CHum 489R Project: Writers Camp

Well, it is finally done. Sort of.

Tonight was the final presentation for my CHum 489R Computing Project class and I had to take my website that I had built and go present it in front of the other students from the class as well as the professor and my technical and content advisors.

My project was a website called Writers Camp which I built for Stephen Tuttle, one of the faculty members in the English Department and a teacher that I've taken a class from before. I wanted to find a teacher I felt like I would enjoy working with rather than someone who I didn't really know. As it turns out building the website for Professor Tuttle was a great experience.

I think the website turned out quite well, and it accomplishes everything that he wanted plus a little extra. As it stands right now if I never worked on it again it would serve the purpose it was built for to let Professor Tuttle manage the students in his class along with their stories, but I think there are some great things that could still be added to the site that wouldn't take much to do and that I think I can do with little to no extra help if I put my mind to it.

I'm glad the class is finished and I'm glad that I can take a week or two to relax and take a bit of a breather and enjoy some time to myself. I need to help Holly around the house with a few things and Jack is starting to learn new things all the time, so not having class for a little while will certainly be a good thing for me.

Finishing the Semester

There is only one day left of class following today. I can't tell you how happy that makes me because this semester has not gone at all like it was supposed to. I was planning on having a nice schedule that let me have some time at home and a workload that was not too demanding so that I could help with Jack when he was so small.

Did any of that happen? No, it most certainly did not.

As it turns out, my grades should be fine, mostly in the B or B+ range with one or two that might sneak up into the A- or flat out A range. The only one I think I have a solid A in is my computing project class, but who knows, Russell is a tricky one and he may flunk me just for kicks or something. Now that would be funny.

All I want is to make it through finals, get my grades and take a break. This summer should be nice and relaxing because I am not taking any classes, I am not working horrible jobs, and I get to work at least 15 hours a week from home, which is so much better than sitting in a quiet office all day. Not to mention, Roxy will be here for the summer this year, and that is going to be fun.

This semester was so disappointing I can't really put it into words. The spring and summer breaks can't get here fast enough, even if they are only 36 hours away.

The Book Project

I suppose it is about time that I post something new so everyone stops thinking I am so depressed all the time.

For my print publishing class I need to do one final project using Adobe InDesign to finish off the work and skills we are learning this semester. The interesting thing about this class is that it is almost identical to the first print publishing class that I took, only each of the projects is a little bit longer or bigger than the last time. It sure makes for an interesting experience.

It's also strange that there are 7 people in the class. 6 girls, and me. Funny, eh?

Anyways, the final project is a book project that has to be at least 70 pages long and have at least 4 chapters when I am done. I've known about this project the entire semester and have been trying to think of something to use for me "content" but had been coming up blank until just a couple days ago. I decided that instead of being like everyone else and making a personal history or some sort of cookbook that I would write my own content that was fresh and new and then put it into a format that was more stylistic than a run of the mill 6in x 9in book.

What I decided on was a 4in tall by 10in wide book utilizing 4 columns (trust me, it looks cool) and that my subject matter would be Conquer Club. Why you ask? Well, on March 12th I had my two year anniversary as a member of Conquer Club and in that two years I climbed from a "newbie" all the way to the top of the ladder as the "admin" that I am now. I thought it might be fun to write a sort of memoir of the experiences I've had on the site and then use that for my content. Obviously it wouldn't be too serious or weighty, but it could be a fun little read if you ask me.

I'm thinking of a title something along the lines of From Newbie to Admin: My Journey Through the World of Conquer Club or something just as entertaining.

Busy Week

Most of you know by now that Holly and I are moving back to Wymount this coming weekend, which means that we've been spending a lot of time packing and trying to plan things out properly. Holly packs several boxes each day, and then we take them over to the new place each evening when I get home from work. The goal is to get all of the small stuff over there without having to get a massive truck to do it. So far it is working out nicely.

On Saturday morning I'll get the smallest U-Haul available and have a few guys from the ward help me move the big furniture like the bed, couch, and crib, and then we should be mostly done. Thankfully if there are a few straggling items, Grandma Chatfield isn't going to care if we have to come back for them over a couple of days next week. That takes the edge off the stress of getting everything done right at once.

