12/14/2007: "[At Work] You really do learn by teaching"

I'm tired. Not like "Gar, I want to sleeeeeeeep" tired, but more the "Hmm, I certainly wish I slept more last night, but it's having little effect on my day as a whole". So basically, I'm not really tired, but I say it all the time, so I kinda figure I should keep it up. Totally makes sense, I know.

So, last night I finally got all my PC parts in and built a new pc. It's amazing how you can have a bunch of boxes full of pieces and within 5 hours have a fully functioning PC running an operating system and serving up files on your network. Most of all, it was a really informative experience for me as I've never officially built a PC from scratch before (researching and buying every part then putting it all together into something that works). Sure, I've changed nearly every single part on one of my computers at one time or another, but that was with reference to other parts. This is from start to finish. Now the real question, though, is why I decided to build a new PC when I have a fully functioning, brand new PC (as of June) in my room. Actually, "the learning experience" was only secondary. In truth, I'm lazy; I wanted a media-pc to connect full-time to a TV and watch movies, television, and play games on. I know what you're thinking: Youtube on the tv? Yep.. did that (but I can also watch Youtube movies wirelessly on my iPod, so the thrill's kinda lacking).

My finals are done now, as of yesterday. I think I did pretty well on 75% of them.. the fourth one was.. well.. 'catastrophic' is certainly one way to describe it. I'm sure I passed the class and did decently enough. However, it's definitely not up there with the other classes. Like Japanese? A! So happy. And for my graduation paper that I had to write, I got an S. An S? Yes, I was surprised too (what, exactly, is an S?). Apparently the class was P(ass)/F(ail), but if you do really well and they like your project, they can give an S(uperior). I was pretty surprised, but I can't complain..

From now till Christmas, I'm just coming into work during the days and doing office-stuff, training the new person, that sort of thing. In the mornings/evenings, I'm free and going to probably be meeting up with whatever Japanese people I can find who are still in town to practice speaking. Pretty exciting, I know.. how do I manage? This weekend, two students from the school I work at will be staying at my house for a day or so until their flights (both get back tonight, one leaves Sunday and one leaves Monday). They didn't have any place to stay, so I volunteered. This means, though, that I need to clean as soon as I get back from work, and I assure you that my room is quite on the unclean side due to building a computer last night. Screws, PCI-covers, FDD cables, oh my!

Spending alot of time with people not from America has turned out to introduce me to alot of different experiences involving, ironically enough, America. There's so much I don't bother to deal with and take for granted. But for people who don't live here, it's all so different and they don't always know where/how to get the information. I've learned quite a bit about lease laws, car ownership, how to break a lease (and minimize the money you owe), steps in suing people, and other things I never really thought I needed to know. I've also had to go meet with landlords and discuss said lease problems, call electric companies and argue about a bill.. those sorts of things. All in the line of duty as a Lab Monitor (well.. technically, no, as I was off the clock and these were personal favors.. but same thing, right?).

I should get back to what I'm doing (burning 20 copies of 2 cds, 40 total). I'm sure I'll write again relatively soon.. I'm here all next week, and I get bored easily.


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