originally posted may 30, 2002

year three complete

OS is a smoking crater in my rear-view mirror. Computability is done, with its "black voodoo magic" already long forgotten. My Japanese minor is done, with the last final project being completed just hours before it was due. I'm about a month away from heading to Japan to start my study abroad. Life, as I almost never say, is good.

an early finish

The first big announcement: I'll be done with my degree in December 2002, although I'd like to return in May 2003 to graduate alongside my classmates. After reviewing my academic situation, I only have two computer science courses left to take before having completed my degree. Rather than pay for the spring semester when I would be taking nothing of substantial value, I have made the decision to officially finish my degree in December 2002 and enter the workplace soon afterwards.

Although I will be saving money by finishing slightly ahead of schedule, I will be looking to enter a job market that has been anything but welcoming lately. My resume has been revised and is fully ready to go, so now it's up to me to find a company who'll hire me. I've taken a lot away from Carnegie Mellon, but the most important thing will be the diploma I earn at the end of it all.

frequent flier

Due to recent world events, a lot of people in the U.S. have been very apprehensive about the whole idea of flying. Especially around New York, where terrorism is on everyone's mind, security is of great importance. Although I was a little uneasy about flying late last September, that hasn't been the case in 2002 so far. I've flown back and forth for winter break; to Hartford, Connecticut to visit a friend in March; to New York for spring break; to Dallas last weekend for my cousin's Bar Mitzvah; and I have at least two more round-trip flights ahead of me this summer. I haven't felt the least bit of discomfort when flying this year, although the procedures obviously aren't perfect. Still, I feel confident that when I travel, flying by air in the U.S. won't be a risky proposition.

a helping hand

My next plane trip will be on June 7-9 to Austin, Texas, to help out at the 2002 NAQT High School National Championship tournament, an academic competition event. I have been invited to contribute my support for Livestat, a Perl-based statistics utility that I wrote last summer. I have been pleased with the feedback so far from this project -- the kind folks at Princeton have even been developing a PHP web-based front-end for the software that makes it much easier to use. I would like to make the software much more accessible to the public as time progresses, and I've already started by opening all the source and inviting all interested developers to enhance and extend it as much as possible.

I feel a sense of great pride whenever another school or organization uses Livestat to help streamline their tournaments, and I am honored to be heading down to Austin to help out this June.

weill in japan: a look ahead

This summer marks the first time since I graduated high school that I don't have a summer internship. That's because I'll be heading to International Christian University in Mitaka City, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan this July and August. I'll be studying Japanese one last time in an advanced, immersive environment. The university will also be arranging for a homestay family during the six-week period, although details on that are not final yet.

I was a little concerned at the idea of attending a university with "Christian" in the name, considering that I'm not Christian myself. However, looking at the details reveals that the school was set up by Christians and is not a very strict religious institution. This makes sense: Japan has a Christian population of under 1%, and in the past has been outwardly hostile towards Christian missionaries. Although Christmas and Western-style Christian weddings are still very popular, most people remain Buddhist or Shinto. I don't expect religion to be a major issue over the summer.

I already have a big shopping list of things to buy in Japan both for myself and friends, including some things I might not be able to take back into the country. The university and my host family also have a variety of events planned, so I'm looking forward to all sorts of new experiences.

Right now, I'm not sure how much access (if any) I'll have to e-mail and other Internet services while in Japan. Internet cafes are not as popular in Japan compared to other Asian countries, due to the explosively high popularity of mobile phones. I'll bring my laptop with me, but I don't know how much I'll be able to use it. Hopefully, the university or my host family will let me use a PC. I also now have a digital camera, so I expect to take and post a ton of photographs.

class by class: one last look at spring 2002

Once again, the semester wasn't as much of a bust as I had figured. Here's my last word on my courses.

15-412: Operating Systems Design and Implementation

Undoubtedly the most time-consuming course that I've ever taken, but in the end I don't regret having chosen it. I learned a lot, the professor really encourages students to apply the material to real-world situations, and the projects are long but substantive. Although there were some scheduling issues with my partner, we were able to eventually pull through and resolve them. My partner also came through in the clutch, contributing some extra functionality with code written -- from scratch -- just six hours before our last project was submitted.

Dealing with Prof. Kesden can be a dodgy proposition; just ask him about the time I nearly shot and killed him this semester. Still, I think that having worked with him as a Course Assistant in fall 2001 improved communications and better prepared me for being a student this past semester. I look forward to being a Course Assistant or Teaching Assistant for introductory courses once again next semester, no matter which professor will be teaching.

