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Friday, April 1st, 2005

Subject:Hearts and Minds
Time:11:45 am.
I have made a post that concerns some of my less-than-ethicial practices regarding HyperEdit. Please Read:

http://www.tumultco.com/blog/index.php?p=27
Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.

Friday, July 16th, 2004

Subject:Minna-san! I've got a new blog
Time:9:44 pm.
I'm sorry I haven't written or commented anything in a while. I've been busy packing for my move, but mostly feeling lazy.

I've started a new blog: http://www.tumultco.com/blog that I will probably be using from now.

If you're upset about not reading from your friends page, I just recommend getting a news feed (RSS) aggregator, like NetNewsWire, and subscribe to the RSS feed. You can also read LiveJournal posts in NetNewsWire. If you click on the subscribe button, use the format: http://ljusername:ljpassword@www.livejournal.com/users/friendname/data/rss?auth=digest. I can't really live without NetNewsWire now -- my 71 subscriptions mean I barely ever have to touch my web browser, and I'm notified in the dock whenever there is anything new. It's great!
Comments: Add Your Own.

Tuesday, June 15th, 2004

Subject:HyperEdit 1.0.2 Released!
Time:8:23 pm.

It is my pleasure to announce the release of Hyperedit 1.0.2 today. This is primarily a bug-fix release, and the upgrade is recommended for everyone. Here's what's new:

  • Much improved stability and many bugs fixed
  • Fixed bug in syntax highlighting where colors would be shifted over, or incorrect
  • Command-Shift-Right/Left is restored to its usual purpose
  • Opens files properly from dragging onto the dock or application icon
  • Does not use package installer anymore and overall size decreased
  • Individual editor background color can be changed by dragging a color swatch into the line number gutter

HyperEdit 1.0.2 can be downloaded at:

http://www.tumultco.com/HyperEdit/HyperEdit.dmg

Of course, please let me know if you have any feature suggestions or bugs to report.
Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.

Subject:Who's been commenting in my journal?
Time:8:17 pm.
View the LJ stats )
Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.

Subject:A Wedding in New York
Time:8:11 pm.
This weekend I went to Great Neck, New York (a city on long island) for the wedding of my mother's father's much younger brother's son. I call him my cousin in short, although he's really a great second uncle or something like that. In addition to the wedding, we went sight seeing a little. This was slightly restricted by the 35 minute train ride into Manhattan, though.

Thursday night, after a delicious dinner of filet mignon and polenta at Sardie's, we went to see the musical, Chicago, on broadway. In other words, we went to New York to see Chicago :-p. Although the vocals and music were good as expected, it was lacking in staging and choreography compared to the movie. Also, the sub-story of Roxy's desire to be more like Velma was almost nonexistent.

Friday my family went to Ellis Island. We stood in line for a ferry for well over an hour, and had very little time at the museum itself before we had to go back. The museum was okay -- it was mainly pictures of people who had immigrated in the big rush. My sister tried looking up our relatives who had come over, but we weren't sure of the spellings, and could find absolutely no one in the database. At night was the rehearsal dinner, which was okay.

Saturday we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Over spring break, Jenni and I did not have a chance to look there for more than an hour, and I was especially disappointed we missed the Chinese and Japanese sections. There were some neat parts such as the mock Japanese room and Chinese courtyard, and I saw some beautiful calligraphy this time around.

Saturday night was the wedding. It was a black-tie affair, so I rented a tuxedo. It took place at what is evidently one of the most exclusive country clubs in New York. The ceremony was outdoors, on a large patio connected to the building. There were 9 groomsmen and 9 bridesmaids. Jewish ceremonies are usually pretty short, although this lasted about 45 minutes. It began with the bride and groom circling each other three times to make sure they were marrying the correct person (someone once screwed up in the bible, so it became a Jewish tradition to verify before saying the "I do's"). It was actually pretty romantic, because it was as if they were checking each other out while circling.

