(because I’m all ‘alt-Right’, ‘the media is horrible and manipulating you’, ‘Confederate statues’, ‘race-bait’, and ‘Tiki torch’-ed out…. and, I’d imagine, you are too!)
The new semester officially starts on Monday. I am going to try something different with work, school, and homework/studying this Fall: I’m going to set up a rough schedule, as if my classes were ‘on campus’.
- Right now, I have 4 classes (I’m waiting to see if a professor will let in a 5th class). I work M-F, 10:30 PM – 6:30 AM. I can do some homework at work, but a new security profile for our work computers might limit what I can or can’t do.
- “Database Administration II” looks like it’ll be the class with the heaviest workload; “Telecommunications I” is the ‘On Demand’ class. During the week, Tuesdays and Fridays are the days where I have some kind of social time/”mind rest” time; Sundays are Podcast recording days. The other 4 days are “long” days: over 7 hours are available for school work, between the time when I would normally wake up and the time I would leave for work. So:
- On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’m going to focus on the Database class. If I get into “Networking I”, it’ll go on these days, also.
- On Wednesdays and Fridays, I’ll focus on Systems Development I and Systems Security I.
- Since Monday is the day where I can get up early and don’t have to leave for work until nearly 9:00 PM, Mondays will be the day where I touch on all 4/5 classes.
- Unless absolutely needed, Saturdays will be the “No Homework” day, with limited studying. Sundays will be the quiz/tests/exam day. I may do some homework or Lab work on Sundays, but I’m going to try to keep it to a small amount.
- The Telecom. class will most likely be split between home and work. I don’t have set times to turn in homework (the big restriction is that I can only turn in 4 graded assignments per week, not counting Lab assignments), so I’ll try to do as much at work as possible.
This is the first time that I’ve attempted 12+ credit hours in school while working 40+ hours a week. I want to see how the first 3 or 4 weeks go with the above schedule template before making any drastic changes. In addition to school and work schedules….
I need to adjust the diet and workout/walking plans for the semester. I like to walk either in the mornings or late afternoons; I’m now thinking about walking home from work 2-3 times a week, instead (it’s between 1.7 and 2 miles, depending on which routes I take). That’s a safer option than walking to work.
Gym-wise, I’ve been too lazy the last 2-3 months. I am now trying to figure out a time slot that works best: 1) right after work, on the days that I don’t walk, 2) before work or Tuesday Trivia (getting to the gym by 7:30 PM (or 4 PM on Trivia days)), or 3) mainly Saturday afternoons, Sunday mornings, and Monday mornings?
The big diet change, so far, has been to not eat when I get home from work. I also am trying not to eat “late” but “late” for a 3rd shifter has a totally different meaning than 1st and 2nd shifters. What I recently started was: not eating past 12:30 AM, unless we are completely swamped and eating earlier is next to impossible. Pops are still 1-2 a week (mainly, I will have one during our podcast sessions); meals were ‘cleaned up’ weeks ago (better ingredients, less fast food) but they can still be improved. Basically, “burn more calories than calories ingested”. We’ll see how it goes.
I finally saw the movie “Split”, starring James McAvoy. McAvoy did a pretty remarkable job in his role as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a sufferer of Dissociative Identity Disorder (he has 23 different personalities, with a rumored 24th). I enjoyed the near-constant tension felt by the 3 girls kidnapped by McAvoy’s “characters”. It gave the movie a Hitchcock kind of feel. The twist ending was weird but, once the final scene happened, made sense.
At work, we can have some movies or shows on in the background, especially on 3rd shift. We’ve had cable issues in the last few days (THANKS, SPECTRUM!!), so we’ve resorted to watching documentaries. If you haven’t seen them, I’d recommend the 2 series on our rotation: PBS’s American Experiences – documenting everything from the founding and growth of Chicago to D-Day in World War II to Evolution – and Ken Burns’s Baseball, a 10-part series on the history of baseball (we are currently on part 6).
I don’t mind a little trash talking in sports. However, when you spend over 2 years doing it, the talk gets very personal, and you then proceed to lose your match/game/fight – to the same opponent twice – then my sympathy for you is very small, post-match/game/fight. Maybe you’ve finally learned that lesson, UFC fighter Daniel Cormier.
The apartment search is chugging along. I tried a few places in the Old Louisville neighborhood but either couldn’t get into the building or the places had applications on them when I went to get the keys for tours. I’ve also looked into a couple of places in Germantown (both were unavailable), a bunch of places in Buechel (3 were unavailable, a 4th went unavailable the morning I was supposed to take a tour of it, and a 5th place took 3 emails and a voicemail before they finally answered back, saying “we don’t have any 1 BR apartments available”), and one place in Okolona (waiting on a response). Right now, there’s a 2nd place in Okolona that looks promising and 2 places in New Albany, Indiana that really look promising (700-800 square feet, $575-$650 a month, some utilities paid, and both are on the New Albany-Louisville bus line). I still hope to move out by the 1st week of September.
My book library increased by 3 today (Dresden Files #1:“Storm Front”; “The Ballad of Black Tom”, and “American Gods”), with a 4th book (Dresden Files #2: “Fool Moon”) on the way. Combine that with Michael Crichton’s “Prey” and Dan Brown’s “Inferno” from last month, and I’ve got enough in the book queue to keep me entertained for a few months!
*EDIT: I forgot to add this, since I tagged both groups*
I am still enjoying the RPG podcasts I found months ago. With “Role Playing Public Radio”, I am wrapping up the latest ‘Base Raiders’ episode. Meanwhile, I’ve started “Into The Black”, an Eclipse Phase game on the ‘Technical Difficulties’ podcast.
The Nexus 