Bah, misgivings about school. I'm taking all of these wonderfully hardcore classes, and the gearhead in me says I should be enjoying them, even though I'm not. Out of Computer Architecture, Operating Systems, and Artificial Intelligence, only the AI class is remotely fun, and even it is teaching a lot of forty year old technique that I'm not all that interested in. I suppose the OS class is neat, but I feel out of my league even being there. That class is full of people who are about to graduate, and are depressingly serious about the material. I'm approaching the class with my usual luck-is-the-key attitude towards grades, so I hope I'm not about to fail miserably.

I know the bottom's dropped out of the technology marketplace, but I already have 50 major hours, so I'm pretty much locked into the engineering program death march. I will get that magic diploma or die trying. First, leaving now would mean throwing away around $8000 of education, which I simply can't afford to do. Second, the high drop-out rate of Computer Science students everywhere will hopefully assure any future employer that since I graduated, I'm good at handling difficulty. Which I am. Sometimes.

Taking all of these senior-level CS classes has reminded me of how much more fun the neuroscience and psychology classes I took over the summer were. It's frustrating that the best class I've ever had at this university (the neuroscience one, FYI) was outside my major and didn't count towards it. Even worse, I found out recently that the minor it would've counted to isn't even offered any more, due to overcrowding in the department. Ack, I wish college degrees had a little list of the classes you took at the bottom, instead of the big bold text which certifies that you're Good At Topic A but implies that you know nothing about Topic B.

 

Work is going along nicely, too. Since they cycled in new management (the fourth general manager since I've been there) business has been a lot better. Actually, business probably isn't any different, but with the kids all back from summer break, and the paucity of other workers, it really seems that way. Recently I had a $90 night, not bad for driving pizza around town for eight hours, and the most I've made in one night for the past nine months or so. Although complaint is the accepted form of communication concerning employment, I really can't right now.

 

Also, I've recently come into posession of a little bit of 5-meo-DMT, the easier to handle little brother of Terence McKenna's favorite, DMT. I've never read a trip report that mentioned any body load, but it's there and it's substantial. Smoking the substance makes my heart rate (or at least my perception thereof) double, which is distracting and scary enough to suck any hope of learning or even having a good time out of its psychedelic nature. Unfortunate, because I can tell by how strong the effects are that it would be an excellent ride if it didn't feel like it was killing me. Further experimentation is necessary (different smoking methods for one), and a writeup of my own under 5-meo-DMT will probably appear soon.