After the ceremony was hors d'oeuvres and cocktails were served. I had champagne to drink, which was absolutely excellent. I found out later it was Crystale, although not the most expensive kind. There were several tables of appetizers, including servers walking around. The first table I went to had various fruits, breads, and lox. The next table had a server individually slicing some sort of beef tenderloin. After moving about the crowd, I ran into my cousin's mother, who said that he specifically said he wanted sushi, so she knew that was located somewhere. I found the longest line, and that was for the sushi table! They had several different kinds of nigiri (tuna, salmon, eel, yellow tail) and a couple of rolls. When I got in line, they just brought a plate of salmon by. I've never seen so much salmon sushi in my life! I had about 6 different pieces, and was very full from all the other food servers had been bringing by.

About an hour later, we went into the main ballroom/dining area. The wedding party actually started with dancing, which was a good thing since I think everyone was full after the hors d'oeuvres. The band then started to play an instrumental upbeat jazz version of "Tonight" from West Side Story, and the bride and groom came running into the room like stars and started dancing. They had both taken dancing lessons together so they would look good at their wedding :-). After a little bit, we sat down for the first course of salad which was a seasonal mix of baby greens with a wild mushroom beggar's purse, and a balsamic & cherry tomato vinaigrette dressing. Very excellent. The waiters also took our order. I choose the sliced filet mignon with a red wine reduction sauce, risotto cake, and steamed green beans with a carrot ribbon. The other choices were a breast of chicken stuffed with portobello mushroom or a pan search chilean sea bass. More dancing ensued, and then we ate the main course around midnight. I only had one of the two filet slices, but it was absolutely delicious. It could be cut with a butter knife. My sister tried the chicken, which was also very good with the portobello mushrooms on top. The dinner was evidently $250 per plate, and I can believe that. The desserts and wedding cake were actually just so-so. The live band had so many people they were able to rotate in and out, never taking a single break the whole night. They played all sorts of music, from Abba to the Sugarhill Gang. At about 2:00am, the band stopped, and the wedding was over.

Those New Yorkers sure know how to party!
Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

Monday, June 7th, 2004

Subject:A Couple Together
Time:10:54 pm.


Another sketch for today. This one took a lot longer than yesterday's sketches due to the complexity. This one could definitely use some coloring or shading to help distinguish parts of the picture. I also think the guy's head is too big, and the girl's legs are slighlty off in the perspective. Other than that, I think it turned out well.
Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

Sunday, June 6th, 2004

Subject:Sketches from Today
Time:11:51 pm.

Comments: Read 11 or Add Your Own.

Thursday, June 3rd, 2004

Subject:Some Mac OS X Gems
Time:12:52 am.

Since lots of people seem to be getting Macs, I thought I'd post some gems either I use, or are considered great little programs. There's a lot of other gems out there, but these are the general-purpose ones everyone probably can use:

  1. HyperEdit - hehehe, yeah, this program r0x0rs!
  2. NetNewsWire - The defacto-standard newsreader. It is really great to get all of your news and blog entries in one place. I just use the space-bar to scroll through all new entries. It is slow at times, but the upcoming version sounds like it is going to kick ass.
  3. LaunchBar - Quickly launch anything using keystroke abbreviations. I never really got into the habit of using this, but it really is invaluable on a laptop when mousing around with a trackpad is difficult.
  4. AdiumX - My AIM chat program of choice. It uses tabs to conserve screen space and is highly configurable. It also supports yahoo, msn, and many other services. Sadly, the AIM file sharing does not always work, but the development speed is rather fast, and I'm sure will be fixed when it reaches 1.0.
  5. Acquisition - Really slick gnutella-based file sharing. You can find Mac OS X software (among other things) on here.
  6. iCal - A lot of people don't like iCal because it is simplistic and slow, but I would not remember anything important without it. Using a calendar (and the built-in to-do list) has organized my life. Oh, it is pre-installed, of course.
  7. Video Lan Client (aka "VLC") - Will play DivX and lots of other media files. There's other programs like Quicktime Player (using the DivX codec) or MPlayer, but I usually find myself using this since it works on many different files, and has a reasonably nice interface.
  8. Transmit - A very clean FTP client with a nice feature set. There's other clients out there that emulate the Mac OS X "Column View," which I find superior, but Transmit's simplicity and speed make up for it. External Editor support also rules.
  9. XJournal - A LiveJournal client. I've actually only used this once, so I'm not vouching for it, but I've heard good things about it.
  10. Konfabulator - I hate cluttering up my desktop, so I don't use this program at all. But, some of the widgets are really beautiful in form and function.
Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.

