Happy Thursday! It's a sleepy sort of day, isn't it? Or is it just me. Then again, most days are sleepy to me. I'm going to bed in 20 minutes, I promise!
My game's still coming along, although progress has slowed right on down. Lazy me. But also the new season of Doctor Who premiered over the weekend and sort of shuttered out any other hobby or interest. It was a pretty disappointing episode, as far as season starters go. I mean, I laughed, I cried, and then I got mad about all the plot inconsistencies and senseless character developments.
I mean. If a marriage-ending issue could be sorted out with one brief conversation, I think that conversation would have been had already. And don't get me started on the dalek.
Doctor Who, everyone! You should watch it!!
Today in class while I was reinstalling Windows, I listened to a BBC radio production of Slaughterhouse Five. It was good! That's a book I need to read again, as well. I don't know how much I was into time travel or this sort of thing before/as I read it (must have been summer reading before ... 11th grade. I wrote a paper on it for Cotsis.), but listening to it I was all "yeah! yeah! that's how time is!" And it wasn't even like I needed convincing or had to figure out what he was talking about. I genuinely believe that every moment of time ever just IS, like pages in a book. In our lives, we may be in chapter four, chapter eight, whatever, but someone who has the finished book can look back at any chapter and know precisely what has happened and what is to come.
Because, if you look at history, if you look at yesterday, even, you know it rained and then it got muggy. But you don't know if tomorrow it's going to rain or be muggy or be hot or snow. But the day after, you will know, because you lived through it. So right now, our "future" is just a future you's past. There's only one way that things happen(ed).
I think that this viewpoint gets people in a huff when they start about free will or whatever. Well yes. Think about any book you've read. Characters are making choices right and left, because they don't know what's going to happen to them in the next chapter. But it doesn't mean that you can't go back to page 626 and read about them making the same decision at the same time for the same reasons. That page will always be the same. But since we experience time in the manner that we do, we tend to think about it linearly as well.
Okay, man, I didn't mean to get this all sci-fi meta on you. It's too late at night for that. Next time let's discuss deja vue. In the meantime, watch 12 Monkeys. Okay break.
-Steph
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Multitasking
Happy Thursday! How are your pets today? This hasn't seemed like a very good day for pets. For instance, this morning we found Donnie covered in mud, so wet, so sad. He's been in fights almost every night and this one he fell? in the gutter? of mud? My mom brushed him so now he's just half covered in dirt. And then Carolyn found one of her fish all bitten up by the turtle and flopsing around in the filter, so that guy's on emergency watch.
Did I tell you last week I was going to make a board game? I think I called it D&D+Munchkin+Risk? Now it's more of a Borderlands+Tales of the Crystals+a board game. At the mechanical level. The quests further the story, given by characters who talk to you and to whom you do not talk, and there's side quests as well for loot and exp. But it's also based on player-input, like the D&D+Munchkin social side with less of the pen&paper&card side. Even though there are, in fact, pens and paper as well as cards.
I've ironed out the races, the classes, the battle system, the movement system, the quest system, the character advancement system, the item system, and how to organize it all. There's even a way to change your surroundings based on your decisions. Now I just need to flesh out the map and add content, and then 1/4 of this game will have a rough draft. Then I need to do the same for the other 3/4s of the world.
I mean, I have pretty much the first tutorial town all sorted out, and half written. And I know which quests are going to pull you through onward, and the two places you go next and what the main adventure is going to be. The map is quadranted, so in the end each starter area will have this same intro setup, and at a mid-point be able to travel to the other parts at will. But I don't have the other parts yet, so for this rough draft I'll just be focusing on the Human quadrant from start to "finish." Even so, I have such grand schemes for this game, and different layers of completion based on how interested you are or how long you want to play. I know what the grand 4-player endgame is, but also what the Human starter endgame is, and what the midpoint-game is, and once I have the latter two set up we can all try it out.
I'm going to be the green player, the Mechanic, in charge of area cards and battle management, and I will play an Orc Berserker. My mom is going to be the yellow player, the Arms Master, in charge of equipment/money token management, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna make her play a Dwarf Mage. We will need a Ranger and it would be cool to fill it out and also have a Mercenary.
Each race can be one of two classes: Orcs Berserkers and Mercenaries, Humans Mercenaries and Rangers, Elves Rangers and Mages, and Dwarves Mages and Berserkers. Each race has a character stat bonus that the others don't, and each class has a different set of six abilities. I want to be an Orc Berserker because my style of play is smash things until I win, and that's a combo that will enable me to do that without much thought.
The weird thing about trying to make this all come together is that I feel like it's all I want to work on, think about, or do. But after the weekend ended, I had to go to school for all day long.... and all this week I've felt busy all afternoons. Basically, it feels like I haven't had any time at all to work on this. But somehow, in spite of the way it feels, I've got all this info and data and thoughts and dreams and plans.
It's unstoppable.
I just hope it'll be as fun as I keep telling everyone it will be. I mean, you get to have a llamacorn as a steed and quell the clockwork uprising. And stop the King of Bandits Nefario and his Marauding Minstrels from committing all this highway robbery. And explore the Grove of Whispers. What more do I have to say?
-Steph
Around all this, I've also been studying for the N+, which is way harder because I didn't bother to learn about OSPF and IGPs and EGPs and SNMP and ICMP and IGMP and EIGRP. Today I think I finally understood subnetting. So that's coming along. Yesterday we had a luau.
Did I tell you last week I was going to make a board game? I think I called it D&D+Munchkin+Risk? Now it's more of a Borderlands+Tales of the Crystals+a board game. At the mechanical level. The quests further the story, given by characters who talk to you and to whom you do not talk, and there's side quests as well for loot and exp. But it's also based on player-input, like the D&D+Munchkin social side with less of the pen&paper&card side. Even though there are, in fact, pens and paper as well as cards.
I've ironed out the races, the classes, the battle system, the movement system, the quest system, the character advancement system, the item system, and how to organize it all. There's even a way to change your surroundings based on your decisions. Now I just need to flesh out the map and add content, and then 1/4 of this game will have a rough draft. Then I need to do the same for the other 3/4s of the world.
I mean, I have pretty much the first tutorial town all sorted out, and half written. And I know which quests are going to pull you through onward, and the two places you go next and what the main adventure is going to be. The map is quadranted, so in the end each starter area will have this same intro setup, and at a mid-point be able to travel to the other parts at will. But I don't have the other parts yet, so for this rough draft I'll just be focusing on the Human quadrant from start to "finish." Even so, I have such grand schemes for this game, and different layers of completion based on how interested you are or how long you want to play. I know what the grand 4-player endgame is, but also what the Human starter endgame is, and what the midpoint-game is, and once I have the latter two set up we can all try it out.
I'm going to be the green player, the Mechanic, in charge of area cards and battle management, and I will play an Orc Berserker. My mom is going to be the yellow player, the Arms Master, in charge of equipment/money token management, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna make her play a Dwarf Mage. We will need a Ranger and it would be cool to fill it out and also have a Mercenary.
Each race can be one of two classes: Orcs Berserkers and Mercenaries, Humans Mercenaries and Rangers, Elves Rangers and Mages, and Dwarves Mages and Berserkers. Each race has a character stat bonus that the others don't, and each class has a different set of six abilities. I want to be an Orc Berserker because my style of play is smash things until I win, and that's a combo that will enable me to do that without much thought.
The weird thing about trying to make this all come together is that I feel like it's all I want to work on, think about, or do. But after the weekend ended, I had to go to school for all day long.... and all this week I've felt busy all afternoons. Basically, it feels like I haven't had any time at all to work on this. But somehow, in spite of the way it feels, I've got all this info and data and thoughts and dreams and plans.
It's unstoppable.
