UCR

The annual UC Riverside HEAT concert went on yesterday night. Now, I'm not too keen for the concerts held here because a lot of bands playing are of the rap or R&B variety, and I just don't enjoy that type of music. This year's concert was very kind to me, though. This year, Moby came to UC Riverside and he ROCKED...THE...HOUSE.

Moby is a DJ who specializes in techno,  house, and electronica music (don't ask me the difference between the three, I can hardly tell). Seeing him live in-concert is like talking tech with Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds, cooking alongside Emeril Lagasse, or doing some reps alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. I had an entire hour and a half to rave it up to some of the best DJ'ing I'd heard in a while, and I took advantage of it.

Surprisingly, I heard none of the material I'd heard before; it was refreshing to see that he didn't fall back on the songs he's famous for and can keep his mixes interesting and unpredictable. And to think I wanted to stay home!

BTW, Richard Melville Hall was nicknamed Moby shortly after birth in honor of his great-great-great-great uncle Herman Melville (author of Moby Dick). Don't believe me? [CITATION SUPPLIED]

College is starting back up. Sophomore year...wow, it's already my second year? My, how time flies!

I moved in to my new dorm last Monday; it's set up to be more like an apartment then a true dorm, which means I get my own room! I share the apartment with three other guys, two of whom I know from last year and one new guy I'd never met before. Everything's worked out so far, and hopefully we'll all be able to live without incident; a year is a long time for something to NOT go horribly, horribly wrong!

I've decided to take up cycling. After a summer spent pedaling back and forth from work, I grew quite attached to my bicycle; as a result, I've decided to practice and improve my stamina for some long-distance riding. Will, of Wolfram Studios fame, and I biked over 60 miles in two runs; our first run together clocked in at exactly 25 miles, while our second run took us on an interesting 37.5 mile run of the nearby back roads of North County. I completed another 20.5 miles yesterday; to my dismay, my right knee started acting up the ride! I'll have to take it easy for a couple days and see if it'll mend on its own.

Work on my new super secret project is going very well. I can't divulge any of the juicy details until I get closer to release, but suffice to say that it will contain a large degree of social networking.

Classes start in three days...I need to bone up on my Japanese! Of all the classes I'm taking, Japanese worries me the most; I hardly used it over summer, so I'm sure there will be a lot of stuff I've forgotten.

Aye, so much to do, so little time to do it in.

A week has passed, and the adventurer pauses to get his bearings.

He looks down, and is pleased to see the progress he's made during his ascent of Mount Finals. The old man at the base of the mountain was a strange fellow and the first challenge; he spoke of nothing but double-declining balances and warranty liability and would not let the adventurer pass unless he answered the stranger's questions...

That was behind him, though; if he hoped to reach the top in time, he would need to face forward and focus on navigating the unknown and unforgiving terrain.

He tightens his safety line and climbs ever higher, every step bringing him closer and closer towards the sound of the taiko drums...

Week 10 has but started, and already Finals Week billows on the horizon, glistening banks of onyx against a sapphire sky. The brave adventurer pushes on, intent on completing his task by week's end. He knows he will have to venture into the unforgiving storm, but he fears it not, for he has worked too long and too hard to be turned down by something so trivial.

He adjusts his hat and continues up the mountain...

I should have figured something would have appeared to get in the way of my plans. Just as I was getting all ready to tackle the lengthy application process to go study abroad next year, I hit a few snags...well, more like mountains, but I suppose either will put a damper on a good plan.

The first snafu appeared when I tried to find replacement/equivalent courses that I could take while studying abroad that would give me the same credit as the classes I would take if I studied here next year. The Education Abroad Program (EAP) site has a "course finder" that you're supposed to use to plan out your tentative classes. After playing around with it for a while, it appeared that the university I would be attending (Kyoto University) lacked in some of the fundamental science classes that I needed to take during my Sophomore year. I was all prepared to talk to my EAP adviser about what to do, but first I figured I'd run all this information past my academic adviser, to see if she had any objections.