Tuesday, June 1st, 2004

Subject:On Decaf
Time:9:22 pm.
I just tried some caffeine free Mountain Dew, and I must say, it tastes like regular mountain dew!
Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.

Monday, May 31st, 2004

Subject:Sushi Party!
Time:11:56 pm.


Here's a picture of the sushi we made after finals. Jenni made the sushi (spicy tuna, yum!) on the right plate, and the right half of the far right plate. The rest I made. It turned out pretty well, including the Philadelphia roll, which I had never made before. I wanted to do one more sushi party, but didn't end up having enough time.

Later that night, we played some Trivial Pursuit. Here's a question to those who weren't there:

Which was invented first? Telephone, Radio, or Fax Machines?
Comments: Read 12 or Add Your Own.

Subject:My Stint at Apple
Time:3:32 pm.
Everything before "thursday" I wrote on the plane ride back. I have refrained from writing about names or going into specific details since this entry is open to the public. If you want more specifics, just IM me.

19 Years ago

My parents got an Apple IIe, and I've been hooked ever since.

Really, I've grown up with Apple, from that primitive IIe to the Power Macintosh. I would be lying if I said it wasn't my dream to work for Apple. I have crusaded for the Macintosh since sixth grade. Everybody who knows me, knows how passionate I am about my computer.

About a month and a half ago, one of my friends applied and got an internship at Apple. I decided I'd try for a full-time position as well, so I emailed my resume to one of the people on a job posting. There were other opportunities on the site, but I heard back from the recruiter a few days later before I had a chance to post my resume to those other ones.

I had a 15-minute preliminary interview that asked about my eligibility, and mainly served to set up a 45-minute meeting with the project manager. That interview went well. The manager (who would be my boss) described his group and my basic role as a low level software update integration engineer, and then asked some extremely good questions. I was very impressed.

I heard back from the recruiter and said I was ready to move on to a 45 minute technical conference call. This was with 3 of the software engineers I would be working with. Each interviewer had a very different style. One asked a lot of Cocoa questions, which I pretty much nailed. The other asked random questions ranging from OS, Networking, PHP, and other stuff, which I did okay on. The other interviewer asked questions about UNIX utilities, which I failed miserably on. At one point he said, "Okay, I'll give you a real easy question. If you wanted to check hard drive sizes from the command line, what command would you use?" I had no clue, and was quite embarrassed. df, by the way. After this interview, I thought I pretty much blew my chances at Apple. It wasn't that I felt I did horrible, but I didn't think I had lived up to Apple's high standards. Considering I usually nail interviews, I barely did well on this one.

But, I heard back, and they decided that they wanted to interview me on campus! Unfortunately, with our spring break trip, microsoft interview, and other work, I couldn't make the journey until last wednesday.

Wednesday - I arrive

Unlike my trip to Microsoft, I did not bring a book along, so my sole piece of travel entertainment was my laptop. Luckily, it has an incredible battery life, and so I was able to either watch Deep Space Nine or program throughout most of the 6-hour journey.