I just hope it'll be as fun as I keep telling everyone it will be. I mean, you get to have a llamacorn as a steed and quell the clockwork uprising. And stop the King of Bandits Nefario and his Marauding Minstrels from committing all this highway robbery. And explore the Grove of Whispers. What more do I have to say?
-Steph
Around all this, I've also been studying for the N+, which is way harder because I didn't bother to learn about OSPF and IGPs and EGPs and SNMP and ICMP and IGMP and EIGRP. Today I think I finally understood subnetting. So that's coming along. Yesterday we had a luau.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Onward!
Happy Thursday! I just spent like an hour gabbing to my mom about an RPG adventure board game I want to make. What a good listener. I don't think I've talked that much or at such a speed for probably about ever. (haha I forgot that before that I was ranting at my dad about my classmates) When I get started on a subject, sometimes there's just no end.
Daydreaming about game mechanics is how I spent my day. Also, there was quite a bit of playing around in Excel. OH. But actually, today I passed my second test so technically (?) now I'm A+ certified. Nothing in the 'verse can stop me.
Next up is N+ and then who knows what. I'mma fix all the computers.
And then I almost hit a car on my way home. It wouldn't have been my fault, just terrible. I was waiting to turn left from a side street to the main street (literally), in the middle lane. The light turned green and sluggishly I realized it and equally slowly the truck to my left started as well. And then about a second and a half later the truck HONNNNNKS and I look and SLAM ON MY BRAKES because flying by in front of us comes some little white two door through the red light. If that truck hadn't seen it, he would have hit it. And if he hadn't have honked, I would have hit it.
But everyone was okay, at least at the moment. Also. Two out of three times in that paragraph I wrote "trunk." It's been a full day.
So my board game, right? It's like, D&D+Munchin+Risk. You get to pick a race and a class, and go as a party around and take quests and level up and gain loot and achieve objectives. It'll be great. More on that later. Although, I can't help but feel like this has to exist somewhere. I choose to be surprised.
To close, does anybody have any good steam punk recommendations? I was reading about like, the origin of cathode ray tubes and wacky stuff like that, and man how cool was science in the 1800s? Even cooler if it was steam powered, amirite? So that's something I want to get into.
See ya later!
-Steph
Daydreaming about game mechanics is how I spent my day. Also, there was quite a bit of playing around in Excel. OH. But actually, today I passed my second test so technically (?) now I'm A+ certified. Nothing in the 'verse can stop me.
Next up is N+ and then who knows what. I'mma fix all the computers.
And then I almost hit a car on my way home. It wouldn't have been my fault, just terrible. I was waiting to turn left from a side street to the main street (literally), in the middle lane. The light turned green and sluggishly I realized it and equally slowly the truck to my left started as well. And then about a second and a half later the truck HONNNNNKS and I look and SLAM ON MY BRAKES because flying by in front of us comes some little white two door through the red light. If that truck hadn't seen it, he would have hit it. And if he hadn't have honked, I would have hit it.
But everyone was okay, at least at the moment. Also. Two out of three times in that paragraph I wrote "trunk." It's been a full day.
So my board game, right? It's like, D&D+Munchin+Risk. You get to pick a race and a class, and go as a party around and take quests and level up and gain loot and achieve objectives. It'll be great. More on that later. Although, I can't help but feel like this has to exist somewhere. I choose to be surprised.
To close, does anybody have any good steam punk recommendations? I was reading about like, the origin of cathode ray tubes and wacky stuff like that, and man how cool was science in the 1800s? Even cooler if it was steam powered, amirite? So that's something I want to get into.
See ya later!
-Steph
Thursday, August 16, 2012
whut
Happy Thursday! How have you been liking summer? The internet says it should be staying in the 70s for at least a little while longer, and I'll take what I can get.
Last week I strained my neck? I can't look left or yawn. Staring straight ahead is just fine, and that's what I've been doing mostly. You should see me trying to drive, though, I look like a freak twisting around my whole self just to check the traffics.
This week at school has been studying for the second part of the A+, which is somewhat harder. But I'm just about done memorizing these practice tests so I'll be taking that probably early next week. The Student Council met again this week, too. And there's an open house this weekend. It's a cute little school.
The Olympics are over! I attempted to shoot some hoops, as they say, to fill the great empty void. When my ailment has passed I will be doing some more, I guess.
Oh geez I'm sleepy. This blog just drains me. Ahaha.
-Steph
Last week I strained my neck? I can't look left or yawn. Staring straight ahead is just fine, and that's what I've been doing mostly. You should see me trying to drive, though, I look like a freak twisting around my whole self just to check the traffics.
This week at school has been studying for the second part of the A+, which is somewhat harder. But I'm just about done memorizing these practice tests so I'll be taking that probably early next week. The Student Council met again this week, too. And there's an open house this weekend. It's a cute little school.
The Olympics are over! I attempted to shoot some hoops, as they say, to fill the great empty void. When my ailment has passed I will be doing some more, I guess.
Oh geez I'm sleepy. This blog just drains me. Ahaha.
-Steph
Thursday, August 09, 2012
A+
Happy Thursday! I picked a great week to start taking peaceful strolls around the business park at which I educate myself. It's been the sort of mild, blazingly clear, breezy weather that reminds one of the gentle warming of late springtime, when one can count the remainder of the school year as a handful of weeks, and beyond that is simply months and months of glorious summer...
wait.
So this is definitely August, and it's just now getting properly sunny. And school's not out, I still have five or six solid months of full time book grinding. Nothing is as it seems.
I did, however, take one of my tests today-- exams, really. I took the first part of my certification and passed with an 880 which I guess is pretty alright. So I'm half-certified. Woot.
Oh man I just got sooo sleepy. I was up til midnight last night which was ridiculous, but Minecraft had an update this week so that was pretty important. I think you can tell a lot about a person's character by their playstyle? For the past forever I've been hollowing out the underground to form a ranch/orchard/farm in which I simply make a circuit of the grounds and collect all the collectables (chickens, watermelon, pumpkin, reeds, oak/apples, cactus, wheat, birch, spruce, jungle tree, cocoa beans (the cultivation of which is new this week!!) mushrooms, slimes, pigs and cows) and then deposit the loot in carefully arranged holding facilities. Natural born hoarder, this one.
Before I forget again, the fair was pretty fairy. I had a bratwurst which was surprisingly good. And we brought home the big bag of kettlecorn because there's none better and when my folks went on Tuesday I had them bring home another. I pet the donkey! We also saw Joan Jett and then froze on the pier waiting for the fireworks which ended up being a half hour later than we expected due to it being Saturday.
I also read a whole book this week, so there.
I'm so happy tomorrow's Friday.
-Steph
wait.
So this is definitely August, and it's just now getting properly sunny. And school's not out, I still have five or six solid months of full time book grinding. Nothing is as it seems.
I did, however, take one of my tests today-- exams, really. I took the first part of my certification and passed with an 880 which I guess is pretty alright. So I'm half-certified. Woot.
Oh man I just got sooo sleepy. I was up til midnight last night which was ridiculous, but Minecraft had an update this week so that was pretty important. I think you can tell a lot about a person's character by their playstyle? For the past forever I've been hollowing out the underground to form a ranch/orchard/farm in which I simply make a circuit of the grounds and collect all the collectables (chickens, watermelon, pumpkin, reeds, oak/apples, cactus, wheat, birch, spruce, jungle tree, cocoa beans (the cultivation of which is new this week!!) mushrooms, slimes, pigs and cows) and then deposit the loot in carefully arranged holding facilities. Natural born hoarder, this one.
