2000-06-20 - 00:59

Working for the man

Work went well the few hours that I was in on Sunday and again today. It hardly felt like Monday today, though, considering that I've worked every day for two weeks. I've only been putting in a few hours each day on the weekends, but even still . . .

Actually, though, I'm really enjoying the work that I'm doing. Abder moved off the project a while ago, leaving just Bis and I; and Bis undoubtedly has five other things on the go. As a result, I really consider what I'm doing to be my baby and I'm determined to see it to a positive conclusion.

I've been performing experiments lately and the results have been excellent. It's nice to know that I haven't been wasting my time for six months (heheh). Hopefully, we'll wrap up the tests this week and finish writing the paper next week.

It'll be excellent if we turn our work into a paper that gets accepted into Infocom. I already have my name on one paper, since the report that I wrote on my last work term was turned into a page or two of a larger paper. It felt cool to see my name on something. It wasn't exactly the dream that I had of being a writer; but it was something.

Ultimately, though, although my work definitely made a contribution to that paper, I didn't get to do any of the actual writing. I'm psyched to get this bad boy written. And if it is accepted by Infocom, maybe I'll even get to attend the conference next year in Alaska. (That would rock!)

On the non-work front, things are also cool. Last night and tonight we actually sat down and played some cards. Nick kicked my ass for the most part; but I won a couple of games. I always enjoy getting in some cards. My favourite memory of the term on Macara Street is staying up until sunrise playing Hearts and Rummy 500 with Tayze. Hopefully, when I go home for a week (July? August?), we'll get into a game of Auction 45s. (If so, the Ethridges will show the MacCormacks how to play, yet again. Heheh.)

Other than that, not a lot is up. I've tried to put some more work into my other web page (Jambalaya); but I haven't had a lot of time. I didn't really feel like writing about myself, like I had planned on doing, so I started compiling my concert reviews instead.

It's a shame that I lost so many reviews when the old Tomes of Knowledge site imploded; it's tricky to review concerts that I saw two years ago. In any event, I'm going to wait until I get all of the reviews written before I add that section to Jambalaya, so for now that site is unchanged.

Oh yes, there was one other thing lately that I thought was cool. Nick and I sat down to play Tetris and he said that I should throw on the last Tricky CD, noting, "whenever I hear that, I think back to being in your brother's place." I found that cool because I have the identical reaction. I was surprised that it stuck in his head, too.

Hmm . . . time for sleep, so I'll feel less fried at work in the morning. I also don't want to be dead on my feet if we play soccer after work, as I'm hoping we (finally) will.

J.