The weather has picked back up, which means I'm back on the Federation of Joy every day, which pleases me to no end. I like being able to feel like Holly has the ability to go somewhere if she needs to, and do things with her sisters or someone without needing to wait for me to get back from campus. The other plus is that by living in Wymount again I can come home for lunch if I have time between classes because the scooter makes parking next to the buildings I need to be in so convenient.

Also been working on a massive project for my CHum 489R class this past week or so. Russell is my technical advisor and has been very patient with me as I worked through a few hurdles. However, the past two days I've managed to clear the hurdles myself as I am finally understanding how a while() loop is supposed to work, and the proper ways to refer to objects and join database tables together. It is nice to feel like I'm learning something and having it stick, even if it seems like it is always a small piece each time.

I have to give a presentation on this project tomorrow morning and I'm hoping that I have enough done to keep myself from looking like a slacker/fool. Russell seems to think that I'll be much further along than anyone else, but until I see that I'm still a little bit worried. The core of the project site is working now, but I'm hoping to tack on a couple of "bells and whistles" before the presentation tomorrow to try and make it a little more complete. I do like the style that I've applied to the site though, I'm quite proud of that. It looks very modern and sleek. Once I have it up on an actual server (curse you slow BYU people) I'll post a link so people can see what it looks like so far.

Let's see, what else is going on... Oh, I was sick, then Holly was sick, and Jack wound up catching a little bit of it, but nothing too bad. He even learned how to shoot snot out of his eye the other day, which I told him was not a skill that we really needed to practice a whole lot if he didn't mind.

That's all of the big news for now, mostly just trying to get my list of things done each day and help Holly as much as I can when I get home in the evenings.

Graduation: April 2010

Well, after a long time of not really being sure as to exactly when I would graduate I finally bit the bullet and went to talk to the academic advisor in the Humanities Department today. After going over all of my information we discovered that I have 23 credits remaining between my English major and the GE requirements at BYU.

I still need to finish 2 classes of German, 2 electives in English literature, the Senior Course, an Advanced Writing, and a History class.

That puts me at just too much to do in one semester, so I'm going to need two semesters, and with my hope of finding full-time work in web programming this spring and summer, I believe the best course of action for me is to graduate in April 2010 instead of trying to cram, cram, cram it all in before December gets here.

That puts me 1 year behind Shyla, which I suppose isn't too bad since I took 2 years off.

It's Raining Today

Once upon a time I used to enjoy a good rainstorm every once and awhile, but it seems that as I've gotten older the rain just means it is a gloomy day and I don't deal very well with gloomy days.

I stayed up far too late last night making sure that I didn't get behind on schoolwork, which was a good thing, but the bad thing was that I overslept this morning because of it and didn't make it to campus as early as I would have liked. After talking it over with Holly I am trying to get to campus early each morning to focus on schoolwork and make sure that I stay on top of the big projects for my classes this semester.

It worked out great yesterday, but the late night last night really messed up my plans this morning something fierce. Luckily I still got to campus a little bit early, and have managed to get some good work done. Now when I go home this afternoon I can watch Jack for a few hours while Holly works on her text that is due this weekend and then do homework later in the evening.

Thank goodness tomorrow is Saturday, I'm going to need it to get caught up on everything going on right now.

Life as a Teaching Assistant

As I've mentioned previously, I'm the new teaching assistant for the CHum 250 web design class here at BYU. The job is pretty low key so far as we haven't gotten to anything that really needs to be graded or reviewed yet.

The funny thing about this job is that they pay me (quite well) to sit around and do just about nothing most of the time. I go to class and am on hand for questions during the lecture, of which there are only a handful on any given day, and then I have office hours twice a week for a couple of hours.

What is so interesting about that is that I have yet to have anyone come to the office hours for help. I'm not all that surprised as when I was taking these classes very few people ever showed up to office hours for extra help. I did though, I figured why not, it was worth it. I got at least 20 hours of one on one time with my TA when I was in CHum 250 and learned all sorts of new stuff that wasn't covered in class. I also did extremely well on all of the assignments.

