BrockLi Soup

College doesn’t really prepare you for the real world. You learn a lot of stuff, which is nice, but a lot of times they don’t teach you how to use it. It’s kind of like learning geometry in fifth grade: I memorized the details and thought I understood the concepts, but it was years later before I knew what to do with any of those concepts.

College was the same way - or at least, it was for me. You spend a lot of time learning about programming languages and syntax, but not a whole lot of real-world project development. For homework, you get clearly defined projects, and the professor never changes the specs halfway through, or adds a bunch of new requirements after seeing the first version. I can’t imagine what would have happened if a professor tried to pull that on a class, but that’s how it goes in the real world. While you’re taking classes, you have to track where you are on a project or two for each of them, but generally, that’s it. Right now, I’m working on two major projects: I’m doing a couple big parts for one, and managing (really, “coding most of”) the other. There are several parts of each that I’m responsible for, parts that other people are responsible for, things I’m waiting to get from the client, and the remainder that isn’t clearly defined yet.

I remember taking Needs Assessment and being told that we would need to know how to gather requirements and things like that, but I didn’t really believe it at the time. At the beginning of this year, I really didn’t need to know how to do it - my manager or a senior developer would come to me with a fairly well-defined project to do, and I’d do it. Sometimes it was changed after the fact or even partway through, but I got the set of requirements and wrote the code as specified. More recently, I’ve been dealing directly with the client a lot more than I used to, and I’m doing a lot more project management than before. I’ve got changes, new requirements, and bug reports coming in from three or four directions and need to manage the schedule for all of it.

In retrospect, this is what Needs Assessment and Tech Transfer (two classes in the IT department) were meant to handle, but I don’t think that any of us took it seriously at the time. In my defense, I took both of them my last quarter at RIT, so my priorities were elsewhere. Would I be better prepared for my current job if I had paid more attention? Well, it’s hard to say - since I wasn’t too interested, I really can’t even remember what we did in those two classes.

Then again, sometimes the sink-or-swim method is the best way to learn. I’m doing a much different job than I was six or eight months ago, and I’ve learned a lot in the process. As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been reading Getting Things Done. I haven’t gotten very far, but I already feel like I’ve got a better idea how to handle all this stuff. Plus, you know, the Internet needs another GTD fanboy.

• Poop jokes are still funny. From one of my recent favorites, Dethroner.com (”Where every man is king”): A Brief Guide to Public Restroom Etiquette.
• This evening I watched Kicking and Screaming, which was very much like someone predicted, ten years ahead of time, my first year after college.

  I’m nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I’ve begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I’m reminiscing this right now. I can’t go to the bar because I’ve already looked back on it in my memory… and I didn’t have a good time.

• This past weekend was Shamrockfest, and I had a full house for it: BP and JL came Thursday night, Eric, Tasia, and Fonny on Friday, and Dan came Saturday morning (in addition, of course, to Mel, Jym, and myself). The actual festival was a lot of fun, but the rest of the weekend topped even that. The thing I miss most about college is the ease with which I could pull together a dozen close friends for a weekend-long party at the drop of a hat.
• That’s about it. Now that this past weekend is behind me, I’m back to being busybusybusy, and probably will be for another month or so.

I’ve always been a fast test-taker, so it’s rare that I’m not one of the first people done with any test or final. It’s partly because I like to see how fast I can do it, and party because they’re not terribly exciting and I just want to get them over with. Most of the time, you can leave once you’re done, so that’s always been an incentive.

Today was just a joke, though. A 35 question Tech Transfer final, and I finished in 18 minutes. I don’t know why I bothered getting up at 7 for that.

Part of me wants to just get my day started; I’ve got a lot of stuff to do before I leave for the weekend, but I think I need to catch up on a few hours of sleep or I’ll never make it to Tuesday.

On a related note, I’ve already got three of my grades. I was expecting the C in Haydn and Mozart - Classical music just isn’t something I’ll ever get. I was surprised to find I got an A in Networking, since I remember most of my grades being in the 80’s. And finally, a B in Needs Assessment, despite blowing it on the final - I really should have learned my lesson sooner.

I’ve got a lot more to say about this whole graduating business - stay tuned.

Today I had my last two undergraduate classes.

It’s weird to think that I may never have to go to class again. I’m still planning to get a Master’s at some point, but I don’t have any definite plans and it might never happen. For sixteen years, class is almost all I’ve known, and now it’s over.

I can’t help but think about my first day of Kindergarten. I remember standing at the end of our dead-end street, where the kids on our road met the bus. Both my parents were there to see me off. I guess the school recommended that they make a name tag with bus numbers and other information, because I remember consulting it as the bus approached to make sure I was getting on the right one (as if my parents would send me away on the wrong bus). I really don’t remember anything past that, though I assume my friend Paul was on the bus, because he was the stop before me.