When I arrived at the San Jose airport, I called the hotel, which has a shuttle service, to pick me up. A few minutes later, a limousine with the hotel's name drove up, and I got in! The limo ride was definitely fun! The hotel was very nice too. When I checked in, they said they have free breakfast in the morning and free cocktails and hors d'oeuvres in the evening. The hotel also had a pool, and outside were some free snacks and drinks. The hotel room itself was slightly smaller and less luxurious than the one in Redmond, although still plenty nice. They had wireless internet, so I got on and searched for a sushi place to eat dinner at. I found one about 1.5 miles away, so I trekked down the main road in Cupertino past the Apple campus to the sushi restaurant. When I got there, I found 3 other Japanese restaurants in the vicinity, so I went to the one that looked the biggest. Since I was on Central time, it was still early, and I was their only customer. The hostess had a very beautiful kimono on, and fit in with the Japanese architectural interior of the building. I sat at the sushi bar, and ordered sushi moriawase (the chef's selections). While not horrible, it was really not outstanding. But, at least Apple paid for it. I walked back to my hotel, and went to bed early in preparation for my interview the next day.

Thursday - The Interview

please note: some of the details may be slightly wrong, as I am writing this about 2 months after my interview!

Most of the day took place in a small conference room called, "iTunes." Apple has pretty creative rooms though -- all of them have white boards that span entire walls and extend from the floor to ceiling. In an office I went to later in the day, all the rooms were named after places/things in Star Trek :-).

Basically, groups of two or three people would come in for 45 minute intervals, and interview me. After the interview, the next group would come in, ask if I need to go to the bathroom or get water, and then start firing away. There were no breaks -- which didn't bother me. In retrospect though, Microsoft usually gave me about 10 minute breaks, and I think in the long run it helped to keep my mind and voice fresher. But, sometimes the software industry can be a pressure cooker, so I consider the pacing a slight test in itself. Amazingly, there were very few programming questions. The earlier interviews were with more of the people I would be working closely with, and I thought I did reasonably well on them. They asked a lot of specific Mac OS X questions about how the operating system works. I'm more of an application programmer than an operating system developer, so I didn't have the answer a lot of times. But, I did take educated guesses, and I think they were either correct or logical :-).

For lunch I ate with who would be my boss. The Mac Cafe is quite nice, and kinda cute in the naming of their food items. For example, a hamburger is called a "Classic Mac" and a cheeseburger is called a "Mac Plus," and so forth (or something like that). I went to get sushi, but I didn't see the sushi menu at first, so instead got a bowl of soba. Yes, the cafeteria at Apple serves soba! w00t! After lunch, he showed me back to their section and his office. Outside the offices was a common ground with some very unique thinking-chairs. It looked like they could be re-arranged into any configuration because all the joints of the chair were movable. He showed me some of the stuff his group does.

After lunch, there were more interviews in iTunes. I did not feel I did as well on these -- they asked more debugging problems, or overall Mac OS X architecture questions. I know I could have answered them better, and in the case of OS X architecture, wish I had studied before the interview.

My final two interviews of the day were with people very high up in Apple's organization. The first woman was probably the smartest person I have ever met. She also asked the best questions of the day, and I thought I completely blew that interview, failing to impress her. The next interview was with a Vice President, and felt more like a wrap-up and less like an interview. Because of the previous interview, I thought I probably would not be coming to apple, so while I was here, I decided I better get something out of it. I asked the VP, who had been at Apple for around 20 years (but she only looked 30!) to tell a good story about Apple. Her choice was.... interesting. I'm not sure if it would fall into the "good" category, but it was definitely fascinating to hear!

Evidently, she had started working at a plant manufacturing the original Macintosh. So, as a gift to the machinists and other workers at the plant, Apple gave a gift of a Macintosh to everyone that they assembled themselves. About two weeks later, Steve Jobs visited the plant, to do some cheerleading and tell everyone how important they were to the company. He also talked about how revolutionary the Macintosh was, and how easy it was to use. At the end, there was a Question and Answer session. An older asian woman, speaking in broken english decided to ask a question, "When do classes start to teach the computer?" Steve Jobs was livid. The Mac was the easiest computer to use, so no one should need classes! He evidently tore her down, calling her stupid, and lots of other things that the VP wouldn't tell me.

