(no subject)

Not much happened today. Out of curiosity, went to SCA fighter practice. It was a workout. Keeping a fighting stance whilst holding a foil at just the right angle during foot drills is more tiring than it looks. But it was enjoyable, and a workout, which is a Good Thing. We had a steady stream of people coming from the parking lots, and some of them shouted to us, making references to Braveheart or Lord of the Rings. One group of inebriated UCF people even harrassed the two guys in heavy armor that were there. It was insane.

I don't know if I want to be more involved or not. Between classes, VTSFFC, SGA, ACO, and Spiel, I don't know if I have enough free time left. But I have a week to think about it.

(no subject)

Today was not the best of days. However, I think I handled it pretty well. Here's the breakdown:

UNIX class was, once again, a joke. Gifford spent an hour lecturing us on the intricacies of the UNIX file system. We (I should probably say "they" here -- this stuff was by no means new to me) also learned how to change directories, permissions, and how to copy, move, and delete files -- teaching that will, no doubt, be reinforced in lab (ugh). I think I'm going to be very bored and annoyed with this class for a while. The man is a complete twit. I can feel the bogon radiation ionizing my brain when I'm near him. An example of his stupidity: One time, he was working on one of the Curator computers (part of our automatic code grading system), grading work. He input the command rm -rf * when he was in the root directory, not realizing where he was, and thus deleted the entire contents of the computer's Linux partition. While I'm sure McQuain tore him a new one for doing that, it still doesn't explain why they put a clear incompetent like this in charge of teaching a UNIX class. It's just wrong. Come to think of it, the entire class is wrong -- they're teaching it like they would to BIT students. They should have a course on UNIX programming instead. Of course, we're not getting one, but that doesn't make me any less frustrated.

Discrete Math was even worse. Brown was in rare form today. We were given this word problem: The HR director of a large company tells you that you will be hired only if you get a math or CS major, get a B average or better, and take Accounting. You do all these things, but are not hired. Was the director lying when he made that statement? I argued that he was, because while the preconditions were met, the postconditions weren't. Therefore, the statement was false, and he was lying. Brown rejected that argument, and stated that maybe there was a fourth criterion that was to be met to get the job. But how can you assume that? By both the principle of modus tollens and the truth tables, I am correct and Brown is not. However, he refuses to see this, going on about how logic has no real connection to the real world, yet stating arrogantly that logic is the basis for law and other such. And he patronizes me all the way. I tire of this man implying that I'm stupid -- especially when I'm right. To top it off, he gave us this extra credit assignment: Given a giraffe, how do you weigh it? Incredible. He must have some insane sort of tenure, cause if I was Mathematics chair, I would've sent him packing long ago.

That was the most of it, aside from the really bad service at Chick-Fil-A this evening. But I've had a shower and a walk since then, so I feel a bit better. I thnk I shall read a bit, then go to bed.