I'm still intrigued to know how I did on the final exam, seeing that I managed to pull off a B in the course despite grave concerns that I wouldn't pass at all.

80-311: Computability and Incompleteness

I'm finally done with courses like these, which teach fundamentals of computer science that don't really interest me. Fortunately, the course was taught by an upbeat professor who knew his stuff well enough to phrase it in plain English most of the time. This was still a very boring course in my opinion just by virtue of the material itself. I don't think I gained a whole lot out of the course, but at least I'm one step closer to graduation.

Thanks to the extremely liberal grading policy, I escaped with an A in the course despite some stumbles late in the course. I'm glad that I took the course when I did, since a lot of very helpful friends were in it with me.

82-372: Advanced Japanese II

The last course in the core Japanese curriculum, Advanced Japanese II was not a good course to take alongside OS. Every night I found myself with between two and three hours' worth of homework to do, and I frequently found myself grappling with a choice of either sleep or working until exhaustion on simple worksheets. My biggest regret was that I didn't have enough time to work on the massive amount of assignments, sending me into a neverending spiral of late homework and slow progress.

I tried my best and put in as much time as humanly possible, and my efforts did not go entirely unpunished. I escaped from Advanced Japanese II with a B, and I'll take it and run.

82-374: Technical Japanese

Another small but difficult Japanese course, Technical Japanese focused more on technical writing through several passages and projects in class. Fortunately, the workload in this course was the lightest of the four courses I took this semester, so I wasn't always under pressure. The class was discussion-based, although sometimes I found myself trying to move time forward until the end of class. Unlike some late-day classes, I wasn't worn out by the time I arrived. At 3:00 PM twice a week, this was my only class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This messed with my sleep schedule to a great extent, to the point where I would start my Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2:00 PM or so towards the end of the semester.

I finished Technical Japanese with an A, finishing the Japanese minor with an impressive overall QPA of 3.81 out of 4.00.

overall

Even though I didn't have any part-time jobs in the spring 2002 semester -- the first time I've been without a paycheck since my very first semester -- I always felt like I had a full workload. I feel great that the semester is over, and that I escaped with an admirable 3.40 QPA for the semester, bringing my total QPA to 3.43 so far. I hope to bring it up next semester as I wrap things up.

a fall 2002 preview

Typically, the semester after one takes OS is known as the "OS afterglow" semester, when one takes fun or otherwise non-lethal courses to counter the effects of CMU's most dangerous 18-unit class. Oblivious to this, I signed myself up for six classes next semester despite the fact that I only need two to graduate.

15-381: Artificial Intelligence

An interesting introduction to the field of A.I. that has been recommended by friends of mine. Although there are several homework assignments and a substantial final project, I already have a partner lined up. This one's most likely a keeper.

15-393: Software Engineering for IT

This course, in which students work in groups of 15 (!), is unusual in that it focuses more on the software design process. I'm taking it in the hopes that I can use the skills to move up from a developer position to a project leader position. I would like to stay in this course.

15-491: Dependable and Survivable Systems

With terrorism still on everyone's mind, disaster recovery has become big business for companies like IBM and EMC. Seeing that I might want a job with one of those companies, I enrolled in this course to learn more about disaster recovery and designing systems with fewer points of failure. It generally isn't a good idea to take three CS courses simultaneously, but I'll see how this class looks at the start.

70-364: Business Law

I asked my father, who studied business and finance in college and graduate school, what course I should take to improve my schedule. He recommended that I take a course in business law, to better understand things like contracts and legalese. Nowadays, negotiations and licensing are very important for computer companies, and I'd like to better understand the documents thrust in front of new employees to sign. Depending on the workload, this course may be dropped.

70-381: Marketing I

Another business course that I'm just taking for the hell of it, Marketing represents the only course on my schedule with a Friday meeting time. This is a large class that is most often taken by business majors and minors, so I don't know if I'll get anything of value out of it. This course will most likely be dropped from my schedule.

82-475: Topics in Japanese Studies: Current Issues and Trends in Japan

The only course that I'm taking which hasn't yet been assigned a room, this course could be cancelled due to lack of interest. I might drop it if I notice that too much of it overlaps with my experience this summer studying abroad in Tokyo.

senior!

I'm done with an extremely difficult semester, my schedule for the next semester will likely be four days a week and relatively light, I need a job, and I'm looking forward to going to Japan.

Bring on senior year.

Back to May 2002, or to the year 2002.