When I was in Russell's class I went to his office hours once every week with very few exceptions to ask questions, get clarification, and learn something new. Most of the time there was nobody there but me and I got all sorts of extra info crammed into my skull. I guess that is why I did alright in his class in the end even when I thought I was never going to remember anything.

In the end, I can't complain too much because I'm getting paid to be here in this lab right now just in case someone shows up and I can get all sorts of my own work done if nobody does. It's sort of a win-win situation I suppose.

Crunch Time

I go through this same situation every single semester. The first couple of days there is nothing of consequence to do because everyone is still adding and dropping classes, shuffling their schedules, and learning about the course syllabus. The next couple of days you start to learn some stuff, but the teachers don't really assign much in the way of homework just in case half the class changes from one day to the next. It really isn't until after the add/drop deadline about 12 days into the semester that things really start to settle down.

That is when crunch time hits. You finally have to start paying attention to the assignments that are due and the things the professors say in class.

Crunch time was today as I started looking ahead to the things I need to get done in the next 10-14 days and planning out how I was going to make it happen with a little baby boy at home that I need to help take care of each evening after I return from campus.

I've been very diligent so far this semester in staying on top of my reading assignments and doing things a day or two early, perhaps more diligent than I have ever been before, but despite all of that, I still feel like there is some sort of impending pressure that is going to be piled onto my shoulders at any moment, most likely when I least expect it.

I don't really like that feeling.

Winter 2009 Classes

I stole the idea for this post from Shyla, sorry kiddo.

After a couple of days filled with inconveniently having to restructure both my work and my class schedule for this semester I have finally managed to get things under control and make things work. I had been hoping that my original plan would work when I signed up for classes three months ago, but as it turns out some of the classes, especially the web development classes have projects that are a little bigger than I thought they would be, so I needed to do a little bit of shuffling.

Here is a rundown of what I've got on tap for the next four months:

Advanced Print Publishing — This class focuses on advanced techniques in Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. It will be great for me to reinforce some design principles and rules that I can possibly put into play with my websites and maybe even learn enough to do a little print design on the side if the opportunity arises. The projects for this class are much larger than the ones from the beginning class, but I'm excited to put them together.

Computer Science 100 — I have to take this class because for some strange reason the Humanities Department at BYU won't allow me to waive it even though I've completed far more advanced computing classes. It's alright though because I should be able to breeze through it without any trouble. I may actually get most of the work done in the first month of the semester and then only have to worry about the tests.

Computing Project — This is the capstone class for my CHum minor. I've lined up a project with Stephen Tuttle, one of the faculty members here on campus to build a website for him that will allow him to run his Creative Writing and Writing Fiction classes more efficiently. The idea for the site that we've already discussed will have some new things for me to learn as well and strengthen my skills in things I've already figured out how to do. Russell may even grace me with his presence as my Technical Advisor for the project, but I still have to talk to him about that.

Old Testament — It has been a really long time since I took a religion class and I have always liked the Old Testament. I think this class will be a good thing for me right now and that I can learn a bunch of really cool things I hadn't seen before on the surface. The teacher is pretty excited about the subject matter so class definitely shouldn't be boring.

The Living Prophets — After reorganizing I needed a couple more credits to stay on track so I decided to go with a class that discusses the teachings of the current First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It should be a fun class with some interesting discussions.

That's it, and I'm hoping to improve upon my college best 3.38 GPA from last semester and get myself a 3.50 or better this time around. If I keep it up I can get my overall north of 3.00 before I finish school in a couple semesters.

Ah Yes, School Again

It's the first day of school again, just like it has been far too many times over the past couple of years for me. How awesome were the days when each year only had one "first day of school" and not two or three. I miss those days, I really do.

I got to work nice and early this morning because I knew the Graduate Instructors were going to have copies they needed of their syllabi and other things, but much to my instant dismay, I was locked out of my desktop at work with usernames and passwords that were no longer valid. Apparently the IT guys from the Humanities Department decided it would be fun to remotely update my computer over New Year's and accidentally reset my login information. Not good, not at all. Now I have to play catch-up for the rest of the morning, and Roxy is going to have a lot more work than I had hoped she would have on her first day back to campus.