Before I forget again, the fair was pretty fairy. I had a bratwurst which was surprisingly good. And we brought home the big bag of kettlecorn because there's none better and when my folks went on Tuesday I had them bring home another. I pet the donkey! We also saw Joan Jett and then froze on the pier waiting for the fireworks which ended up being a half hour later than we expected due to it being Saturday.
I also read a whole book this week, so there.
I'm so happy tomorrow's Friday.
-Steph
Thursday, August 02, 2012
Oh hello
Happy Thursday! I almost forgot about you. Not about you exactly, but about coming here and sitting in front of the Internet for hours on end every day. You have the Olympics to blame for that. I've been sitting in front of the TV all week instead. ;p
I've never sat myself down and watch the Olympics before. And certainly hardly ever "sports" in general. But this is every sports, and it's every place, and it's very much more epic and seemingly deserving of being watched. The best of the best are here, setting records left and right and proving to everyone that their life's work has been worth it.
Highlights:
Volleyball team hugs
Dressage (look it up!)
When people knock themselves down in soccer
Fencing
The way the person who was in the lead for the first 3/4s of the race probably won't even medal
Fireworks shooting out of the stadium
When America was playing North Korea at badminton and all the players were Asian
Canada swinging that tie with Sweden in women's soccer
Field hockey = handball = water polo = soccer = field hockey
I feel like I haven't seen all the sports though. Like, where's the track and field? Like, pole vaulting and jumping really far and all that. It's like it's all soccer and swimming and gymnastics and if you wake up early enough you get to see the cool stuff like archery and fencing and table tennis. Over the weekend I wasn't feeling great so I just sat around and watched the different NBC channels 48 hours straight. Monday I wasn't up to anything so I skipped and basically did the same thing. XD I've been late to school every day, and spending the last two hours before bed cramming in all the sports possible. Who am I.
In school, however, I've finished my curriculum and am now studying to pass the certification exams. So no pressure there, I sort of feel like I can do whatever I want. Like study. Or go on walks.
Speaking of studying, I found some handwriting worksheets for the Russian alphabet and have been scratching those out in the 8-10PM Olympics hours. They are a lot the same and a lot weird. They have a letter that is pronounced "shcheh." Uppercase P is R and lowercase g is d. It's the best.
Other than being sick and watching the Olympics, this week I played Journey at Carolyn's house. It was pretty magical because I had a mysterious friend appear and help me through it, I'd recommend at least looking up some playthrough on youtube. What an artistic game.
Um and Beth had a birthday! Good jorb.
OH and the fair is started! I totally forgot to enter any crafts or produce, so half my reasons for going are nonexistent, haha. But I'm still excited to go because I love that place. Probably Saturday.
I'll tell you all about it later!
-Steph
I've never sat myself down and watch the Olympics before. And certainly hardly ever "sports" in general. But this is every sports, and it's every place, and it's very much more epic and seemingly deserving of being watched. The best of the best are here, setting records left and right and proving to everyone that their life's work has been worth it.
Highlights:
Volleyball team hugs
Dressage (look it up!)
When people knock themselves down in soccer
Fencing
The way the person who was in the lead for the first 3/4s of the race probably won't even medal
Fireworks shooting out of the stadium
When America was playing North Korea at badminton and all the players were Asian
Canada swinging that tie with Sweden in women's soccer
Field hockey = handball = water polo = soccer = field hockey
I feel like I haven't seen all the sports though. Like, where's the track and field? Like, pole vaulting and jumping really far and all that. It's like it's all soccer and swimming and gymnastics and if you wake up early enough you get to see the cool stuff like archery and fencing and table tennis. Over the weekend I wasn't feeling great so I just sat around and watched the different NBC channels 48 hours straight. Monday I wasn't up to anything so I skipped and basically did the same thing. XD I've been late to school every day, and spending the last two hours before bed cramming in all the sports possible. Who am I.
In school, however, I've finished my curriculum and am now studying to pass the certification exams. So no pressure there, I sort of feel like I can do whatever I want. Like study. Or go on walks.
Speaking of studying, I found some handwriting worksheets for the Russian alphabet and have been scratching those out in the 8-10PM Olympics hours. They are a lot the same and a lot weird. They have a letter that is pronounced "shcheh." Uppercase P is R and lowercase g is d. It's the best.
Other than being sick and watching the Olympics, this week I played Journey at Carolyn's house. It was pretty magical because I had a mysterious friend appear and help me through it, I'd recommend at least looking up some playthrough on youtube. What an artistic game.
Um and Beth had a birthday! Good jorb.
OH and the fair is started! I totally forgot to enter any crafts or produce, so half my reasons for going are nonexistent, haha. But I'm still excited to go because I love that place. Probably Saturday.
I'll tell you all about it later!
-Steph
Thursday, July 26, 2012
hm.
Happy Thursday! Today I pushed a cat over, it was the best. Then he untied my shoe.
I mean, I also took my last test supplied by my current curriculum, so the next six months are study study pass the exams get a job. I'm getting there.
Earlier I was thinking about what I was going to say today and I'm sure I had more than that. I'm...almost.....sure of it....
It's times like this when I feel there are more productive things I could be doing other than this blog. Like learning Russian! Still working on that, guys.
Oh up me and Carolyn saw Spiderman. It was pretty good.
Ugh what is this even about.
-Steph
I mean, I also took my last test supplied by my current curriculum, so the next six months are study study pass the exams get a job. I'm getting there.
Earlier I was thinking about what I was going to say today and I'm sure I had more than that. I'm...almost.....sure of it....
It's times like this when I feel there are more productive things I could be doing other than this blog. Like learning Russian! Still working on that, guys.
Oh up me and Carolyn saw Spiderman. It was pretty good.
Ugh what is this even about.
-Steph
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Walking In The Rain
Happy Thursday! Yesterday we went on a rain walk, which always reminds me of the song Endless Rain by X Japan, which goes like this:
So after the rain we had an amazing sunset. And then this morning before 7 it seemed to be raining again. I looked out and the sky was dark, dark rain clouds, and the earth was bright bright daytime. Welcome to the hottest day of summer. More plz.
Had an eye exam today, he said my prescription hadn't changed at all, so I get to keep these bad boys for another two years huzzah. He also was pretty amazed at how healthy my eyes evidently are. While I was out there I took a walk around the mall for health, because who doesn't love shopping while exercising?
Speaking of Youtube, I spent this week catching up with Marble Hornets, which is an alternate reality horror mystery "show" or "game" where some kids are filming/being chased down by this terrifying... thing. It's so intense! "Scary" movies or things aren't really scary to me, but I AM spectacularly jumpy, and this thing is like, a jump scare every three seconds. Or in episodes where there isn't anything spooky, but you're just waiting, waiting, so you're just sitting there terrified for two minutes and all you saw was a guy rummaging around in the woods and/or an abandoned house. Magnificent.
Other than that...sleep. School. Went to the zoo with Carolyn on Saturday. Got my car fixed.
Yep.
-Steph
"I'm walking in the rainWhat a classic. Takes me back to my early days of music piracy, downloading gads of poorly labeled files off of WinMX. Such treasures there were to be found! That's how I built my collection of Final Fantasy techno remixes. This was always my favorite.
行くあてもなく 傷ついた身体濡らし"
So after the rain we had an amazing sunset. And then this morning before 7 it seemed to be raining again. I looked out and the sky was dark, dark rain clouds, and the earth was bright bright daytime. Welcome to the hottest day of summer. More plz.
Had an eye exam today, he said my prescription hadn't changed at all, so I get to keep these bad boys for another two years huzzah. He also was pretty amazed at how healthy my eyes evidently are. While I was out there I took a walk around the mall for health, because who doesn't love shopping while exercising?
