the ADMIN pages

It's official: I am a second-semester senior. And just as the wonderful feeling of a looming graduation starts to kick in, a class like "Written Expression," my semester English elective, comes along to kick my ass.

The first semester of my senior year was a horrible joke, both literally and figuratively. This was the kind of joke that goes on and on, and you can tell right away that it isn't going to be funny, so you just want to tell the self-appointed comedian to shut up. That's how I felt.

The best period of my day was the one I didn't show up to most of the time (it being the first period of the day and all). Being a teacher's aide for Mr. Workman, a biology and chemistry teacher who I really got to know when he had me suspended in my sophomore year, was an awesome experience. He's an intelligent and funny guy, and from what I can tell, is a great teacher. Sitting in his office, along with a few other biology teachers, shooting the breeze, was the most engaging part of my first semester. It didn't matter what we were talking about, be it education, the newly-selected incoming principal, or technology. All that mattered was that I was doing something. Having to grade his quizzes and worksheets (the actual "work") was just an afterthought.

"Realms of Possibility," a semester-long English elective that focuses on science-fiction and fantasy literature, was a complete pushover. Case in point: Me, the textbook underachiever who does as little work as possible, got a 100% grade. Both quarters. I did not lose one point the entire semester. The teacher is a lifelong educator who has won a bunch of awards, so I'm not sure if he's actually just a bad teacher who gets all his students to like him (by making his class as easy as possible), thereby winning popularity contests, or if he actually did engage me, and I just haven't realized it. The jury's still out on this one.

AP Statistics: The easiest "math" class I've taken in high school. A friend of mine likes to say this class is an English class in a math wrapper, because of all the writing (he's a math nerd, and hated the class). Sure, I'm learning new things, but quite frankly, I'm not really enjoying the class. The knowledge I'm gaining just isn't interesting or relevant to me. That's just a personal thing, though--I like the way the class is structured, and the teacher is great. It's a full-year class, so I'll continue to trudge my way through it.

Archery/Fitness/Bowling: The state-mandated P.E. class. As always, what's to say? I've never found an engaging P.E. class. Although, this class was the first time I had a truly good teacher. A former department chair, he seems intelligent and competent enough to teach something other than P.E. He isn't the most popular teacher, because he runs his class relatively strict. That being said, I liked him. Not as, um, weird as most of my former P.E. teachers.

So, onto second semester, which started today (with a shortened schedule).

I've got "Stress Management" (yet another P.E. elective) during first period. As I said, I rarely showed up to school on-time when I was a teacher's aide, so this is going to be a wonderful wake-up call (literally). I've heard bad things about how strict the teacher is, but it's classroom-based (as opposed to dressing out for "physical activity") on two days a week. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Second period, I return to being an aide for the MIDI Music class. I took the class last year, and have helped develop a lot of the technology side of things for the teacher since then. Scheduling conflicts prevented me from having a formal aiding capacity last semester. There appears to be a shortage of computers... so I may be spending my time in a different room down the hall or something.

AP Statistics stays the same. The teacher gave us his "No Senioritis" speech today, although he conceded that after May 7th (the AP test), he won't care what we do. This is a common thread I see among teachers, though: they care almost too much. Sometimes, they fail to realize that there are students who legitimately, truly don't care about their class. Sure, to him, statistics is the most important thing in the world. But to me, it's just a filler class to fulfill the minimum number of courses mandated by the school.

And... my second-semester English elective: Written Expression, billed as a college-level writing class. From what I've heard and witnessed on my first day, the class is very demanding. Since this is the only real class I need to pass to graduate, I should probably be concerned. However, I've been told the teacher is very nice, and she does seem that way. And she did mention that she grades on the ability to write, not just for the mere presence of a grade (or something to that effect). Still, it's all rhetoric until I see it on my grade report.

If my gut reaction is correct, I won't as easily breeze through this semester, but at least now it's acceptable normal for me to have "senioritis." Even though I've had senioritis since about freshman year. I apologize to all my teachers in advance: I'm a textbook case of a student being apathetic about their education. What's the big secret? How do you fix that? Engage me.

Today I spent the day shadowing a system administrator at The Palladium Group, a consulting firm on the north side of Chicago. Emile Harding, along with his boss, Danny Martin, and programmer Jim Watkins showed me the ropes and gave me an idea of what a day in the world of IT is like.

My first impression: hectic. Emile (who I spent the majority of my time with) was consistently working on 3-4 projects simultaneously. He seemed fairly used to it, but was not completely adjusted to the multi-tasking aspect. I got the impression that he was in IT for a career, and not for a love of technology. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just a different type of person than myself. And he definitely knows his stuff: Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003/2007, print and file servers, domain controllers, Active Directory, Cisco hardware, mobile data networks...

I could definitely see myself getting into the whole routine of dividing my time and multi-tasking on projects, so this experience reaffirmed my desire to work as a system administrator.

My first few hours were kinda slow. I sat in Emile's office, taking everything in, watching him work, touring the server room, etc. But once he and Jim started working on a task that required the use of a mission-critical Linux box, I found my element. It turns out nobody in the office was highly specialized at Linux, so I helped them through configuring a remote backup agent, opening firewall ports, and other miscellaneous tasks. We spent the majority of our day working on the aforementioned backup software: Backup Exec by Symantec. Two phone calls to two hard-to-understand enterprise technical support agents took up most of our time, but because of our multi-tasking frenzy, we kept them on hold more than we were.

Other projects today: configuring a user's Blackberry to connect to the Exchange Server, waiting on a Dell technician to come in and replace the LCD screen on a busted notebook, locating and installing 64-bit drivers for the office printer, migrating a user's files to a new notebook, calling the phone company to change the caller ID name (from a recent merger), and troubleshooting password problems for a user from Palladium's Boston office.