The talk with my academic adviser didn't go as well as I had hoped. From our meeting, I learned that with my major it was nearly impossible to travel abroad and just as impossible to take a minor in a foreign language. All 180 units I need to graduate from college (regardless of major) are rigidly structured for ANY engineering major; if I were to miss one of the classes I was supposed to take for a particular quarter, my entire schedule would be pushed out into a fifth year because that one class would be a prerequisite for another class a year later.

Basically, I'm crushed. I started college with two goals in mind: 1. to travel abroad, and 2. to minor in a foreign language. Here I am, now, in a major that allows for neither. There's a problem with this picture, and it took the better part of three days to figure out some kind of alternate game plan. It was a hard decision to make, but what I've decided to do is switch to Business major. I've held a business major as my backup-plan-major, and pictured myself as getting into international business (an ambassador of sorts) if I did switch into the business program. I went over the requirements for the first two years of the Pre-Business program, and not only does it allow for a more flexible sophomore year, when I'd want to travel abroad, but it also PLANS OUT three quarters of foreign language.

There's still a lot of people to talk to, papers to fill out, and schedules to set up, but by next quarter I should be all set to start the pre-business program and get back on track to accomplishing both of my goals. I suppose now I'm a statistic of people who changed majors away from engineering. For the record, though, those things never divulge whether people moved on because the curriculum was too difficult for them, or if they moved majors because of the inflexibility of the schedule. I'd say I fall into the latter group.

Each time I take a look at this site, I feel kind of bad for coming up with a posting schedule and then never actually holding to that schedule. College has its ups and downs, so its hard to figure out exactly when I'll have time to get a post up, or if there's anything to post about. Besides classes homework, and work, I don't really do a whole lot that I think you guys and gals would be interested in.

I suppose you want to know what the title is all about. You do, don't you? Well, good if you said yes, and too bad if you said no, because here I go!

The UC system has a very strong Education Abroad Program that features summer-, semester-, or year-long courses to many countries, including England, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Mexico, and Japan. I went to an information session to learn more about getting some time over in Japan, and I was surprised to find out that they had a year-long program. I jumped on that so fast it would have made your head spin! How awesome would that be, to go live in Japan and learn at one of their universities for an entire year? Sure, its an entirely new culture and language, but I've always been fascinated with the Japanese way of life. After a report I researched about the differences between business culture in Japan and America, I've had a strong desire to perhaps get into international business with Japan, or at the very least minor in the Japanese language here at UCR.

I told a friend about my plan to try and get to Japan for the next school year, and he was interested in going, too. So now, the two of us are tag-teaming the application process and supporting each other on our quest to learn abroad. The academic requirements are tough, but I think we can both meet with the minimum 3.0 GPA by the end of the year AND come up with the money we'll need to fund this little expedition.

Other than that, not much to report on the business-end of things. I do have a couple projects that I'm currently working on, and web work has once again started to trickle my way, so money is coming in one way or another. I'm sick of EER and Thales and Metche and a few other people being the only readers, so I'm going to try (once again) to get some kind of focus down. I know it'll be some kind of tech- or web-related theme, but I haven't decided which would give me more things to write about.

Wow, I am so pissed off right now. Apparently accessing your computer remotely (not via Remote Desktop, by normal network access means) to store files on it is considered "hosting files".

On a NORMAL network, you can access computer A's files from computer B by typing "\\" into the run box, provided you have the correct login information. I tried that same trick from my laptop in the hopes that I could access all the files on my tower from anywhere on campus; if I could, then I would basically keep all my important files on my tower and keep the amount of important information on my laptop to a minimum. Unfortunately, each time I tried it, I wasn't able to get through to my desktop, so I put off finding out why until today.