Speaking of Youtube, I spent this week catching up with Marble Hornets, which is an alternate reality horror mystery "show" or "game" where some kids are filming/being chased down by this terrifying... thing. It's so intense! "Scary" movies or things aren't really scary to me, but I AM spectacularly jumpy, and this thing is like, a jump scare every three seconds. Or in episodes where there isn't anything spooky, but you're just waiting, waiting, so you're just sitting there terrified for two minutes and all you saw was a guy rummaging around in the woods and/or an abandoned house. Magnificent.
Other than that...sleep. School. Went to the zoo with Carolyn on Saturday. Got my car fixed.
Yep.
-Steph
Thursday, July 12, 2012
sbyeay
Happy Thursday! This morning we had a freak rain shower for like three minutes. It was the best.
Guys how's school! Mine's pretty good, I'm sort of winning it. This week I became my class rep to the student body council! Whatever that means, in practice. Our old one graduated, so my professor said to me "we usually send someone who has good attendance and is on schedule with their program," meaning it had to be me. lawl adult ed.
I took a test today, on networking two machines running Windows Server 2003. This was "the hardest section" and it took me an hour and a half, and a third of that was just installing the OS. Soooo simple. Next up is Windows 7 to Windows 7, so I'm expecting to conquer that within the week.
After the test I spent the day listening to Linkin Park's library, in reverse album order. They got sooo young sounding by the end!! Minutes to Midnight is my least favorite still; on the other hand, A Thousand Suns was still so strong I couldn't concentrate on reading even slightly, I just had to listen to every song. And I've been listening to that fool at least weekly for over a year now. ugh it's so good.
I mean, I learned about network security...yep.
I'm looking forward to going to sleep on time today. It's been too long. Been taking hobo naps in my car all week.
And Carolyn had a birthday this week, so congrats! Now you're old, too. :3
And that's about it. School, naps, Sherlock, bitta League, Linkin Park. Made soup today. Yep. Good week.
-Steph
oh haha I almost forgot: "sbyeay" is when you expect your phone to autocorrect it to "anyway," but instead your phone decides that "sbyeay" is a perfectly valid word. In other news, Samsung Galaxy S III or HTC One X?
Guys how's school! Mine's pretty good, I'm sort of winning it. This week I became my class rep to the student body council! Whatever that means, in practice. Our old one graduated, so my professor said to me "we usually send someone who has good attendance and is on schedule with their program," meaning it had to be me. lawl adult ed.
I took a test today, on networking two machines running Windows Server 2003. This was "the hardest section" and it took me an hour and a half, and a third of that was just installing the OS. Soooo simple. Next up is Windows 7 to Windows 7, so I'm expecting to conquer that within the week.
After the test I spent the day listening to Linkin Park's library, in reverse album order. They got sooo young sounding by the end!! Minutes to Midnight is my least favorite still; on the other hand, A Thousand Suns was still so strong I couldn't concentrate on reading even slightly, I just had to listen to every song. And I've been listening to that fool at least weekly for over a year now. ugh it's so good.
I mean, I learned about network security...yep.
I'm looking forward to going to sleep on time today. It's been too long. Been taking hobo naps in my car all week.
And Carolyn had a birthday this week, so congrats! Now you're old, too. :3
And that's about it. School, naps, Sherlock, bitta League, Linkin Park. Made soup today. Yep. Good week.
-Steph
oh haha I almost forgot: "sbyeay" is when you expect your phone to autocorrect it to "anyway," but instead your phone decides that "sbyeay" is a perfectly valid word. In other news, Samsung Galaxy S III or HTC One X?
Thursday, July 05, 2012
Здравствуйте
Happy Thursday!
Back from AX. It was good. Didn't cosplay too much, which was alright because the amount of time and money that went into it wasn't exorbitant. Carolyn was a little gimpy the whole time and I had a huge headache the first day or so, and the XGames had taken over the world so we had some other things to deal with as well.
We watched the AMVs and the Masquerade and episodes 1-4 of a ridiculous anime and scouted out food courts and stayed up late watching Adult Swim and played card games and walked and sat and came up with catch phrases like "cook the happy, starve the poor." So when it comes to a mini-vacation with friends, it worked out pretty darn good.
And then me and Carolyn saw Abraham Lincoln, which was pretty shoddy.
And then my sister came over and we watched fireworks and they were huge and loud. Then I got my whole family hooked on Sherlock BWAHAHAHA.
We made fish (and chickpea) tacos and potato salad and all that jazz. Today Ainsley came over and we played murder.
All this week I've been annoying heck out of everyone with this fake Russian accent I am using to type this. It comes with personality and is funny person to be around. I show you sometime. Then I looked up Russian videos on youtube and will learn some words to make sound more official. Is good time.
Pictures of AX on Facebook, if you're interested.
-Steph
Back from AX. It was good. Didn't cosplay too much, which was alright because the amount of time and money that went into it wasn't exorbitant. Carolyn was a little gimpy the whole time and I had a huge headache the first day or so, and the XGames had taken over the world so we had some other things to deal with as well.
We watched the AMVs and the Masquerade and episodes 1-4 of a ridiculous anime and scouted out food courts and stayed up late watching Adult Swim and played card games and walked and sat and came up with catch phrases like "cook the happy, starve the poor." So when it comes to a mini-vacation with friends, it worked out pretty darn good.
And then me and Carolyn saw Abraham Lincoln, which was pretty shoddy.
And then my sister came over and we watched fireworks and they were huge and loud. Then I got my whole family hooked on Sherlock BWAHAHAHA.
We made fish (and chickpea) tacos and potato salad and all that jazz. Today Ainsley came over and we played murder.
All this week I've been annoying heck out of everyone with this fake Russian accent I am using to type this. It comes with personality and is funny person to be around. I show you sometime. Then I looked up Russian videos on youtube and will learn some words to make sound more official. Is good time.
Pictures of AX on Facebook, if you're interested.
-Steph
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Heading out in the morning
Happy Thursday! The Anime Expo is tomorrow! I've been so busy with school and stuff that it totally snuck up on me and I'm not sure that I actually realize that THE AX IS TOMORROW. I am completely mentally unprepared.
Mostly physically prepared. Laundry's still going, but my costume gone finished about an hour ago. 90% iron-on, 10% glue, 10% sewed. Wait. Whatever. I don't care, I wasn't brought into this world to do math.
I'll just take pictures so you can see what I mean, but lord knows I can't describe it. My own personal cosplay is a mix of no less than five things. It should be pretty awesome.
Um at school today I started the exercises for the next section, which is about running two Server 2003 machines in the same domain with one as the domain controller. I plugged in Linkin Park and chunked through 8 of 11 pages, no prob. It was a great day.
The other kid comes up near the end. He's been here who knows how long, and now I've caught up, right? So we've both just started this section. He's like, "I had trouble promoting my domain controller." And I was all.....you just... you just click on it..... and it goes...
Also, that step was step 6 at the bottom of page one.
Sometimes I feel like a fancy chefs knife kept in a wood block.
But speaking of Linkin Park, I had crazy crazy mixed feelings about the new album (came out day before last but I pre-ordered it so it came in the mail the day BEFORE THAT) it for the first dozen listens, but now I'm sort of hooked. I knew it was going to be different because "different" is their new style, but even so it threw me for a while.
The biggest problem was that the last one, A Thousand Suns, was DIFFERENT in a way that changed my life. It wasn't different so much as perfect. So I was hoping for more of that, but what I got was just a cd. It's fun, and funky, and I like a lot of the new sound and I'm really quite amazed at the level of songmanship on most of the tracks, but it didn't change my life. Which is alright! I put all their stuff on shuffle today, and it was a very pleasant.
I would recommend you to check out "Roads Untraveled," I'm sure it's out on the internet somewhere already. That and "I'll Be Gone" are my two faves, although I actually like "Lies Greed Misery" second best. But for your listening entertainment, I might not point you to that particular one right out of the box.
