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#5238 – TA… that's 't' for 't' and 'a' for 'a'

with the exception of a phone call with my new manager for about 10-15 minutes today to introduce ourselves to each other, i spent my day at work trying to find things to do to keep busy (and mostly failing). my new manager is in little rock, and i’m here in laurel. we’re going to meet in person sometime in the first week in october, and right now we both seem to have no specific idea about what it is that we’re supposed to be doing. i wish i could do my schoolwork at the office, because that would totally rock.

after work i went over to rockville to the shady grove campus of UMUC to be teacher’s assistant for my old photojournalism instructor. i called him on sunday to see what the scoop was — i had called him a week before but hadn’t heard back — and he said how i didn’t necessarily need to attend this first class since he was mostly just going to be going over the syllabus and that it would be a short class anyway. i said to him “well why don’t i show up and so i can give the students an idea of what the term project should look like?” and he figured that was a good idea.

it was actually a very good idea that i went to class today because when i was leaving work at 5 PM he called me and said he was running late and that he expected to arrive there around 7… and the class itself starts at 6:30.

so i arrived on campus at just before 6 but i had trouble finding the classroom. i was used to when i had to take in-person classes for UMUC at college park or at fort meade, and there was always a staff member to say “oh, you’re taking class such-and-such? it’s down this hallway in room 123” or something like that. this place, it’s actually a collection of offices and classrooms for each of the different maryland state schools; one floor has offices for UMUC, another for UMBC, another for UMCP, another for towson, etc. so i went to the UMUC floor and couldn’t find anyone to direct me, and i’m squinting at each piece of paper by each classroom to see what classes were scheduled this week, and lucky for me i managed to get a hold of my photojournalism instructor on the phone and get the room number. it’s about 6:20, and he thinks he’ll be only about 15 minutes late now.

so i go to the classroom and at 6:30 i explain that to the 15 or 20 students or so (there’s one girl in the class who seems cute, maybe two – i say “seems” because without my glasses it’s hard to tell… i’m getting a new lens prescription and the eye doctor has to send my frames to their lab to get the new lenses put in. 😛 great idea, helping teach a PHOTOGRAPHY class and i can’t see, just brilliant.) that i’m the TA for the class and that the instructor is running late. pull up the syllabus (which was emailed to me around 6 PM), go over the basics of the class and talk about what it was like when i took it before, talk a little about my term project that i did that i was going to show later on, and i’m taking a few questions about the class when my phone rings. i excuse myself into the hallway and it’s my instructor — he’s on campus now but he can’t find a parking spot:

“well, uh, i could run down and park your car for you if you want to head up here?”

“do you know how to drive a prius?”

“uh, well i know how to drive a stickshift!”

“yeah, but… a prius is different… it’s all buttons. nevermind, i think i found a spot. and i have my son with me.”

apparently the babysitter cancelled at the last minute so he had to bring his 4 or 5-year-old son with him. we set him up in a corner with a laptop and kid DVDs and headphones to stay occupied during the class.

oh yeah, funny thing about taking questions. i totally caught myself using techniques i learned during the presentation advantage training i had to take at work once i returned from london back in june; one student asked me a question about camera equipment and features and what’s a single lens reflex camera, and next thing i know i’m repeating the question for the class and going over it in detail. i’m going to have to find my previous supervisor at work tomorrow and tell her about that, hahaha.

so my first day as a teacher’s assistant were spent drawing pictures and taking notes on the board (my photojournalism instructor’s drawing and lettering skills aren’t that great, haha), and keeping his kid glued to DVDs and educational CDs so he wouldn’t start getting rowdy in class.

it was kind of funny for me to be answering questions and helping folks out, but i guess i do a good job of it considering the number of people who have come to me with questions about photography in the past. 🙂 it’s also kind of weird for me to see the syllabus with my name and email address on it for students to contact me, just because it’s not something i’d have thought i’d see before.