The last interview lasted over an hour since we just talked for a while about Apple, and its culture. When I was walking back to the hotel, I kept thinking that I completely blew the interview. Sure, some of them went well, but I kept thinking that the second to last interview went horribly. Since she was so high up in the company, I thought she for sure would protest me entering the company.

Next Monday

I heard back from the senior recruiter, and I got the job! w00t!

A few days later

I got a phone call from the manager who I thought I failed to impress. She evidently was really impressed, which shocked me. We talked for about 45 minutes, where she also said she would extend an open door to me: if I chose to go to grad school instead, there would still be a position at Apple for me when I finished. She said she wasn't worried about me choosing Microsoft :-p. Yeah, I guess they know I'm really one of them.

A few days after that

I accepted the job at Apple! I'll probably blog more about my decision, but it really wasn't much of one.

Cupertino here I come!
Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.

Subject:Rebekkah
Time:1:04 am.


Well, I decided to go back to the basics - a girl in a bikini! I call her Rebekkah, but if you've got a name you'd rather call her, go ahead :-). I know this picture would definitely do better with shading/highlighting, but unfortunately I don't have Painter on this computer and Photoshop is no good for that sort of thing. I may go back later and really finish her. Other than that, I think she looks more feminine than my last pic... what do you think?
Comments: Read 13 or Add Your Own.

Saturday, May 29th, 2004

Subject:Genvieve
Time:11:37 pm.

After browsing through the anime collection at Best Buy, I had an urge to draw, so this is the result. I call her "Genvieve," but like any good RPG if you have anything better feel free to rename her. Because I felt I was rusty, I didn't take many artistic risks. The only really unique things are the nose breaking the face plane and the design of her outfit. Other than that, it is just a typical pose. The coloring job was really fast and simplistic -- no shading or highlighting here. I didn't reel like spending too much time on it tonight. Of course, all comments/criticisms are welcome.
Comments: Read 17 or Add Your Own.

Monday, May 17th, 2004

Subject:My past 23 hours:
Time:10:52 am.

NEWS RELEASE

FROM: Jonathan Deutsch, CEO of Tumult Co.
jonathan@tumultco.com or (765) 532-7755

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TUMULT CO. RELEASES HYPEREDIT 1.0

Tumult Co. today announced the release of its new lightweight HTML and PHP editor for Mac OS X, HyperEdit. Tumult HyperEdit uses a "split" view with one side a preview pane to display the web page live as a user types. HyperEdit breaks the tedious cycle of writing HTML/PHP, saving the file, then reloading and viewing the page in the browser by combining the writing phase with the viewing phase. This clarifies the effects of changes and speeds up the overall process of making a web page. W3C-based validation will red-underline any mistakes. It uses the same rendering engine found in Safari, so it is not only standards compliant, but also very fast.

Other key features of HyperEdit are customizable code snippets with keyboard shortcuts, linked files that refresh the page if they are modified, a javascript code evaluator, and the ability to view HTML source code generated by PHP.

Jonathan Deutsch, CEO of Tumult Co., is very optimistic about the possibilities the new software package allows. "The power of live editing is best shown when trying to make small changes. Users can play with their pages in HyperEdit, and tweak it to look exactly how they desire without wasting time. It is a big win in productivity." HyperEdit is also useful for writing forum and blog entries, as well as producing larger sites. Additionally, HyperEdit is a great tool for learning HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP.

HyperEdit is shareware and costs $19.95 USD. More product information and a link to download can be found at:

http://www.tumultco.com/HyperEdit/

This is the first software release by Tumult Co. It was founded in 2004 by Jonathan Deutsch. Deutsch recently graduated Purdue University with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Sciences degree, and will begin working at Apple later this year.