Alright, homies, I gotta go to sleep so I can be a huge nerd later.
-Steph
Mostly physically prepared. Laundry's still going, but my costume gone finished about an hour ago. 90% iron-on, 10% glue, 10% sewed. Wait. Whatever. I don't care, I wasn't brought into this world to do math.
I'll just take pictures so you can see what I mean, but lord knows I can't describe it. My own personal cosplay is a mix of no less than five things. It should be pretty awesome.
Um at school today I started the exercises for the next section, which is about running two Server 2003 machines in the same domain with one as the domain controller. I plugged in Linkin Park and chunked through 8 of 11 pages, no prob. It was a great day.
The other kid comes up near the end. He's been here who knows how long, and now I've caught up, right? So we've both just started this section. He's like, "I had trouble promoting my domain controller." And I was all.....you just... you just click on it..... and it goes...
Also, that step was step 6 at the bottom of page one.
Sometimes I feel like a fancy chefs knife kept in a wood block.
But speaking of Linkin Park, I had crazy crazy mixed feelings about the new album (came out day before last but I pre-ordered it so it came in the mail the day BEFORE THAT) it for the first dozen listens, but now I'm sort of hooked. I knew it was going to be different because "different" is their new style, but even so it threw me for a while.
The biggest problem was that the last one, A Thousand Suns, was DIFFERENT in a way that changed my life. It wasn't different so much as perfect. So I was hoping for more of that, but what I got was just a cd. It's fun, and funky, and I like a lot of the new sound and I'm really quite amazed at the level of songmanship on most of the tracks, but it didn't change my life. Which is alright! I put all their stuff on shuffle today, and it was a very pleasant.
I would recommend you to check out "Roads Untraveled," I'm sure it's out on the internet somewhere already. That and "I'll Be Gone" are my two faves, although I actually like "Lies Greed Misery" second best. But for your listening entertainment, I might not point you to that particular one right out of the box.
Alright, homies, I gotta go to sleep so I can be a huge nerd later.
-Steph
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Visitor
Happy Thursday! We have a visitor this week who is my niece Ainsley! What a fun time we're going to have once I get out of school for the weekend!
I don't know... what happened this week? I feel like it's all gone by so quickly. Last week I had off, right? So probably what it is is I got back to class and then forgot about what it was like to do anything else.
School's good, though! When I got there I was like "oh yeah I don't know any of this," but a few days later now I'm all supa pro at this section and feelin pretty good about it. Reading the manual actually helps a lot, too.
Wow, what an update. But I don't know what else to say and I should be getting to sleep, so catch ya later!
OH no, also, one night we made fish tacos, which were the best. I'll make them for you.
-Steph
Oh yeah, and we rode bikes on a newish bike trail in Santa Paula on Father's Day, and went to the barn museum that was there and looked at all the old tractors.
I don't know... what happened this week? I feel like it's all gone by so quickly. Last week I had off, right? So probably what it is is I got back to class and then forgot about what it was like to do anything else.
School's good, though! When I got there I was like "oh yeah I don't know any of this," but a few days later now I'm all supa pro at this section and feelin pretty good about it. Reading the manual actually helps a lot, too.
Wow, what an update. But I don't know what else to say and I should be getting to sleep, so catch ya later!
OH no, also, one night we made fish tacos, which were the best. I'll make them for you.
-Steph
Oh yeah, and we rode bikes on a newish bike trail in Santa Paula on Father's Day, and went to the barn museum that was there and looked at all the old tractors.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Summer Vacation
Happy Thursday! How have your summers been? Mine's been a bit overcast, but on the other hand I've had all day every day to enjoy it, so it kind of evens out. Back to school on Monday, though.
This week has been all video games and sleeping, not gonna lie. Spent allllll weekend watching the Major League Gaming League of Legends tournament live stream. What a weekend.
Now I'm watching the Justice League and building a tower defense adventure map in Minecraft. Because I dreamed it! It'll be an open-ended fully customizable objective-based map you can play with friends. Competitive mode would be a capture the flag type team battle, where you raid the other towers and try to destroy their flags and put them up at your tower. Cooperative mode would be a creative "build your own castle" adventure with additional goals like finding specific areas and rebuilding certain structures. The world that I finally settled on spawned some pretty cool mountains and stuff, and there's sooo much ocean in every direction. I think it'd be pretty fun to play when I finish setting it all up.
Most adventure maps for Minecraft are all jumping puzzles and awkward stories related through in-game signs or text files. And they usually have "don't break any blocks" rules to force you through the map in the right order and so you don't bust up any wiring behind the scenes. My map would be Minecraft at its most basic, where anything goes. If you can tunnel through a wall to achieve your goal, by all means go ahead and tunnel. It'll be like a sandbox map within a sandbox game. Mineception.
Saw the Avengers again with Carolyn, and worked some more on our cosplays. By worked I mean I watched Doctor Who and Carolyn worked on our cosplays. Avengers was still pretty good second time, not as outrageously funny because the surprise element was gone. Thor was my favorite.
That about sums up my week!
-Steph
This week has been all video games and sleeping, not gonna lie. Spent allllll weekend watching the Major League Gaming League of Legends tournament live stream. What a weekend.
Now I'm watching the Justice League and building a tower defense adventure map in Minecraft. Because I dreamed it! It'll be an open-ended fully customizable objective-based map you can play with friends. Competitive mode would be a capture the flag type team battle, where you raid the other towers and try to destroy their flags and put them up at your tower. Cooperative mode would be a creative "build your own castle" adventure with additional goals like finding specific areas and rebuilding certain structures. The world that I finally settled on spawned some pretty cool mountains and stuff, and there's sooo much ocean in every direction. I think it'd be pretty fun to play when I finish setting it all up.
Most adventure maps for Minecraft are all jumping puzzles and awkward stories related through in-game signs or text files. And they usually have "don't break any blocks" rules to force you through the map in the right order and so you don't bust up any wiring behind the scenes. My map would be Minecraft at its most basic, where anything goes. If you can tunnel through a wall to achieve your goal, by all means go ahead and tunnel. It'll be like a sandbox map within a sandbox game. Mineception.
Saw the Avengers again with Carolyn, and worked some more on our cosplays. By worked I mean I watched Doctor Who and Carolyn worked on our cosplays. Avengers was still pretty good second time, not as outrageously funny because the surprise element was gone. Thor was my favorite.
That about sums up my week!
-Steph
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Out and About
Happy Thursday! What a cool week I've been having. Cool as in, incredibly warm out. The internet tells me I can look forward to this summery weather for at least a little while longer. I can't imagine living in a place where I could count on summer weather all summer long. That's a dream I will continue to chase.
Got another chunk of The Man's monies comin my way, so watch out baby, Imma buy me a tank 'o gas. Bwahahaha. Actually, I want to be more environmentally aware. Any ideas? I already recycle cardboard boxes and Dr Pepper cans.
All this week I seem to have been out having adventures. Dawn to dusk out of the house, kinda different. The other day me and Carolyn and Jacqi and Alex went hiking up at Arroyo Verde. It could have been better planned, but impromptu things always come across that way. But we got to the top of the hill and it was just so magical. Like two hours before sunset, all this wavy golden grass and the shine of the sun just sitting a little farther up on the ridge, everyone in front and above me just mysterious silhouetted pathfinders.
It was a very "why don't we do this every day??" moment.
We were going to go again but we didn't. I need better shoes for it, anyway. And some new pants, I broke a pair. :/ Maybe gas can wait.
But me and Carolyn got started on our AX costumes, which are a secret. I can tell you we're going from video games. And it's going to be so so cute. I have ALL NEXT WEEK OFF so probably try to get it done then, you know, before the day before comes and it's not done. O-ho-ho what wacky dreams I have.
