggy, slept-late state of mind.

My butt itches. I think I’ll start work early.

Well, it certainly has been a while. You can thank Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for my prolonged absence. There’s just so much to do in Zelda that it’s almost a sure-fire way to lose your social life. Thankfully Maile is very good at bringing me back to reality.

Let’s see, what’s happened so far? I think I’ve gotten into the groove of things at my new job(s). Deliveries for The Lab are becoming a habit, and many of the offices are permanently scarred into my memory. Sometimes I can get done with my rounds in less than three hours, which doesn’t mean good things for my paycheck since I’m on hourly. The Office has been holding steady; at least, I’m able to do the simple things. I haven’t gotten any major projects to work on yet, mostly because there really isn’t anything to do right now. There are still aspects of that job that I have yet to touch, but it seems I have to rely on my fellow student workers to show me the ropes, since the bosses are really busy with fixing another highly-visible project. And being that it’s finals week, I rarely see my coworkers. So I busy myself with checking Postmaster mail and setting up mailing lists while browsing the web pages for weird stuff.

On the homefront, life has been normal for me. I finished off my ICS 241 math class, and feel fairly confident I’ll pass with at least a C. That was my main goal, and if I score better, it’ll be all the more sweeter. Those E-Commerce classes I took were interesting, and I think I learned a few things, but the way they were carried out left something to be desired. The prof stressed communication, but it seemed to be lacking on his part. I would email him with a question, and wouldn’t get a reply for several days, if ever! Thankfully they were 100-level courses and pretty easy, otherwise I’d have more white hairs than I do now.

Life, however, has been anything BUT normal for Maile. Her brother’s back on crack again, and I actually witnessed the demon itself one day. He barged into the room and demanded the money Maile has been holding for him (because he’s so irresponsible with finances). When she refused, he got angry and tried to take her purse. Instead he missed and grabbed her backpack. Despite not having any money in the backpack, he ransacked through it, all the while spewing curses out of his retarded mouth. Maile finally gave him his money and he left. I found out later that everyone’s suspected he’s been on the rock from way before. Apparently he was given money to buy a nice present for his son’s 1st birthday and attend a small party, but instead he spent the money on crack and didn’t go. He’s back with this mental-case girl named Josephine who’s also on the rock (and with whom he had his son). Maile’s brother hasn’t been back for about a week, but he’ll start coming around once he wastes his cash.

The sad thing is that he blames Maile and the mom for his condition. Talk about a lame cop-out. His claim is that he was given too much responsibilities to handle, that Maile and the mom expected more from him than he could produce. Whatever. All they asked was that he help contribute to the house, either by getting a job or something. But no, the mere thought of hard work seems to be like a bad case of SARS for this whelp. Oh, and he also believes he has a mental condition, which is why he acts this way. I would tend to agree, but not for the reasons he gives. He feels it is justification for his behavior. I feel it’s simply stupidity. The guy is just spoiled, thinking the world has to give him what he wants without him working for it. I told him once that I was able to buy a new truck and these video games only because I worked and budgeted my money. At the time he seemed to take it to heart, but I guess he can only think short-term and can’t stand waiting for hard work to bear fruit.

So now the house has become like a fortress, with secured doors and a significant change in lifestyle. It’s like everyone’s on alert, since no one knows when he’ll drop by with some fake-ass sob story to try and wheedle pity and money out of the family. Pretty soon we’ll have to start using passwords and retina scans.

It’s been pointed out to me that I haven’t posted here in a long, LONG time. That’s what happens when Animal Crossing and school enter into one’s life.

Found out there have been some layoffs at DFS. None of my friends have been affected, but it’s a scary thought to think that they could be next. Everyone’s been hit hard, though, because their hours have been cut down to 20 a week. As far as my jobs are concerned, it’s been business as usual. I believe I’ve gotten into the groove of things at The Lab, because it’s taking less time for me to make my deliveries. At The Office I’m making progress on my intro project, so much so that I think I’m finished, well before the due date. However, there’s still so much I don’t quite understand, since it’s such new code that I think it works, but I don’t know why. There are a lot of aspects I haven’t even touched yet, either, judging by the looks of what else is out there. In the meantime, I’m doing some light work by helping clean up the list servers, flagging some to be deleted and others to be kept, depending on the owners’ requests. There are over 400 lists to go through, but I’m not the only one working on them.

I’m supposed to start my e-commerce classes from LCC, but the communication from the professor is kinda lacking. I managed to email him and get a reply, which allowed me to set myself up for instruction, but that was only yesterday. We’ll see how these one-month classes go.

It seems the more I work, the less time I have for journal entries. Of course, playing Animal Crossing and Legend of Zelda doesn’t help. Anyway, I got my first project for The Office, and it’s a simple thing every new student programmer gets. It’s supposed to let me apply what I’ve read towards “real world” applications. Right now I’m creating a simple program that will let a user input a first name and age, then store that information in a separate file. When storing, it should save it in alphabetical order, and upon a command be able to display all the names that are saved. I need to also enable the program to be able to delete names. I haven’t done that part yet, but I believe I got the first two (input and save) down. There are three parts to this project, and I’m still on the first, but this part isn’t due until April 9, so I’ve got some time. Plus, I’m in the office for a good 8 hours, which gives me an opportunity to fully concentrate on it.

I’m a bit worried about how the summer session will go. I’m taking that class I dropped this semester, ICS 212, which is C and C++ programming. It’ll be the only class I’m taking, so perhaps I’ll fare better this time around, but the class starts at 1730 and ends at 1930, Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll have time to make it with my current work schedule, but what I’m mainly worried about is the amount of time I’ll have to do the homework. Hopefully I’ll be disciplined enough to ignore the GameCube.