In other news, I gave the old blog a new and fresh look again as it has been a little while since I made any changes, and I was a little bored with the white space in the old design. This is just one of the normal templates from Blogger, but with a couple of color tweaks here and there. I also did some trimming of my blog list and kept mostly just family blogs and the ones I took off are now in my Google Reader so I can still see what is happening with folks.

You'll notice in the archive over on the right side that I made 10 posts in 2006, 84 in 2007 and 160 in 2008. I think my blogging goal for this year is going to be to beat my mark from 2008 and try to surpass 200 posts in 2009. That means I need to write 17 posts per month for the year, which translates into roughly 1 post every other day. I think that is a reasonable and achievable goal, especially with all of the new things in my life with Jack and impending graduation.

This semester should be smooth sailing, but I've said that before, haven't I?

School is Almost Over!

It's that time of year when I think about how much I wish I had some time off, and how much I wish I could get a breather. Luckily, this semester I've had a pretty successful time of keeping things done on time and not getting too terribly overwhelmed.

Russell's class was by far my favorite this semester as I learned a whole ton of stuff I never thought I would grasp so quickly. Of course, I still have a lot to learn, but at least I'm getting a little better at doing things off the top of my head each time I sit down to work on something new. Right now I just wish I was a bit better at troubleshooting. That is what really slows me down sometimes.

I wasn't a big fan of my British Literature class, but that is because I don't really like that kind of reading. My American Novel class was better than I thought it would be though. However, I still don't understand how people pick so many minute details out of stories like that. Still, it turned out alright.

Student Development and German were both take it or leave it for me and I think that was mostly because Student Development was not the class it was described to be. It is really only helpful for people preparing to go to graduate school in the immediate future which is definitely not something I plan on doing. I guess it was helpful for the parts about how to interview well for jobs in the future.

Finals are coming up in about a week and a half, but this year we have the potential for Jack to arrive right in the middle. Should be interesting.

Thanksgiving Break

I've been slacking a little bit with my blogging over the Thanksgiving break, but all is well, I promise. It's back to the grind starting tomorrow, but at least it is only 15 days until the semester is finally over. It's been an up and down semester for me, but I'll come out of it okay I'm sure.

The break started Tuesday afternoon after I got out of my British literature class, and I made it a personal goal not to deal with anything work or school related until at least Thursday because I needed a bit of decompressing. So, Tuesday afternoon we went to see Twilight, and liked it well enough, although I think it was a tad overacted at certain parts.

Wednesday was spent getting the house ready for the arrival of Jack. The crib was already built, but we needed to pack up some things and take them over to the storage unit and bring back the two dressers we had stored there for our clothes and Jack's clothes. I thought things would be a little more cramped after we brought it all back, but with putting the bed up on the bed frame again, moving a small bookcase upstairs, and the fact that the smaller of the two dressers will fit inside our closet, things turned out pretty good.

Now we are just looking to sell our love seat to make room for a rocking chair and free up a little extra space in the living room.

On Thanksgiving we spent the entire day over at Shyla and Russell's and had a great time watching the dog show, eating some delicious food (I ate far too much), playing a couple games, and learning the trick to Guitar Hero. It was an excellent holiday I think.

Friday I worked on projects for school and Conquer Club all day and got caught up, and Saturday was spent cleaning the house one more time and working on some schoolwork. I'll be doing the same schoolwork today, but at least I can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Slaughterhouse Five

I have to admit that my American Novel class has by and large been the best literature class I've taken so far at BYU, mostly because I actually get to read books and not just inane poems that have no real influence on my intellect.

We have already read several books for this class, but this past week we just finished Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I was all about this book, and didn't have any trouble motivating myself to finish it in time to talk about the passages for class each day.

My favorite thing about the book is the character of Billy Pilgrim who seems to think that he was abducted by an alien race known as the Tralfamadorians. These aliens just so happen to look like a toilet plunger with small hands at the top of the plunger handle and eyes in the palm of the hand. Strange? Yes. Excellent book? Yes. Would I read it again? Definitely.

I don't often get excited about reading the "classics" as often I find them mind-numbing or boring, but this one was an exception. We have to write a 5-7 page paper about one of the four books we've read so far this semester and I've decided to write mine on Slaughterhouse Five because I actually understood what was going on and could more easily see the "deeper meaning" behind the words so to speak.

