Elliott C. Back: In Aere Aedificare

It’s 5 AM in the morning, which is always a good time to write a little update before eating a very late dinner and doing my chinese homework. Things are mostly well with me–the web properties are still recovering from their 1and1 mishap, which makes me feel that diversifying across a number of domains might be a good thing for me. I just got a cheque from Yahoo that floats my boat, classes are mostly good, and I have lots to keep busy with. So, let’s make a list:

1. I just got two more sites online–my CS482 notes, which I had actually been emailed about by sad students–as well as the Books blog. No one really reads them, but the CS482 notes are a valuable resource, and the books blog lets me post my essays and literate musings. You have to forgive typos, though. I tend to spell like some kind of gibbon.
2. There’s a stack of guitar books yearning to be learned. And a new nifty POD XT to make beautiful sounds. I’m really, really looking forward to this weekend, provided homework is light, to get on the Guitar again and pick up a song or two. I have the Santana, Beatles, and a Classical songbook here with me!
3. Math 335: Cryptology / Cryptography is doing better than hoped. I wasn’t at the bottom of the curve this time, and numerically I’d almost pass anyway, which means that yes, I’ll be able to graduate. This was my biggest worry, because although the course is on number theory, the professor expects me to know group theory, and tests on it. Since this isn’t covered in the textbook, I missed those questions in my study and on the test. However, if we have another test, I’ll ace it because I know what to ask the TA about now.
4. Other courses: all are going well. My two English classes are very easy and quite enjoyable. I just wrote an essay on a 9/11 book, which I think takes it apart pretty well. Asian 212 is enjoyable and interesting–I am learning lots about China. And Chinese 102 is hard, but fun. Languages are always fun. We’re learning the ba3 structure for objects right now, which is making the grammar a little harder because verb-end sentences are not at all like English structure.
5. I have an idea for a web-blog-ping service I’ve been interested in doing, but it’s hard to find the time to start to write. It would require (probably) a dedicated server, and lots of bandwidth, but it would be easy to do, perhaps profitable, and a lot of fun. Although, server-side spell checking is probably not the right way to do it, how many blog authors can you think of that would like their content automatically spell checked, and emails about mistakes?
6. Blog theme: This green theme is getting way old. I have a new one in the works, but it’s only about 25% done. Semantically it’s fine, but graphically there’s a ways to go. And, I need to update it to allow it to silently upgrade all the old posts, which is a bit of a pain. Every post on the new theme has a bunch of meta-information associated with it, which is critical to its operation. In some ways, the new theme works like a little gada.be for every post. It’s uber cool. When I’m done, you’re all going to drool over it for hours.

That’s all for now! Leave comments if bored!

4 Responses to 'Elliott’s Life Update'

1. cibbuano said:

   on April 11th, 2006 at 2:58 pm

   what are you studying? Group theory, English and Chinese? That’s a well-rounded degree…

2. Elliott Back said:

   on April 11th, 2006 at 3:21 pm

   I’m actually a Computer Science major, but I’m taking these crazy courses my last semester!

3. Evelyn said:

   on April 12th, 2006 at 8:39 am

   Dear Sir Elliot, whatever you are studying now, i wish you great luck on your last semester. Conclusion, hey!, i like your blog. Greeny Nice.

   PS: Computer Science is hard.(for me) .

4. Julie said:

   on April 12th, 2006 at 1:14 pm

   According to the OED:
   Gibbon is either: (1) A name common to the long-armed apes of the genus Hylobates, but applied esp. to the species Hylobates lar which inhabits the islands of the Indian Archipelago. OR (2) A sand eel.

   I assume you meant you spell like an ape, but a sand eel, which probably doesn’t even have fingers to *type*, might be a more accurate indication of your spelling ability. For example, proper English speakers spell “cheque” as “check” so assimilate your Canadian self already! Heeheehee…

   Btw, what happened to comment preview?

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