Yeah, so between school, Carolyn's house, Green Forest, Carolyn's house, Starbucks, and the park, and shopping for the AX I feel like I've hardly been home. I just sleep here. And play video games. OH ACTUALLY.
All Sunday I watched this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxIQiCAvnko&feature=plcp which is a Minecraft map designed to be played as a team deathmatch in the manner of the Hunger Games. I mean, the video is of the Yogscast hosting said deathmatch on this map that somebody else made. But the magical part is that each team has their own video of events (since everyone pretty much split up at the word Go in order to not be instantly slaughtered by a rival team) and you can watch them also on Youtube. And each time through you learn something different about reality, but it's a totally organic, non-scripted adventure. I'd recommend it just as a psychological experiment, really.
(One of the underlying themes is that of paranoia. Of course everyone knows this is a team deathmatch and that anybody you come across is likely to want to kill you. So the perception is that everyone else, out of sight, is constantly and aggressively plotting your destruction. Only the thing is, that's what every single player is perceiving, meaning that every single player is, in fact, not plotting anybody's destruction. Rather, they are just running fearfully away from anybody else.)
The other great thing about is is the chat in Minecraft automatically logs such information as player name and manner of death, so if you're watching Simon and Lewis play first, at some point you see "hybridpanda45 hit the ground too hard." And then when you finally get around to HybridPanda's video of the event, and he starts climbing up the side of the tallest building on the map....it almost feels like dramatic irony. Totally fun. Intense map, too, must have taken ages to design and construct. Check out the video just for that, if you have to.
On the other end of the visual media spectrum (the humdrum side) we also saw Snow White and the Huntsman. That's all.
-Steph
Got another chunk of The Man's monies comin my way, so watch out baby, Imma buy me a tank 'o gas. Bwahahaha. Actually, I want to be more environmentally aware. Any ideas? I already recycle cardboard boxes and Dr Pepper cans.
All this week I seem to have been out having adventures. Dawn to dusk out of the house, kinda different. The other day me and Carolyn and Jacqi and Alex went hiking up at Arroyo Verde. It could have been better planned, but impromptu things always come across that way. But we got to the top of the hill and it was just so magical. Like two hours before sunset, all this wavy golden grass and the shine of the sun just sitting a little farther up on the ridge, everyone in front and above me just mysterious silhouetted pathfinders.
It was a very "why don't we do this every day??" moment.
We were going to go again but we didn't. I need better shoes for it, anyway. And some new pants, I broke a pair. :/ Maybe gas can wait.
But me and Carolyn got started on our AX costumes, which are a secret. I can tell you we're going from video games. And it's going to be so so cute. I have ALL NEXT WEEK OFF so probably try to get it done then, you know, before the day before comes and it's not done. O-ho-ho what wacky dreams I have.
Yeah, so between school, Carolyn's house, Green Forest, Carolyn's house, Starbucks, and the park, and shopping for the AX I feel like I've hardly been home. I just sleep here. And play video games. OH ACTUALLY.
All Sunday I watched this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxIQiCAvnko&feature=plcp which is a Minecraft map designed to be played as a team deathmatch in the manner of the Hunger Games. I mean, the video is of the Yogscast hosting said deathmatch on this map that somebody else made. But the magical part is that each team has their own video of events (since everyone pretty much split up at the word Go in order to not be instantly slaughtered by a rival team) and you can watch them also on Youtube. And each time through you learn something different about reality, but it's a totally organic, non-scripted adventure. I'd recommend it just as a psychological experiment, really.
(One of the underlying themes is that of paranoia. Of course everyone knows this is a team deathmatch and that anybody you come across is likely to want to kill you. So the perception is that everyone else, out of sight, is constantly and aggressively plotting your destruction. Only the thing is, that's what every single player is perceiving, meaning that every single player is, in fact, not plotting anybody's destruction. Rather, they are just running fearfully away from anybody else.)
The other great thing about is is the chat in Minecraft automatically logs such information as player name and manner of death, so if you're watching Simon and Lewis play first, at some point you see "hybridpanda45 hit the ground too hard." And then when you finally get around to HybridPanda's video of the event, and he starts climbing up the side of the tallest building on the map....it almost feels like dramatic irony. Totally fun. Intense map, too, must have taken ages to design and construct. Check out the video just for that, if you have to.
On the other end of the visual media spectrum (the humdrum side) we also saw Snow White and the Huntsman. That's all.
-Steph
Thursday, May 31, 2012
I told him to his Facebook
Happy Thursday! Are you guys having the best summer weather? Some of you are having hurricanes, though, I'm aware. Win some lose some.
Have you played League of Legends yet? I've won 7 pvp games, but lost 8. Working on it.
Supa tired today, stayed up way too late. School's going fine etc. Caught up with the current Doctor Who and now I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Still got a last several seasons of the old stuff, though, but between you and me it's probably not worth it. But who knows? That's why I keep going.
Helped Steven swap out Carolyn's motherboard over the weekend. Helped my dad diagnose a dead computer, too. Getting my government $$$s so maybe I'll build that Minecraft server machine after all.
Memorial day was chill. We walked a whole beach and back in Oxnard, took forever. Should do that more often.
My Doctor Who shirt was supposed to come today, but it didn't. I found some cool 80s songs last week.
I hope you like my blog.
-Steph
Have you played League of Legends yet? I've won 7 pvp games, but lost 8. Working on it.
Supa tired today, stayed up way too late. School's going fine etc. Caught up with the current Doctor Who and now I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Still got a last several seasons of the old stuff, though, but between you and me it's probably not worth it. But who knows? That's why I keep going.
Helped Steven swap out Carolyn's motherboard over the weekend. Helped my dad diagnose a dead computer, too. Getting my government $$$s so maybe I'll build that Minecraft server machine after all.
Memorial day was chill. We walked a whole beach and back in Oxnard, took forever. Should do that more often.
My Doctor Who shirt was supposed to come today, but it didn't. I found some cool 80s songs last week.
I hope you like my blog.
-Steph
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Networking
Happy Thursday! How about this summery weather we've been having? Too bad I'm spending 8 hours inside everyday (and then another 4 inside at home haha)! School is still going on. I don't know if or when it will set in that I'm literally spending my life there.
Weekends are so nice! This last one I had an adventure followed by a day of internet. Both were rather exhausting.
In school now I've moved on to the Networking section, and once I'm done with that (10 weeks) it'll be study study time to pass the exams. Networking is a little bit tougher because it's a greater percentage brand-new information, not like software and hardware which was mostly intuitive. But I think I'm proving myself right, in that I always thought that I had enough interest + enough dedication I could do it. And I still think that's true.
Reading the first three chapters, though, that was slow going. But! I'm consistently impressed by my torturous study methods of awareness-read + copy down summary & glossary + in-depth-note-taking-read for each chapter. Because the first time through I'm always ugggghhh what does any of this mean it doesn't make any sense I'm never going to learn this cry cry cry. And then I copy down the summary and the definitions and it's like I'm not even paying attention to what I'm writing and my hand hurrrrrts so bad. And then I have to go and read the chapter allll over againnnn........... but by that time, suddenly everything seems to have a context it didn't have before, and a logical progression, and I'm copying stuff down that, hey, doesn't that sound familiar? And by the end of the chapter I feel like I actually took a step forward.
I still have to look up three or four answers on the homework out of the book... but that's 25 other questions that I just know the answer to. I'm sort of looking forward to re-reading all these books and just scooping up all the things I missed before. And then I'll be fully armed.
Other than that it's all Doctor Who and League of Legends all the way!!! Nerd+ is me.
-Steph
Weekends are so nice! This last one I had an adventure followed by a day of internet. Both were rather exhausting.