-####-
5/17/04
Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.

Wednesday, May 12th, 2004

Subject:New HyperEdit Icon
Time:7:53 pm.



This is going to be the new icon for HyperEdit. I was up until 8:00 a.m. this morning working on it and other toolbar icons. I have always liked Jenni's old one, but I think would be better for my Knowledge Explorer idea. This also conveys more of being able to edit web documents. There are a few little tweaks I'd like to make, such as making the pen bigger and slightly more centered, but I may not get a chance to do that since the deadline for release is this Monday.

I realized before finally going to sleep what the time was, so I looked up my grades on ssinfo. As expected, I only got one B (Wine Appreciation), so not only am I graduating, but I'm graduating with exactly a 3.5 Career GPA. Go me.
Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.

Tuesday, May 11th, 2004

Subject:JIMP
Time:4:22 pm.

In my Programming Languages (CS 456) course this semester, we had the choice of taking the final or doing a project. I opted for the project, since I've had an idea related to programming languages that I've wanted to implement for the past 2 years, but haven't had the time.

The basic idea is to have a class factory located on a networked server. When a new instance is requested, the class is sent over the network, and the new object is created from that class. This solves a great IT headache, because deployment of upgrades/revisions to software is instantaneous and transparent to the user.

I originally was going to add this to my own little programming language, Bagel-3. After some investigation, I changed my mind and decided to create a layer on top of Java that supports the network class factory. Java is foremost used by a lot of people, whereas Bagel-3 is not. Java also allows custom class loaders; by subclassing ClassLoader, I was able to easily add networked functionality. The problem with Java is that it is statically typed, and type checking a program without knowing what class is going to be used at runtime is impossible. Luckily, Java 2 has some nice, albeit slow, reflection capabilities so I was able to get around this limitation by adding a preprocessor to Java that inserts the proper reflection code. The addition for this makes Java more dynamic like Smalltalk or Objective-C, even when not using it for networked class loading. This means Java can now be used to do some quick prototyping, where method signatures and types need to be easily changed. I call my complete layer of a networked class loader and rapid prototyping extensions to Java, "JIMP."

JIMP has some other niceties, like versioning support, caching, and some other preprocessor commands that make writing code in Java faster.

If you'd like to find out more about JIMP, please read the documentation or view the presentation. The documentation is kinda skimpy, so if there is anything you don't understand, feel free to fire questions at me.

You can also try out JIMP by downloading the source and class files. And yes, SourceTab supports JIMP syntax coloring.

I think JIMP turned out reasonably well. In size, it paled in comparison with the other person in the course who did a project, but I think JIMP has the potential to be very useful. Of course, JIMP earning me an 'A' in Programming Languages is a nice benefit of the project as well . As with all of my stuff, if you have any comments/suggestions, please let me know.
Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.

Sunday, May 9th, 2004

Subject:Final Calligraphy Project!
Time:2:30 am.


This was my final calligraphy project for the Chinese Calligraphy class I took again this semester. It is my favorite confucian saying that roughly means: "Learning without thinking is useless; thinking without learning is dangerous." To give some perspective, the scrolls are both about 4 feet high, so each character is about 7 inches tall.

I think it turned out rather well; although none of my characters really stand out, none have major flaws either, and the overall sizes remained relatively constant and shapes aligned. The worst is the last two characters on the left, which are a bit too far to the right and the last one is not structured very well. Probably the best character is the fourth from the top on the right scroll. If you notice, 5 out of the 6 characters on both scrolls are the same. I tried changing the shape and curves a little bit on the left scroll, to make the calligraphy look less robotic. In many ways it works, but my most regretful decision was to make the "bu" (3rd character) bigger -- which really doesn't fit in very well with the other scroll, despite standing well by itself.

