RyanHarne.com

In Plato’s perfect Republic, there was a class of people who were bred to be the ultimate members of the society. They were called guardians, but they shouldn’t be equated with our modern military despite their equivalent civil service. They were also the wisest and most self-disciplined members of the republic in all respects, neither seeking personal wealth nor wealth for their family. They were precise and perfect.

And in the spirit of perfection (just watch this transition, you’ll enjoy), I’ve been working on techniques to help me cope with the immense weariness I’ve been dealing with. My amount of sleep is averaging out to about 4 or 5 hours per night during the week, which is far less than what I’m used to (6 or 7 in previous semesters).

My first coping mechanism I stole from Jeremiah’s stories of his semesters. The powernap does wonders and I can see why he has found it so useful. I’ve gotten it down to a science so that when I feel my eyes growing heavier, I’ll sit and let myself nap until the next class comes around. Somehow I am consistently able to wake up with plenty of time to spare. I need more trials with this experiment, but the napping has been a success for my livelihood, nonetheless.

Another tool I’ve found is an ability to relax my mind. It’s difficult to describe, but after a Wednesday afternoon shift at the Empo, my brain literally hurts and my head feels very tight. The Empo is packed Wednesday afternoons and I’m beginning to question my initial reasons for taking the extra hours (although, I do love helping out the students), but regardless, I leave with mental chaos. However, with this frustration leaving work, I’m learning ways to flush my mind of that experience and somewhat start over. I traditionally use running as a tactic for relieving this type of stress, but I am figuring out how to suppress all of that and reset. It sounds odd, and I suppose it is.

Oh well. No wonder I want robotic children. But for now, I would appreciate Thanksgiving break to hurry up and get here.

I totally caved last night. However, I will be proud in my caving. I went to the grocery store. And… I… bought a pumpkin pie.

And whipped cream.

Alright, bring on the shame. Hurl your rotten fruit. Let’s get it over with and move on. It’s a really nice, store-bought pie, by the way.

Tonight, during my third deforms test, a guy sneezed right beside me. Luckily, he covered his mouth. Unfortunately, he covered it at an angle that ricocheted everything directly onto me. No kidding, it was like being sprayed by a tiny water pistol. I wiped my face, ear, and arm.

And then I proceeded to rock that exam.

As an aside, it’s nice to see people chuckle less and less when I mention global warming in reference to the entirely unseasonably weather we have experienced for the past month. It’s November in Blacksburg and today was in the 70s. That just isn’t right. Ok. Now off to the elliptical room!

VT is colorful again. Having nothing to do with the football fanaticism taking over campus (in addition to that gawdy ESPN Gameday satellite parked in the middle of Alumni Mall), the bright orange and yellows and deep reds are making their perfectly silent presence known.

The weather is even throwing in a peculiar spin. The breezes are taking over. While forecasts will predict a high in the low 70s, that temperature can only be found in direct sunlight for a few moments around 1:30pm - then back come the breezes. Once the sun goes down, Blacksburg emulates the desert and the temperature drops. This creates a particular problem for dressing appropriately; it’s 30 degrees at 8am, 40 at 10am, 50 at 11am, 60 at noon, 70 at 1pm, 60 at 2pm, and so on. Literally (although the “so on” shouldn’t continually be interpretted down to -10 at 9pm and whatnot; that would just be silly).

Anyways. The sights and atmosphere makes it prime time for some Frou Frou or Coldplay.

Watching the sunset from the War Memorial pylons and eating fresh fruit is amazing.

The digital proctoring setup was recently altered at the Empo. To actually explain how it works in brief would be difficult unless you’ve been there, sat in front of one of the iMacs, and had an Empo proctor get a test started for you. Anyways, the point is that the actual script has been changed to implement Firefox instead of Safari.

Since the tests begin via a USB key, there has historically been some lag as the application is run, initially, straight from the USB thingie. But now, with the browser switch, it takes even longer. So from the time a student clicks “Accept” for the Honor Code pop-up, there is a good 10-second pause until the testing browser is prompted. And it’s funny to watch how some of the students respond to this.

In the past, even with about the 6 or 7 seconds of delay, students would often hit Accept more than once, thereby beginning more than one testing window. The last window would automatically kill the previous ones, so it worked out fine. It’s the same case now using Firefox. But since the delay is longer, more and more students are impatient and click Accept again to make sure they did it. But some don’t stop there.

Tonight, one kid clicked it about 6 times. Five of those testing windows blinked on and off screen in an epileptic fashion, humorous to watch, not to mention his surprise at the outcome. And the silver star goes to the kid who clicked Accept a solid 10 times. The result from that flourish was astounding and even I had a hard time watching the strobing windows.

And these are the simple pleasures of my job that I love.