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this quarter is already over, let alone the four years leading up to it, not to speak of the twelve years before that. Almost the entirety of my life has been leading up to this moment - well, really, this week.

How anticlimactic. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so underwhelmed.

My last day of undergraduate classes is Thursday, and as such, that evening must be a celebration of epic proportions. I’m thinking line dancing at The Roost. Who’s with me?

Unless there’s a loser’s game, I’m done with hockey. We (surprise!) lost the first playoff game for this quarter.

Hockey was really the first sport I enjoyed playing. I did basketball and baseball in grade school, but I always dreaded the games - I only played because everyone else did. I did some volleyball in middle school and soccer in middle and early high school, but was never too thrilled about either. Hockey has been more fun than I ever thought a sport could be. College was really my only opportunity to try it; my high school started a team my junior or senior year, but I certainly couldn’t afford equipment at the time. I spent about $250 on gear two years ago, and I’ve been playing free ever since - no ice fees for intramural.

While I’m going to miss playing, I’m sort of relived that it’s over. I’ve never been the alpha male must-win-everything-I-do type, so I’ve been perfectly content with losing pretty much all the time. I wasn’t content, however, with accepting our fate as crappy players without trying to get better. I don’t care if I lose, but it’s going to piss me off if I’m not doing the best I can. When the team around me isn’t too interested in doing any better, it’s just frustrating because I feel like I’m never moving forward.

That’s not to say that this is the prevailing mentality on the team. A lot of the people that I’ve been playing with for the past year or two have gotten a LOT better, and I see it every time they’re out on the ice. Even so, it sort of felt like there was a backlash from people that just wanted to stay mediocre as a team.

It doesn’t matter. It’s over, and I had fun. I would have liked to have done better, but life has to have some shortcomings or you won’t appreciate the good stuff.

It’s unlikely that I’ll ever play hockey again. I could join a men’s league, but they’re pretty pricey and the other guys are bound to be a lot better than I am. If I get a job at RIT or come back here for grad school, I’ll play again, but that’s probably the only way it will happen.

And I won’t miss the stink of hockey equipment in my room, that’s for sure.

College is totally awesome. It’s the only place you can legitimately play beer pong on Wednesday night.

The College Apartment is (hopefully) the worst apartment one will reside in during one’s adult years. I’d like to think that the next place I live in will be nicer, cleaner, home-ier, and will have fewer holes in the walls. For those of you that haven’t been to college yet (or lived at home while you were there), allow me to indoctrinate you.

First of all, there are no clean dishes. It’s just not an option. The only function of the kitchen sink is to act as a repository for dirty dishes: since that’s all you’ll have, you’re going to need a place to put them. When you run out of clean dishes, use paper plates. When you run out of those, use paper towels. When you run out of those, find the cleanest spot on the kitchen counter and call it a plate.

If you do run out of paper towel, you’re in trouble. Paper towel serves in far more roles in a college apartment than anywhere else. For one, it’s the lone cleaning tool. It can be used on dishes (not that it will be), floors, and, more commonly, spilled beer. Furthermore, toilet paper is like that spare bottle opener in the third drawer in the kitchen - it’s always there when you’re looking for something else, but never when you need it. Make sure there’s always paper towel in the bathroom, because you don’t want to get caught with your pants down (if you will).

Some people are wine connoisseurs. College students can identify different flavors of Ramen noodles based on smell alone, while average citizens find no distinguishing features in taste, smell, or appearance. Macaroni and cheese can be consumed if you’re willing to spend 50 cents on a meal - DOUBLE the cost of Ramen. Of course, these things are only eaten in the second half of each week, when the pizza money from pay day has been exhausted. Lucky for you, the half of the fridge that isn’t occupied by Brita filters is full of condiments, so you can make mayo-ketchup-barbecue sauce sandwiches any time you want. Be careful, though: some of those jars have been around longer than any of your roommates [it's worth mentioning at this point that the fridge will be full of condiments and water because you will have a second fridge for beer alone]. If you’re lucky, you might find Jello shots hiding among the condiments.

Through the combined efforts of two to four roommates, your apartment will amass more electronics than you could have imagined. The entertainment system in the living room will be the best you will ever have in your place of residence. At the moment, our apartment has a receiver, four speakers, two TV’s, two TiVo’s, an XBox, a Dreamcast, Super Nintendo, an original Nintendo, a DVD player, and a wireless access point. In addition, each of us has a laptop, at least one PC, and a sound system to go with it. We have one telephone, but none of us know the number for the place because we all have cell phones.

Beer will provide the majority of your liquid intake. Since college beer (Miller High Life, Natty Ice, PBR, etc) is cheaper than water, this is economically reasonable. Late in your college career, you will discover the joy of higher quality beers, and you will be able to afford it because you already have every electronic device you can conceive of and you’ve learned to love pasta.