Dramatic Monologue of Futility

I think a few weeks ago I posted the lyrical poem that I had to write for my Late British Literature course this semester. It was about my scooter. Anyways, our next "creative assignment" as they are called was to jot down a dramatic monologue because I guess they were popular back in the Victorian Era of literature. This one is a bit of a stretch because I really don't "get" the monologue thing, but nevertheless, it provides some humorous content for the blog today.

I'm not sure exactly why, but it comes across as a violent and war-ridden piece. Maybe I was doing a little too much hanging out on Conquer Club that morning or something, conquest on the brain or some such.

Men Broken, Men of War

What say you? Of the conquest of men?
The destruction of nations, the slaughter of armies?
Is my life a waste for these endeavors,
Or am I accomplished in my feats?

Those strong men by my side,
Faithful to the last crimson drop from their veins
Will battle fierce, battle long, and battle hard,
Living a life of chaos, blood, and fear.

Am I to be hated for leading them forward?
Hated for the conquest I've driven them to?
Your freedom rests safe because of me,
Because of the fields I've filled with blood.

Countries and nations lay bare at our swords,
Our power sweeps through the world like the wind.
Can I rest now? Can I live my life my way?
Or will you ask more, even more of my strength?

Tell me now! Tell me your wish!
I stand ready for only a moment more!
Blood-stained, my men are here at the ready,
But only for that moment more!

Our hearts are dead, the horrors we live,
Of winning for nation and creed.
I stand here to finish, or be finished!
What say you?

Internship Opportunity

For a long time I've thought I had little chance of landing some kind of internship in my field of choice so that I could gain a little bit of experience before graduating. It's always seemed like I settled on my choice of occupation a little late in the game and needed to focus more on learning how to actually do it to begin with, and that I didn't really have time to get some real-life experience prior to jumping into the job market.

However, that all changed yesterday when I took a little jaunt over to the Museum of Art here at BYU to talk to Herman Du Toit about a Technology Internship that is available. Russell pointed me towards this one by giving me the flyer in class on Monday and after thinking about it I decided it was at least worth going to talk to the folks at the museum. I took the flyer with me and went over in the gap between my classes.

As it turns out, they are pretty desparate over at the museum and in all honesty could probably use about 10 interns to all work on the same set of projects. Apparently they are severely lacking in help that knows that it is doing, and have just sort of been using band-aids of stuff to keep things operational as best they could.

So, I had a nice chat with Herman Du Toit about what the museum was hoping to do in the future with catching up to the technology available, how their database is ancient, that they need to design an entire museum website from scratch, that they have no workers, etc. I had the chance to tell him that I'm pretty proficient with HTML, CSS, and overall website organization and that I'm currently finishing a class on PHP, AJAX, mySQL, and other random things. His eyes lit up as I went down the list of different features that I thought I could build into a website with a little time to work and such.

Eventually he took me upstairs to meet another guy, Chris Wilson, who I think is the man in charge of the technology aspect of the museum, and we sat down to continue our discussion. Chris asked me a few more things about what types of things I knew how to do, what I'd be willing to learn, and what I wanted to do in the future.

Things wrapped up after a bit and they told me to finish off the application, bring it back, and they'd get back to me within a week after that. The overall impression I got from Herman was that the internship is basically mine for the taking if I want to, and he even offered the idea that I could do the internship next semester and then translate that into a paying job for the summer after school is over. That was sort of cool too.

So, anyways, I guess we'll see where all of this goes, and if it can be helpful to me in the future. I do need to figure out the basics of Flash before January if I do get the internship, and I need to look into some content management software known as Typo, which I've never heard of before, so that could be interesting.

Learning PHP, or at Least Trying To

Some days I'm pretty sure I'll never get down the intricacies of PHP or Javascript, and other days it makes a little more sense. One of these days I'm hoping some kind of switch is going to click inside my head and I'll finally grasp what exactly I'm supposed to be doing without looking it up seven times at each step along the road.