I've improved quite a bit this semester. My final project last year was downright horrible, so I was able to finally redeem myself. I know I'm no where near professional yet (especially after witnessing the teacher), but I think with a little more practice I might be able to con people into giving me their money for calligraphy!

You can have a Jonathan Deutsch original for $35. I'll custom make it if you have a saying you'd like. More than 6 characters will cost extra (since it will have to run onto another scroll). Contact me if you are interested!
Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.

Friday, April 30th, 2004

Time:6:18 pm.
1. Go into your LJ archives.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.



Interestingly enough, I probably would have never found out about this had I decided to go to bed when I should've thursday night; late that night her, Jenni, and myself had a conversation until about 2:00 when it was brought up.


I actually went to my old blog for that, instead of LJ.

Anyone care to speculate what "this" was, without looking back? ;-)
Comments: Add Your Own.

Tuesday, April 6th, 2004

Subject:Apple, Here I Come!
Time:11:20 pm.
I'm off to Cupertino, California tomorrow. Have a look at the weather forecast. It honestly looks too good to be true, but I've been to San Francisco before, and know how incredible it is!

On another note, I found out that my interview starts at 9:45am. I am reminded of a quote from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie:

  She seeks to intimidate me by the use of quarter-hours.

Well, hopefully that isn't her intent! ;-).
Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

Thursday, April 1st, 2004

Subject:>_< I'm screwed. Royally.
Time:1:57 pm.
Okay, I have my CS 590E course every wednesday for one hour. It is basically just topics in Computer Security -- each week, there is a different lecturer, talking about some incredibly uninteresting work they have produced. It is just a one credit course, but I need exactly fourteen credits to graduate, and I am taking exactly fourteen credit. I didn't think this would be a problem; all I needed to do was pass all my courses this semester, and I'd graduate. Last night, I emailed the course administrator, telling her that I just missed my second course because of my Microsoft interview last week, and I asked how I could make it up. I got my reply early this morning,

I am sorry Jonathan, our course's attendance policy states you are only allowed to miss one class. Since there are only 14 lectures for the semester, this is strictly enforced - no exceptions. It is too late to drop the course without receiving an 'F,' although you should still discuss other options with your academic advisor.

So now I'm fucked. Without this one credit, I cannot graduate this semester. My thought was a degree is just a piece of paper. I've accumulated a lot of knowledge and experience over the past 4 years, so a degree isn't the ultimate importance. So, I thought I just won't graduate, but this forces me to accept Microsoft's offer. I called up my Microsoft recruiter and explained the situaton. Evidently, they don't have quite as much of a fucking open mind. The recruiter told me that part of the terms of the offer was that I needed a Bachelor's degree. She told me since I won't have that, they are widthdrawing the offer.

So now I'm doubly fucked. I can't get a job without a degree, afterall. I don't have enough money to pay for one more semester at Purdue, either. I called up my mom, and she is pissed. She said she also won't pay for more college, since she stopped doing that last year, and this was my own mistake. But, I really need the degree, so I'm going to try to take out loans and such to raise some money. I also have acumulated lots of things I can sell, that I don't really need anymore. If anyone is interested in purchasing my PowerMac G4 (I'll just use my cheaper iBook), my anime collection, or my DS9 collection (I have all 7 volumes), please let me know. This would really go to help pay for my way through college. Also, I think I'll start whoring myself by offering private Kendo lessons. If you want to take a one-on-one lesson with me, we can work out a reasonable rate. I was thinking $40 an hour, or so. I have also thought a good idea would be to sell shares of myself. Since I know I can fetch a good salary once I actually graduate, I can almost guarantee a good return. Please tell me if you're interested in investing. This too would help me graduate.

I can't believe I screwed up so bad. I really have no one to blame but myself... But still it is a completely screwed up attendance policy. I am just one credit away from graduation, but have no way of doing it. I knew I should have taking another class.

>_<.
Comments: Read 15 or Add Your Own.

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