In school now I've moved on to the Networking section, and once I'm done with that (10 weeks) it'll be study study time to pass the exams. Networking is a little bit tougher because it's a greater percentage brand-new information, not like software and hardware which was mostly intuitive. But I think I'm proving myself right, in that I always thought that I had enough interest + enough dedication I could do it. And I still think that's true.
Reading the first three chapters, though, that was slow going. But! I'm consistently impressed by my torturous study methods of awareness-read + copy down summary & glossary + in-depth-note-taking-read for each chapter. Because the first time through I'm always ugggghhh what does any of this mean it doesn't make any sense I'm never going to learn this cry cry cry. And then I copy down the summary and the definitions and it's like I'm not even paying attention to what I'm writing and my hand hurrrrrts so bad. And then I have to go and read the chapter allll over againnnn........... but by that time, suddenly everything seems to have a context it didn't have before, and a logical progression, and I'm copying stuff down that, hey, doesn't that sound familiar? And by the end of the chapter I feel like I actually took a step forward.
I still have to look up three or four answers on the homework out of the book... but that's 25 other questions that I just know the answer to. I'm sort of looking forward to re-reading all these books and just scooping up all the things I missed before. And then I'll be fully armed.
Other than that it's all Doctor Who and League of Legends all the way!!! Nerd+ is me.
-Steph
Thursday, May 17, 2012
I was about to go to sleep and everything
Happy Thursday! Hello folks. I was nanoseconds away from shutting down my computer and becoming unconscious. What a disaster that would have been! But now you're just standing in the way between me and that dream of mine, so shove over.
This weekend was the MSi Battlegrounds tournament hosted at Green Forest. I went to help Jacqi out, and I signed people in and handed out raffle tickets and shirked my duties to watch LoL matches and got free drinks and played Pokemon Pinball on my rad berry pink Gameboy Color.
This week at school things started coming along because I didn't have to read that stupid book anymore and was mainly installing and configuring stuff. Yesterday and today I researched components for a theoretical computer--but I was looking for stuff to build a rig to host my Minecraft server, so if I find some 300 bucks I can totally construct it.
So it was a fun week! I made friends and progress. And watched most of season 6 of Doctor Who in one day, WHICH IS AMAZING.
In other words: sleep time.
-Steph
This weekend was the MSi Battlegrounds tournament hosted at Green Forest. I went to help Jacqi out, and I signed people in and handed out raffle tickets and shirked my duties to watch LoL matches and got free drinks and played Pokemon Pinball on my rad berry pink Gameboy Color.
This week at school things started coming along because I didn't have to read that stupid book anymore and was mainly installing and configuring stuff. Yesterday and today I researched components for a theoretical computer--but I was looking for stuff to build a rig to host my Minecraft server, so if I find some 300 bucks I can totally construct it.
So it was a fun week! I made friends and progress. And watched most of season 6 of Doctor Who in one day, WHICH IS AMAZING.
In other words: sleep time.
-Steph
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Tech Talk
Happy Thursday! I feel like maybe I didn't explain my school well enough... ever. Lemme tell you about it.
So it's an adult education type place that's a part of the county public school system, actually. The program I'm in is called Network Support Techn..ician, which is what I'm evidently training to be. Everyone in the class is doing something different, what NST does is it trains you to pass the A+ and N+ certification exams. A+ is like for entry level PC repair; software, hardware, use, maintenance etc. N+ is for networking.
It's set up as a at-your-own-pace come-in-and-study thing. I've got a computer and some books and some exercise sheets and basically I just have at it. The first segment was Windows Fundamentals, which was DOS and the A+ exam Software book. Now I'm in repair, which is the Hardware book and a set of installation tasks. After that it's like five sections of networking, which seems to be what everyone else is stuck in the middle of doing.
I made great time in the Software book, even through reading it twice and taking notes that are just for my own sake. Windows is intuitive, and when you've spent as much time as I have using it, learning it isn't so far out of reach.
Hardware book, though, man. The RAM chapter was sloooooow going, RIMMs and SIMMS and DDR2 DIMMS and SRAM and DRAM and SDRAM which is not a combination of the two. I'm definitely going to have to read that whole thing again cover to cover in a few month's time. For now I'm just slogging through to get the homework done so I can move on to the installations.
Because the books are great, they're very informative and laid out in an easy to understand way, and there's troubleshooting guides and tips and all sorts of INFORMATION that's going to be on the exams. I don't learn too well in the abstract, though, so I'm reading more for awareness than full understanding at the moment. Did I know what DDR stood for before? No. Could I tell you if you asked? Maybe. If I studied it again, would I remember? Yes.
At this point, for this half-baked information, I'm setting it aside in a half-baked pile. In practice, when I research RAM or install RAM or have a conversation about RAM, it might come up, and in discussing it, the concept might very well become a little more baked. And that's real learning. The complete absorption of information. Something you just know. For me, it takes a lot of passes to get there. And I do feel I have the time, and the general practice of dealing with computers is going to help it solidify a lot faster than just trying to read the same chapter fourteen times in a row.
Like muscle memory. Only real memory.
Only like, not random access memory, like in my brain memory.
Yep. So I've basically finished the Hardware book, too, only I spent all today and yesterday reading it, and I'm super burned out. Like reading the same sentence for fifteen minutes without seeing a single word. So I'm going to do something else tomorrow! And that's the nice thing about at-your-own-pace, is you know what you need to achieve, and you have the tools to achieve it, but you can chose your method that suits you best. And do it in your own time, and satisfy your own standards.
In conclusion, I have about two books worth of computer info in my head that I didn't have a month ago. I've got a cute tool set and I know how to use 'em. Onwards and upwards.
-Steph
So it's an adult education type place that's a part of the county public school system, actually. The program I'm in is called Network Support Techn..ician, which is what I'm evidently training to be. Everyone in the class is doing something different, what NST does is it trains you to pass the A+ and N+ certification exams. A+ is like for entry level PC repair; software, hardware, use, maintenance etc. N+ is for networking.
It's set up as a at-your-own-pace come-in-and-study thing. I've got a computer and some books and some exercise sheets and basically I just have at it. The first segment was Windows Fundamentals, which was DOS and the A+ exam Software book. Now I'm in repair, which is the Hardware book and a set of installation tasks. After that it's like five sections of networking, which seems to be what everyone else is stuck in the middle of doing.
I made great time in the Software book, even through reading it twice and taking notes that are just for my own sake. Windows is intuitive, and when you've spent as much time as I have using it, learning it isn't so far out of reach.
Hardware book, though, man. The RAM chapter was sloooooow going, RIMMs and SIMMS and DDR2 DIMMS and SRAM and DRAM and SDRAM which is not a combination of the two. I'm definitely going to have to read that whole thing again cover to cover in a few month's time. For now I'm just slogging through to get the homework done so I can move on to the installations.
Because the books are great, they're very informative and laid out in an easy to understand way, and there's troubleshooting guides and tips and all sorts of INFORMATION that's going to be on the exams. I don't learn too well in the abstract, though, so I'm reading more for awareness than full understanding at the moment. Did I know what DDR stood for before? No. Could I tell you if you asked? Maybe. If I studied it again, would I remember? Yes.
At this point, for this half-baked information, I'm setting it aside in a half-baked pile. In practice, when I research RAM or install RAM or have a conversation about RAM, it might come up, and in discussing it, the concept might very well become a little more baked. And that's real learning. The complete absorption of information. Something you just know. For me, it takes a lot of passes to get there. And I do feel I have the time, and the general practice of dealing with computers is going to help it solidify a lot faster than just trying to read the same chapter fourteen times in a row.
Like muscle memory. Only real memory.
Only like, not random access memory, like in my brain memory.