Trash will become an issue. Despite the fact that you can’t afford much food or anything else that results in packaging waste, you and your roommates will produce more garbage than Rhode Island. This trash won’t be taken out to the dumpster, because you all have more important, college-related things to be doing, like playing video games or looking for a roll of paper towel because the toilet paper is gone.

In the real world, people knock and politely wait for the door to be answered. Not so in college apartments: your friends will give the two-tap warning before coming in, just in case someone’s nekkid in the living room or something. You learn to love this policy, especially on nights when you come home looking for something to do and the only people home are three people that you’ve only met once, and one of them is asleep on the couch. On the rare occasion that someone actually knocks or rings the doorbell, you will shout “COME ON IN,” despite the fact that pizza delivery guys and FedEx folks will never come on in, so you’ll have to get up and open the door.

The décor is unlike that of any other home you will have. Beer signs and movie posters will festoon the walls while empty liquor bottles are proudly displayed on some high shelf or window sill. Christmas lights will no longer be relegated to the tree in December; the living room will be strung with them year-round. The furniture that isn’t built from stolen milk crates will generally be futons or old couches disguised with blankets. Video game consoles and DVD cases will be strewn about the floor and milk crate furniture. A bike will be parked in the corner, but chances are good that no one will know who it belongs to. The only pet you will be permitted to keep is fish, and you will have a Beta due to their resilience. It will live in an empty vodka bottle, in about three inches of water because you will forget to clean it, on four food pellets a week because you will forget to feed it.

You might think that a dirty apartment with strangers asleep on the couch wouldn’t be the kind of place you’d want to spend much time, but that’s only because you haven’t tried it. Living with friends is critical. I’ve been blessed with some really cool roommates over the years, so I’ve never really gotten too worked up about the state of the place. Just remember that college is supposed to be fun, and you’ve got much more important things to be doing than worrying about the cleanliness of your apartment. Like finding a way to eat cereal when there isn’t a single clean dish in the house.

The weather this morning was perfect. It was cool, around 68F. It was dry. The sky was clear and the sun was shining.

And for some reason, it reminded me of my childhood.

I often crack my window at night when I go to bed. Lately, the breeze coming in has had a damp, organic scent to it - the smell of a Rochester summer. It smells like grass that was cut a couple days ago and fresh dew on the lawn.

Not surprisingly, this reminds me of last summer.

I’m having a really hard time adjusting to this summer, mostly because I know it can’t possibly live up to last year. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guys I’m living with now, but it would be hard to top last year. Everything was new and exciting. I was starting to take CS classes again (even if it did prove to be a mistake in the end). I started two new jobs. I got a new laptop and an iPod - toys to occupy myself with. I had a new apartment and three new roommates. I made a lot of new friends. On top of all that, I got to spend all my time with some of the closest friends I’d ever had.

It was an incredible summer, and I knew it wouldn’t last long into the school year. That’s always the hard part about things going so well - you know that they’ll have to go back to normal sooner or later. This past year was lackluster at best. I had a lot of fun, but things just got stagnant quick.

This shouldn’t be a big deal; life is full of ups and downs. Unfortunately, the ups were so great that they made the downs all the worse.

I’ve always been jealous of people that see reruns of some old TV show and get all excited because they watched it all the time when they were kids. I can remember watching Thundercats and GI Joe when I was a kid, but I don’t remember any of the details - character names, plot lines, anything. This itself isn’t important, but it’s a perfect sample of my childhood - I remember being there, I remember things happening, but I don’t remember any details. My childhood is a blur. I know I didn’t particularly care for middle school, largely because I was the geek in my class. When there’s only 17 kids in the class, and you’re the geek, you find yourself at the ass end of every joke and insult.

Things didn’t change in high school, because I hadn’t changed. There were more people around, so I could find people to hang out with who I got along with, but I still felt like I was the geek that no one particularly cared for. I had accepted things for what they were and wasn’t really unhappy with it, but I wasn’t too pleased either - an indifferent contentedness, I guess.

By senior year, I had changed significantly, and I had a real hard time because people still saw me for who I was when they met me, three years earlier. I couldn’t wait to get out and start over in a college where I knew no one. I started calling myself Brock and changed who I was. I had incredibly high hopes for college and couldn’t wait to leave everyone I knew behind.

When you build something up in your head like that, it almost always disappoints. Unbelievably, RIT exceeded every expectation I had. There were some 3,000 freshman (compared to the 320 people in my high school), so I had no trouble finding people that I got along with. I found I could act like myself, and people accepted me for who I was. I had the opportunity at a first impression, and it went better than every other one I’d had.

