The Issue

A Week in Review

I’ve almost gotten down to the point where a weekly ‘what’s up with Josh’ is enough. If I can I’ll do it Sundays. So here it goes:

This week was a big week in reality, but semi-big for me. What I mean is that my final presentation for my thesis was on Wednesday. Now for those who don’t do a thesis you gotta know some run up stuff to get the impact of the speech I gave. This thesis project was started nearly a year ago (from September ’07). Of course that’s when I started my initial research on the thesis… Really I’ve been pondering this thesis far before that when I was in Japan. That makes about 1 year and a half of thinking on my thesis subject. That’s a long time ya know… for a 35 page report & 20 minute presentation. However, I did it and did it proud. The speech, personally, was kinda funny timing wise. Delays from two speeches ahead of mine put the time I was supposed to start from 4:10 Pm to 4:20 J (By the way happy 4/20 @ 4:20)…

So I stood up with a prepared statement to read. This statement was almost a joke to me because that day I took the day off from work to prepare for it. I started writing at 8am and finished it at 1pm, but then I had to read it to make sure I’d make the 20 minutes. In my first read it was 30 minutes—no good! Had to rewrite it.. So I spend 15 minutes cutting stuff, read it again and it was 25 min. Still no good (and I was talking fast!). So again I cut it and read it… 17 minutes GREAT! Wait… what time is it? It’s past 2:30 pm. I had to get to the college by 3:30 to make the presentations. That meant an hour, but it takes about 30 minutes to get from my house to the college and find a parking spot (all in rush hour). So for half an hour I did the following in recording breaking speed:

~Design a powerpoint presentation (5 min)

~Shower and Shave (10 min)

~Dress in a Suit and Tie w/vest (5 min)

~Gather up speech, thesis’, write a brief handout (8 min)

~Grab the Cat and throw a handful of cat food at the cat bowl (2 min)

~Drive to School & get parking space (28 min)

~Run to the computer lab and print off 10 handouts (4 min)

Suffice to say.. I was smoking on Wednesday and made it without any noticing how disorganized I was about it.

Well then there was that 20 minutes of straight talking and 10 minutes for questions, but ironically no *real* questions were asked… So I sat down…

Ultimately the whole ordeal was something I don’t want to do for awhile…

Ok so Friday my parents scooted off for a conference in Bend, Or. So I was playing it solo at home. So Friday I sorta indulged myself in burning a bunch of research I didn’t need anymore… What I did was lit off a big bonfire in a oil barrel and just stoked it with gas for about 2 hours while blasting blues music from 89.1 Fm’s Friday Blues Radio.

Good times…

Saturday I finally made big progress on my HTPC so it’s almost done. And I went to the movies with some friends that night… Hats off to those guys.. I really appreciated it!

Today I faced the Moms and their insane kids at the Winco by participating in what I call ‘the contact sport of grocery shopping’

Tonight my folks come back and I think we’ll be doing a BBQ (unless it snows :?)

Thx 4 Reading.. If I get some time and more blog energy, I'll opine on what my view of current politics... w/ my famous global slant and philosophical review.

~J out