it was also amusing when the instructor was talking about the last time he taught the class and how there were only three or so term projects that could be submitted for publication without embarrassment, and that my term project was one of those three. he also said how the reason why i’m there is because i started at an advanced level when i took his class before and that i still showed improvement…

instructor: “he’s even had work published before!”

class: *GASP*

me: *keeps quiet about publications using my photos without permission*

so i showed pictures from my term assignment when i took the class years ago (when i followed demondogdondite around for a few days), and after the class one of the students came over and told me while he waited to speak to the instructor how much he enjoyed my presentation since he didn’t know anything at all about roller derby, but he knew about the movie “whip it” that’s coming to a theater near you. and at the beginning of the class when i mentioned my project, another one of the students told me how a friend of his just recently made it on to the charm city roller girls as fresh meat but doesn’t have a name quite yet, and after the class he asked if i’m going to be at the bout this weekend, haha.

my instructor is totally paying me under the table too, haha… $50 / class. he’s still trying to work it out with the university to make it official and to see if they’ll pay me as well so that it’ll be university pay plus the $50 out of his pocket. either way, $50 / class is still more than what i was expecting to get!

and that’s how i started teaching college courses on the down-low.

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#5237 – and i thank god that i'm not a wimp

i have 4 hours before i have to get ready for work. i’m too pumped up to go to sleep, been getting lots done today (gtd and omnifocus, WHAT UP!!), and after work on monday i get to go over to rockville and start day 1 of being a teacher’s assistant – i’m helping out my old photojournalism instructor with his class. when i talked to him on the phone today he was very enthusiastic about maybe me sometime in the future teaching this class, hahaha. plus i’m going to get paid for this, suckas. he’s still trying to make it official with the university, and if he can then i’ll get paid more, otherwise it’ll just be out of his pocket.

i’m still getting the hang of gtd methods, but i can’t say enough good things about the concept and getting a system going to remember stuff for me. you’d think that with all the stuff i’ve got going on (master’s degree, teacher’s assistant, six sigma training, 10k run training, work, etc.) i’d be going crazy. but i’m not.

if i knew that i’d be able to wake up in time, i’d want to wake up an hour earlier and go for a run since otherwise i wouldn’t be able to, but i’m also glad i’m not going to wake up early and go running because mondays are an off-day for me to recuperate.

i should go to sleep. i’m too awake, but i still should go to sleep, even if sleep is a waste of my time.

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#5235 – liquid funds

apparently when mom sent me out the other day to buy whiskey so she could make whiskey sours since we had company…

uh. i think a possum just looked in my basement window at me. definitely larger than a mouse, kind of pink face, only saw it for a split second though.

…anyway, where was i? oh. so i was sent out to buy whiskey and i even said “i don’t have money to spare on buying alcohol right now” when i was told to go, and was told that i’d be paid back. well, i was paid back in cash, but for the overdraft charges that i just found that i was apparently billed as a result of that liquor run, they’re enough to buy two more bottles of whiskey!

phooey. 🙁

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#5234 – there's no crying in systems development

it was a good thing today that i stopped off at dunkin’ donuts for breakfast (two donuts and a cup of coffee), since that fills me up until later in the day — because i start work at 8 AM, even though i don’t have a set lunch time, i usually try to go around noon since it’s halfway through the day. those donuts filled me up so i was planning to go to lunch from 1-2 PM. but today i had…

– conference call from 11 AM – noon

– unexpected delay from noon – 1 PM

– briefing from 1:00 – 2:00 PM

– meeting from 2:00 – 3:45 PM

– lunch from 3:55 – 4:55 PM

– leave at 5 PM

we have to take an hour for lunch, and even if the meeting went until 4 PM i wouldn’t be able to just leave an hour early instead, so i’m glad that meeting got out before then. it sucked for one of the guys on my team whose schedule is 7:30 – 4:30 since he didn’t get a chance to break for his lunch since we were on the same calls and meetings.