I’d like to think that the people I’m close to now honestly like me for who I am, but even now, I can never shake the feeling that people are just kind of tolerating and humoring me. I got so accustomed to being the geeky kid that I’m always leery of people that are genuinely decent to me; part of me is always waiting for the practical joke they’ve been setting up for. So far, I haven’t been the butt of any colossal joke that’s been four years in the making, so I think I’m OK, but I still can’t shake the feeling.

Anyway, I mention all of this because things have become stagnant. College was supposed to be the defining period in my life, the four or five years that would leave me with great memories and hilarious stories. Apparently my childhood was an inconsequential non-event, because I don’t remember it, and high school was a four-year exercise in patience. The past four years have largely been ups and more ups, with a few plateaus. The tail end of first year and the beginning of second year were incredible, and my second year kind of leveled off. Third year was generally good, with this past summer to cap it off. This past year, though, has mostly been more of the same. I’ve made a few new friends and done this co-op, but I also found that I hated the classes I was taking. I drifted away from, and (in some cases) found myself at odds with, some close friends.

With only five months left at RIT, these shortcomings are becoming more obvious by the day. College lived up to all the hype at the beginning, but I don’t want to leave on a down note. I don’t have many fond memories before the age of 17, so this was supposed to be it. Four neatly wrapped years of happy memories and close friends to define my adulthood and who I am.

I fear I may have wasted it all freshman year, and now I’m just coasting it out. I don’t know what I’m going to do once I’m done here, because this is the only place I’ve ever really been happy.

Today was an important day in the wide world of sports, with the continued development of a game I invented yesterday in a fit of laziness after helping Fonny hang his dart board. Couch Darts is exactly what it sounds like - sit on the couch and throw darts. Bonus points are awarded for each beer consumed before the game and double bonus points for those consumed during the game. All darts must be thrown from one of the two couches in the living room, and normal scoring is applied. Style points may be awarded for stray darts that stick in particularly interesting places, like the fridge or neighbors’ front door. Injuries are not only a possibility - they should be anticipated and accepted as a risk of the game. Playing through a dart wound is worth 50 style points. Spackle or toothpaste should be readily available for minor repairs to the wall behind the dart board.

Christ, I’m going to miss college.

Friday was the last day of class this year. Being on co-op, I haven’t been paying much attention to the progression of the quarter, so the end of it snuck up on me. Without finals and project due dates looming, I didn’t realize how close to done we were, especially since I know I won’t be leaving or changing my routine for the summer. I saw a few people moving out of the dorms earlier today. That’s always depressing, even when it’s people I don’t know, because that means the people I DO know will be leaving soon too.

We were just talking about Welcome Back, and it seems like it was just last month. I can’t believe how quick this year went, but I guess we say that every year. I’ve been living in the apartment just shy of a year now, making Brie the longest-running roommate I’ve ever had (excluding my younger brother, of course).

The end of the year is always tough. Saying goodbye is always tough. It’s especially hard for me this quarter because I know this may well be my last spring at RIT. It’s starting to sink in that I’ve only got another six months till I’m done. I may stay in the area once I finish, but I’m trying to make the most of the time I’ve got now just in case.

It’s going to be a great summer, and a lot of cool people will be here, but it’s still hard to send friends off for a three month break.

The life span of a three liter bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the hands of two college guys is ten days, assuming they leave it alone for five or six of those days and have a little help (and by little help, I mean a few shots, not a significant contribution).

We had a good run, and while I grieve our loss, I like to think I’ll remember the good times.

On the other hand, we’ve got a bitchin fish tank now. I want to go to the pet store some time this week and get me a Beta to live in there. I’d like to name him Jack or Coke, but I can hardly steal FN’s pet names. I just can’t think of anything more appropriate.

(PS - I know I look like a blind retard mourning the loss of an ice cream cone, but it’s REALLY hard to look sad, look at the empty bottle, AND aim the camera at the same time.)

I met with an academic advisor today and found that I could cut my remaining credits from 26 to 20 by switching over to the new curriculum they’re introducing for this coming fall. This means I’ll be taking one class this summer, while on co-op, and finishing at the end of fall quarter. I had to talk to the Bursar, Registrar, and Financial Aid to get it all straightened out so I could register - I still owe them money, so there was a hold on my account. It looks like I’ll be taking Tech Transfer this summer, and Needs Assessment, Internetworking Lab, Imaging Science Lab (or something like that) and something about Haydn (to finish out my German concentration) in the fall.

I wouldn’t have bothered to try and do it if it weren’t going to save me something like $9,000. I was planning on being here another year anyway, so I wasn’t too anxious to get out of here early. The only problem is that it leaves me with six free months before the 1-year MBA, if I decide to do it (it’s only offered beginning in the summer). I should be able to find a contract job or something for that, though.

I’ve been listening to Flogging Molly’s newest album, Within A Mile of Home, non-stop for like two weeks. I was unimpressed with it the first time I heard it, but it grows on you damn quick. Seeing it done live helps, too.