I think what frustrates me the most is when I can identify that I have a problem, perhaps even narrow the problem down to a specific portion of code, but then no matter how many things I switch around, double-check, or re-work it just refuses to work. If I can figure things out the right way the first time, I'm good to go, but unfortunately that rarely, if ever, happens to me.

The biggest problem I have right now is the worry that I'll get a job doing this type of stuff, and then show up the first day and not be able to keep up, do things properly, or even know what is going on. That is a scary concept to be worried about with just over 12 months to go before school is finished.

Today is a Day Filled with Frustration and Regret

You know what I really dislike? I really dislike knowing that I had the opportunity to get a lot of really good work done, and then realizing I sat around and let it all slip by me without actually getting anything truly done. I hate it when I do that, especially when I am now sitting here at work realizing if I had taken the opportunity yesterday I wouldn't have to pack a few extra things into today.

Life is great, ain't it?

I don't mean to say that I really have tons of stuff to do outside of attend my classes and so a few readings here and there, but I would have been able to do more personal projects if I hadn't slacked yesterday.

Oh well, perhaps tomorrow.

A Lyrical Poem for the Ages

The following is a result of what happens when a decidedly unpoetic individual is forced to write something poetic for a class he has a very little amount of interest in.

Enemy Cold, Victory Ride

The day is too early for the warmth of the sun
To make its way down to the depths where I live,
And the cold stabs true as it begins to run
Across the bare skin I have no choice but to give.
Like a devil of death it builds with such speed
As to force me from joy and good day,
And the cold presses on with its evil deed
To force me to submit to its way.

But the power I ride will soon outrun the cold,
I fly to victory and defeat its vile hold.
For my need is great to defeat this foe
And bring pride to my family and kin.
The black stallion I ride takes me swift where I go
While driving me forth for the win.

Commuting for the First Time

Growing up, there was never much of a reason for me to commute anywhere. Obviously my father did, especially when we were living in Broomfield and he would ride the bus to work each day. Even in Bartlesville he had to drive 10 minutes or so to the other side of town to get to and from work, but I know he liked that much more than riding the bus.

As for me, I went to school via bus or car each day, and I never had a job that took more than about 3 minutes to get to so I would never have considered myself as a commuter. Not even once I got to Provo and started school here at BYU have I had the opportunity to classify myself with the other commuters. Living on the edge of campus precluded that until now.

With a new place to live with Grandma Chatfield all the way up in Orem, Holly and I now have to actually make sure to leave each morning in time to make it to work and class. It's not a long commute by any means (about 15-20 minutes depending on traffic), but it does give me a funny feeling of being "official" in my daily endeavors. Silly, I know, but true nonetheless.

Holly takes the car to campus each day and I mosey along on my scooter, which has almost 500 miles on it now (it's saving a lot of wear and tear on the car). That allows her to get home when her classes are over at 11:00 and I can come home in the evening when mine are finished. The morning traffic is always interesting, and I've found myself trying to think of alternate routes to get to campus on days when the traffic is particularly heavy. For the trip home each day I've found a very scooter friendly route up Canyon Road that keeps me away from the majority of the cars on the road for most of the trip.

Living with Grandma is a blessing as it's saving Holly and I a boatload of money right now, and having Grandma around is pretty fun, but the commuting part is interesting. I don't get to come home for lunch as often anymore.

Adventure to the Cannon Center

When I was a freshman at BYU back in 2002 the cafeteria was pretty old. Known as the Cannon Center, it was pretty decent as cafeterias go, but it certainly wasn't anything to write home about. There always seemed to be trouble finding enough places for you and your group of friends to sit, and the decor was pretty bland. The food was pretty decent though and I didn't go hungry during that first year.

All things come to an end at some point through, and this fall BYU opened up the new Cannon Center, which isn't just a remodeling, it is an entirely new building. Twice the size, twice the seating, and twice as fancy.

Holly has wanted to go have lunch there since the semester started up again and on Thursday we finally had a chance. She was giddy the entire time and loved every minute of it. I had to admit that the place was much better than when I was living in Helaman Halls, and it would be an entirely different thing to have to eat there for three meals a day while living in the dorms.

I think Holly has plans to take Julie and Roxy to lunch down there sometime soon, and who knows, perhaps once or twice this semester I'll make my way down again too.