So I went into the Resnet office to ask the people responsible for the in-dorm network why I couldn't access my desktop tower from my laptop. I explained to them that I wanted to be able to access my personal files on my computer from anywhere on campus, citing a hypothetical instance in where I'm on the other side of campus and I don't have the time to go back to my dorm to access a file I would need. Of the two people in the office available to offer advice, one said that what I wanted to do was considered "hosting files" and that I'm not allowed to do that. I explained that you can only access the computer's files if you have that computer's login, meaning MY login since I'm the only user on my desktop computer. He basically repeated that I'm not allowed to do that since its the same thing as offering files for people to download. The second guy suggested I buy Symantec's PCAnywhere, but I politely said "F**k that s**t" (using acceptable euphemisms, of course) because I KNOW that what I want to do doesn't require anything BUT WINDOWS.

So now I have to go back in when their boss is in and try to talk to him, because they weren't 100% sure that what I wanted to do was indeed considered file-sharing under the EULA.

Way to go Resnet...way to be too god-damned anal about LAN TRAFFIC...I mean, I see why they limit WAN file-sharing on account of most of it being illegal and using up bandwidth, but LAN networks aren't limited by bandwidth restrictions and what I want to do can be easily adjusted to prevent files from being accessible by everyone on campus.

I have made the move, and I am now on the path to a higher level of learning. As it stands, I probably won't be able to update on a daily basis...I just don't have enough attention to divide up between my classes, studying, and hanging out with new friends. Therefore, I'm going to change the posting schedule from just-about-everyday to Tuesdays and Thursdays, and possibly a post on the weekend (but no guarantees on that). EER, as I'm basically talking to you (don't get mad Angry and face [you know who you are, face]), don't fret! I know you rely on me for most of your technology news ;)

Oh, and the tags don't work...for SOME as of yet unknown reason, the TABLE CONTAINING THEM went missing.

*POOF*

Gone.

Do you require proof? Besides the text in the "Tags" sidebar to the left saying

Quote:

there's also this screenshot I took of my CPanel announcing the news:

So yep, I have to figure out what the hell happened there, and then restore the tags database if it can't be recovered...well, at least its not because of something I did!

Oh yeah, and I check out http://www.anappaday.com/. The creator is creating one C# app a day for 30 days, and he offers all the programs he makes for free on his site. Don't expect complex, COMPLETELY USEFUL programs, but check them out nonetheless; some of them are VERY unique and informative. The Software Jedi (as he's come to be known) chats on his IRC channel whenever he codes, and he's set up a WebEx for people to log into and watch him as he codes. It's a very neat and unique setup, so go check it out!

Oh! I attended a couple student organization meetings yesterday, one for the BioMedical Engineering Society (BMES) and one for the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). I've joined up with BMES because of my BioEngineering major, and I hope to make a lot of good connections with other like-minded individuals, and potentially get an internship at a biotech company. ACM interested me because its basically an organization for Computer Science majors. I haven't joined yet because of the $20 membership fee, but I probably will just to hang with some people who are learning the programming aspects of computers. If things work out, then I might be able to pick up some programming without having to sneak into classes and pretending I'm a CS major.

College is expensive, so to make ends meet, I've found work in the nearby cafeteria. On Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, I work, keeping the salad bar clean or handling dishes. Its not the most glamorous work, and I'm sure they're not paying much more than minimum wage, but its better than sitting on my duff, pretending to get work done, and not getting paid.

That reminds me. If you know anyone who needs a website done, send them my way! I could use the work! And if you have an idea for a simple program I could dub as my new C# project, let me know; I haven't forgotten about my SUI, but I'd rather start over on something less ambitious before I go back and tackle that. And if I get a decent program idea and get it done, I'll offer it up free for download!

And with that, I'm out. I could keep writing about my adventures over the last two weeks, but then I'd run out of time, the most precious of commodities here at college...right after pizza.

So today (Sunday) was the big day, I finally moved up to Riverside to start my first year of college. I'm very tired after the day's ordeals, so I'll leave this brief. If I ever get around to taking pictures, I'll upload a few of them for you to enjoy... :P