originally posted august 28, 2001

year 3. ready?

Year three has begun, and I'm already uncertain about where it will take me. The early answer seems to be "out of bed, early."

change of pace

I was surprised to learn that my would-be employer this semester has headed to South America to work on a special project. Instead, the class will be taught by Prof. Gregory Kesden, a lecturer best known for teaching some of the most demanding courses to Computer Science majors. He has a reputation for being a good instructor who expects a lot from his students. I'm a bit concerned that the poor non-majors might be overwhelmed by a large volume of homework, but at least that will allow for extra paid office hours for myself and the other four TA's. (The proper term is Course Assistant, but I hesitate to use the term "CA" to refer to it.)

I look forward to being a TA next semester: it should be an interesting learning experience, especially when I see how it fits in with my five classes, one other part-time job, two student organizations' activities, and (time permitting) any personal commitments. Sleep, it appears, will be once again at a premium. Considering that I have to get up early (before 8:00 or 9:00 AM most of the time) fairly often, things could get difficult as daylight becomes scarce.

a lingering question mark

When my advisor declined to let me take three computer science or three Japanese courses this semester, I decided to sign up for Choral Ensemble for Non-Majors. The ensemble is conducted by legendary, Grammy award-winning conductor Robert Page, who also holds mandatory auditions for all prospective students. I arrived at CMU with a book of songs to rehearse, having failed to rehearse any one of them at all during the summer. I figured that I could buy some time before my audition. Upon arriving at his door on Monday, I found that I had my choice of auditioning on... Monday.

Fine. I would use the default choice of "My Country 'Tis of Thee," a decently short and simple song. The only problem: on my first attempt, I messed up the words and effectively insulted my country. After being advised to sing more like a 20-year-old and "less like a 13-year-old," I understood the words and the intonation more accurately on the second run-through. Prof. Page casually asked me, "You haven't sung in a long time, have you?" At least he's honest. The sight-singing portion of the audition doesn't even merit a mention here. It suffices to say that I should learn to choose between English, French, or solfege before starting, not in mid-piece.

It looks more likely that I'll be placed into the Repertory Singers, an ensemble for those with "minimal experience." Everyone needs to start somewhere.

first impression

This semester will be interesting. If the lateness of this first update is any barometer, I should be quite busy from the morning all the way through the night.

Back to August 2001, or to the year 2001.

Where am I?

This is Weill Aspects, the official news archive of Jason Weill Web Productions. All articles posted to the front page end up here. This page was generated automatically by a series of Perl scripts.

Articles in Weill Aspects are organized solely by date. You may find the Google search in the left column to be useful if you are looking for an article but do not know the date on which it was posted.

Weill Aspects is composed of static web pages generated as appropriate when a new article is posted. It was developed in May 2001 as a way of managing the content on this site. I also used it extensively while in Japan, during which time I did not have continuous access to the Internet. I was able to write daily updates during July and August 2002, pack the files onto a CD-R or memory device, and upload them from the Internet-connected computers at school.

These scripts are all hacked together in less than elegant fashion, and I don't plan to release them. Some of the design that went into Aspects also was used to develop Livestat, a suite of Perl scripts to process statistics for academic competition tournaments. Livestat is available freely.