So far my Perl learning is progressing. I’m still at that “simple program” level, making Perl able to say “hello world” and other such things of that sort. At least I have some of the basic concepts down, and I can always refer back to the book for when I ultimately get a programming project from The Office boss.

I’ve just received word that I’ve been accepted as an undergraduate classified student for Fall 2003. This is good news, because it means I’ll pay less tuition and be able to register earlier. Of course, I’m also considered a “new” student, so for Fall I’ll still have to register late, but once that’s done, I’ll have seniority. It seems UH@M has classified me as a “second degree” student, which I think is a bit higher, if not equal, to senior status. So I’ll really register early, and possibly have an opportunity to get a parking pass.

Driving for The Lab is starting to become second nature now. I’ll be expected to do slight office work, mostly logging in whatever I bring back from the dentists’ offices. And if they don’t have anything for me, I can go home without worrying about making my 20 hours a week; they’ll take care of the medical regardless. That’s good news, in a way, because it means I won’t have to worry and count hours all the time. It also means I won’t get paid as much on the slow days, but I’m fine with that, because I’m mainly interested in maintaining my medical, not getting money.

I mean, I could always use the money, but at this point in my life, school is the more important issue, so I want to concentrate on that.

It took a while, but yesterday was my second day at The Office. So far I’ve just been sitting around for eight hours each day reading a book on Perl, a programming language. I think Perl is what the department uses to program, so naturally it follows that I should learn it. The people there are pretty cool. In fact, one staff member went to the same high school as me, and was on the bowling team, and played in band. Small world.

Meanwhile, it’s my third week at The Lab. I’m still trying to get the hang of which dentists are open at what time, but at least I know my way around town. The funny thing is, I need 20 hours to qualify for medical, but the courier position sometimes gets done early, meaning I have to find some way of busying myself. I figured I’d learn how to do die work, which is making a hard mold of the impressions so the techs can work on fitting a crown or bridge (or whatever). But I just found out that the boss doesn’t want me doing die work. So what will I do to make up my hours? I have no idea. They’re supposed to talk to me about it, work up some sort of arrangement, so I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

It’s been a hectic week. I started training as a driver at The Lab. Most of it is pretty straightforward, so the real trial is just figuring out which dentist needs something delivered by what time, and what time does their office open. It seems there are some dentists that open at 0800 and expect their deliveries at 0800. Just yesterday, in fact, two dentists opened at 0800 and had cases due at 0800, and they were on opposite sides of downtown.

I managed to work out an arrangement for The Office position. I enrolled at Leeward for three one-month courses, all dealing with e-commerce. I’m not sure what will be involved with those classes, but they’re online, and I have a feeling they involve spamming people with advertisements and constructing mailing lists. I have to take three courses because they’re all 1 credit each, and I need 3 credits to become eligible to work. UH Student Employment doesn’t seem to care that the classes are only one month, as they are more interested in whether I have a total of 6 credits. At least, that’s the impression I got when I showed my tuition receipt to the SECE office. They cleared my hold, so now my application for that student programming job is underway and looking okay. I’m still pending approval, but according to everyone I’ve spoken to, I should be in the clear.

Well, I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that yesterday I changed the oil in my truck, all by myself (thank you very much). Since I’m not that mechanically inclined, that was a real feat for me. I also gave my truck a bath, and later that night I went out to D&B’s with a bunch of friends for a little get-together. Maile, James, Mary, Irene, Tolkien, George, Rei, Min, and Maile’s brother Keoni all joined me there. I ate the Jack Daniel’s ribeye steak, and it was very nice. Rei bought me this drink, I think it was called a crowntini, which is like a martini except they use Crown Royal. At least, that’s what I thought I heard above the noise and my inebriated two-beer state. And I don’t know if it was just the way D&B’s made it, but it tasted really strong, like I was drinking a shot of some kind of flavored whisky.

The bad news. I just discovered that because I’m only taking one class this semester (I had dropped ICS 212, if you recall from a previous post), I am not eligible for that student programmer job I was offered. This sucks, because I had already filled out the I-9 and W-4 forms and quit DFS so I could get this one. Now they tell me I can’t have it. I replied to their email notice and explained my situation, what led me to dropping the class, and how I am now unemployed, and asked if there was anything I could do to save this opportunity. One of The Office guys suggested I talk to one of the community colleges and explain my situation, and ask if they can recommend a 3-credit course that I could take, if there is one with open enrollment. It’s already halfway through the semester, though, and I’m worried that even if I can get that extra course, if I’ll be expected to catch up on the workload for that course. People are already taking midterms, so I’d be hard-pressed to make up that much work in a short amount of time. Not to mention the possibility that I may have to attend the class; that would severely cut into the hours I’d have for jobs. Maile is going to try and ask today if there are any courses, and I’m going to call later on my own, so hopefully a clearer path will open up before me once the end of the day draws near.

I was offered the job as a student programmer, so I took it. I’m now going to resign from duty free, two weeks from Friday. It feels weird. There’s a funny sensation in my stomach, something like nervousness because it’s something new happening in my life. I’ll also be talking to Henry about a part-time position at his dental lab.

Never had many times in my life where there’s been a mix of emotion. There’s delight, because I’m entering a new field, one that I hope to continue after school. There’s nervousness, because I’m entering a new field, one that I’ve never worked in before. There’s also sadness, because I’ll be leaving some very good friends at duty free. I’m sure there will be lots of opportunities to see them later on, but they’re so much a part of my life that it’ll be very difficult when I leave.

It almost sounds like I’ll never see them again. But I know that’s not true.