Yep. So I've basically finished the Hardware book, too, only I spent all today and yesterday reading it, and I'm super burned out. Like reading the same sentence for fifteen minutes without seeing a single word. So I'm going to do something else tomorrow! And that's the nice thing about at-your-own-pace, is you know what you need to achieve, and you have the tools to achieve it, but you can chose your method that suits you best. And do it in your own time, and satisfy your own standards.
In conclusion, I have about two books worth of computer info in my head that I didn't have a month ago. I've got a cute tool set and I know how to use 'em. Onwards and upwards.
-Steph
Thursday, May 03, 2012
Week 3
Happy Thursday! Wish I was asleep right now. Getting up at 6:30 is perfectly doable, I know you know, but for me the trick is getting to sleep early enough to survive it. Not a morning person, this one. After the first semester of college I smartened up and never again had to be anywhere before 9:30. I like some sleep.
The other day I dreamed about a scorpion, but it wasn't a scorpion at all, it was a little red crab with a scorpion tail.
And LAST NIGHT. Beth got me a Justin Bieber singing toothbrush for Christmas, right? So that's fine. Then all of a sudden, and quite hauntedly, he breaks out into song at like 3:45 AM. And I'm like, I don't know what it is; there's two songs on it, Baby and something else I've never heard of, so it was super surreal. Some grainy yet impossibly loud nine year old squawking about in the bathroom... I had to go execute him. Twice, because the first time didn't take.
So that was an adventure.
Finished the first section of my schooling this week, a week and a half ahead of schedule. Moving on from software to hardware, and I'm back at chapter one all over again. Yesterday I was dead tired and nothing made any sense, but today I went over it again and now I feel alright about it. Book reading is just slow going.
But seriously guys, all I want to do at any time is watch Doctor Who. We just started season 5 with the new guy, and now we've only got four left. Sweet baby James I love him. This new season is like a mini reboot, but the new Doctor is hands down the best part about it. What a fun time.
Yep. Time for the sleep time. Catch ya later.
-Steph
The other day I dreamed about a scorpion, but it wasn't a scorpion at all, it was a little red crab with a scorpion tail.
And LAST NIGHT. Beth got me a Justin Bieber singing toothbrush for Christmas, right? So that's fine. Then all of a sudden, and quite hauntedly, he breaks out into song at like 3:45 AM. And I'm like, I don't know what it is; there's two songs on it, Baby and something else I've never heard of, so it was super surreal. Some grainy yet impossibly loud nine year old squawking about in the bathroom... I had to go execute him. Twice, because the first time didn't take.
So that was an adventure.
Finished the first section of my schooling this week, a week and a half ahead of schedule. Moving on from software to hardware, and I'm back at chapter one all over again. Yesterday I was dead tired and nothing made any sense, but today I went over it again and now I feel alright about it. Book reading is just slow going.
But seriously guys, all I want to do at any time is watch Doctor Who. We just started season 5 with the new guy, and now we've only got four left. Sweet baby James I love him. This new season is like a mini reboot, but the new Doctor is hands down the best part about it. What a fun time.
Yep. Time for the sleep time. Catch ya later.
-Steph
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Booky
Happy Thursday! How about this cray cray weather we've been having? It was summer hot last week, and then it got real foggy, and then there were thunderstorms!! And today we almost had a bit of each. No thunder, but you never know what's coming next.
In my estimation, I'll be finishing this first segment of my schooling at least a week ahead of time. And that's not staying late or anything. Just reading and reading and reading. One chapter left in the first book.
Um yeah! So that's doing great. People are starting to have names, and I've passed two tests. I know all about taking notes. I'll keep you updated.
Started the next season of Doctor Who! Matt Smith! I was on edge about starting a new Doctor, but I'll be happy to spoil you that I think he's just fine. Charming and manic and ridiculous, but most of all he suits the new direction. Tweedy bow-tiey fun.
On the other hand, we all went and saw Cabin in the Woods last week, and that was not as dreamy as I might have hoped. Opinions do differ, though, so don't let me keep you from seeing it. I just didn't see the point.
Now I'm playing LoL with Carolyn and Steven, and that's my week in a nutshell.
-Steph
In my estimation, I'll be finishing this first segment of my schooling at least a week ahead of time. And that's not staying late or anything. Just reading and reading and reading. One chapter left in the first book.
Um yeah! So that's doing great. People are starting to have names, and I've passed two tests. I know all about taking notes. I'll keep you updated.
Started the next season of Doctor Who! Matt Smith! I was on edge about starting a new Doctor, but I'll be happy to spoil you that I think he's just fine. Charming and manic and ridiculous, but most of all he suits the new direction. Tweedy bow-tiey fun.
On the other hand, we all went and saw Cabin in the Woods last week, and that was not as dreamy as I might have hoped. Opinions do differ, though, so don't let me keep you from seeing it. I just didn't see the point.
Now I'm playing LoL with Carolyn and Steven, and that's my week in a nutshell.
-Steph
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Blog, then sleep
Happy Thursday! Guess who is going to bed in like five minutes! It's me! Guess who has a real-life weekend coming up! It's meeee!
So school started this week! Getting up at 6:30 is like... who am I anymore. Get an hour for lunch, and that's a great time for naps. Leave at 4, come home and play video games until the sleep time. It's not bad.
The first couple of days I learned how to do stuff in DOS. So if you ever need to make a bootable floppy disk or, say, create a batch file, I can do that for you. It's all typing, like a typing game, and I love keyboard commands and all that, so it's actually pretty fun if you know what you're doing. Not going to use it in everyday life, but it'll come up.
So they say. It's at your own pace style classwork, right? So I've got two weeks to master DOS (done) and read chapters 1-5. After slogging through chapter 1 and trying to do the homework and realizing I still didn't know half the answers, I got pretty down. I generally don't absorb information the first time through, at least not so that it'll stick. So I said, you gotta read this twice anyway, so just take the pressure off and just read it for the abstract information.
So I spent the last two days just reading through chapter five. Then I went back to chapter one, read through the homework questions, noted which ones I had no clue about, and then set in to take notes. Re-reading and transcribing, lodged a bit more knowledge in there. This is working.
Got through chapters 1 and 2, started chapter 3. So I'd say I've got two or three days more work ahead of me to grasp all this stuff, which puts me at at least three days ahead of schedule.
So that's the plan. I guess after this software book there's a hardware book, and there may be other books, and there are projects on the computers in different areas and about different tasks. But that's my strategy for right now, and I'm a student again.
I got this. -Steph
The first couple of days I learned how to do stuff in DOS. So if you ever need to make a bootable floppy disk or, say, create a batch file, I can do that for you. It's all typing, like a typing game, and I love keyboard commands and all that, so it's actually pretty fun if you know what you're doing. Not going to use it in everyday life, but it'll come up.
So they say. It's at your own pace style classwork, right? So I've got two weeks to master DOS (done) and read chapters 1-5. After slogging through chapter 1 and trying to do the homework and realizing I still didn't know half the answers, I got pretty down. I generally don't absorb information the first time through, at least not so that it'll stick. So I said, you gotta read this twice anyway, so just take the pressure off and just read it for the abstract information.
So I spent the last two days just reading through chapter five. Then I went back to chapter one, read through the homework questions, noted which ones I had no clue about, and then set in to take notes. Re-reading and transcribing, lodged a bit more knowledge in there. This is working.
Got through chapters 1 and 2, started chapter 3. So I'd say I've got two or three days more work ahead of me to grasp all this stuff, which puts me at at least three days ahead of schedule.
So that's the plan. I guess after this software book there's a hardware book, and there may be other books, and there are projects on the computers in different areas and about different tasks. But that's my strategy for right now, and I'm a student again.
I got this. -Steph
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