Pondering

I will have to admit that pondering the thoughts of life during a concurrent final is probably not the best thing in the world, expically for those of us with ADD. It is very distracting, and forces us to end up writing random blog postings regarding it. But, during this final (which I did complete) I started to wonder about thinking. Yes, people, thinking about thinking. It is probably hard to handle, but for those that know me, this is a normal think for me.

As I sat there trying to figure out the best way to been the people of Alpha and Beta on to the Enterprise while allowing Mr. Scotty to sleep between transports, I looked around the room at people working on their own finals. This is where the derailing of the train of thought happened. I wondered: How are people processing the information? What are people's trains of thoughts for taking an exam? How are people jumping from one question to the next in a logical mannger? This has always interested me. I sit in a room with people that are clearly smarter than I, and wonder what their thought processes are. I find it mildly interesting.

With all of this, I started to wonder about my though processes, and how I can up with answers and solved probelms. This, this was the bad point. At this point, I realized that I had no formal though process. Things just appeared in my head. I mean it is clear that the transporter site is suppose wake up Mr. Scotty. It is just clear. Well, to me at least.

Through out my schooling, there have been several attempts at teaching ways to approach problem, map your mind, and get your thoughs out on paper. I was never really turned on by these methods, or to say I never really found that they worked. It just always seemed like a lot of extra work to sit and draw out a map, fill in the little circles, and by that point my OCD would kick in, and well 4 hours later, I would have a half completed mind map that would be worthily of some sort of design award. But at the same time, I haven't gotten all of my ideas out. This is something that has always been true. I spend more time making it look pretty than actually getting the information down.

But there was something else that I wondered about: thinking in the head. I watched the professor change the first problem three times. Granted I wonder about his thinking processes because of a number of other problems in the class, but I sat there and watched him go through the problem in his head. Granted this was a problem that I had no idea even how to approach, but I wondered how he was going through it in his head. I was curious.

I guess this is forming the thought that things just pop into my head, and normally I try and give attention to those things. (Ex: grading midterms, assisting with homework, fixing the mailserver, and talking with friend all in the same hour and half. (Yes, I got it all done. Christine was impressed.)) But I wonder if there is a need to formalize the process of handling thoughts and approaching things instead of just raming it head on and working with the things that appear in my head.

Thoughs and comments are welcome.

To Do.

Though out life, there are many different to do lists that are created. There are ones fo things that we need to do in school and at work. There are also the to do lists that we make for life. There are lists that we make for the next three hours. There are a lot of to do lists. To do lists are a great. The only problem that I have with them is that mine are continous growing.

I get a little obsessed with my todo lists. They get pretty detailed. Some times breaking a task down so much that it would form a good model for a requirements document for a complex program.

I don't keep a formal todo list. I have tried. Purchased notebooks to carry around with me. Random sheets of paper (these are easy to loose). GoogleTaks. Remember the Milk. All of these I have tried, and I end up either stop using them, or they become so large that it is just eaiser to ignore them :).

I guess that it is time to try something new. Time to make some sort of grand todo for everything. Maybe I will just write a program to do it for me which will then distract me from actaully doing the things on the list. I'm all in favor of this.

The After Life

While I'm still a year away from graduating from this prison that they call Drexel, thoughts of the after college life have already started to run through my head. One of the problems that I have always had was the fact I just never knew what I wanted to do with my self. As a kindergartner would say "I have no idea what I want be when I grow up."

There are many different things that I enjoy doing. Many different things that I have tried. But none of them have sparked my interest to become hyper focus on. Something that I wouldn't mind spending my college career studying, with the potential for going for a masters or even a PhD in.

In attempting to try different things, there was a bit of hope that I would find something that peak my interest, something that draw me in to far that I would presume it as a profession or an area that I concentrate in. But alas, nothing has stand out. Some people don't seem to find this uneasy, but I do. I would even feel better if I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, but I don't.

There have been many different thing that I have concerned doing after college. Now before I start going through these things, and my thoughts on people knowing what they want to do, I need to give you my life plan. It is very simple. First stage, work somewhere exciting. Second stage, teach something exciting. Third stage, buy an RV and travel the nation building Habitat houses.

Now here are some options that I have presented to my self:

• Farmer: Yes, a farmer with cows, and land, and large pieces of farm equipment. My family has a fairly large piece of land with no one to take care of in the future. I'm kind of partial to keeping in the family which requires someone to take care of it. Now, I have no idea how to be a farmer, and there is a lot of things that I would have to learn, beyond my current skill set. The plus side to moving and becoming a farmer is that there is a lot of areas to go biking. Yeah Biking!
• System Administrator: This is an area that I have a lot of experience in, and continue to do part time. System Administrator proves with a different set of problems and activities from day to day. This is some thing that I like. I really don't like to sit and do the same thing all day every day and doesn't mix well with the ADD. The other thing is that it is something that I understand.
• Developer: Now this is something that people would consider to be the track that I should be taking. There are some problems with this. The first one is that I don't always enjoy programming. Yeah, I said it. I don't always enjoy programming. It is hard to believe. There have been a number of different projects that I have worked on that have proved me with great interest, but in the overall scheme of things there is something that I'm missing or just not understanding. Hopefully entering my senior year will help me to gave a love to just write random code.
  
• Teacher: Teaching is something that I have always enjoyed. It has always provided me with joy helping people to understand something. I have taught many different things over the years, mainly in the areas of programming, system administration and leadership skills. There are a lot of other things that I have taught but not in a large scale. I could see my self teaching subjects in introductory programming, system administration, or possibly high school math (, possibly).

These are just a few of the things that I have considered. There are so many other possibilities that could be listed: professional bicyclist, laptop repair man, project manager, dry erase marker tester, chef, lunch-truck owner, or one of many other random professions.

All of this stuff seems to be becoming more and more of a problem as I approach the end of my college career. At this point in time, I'm heading to After College Pergatory.

Preperations

While riding around this afternoon, I pondered things that needed to be done in preparation for racing next year for Drexel. Many different things came to mind including hill climbing, sprinting and learning to ride in a pack. These things are standard. Items that will help me to win a race.

But upon further thinking, while almost getting hit by a trash truck, I decided that winning the race wasn't the most important thing. There are things that are more important. Things, that while adventuring in to racing, I discovered about the ECCC. My goal for next year is to make in to the ECCC Survey results.

Yes, the survey results. Winning has it's place, but the survey results are more exciting, and I feel that they last a bit longer. (If you don't know what I'm referring to, take a look at the ECCC website.)

Here are some ideas that I have come up with:

Epic Crashes - Epic crashes while it does hurt, does seem to get people in to the survey.
Things caught on Finish camera - This is a guaranteed way to at least have something caught on film. Just need to make sure that I don't piss Joe off while doing it.

There are bound to be other things that I can do be gain a spot in the survey. Who knows, even this entry will make it into the survey. But that is just wishful thinking.

Welcome

Hello all. This is my attempt at keeping a blog. While I can't guarantee that I will be posting to it regularly, I will say that I will write to when I can.

Just so that everyone knows topics on this blog can include, but not limited to:

• Photography
• Habitat
• Bicycles
• Turtles
• Cooking
• Drexel
• Leadership
• Computers
• Shenanigans
  

So, there will be a large variety of topics, and I hope that I can provide meaningful information for meaningless topics.

Comments are always welcome.

Happy reading!