Busy week again- this is going to be one of those quarters where the work
just keeps coming, isn't it? At least it keeps us busy and happy solving
problems.
CS101 is... weird. The professor has an assignment once every two weeks or
so- just one assignment. That's it. That assignment is a coin flip between
two different things: something ridiculously simple like "make a list in a
docx document," or something along the lines of "write at least 200 words
on why AI is going to kill us all." One of his prompts was straight-up a
voting conspiracy theory. This doesn't feel like Introduction to IT. It
feels like Introduction to Tech Conspiracies with a side of Office and basic
computer usage. It's just bizarre. He's not teaching much at all, just
plunking random assignments down and waiting.
On the plus side, there are some very interesting people in the class. Two
other Linux users, one of whom self-hosts quite a lot of things on his own
home server, and the other being deeply familiar with Debian since he's used
it for the last 15 years. That's the first time we've seen other Linux users
around here!
There's also a 60-something-year-old woman who's doing a career change into IT
after having worked at a bank for all this time. Kudos to her!
The other two classes are the ones that keep us busy. Introduction to Programming
(in Python, haha- still ahead of the game there) and General Biology (more like
biochemistry). Biology in particular is brutal. It's chapter three out of twelve
and we're already going into the nitty gritty of protein folding, the structure
of DNA, and how enzymes chemically work. Good thing organic chemistry mostly
makes sense. Our issue is that we struggle to remember the core chemical
formulas for common compounds (like an amino group, carboxyl, etc.). We should
really pick a study day and focus on trying to remember some of those. I think
it'll help.
We've been doing alright, mentally. Kaz has been much more active lately, which
I really appreciate because classwork wipes me out. I keep meaning to get them
a patch for their jacket as a thank-you, but I'm not sure what they want. Maybe
I should have them draft up a wishlist. We're all making some progress on not
yelling at each other or burying each other in criticism, though when we're
stressed, that falls apart quickly (and god help us if someone makes the kids
freak out- then it's verbal blame war).
Oh yeah- we made a wrist rest and gave it a face. It's adorable. Think of a rock,
give it a face, and that's probably pretty close. It's kind of sock monkey-ish as
well. It's already been a great help when typing.