but what was that unexpected delay from noon until 1 PM? that’s usually when the briefing is (and even then that usually takes 30 minutes at most, it’s me just filling in the manager who’s our lead for this project, telling him about what we discussed during the conference call. well, the conference call itself was a bit of a snoozer (though not as bad as yesterday’s), but it was still just listening in and taking notes and not much else. but the last 15-20 minutes of that call? WOW. this one guy who’s high up but not that high up blew up about the way our department has been handling this project since it’s been talked about for the past 2 years and at the end of the year this system is going to be shut down so it all needs to be done before then, but each week it seems there’s barely any progress.

we had to keep explaining that the federal team operates VERY differently from the rest of the company and that we can’t move as fast as regular retail or b2b departments can, and some of our higher-ups who heard this guy bellyaching even jumped on the call and said “LOOK. if we don’t dot our ‘i’s and cross our ‘t’s, then we have the potential to not only lose tons of customers (yes, it’s only a few accounts being processed, but there’s hundreds of thousands of lines on these accounts we’re processing as part of this project IN ADDITION TO the tons of customers we have that purchase from government contracts), but our entire OFFICE could be out of jobs because we’d have NO GOVERNMENT BUSINESS WHATSOEVER, and many of us could be looking at POSSIBLE JAIL TIME. so: IT’S IN OUR BEST INTEREST TO MAKE SURE WE DO THINGS PROPERLY, REMAIN WITHIN IN COMPLIANCE AND PROCEED WITH APPROVAL FROM LEGAL.”

the consultant on my team who’s been orchestrating this project took it personally and was in tears in his cubicle afterwards and left to go sit in his car — the manager who’s our lead for this project went out during that unexpected delay time and searched the parking lot i guess and found him and calmed him down, but it was pretty rough. but if that higher-up wants to play hardball, we’re playing hardball — there’s another call scheduled tomorrow so he and a bunch of higher-ups can talk things over, and rumor is our department VP is going to be on the call to blow this guy up for blowing up. man, i wish i could be on that call too!

in other news, i joined the nike+ human race 10k run (yes, it’s the day before the marine corps marathon’s 10k run which i signed up and paid for, so who knows if i’ll actually do the human race too). well, backstory:

after i do my runs, i sync my ipod to my computer and it uploads my run data to the nikerunning.com website, and i have another service post it on my twitter feed like so. well, i started getting messages from one guy saying “hey, great run, join my team for the human race!” and i didn’t think too much about it until i got a message from someone else so i investigated.

nike has a group of “ambassadors” for the human race and they each have a team (and a twitter account and a facebook fan page), and each ambassador can give out free stuff to their team members like t-shirts and itunes gift cards and shoes and an iphone. after getting these twitter messages from these two ambassadors, i joined amandah‘s team “up to speed” because…

a) i liked her style since when i mentioned the run she said i didn’t even have to run 10k for the human race, i could just as well walk it if i wanted to

b) when i told her i wasn’t sure if i’d join she said that if i do join she hoped that i’d pick a team that would suit me

and c) she was cuter than the first guy who messaged me, bahaha.

(i happened to mention about this time on twitter that i felt like a free agent getting offers to join different teams, and after i had already joined amandah’s team, the first guy who messaged me offered a no-trade clause and a lock in for the human race runs in 2010 and 2011, bahaha.)

bruno_boy thinks i’m swooning over her, but she’s my gym crush running inspiration. i’m glad i joined a team because it’s a lot more fun to have someone providing encouragement (either personally or as part of the team), and it’s good to keep me motivated for the marine corps marathon’s 10k run in late october also.

and not only today did i run my fastest mile i’ve run so far (8’38”), but i also won a t-shirt! there was a contest on my team for folks to send in pictures of themselves with their pets (out running together, if possible), and her dogs picked the winners:

if i run 2+ miles on friday (scheduled to be a day off from running, but it’s only 2 miles), then when i do my scheduled run on saturday i’ll break 100 miles for the year so far. excellent!