I had a really enjoyable time today. Actually, I think "eye-opening" is the best word to describe it--I learned about the system architecture, software, and other skills needed to make it in IT. Not to mention the invaluable networking and personal connections I made--my LinkedIn profile is growing as I write this.

Looks like my goals for the next 10 years are set.

Originally uploaded by JBrd

The first quarter of my senior year of high school comes to a close this week. It feels like this year is going rather quickly. Just yesterday I was complaining about the cafeteria system and commenting on how easy my schedule is. Both remarks hold true.

The cafeteria payment system is still a mess, although I am quite partial to their new (but sporadic) offerings of strawberry- and vanilla-flavored milk. They lost $10 of my lunch money last week, and after repeated attempts to put it into the system, the manager just gave me a line of credit she wrote down in a notebook.

My schedule is still the easiest courseload ever. (That doesn't mean I'm actually doing what little homework I actually have.) Aiding for Mr. Workman is always fun, whether I'm grading papers or just chatting with the Biology teachers in the office during first period.

Realms of Possibility (formerly known as Science-Fiction Literature), my senior English elective, is probably the easiest class of core curriculum ever. Barely any work, decent teacher, and nearly everyone gets 100% on every assignment. The perfect class for us worn-out, overtaxed seniors.

AP Statistics is perplexing me. Not the content, mind you, but the dynamics of the class. How can I actually learn stuff without trying at all? I'm pulling a solid B in my sleep--literally. I also love the moderately heavy technology usage. Classrooms with computers are pretty cool.

PE: Um, whatever. We start bowling soon. Even less physical activiy than archery. I often forget I'm in a PE class.

TCD has its ups and downs. Some days (like today) bore me to tears. Other times, I actually get work done. I'm on a C++ programming track (completely self-directed), but I spend most of my time playing Counter-Strike. The cool thing about TCD is that they really push career stuff like job shadows and internships. I've got a job shadow myself this Thursday at Palladium Executing Strategy, a consulting firm on the north side of Chicago. Besides the obvious benefit of getting out of school for the entire day, I get to shadow a pair of system administrators (my top career choice for the future) as they work. Kick. Ass. I'll be networking with a bunch IT people (the work-based learning coordinator at TCD told me to bring a resume--I'll bring my LinkedIn URL instead) for a day instead of being bored out of my mind at school. I'm also in the process of getting an internship set up with an Internet start-up I'm involved in (can't say much more on this, but keep an eye out for more... it's gonna be big). If that goes through, I spend two afternoons per week working with them instead of going to TCD. More awesomeness there--plus a coveted school parking permit if I play my cards right.

On average, my school week consists of 3 days of boredom and 2 days of enjoying myself. My goal for second quarter is to improve that ratio.

I've been TwitterBusted by Dave Jakes for ditching school:

Senior t-shirt

Originally uploaded by Kevin Walter.

The first week of my last year in high school is over. Senior year, 2007-2008.

Overall, I have a good feeling about this year. My schedule is very light. Seriously, I mean very light. At least compared to last year, where I had 9 classes in an 8-period school day. I only have 2 true classes this semester, with P.E. and a study hall/TA spot filling the rest of the morning. And in the afternoon, I attend the Technology Center of DuPage (TCD). Pretty easy stuff.

There are a few changes around school this year. Most noticeably, the school has implemented a new point-of-sale system in the cafeteria. At the register, we have the option of scanning our ID card or punching in our number. The advertised reason behind this decision is that money can be added to an account maintained based on our ID, and we don't have to carry cash. Additionally, if we do pay with cash, the change can be applied to our account. That being said, the system sucks. For the past three years, the lunch lines at my school have been absolutely horrible. In a school of 3300 students spread across 6 lunch periods, there are a total of 5 checkout lines (one less than last year), and this new payment system has made things worse. Besides the usual complaints about the quality and healthiness of the food, the cafeteria system needs a serious overhaul. Granted, the root cause is the overcrowding at my school, however, this new POS (more than one meaning intended) system in the cafeteria is a poor substitute for an adequate cafeteria. The ID cards don't scan easily at all, and I see absolutely no reason to waste time punching in my ID number if I'm just paying cash. The cashiers are untrained with the new system, to the point that I missed my TCD bus waiting in line for lunch earlier this week. Luckily for me, I have P.E. the period before lunch, so I'm out of there a minute early and can get in line for lunch. But that shouldn't have to be the case. In short, my school cafeteria is utterly ridiculous.

Also, according to rumor, they've (re-)instated the "Activity Bus," a bus that leaves from school an hour late for kids participating in after-school activities. I've yet to see this in written form (I seem to be seeing some serious communication failures via my school lately), and I haven't yet had a reason to stay late, so I can't verify this with certainty.

Oh yeah, and we get district e-mail accounts (school_username@csd99.org). BFD. Honestly, I don't see a use for this other than ABuse. Anyone want to correct my oversight here?

I actually intended for this to be a more positive post, not a list of complaints about my school. So, the originally planned content follows: comments on my classes.

Teacher's Aide (Mr. Workman): Mr. Workman and I have a complicated history, but he has first period off, as do I, so I signed up to be an aide for him. Workman ("J-Dubs") teaches Biology and Chemistry. And while it's true I have many "enemies" among the Science department at school, I have as many "friends." Weird. Anyway, he tells me to prioritize my homework for other classes over his chores, so first period has turned out to be my Stats homework period. Other than that, I put up "Meet in the Library" signs around the building for his classes when necessary, play with his iPhone, and troubleshoot his Blackboard and Windows problems.

Realms of Possibility (Dr. Antonoff): The class formerly known as Science-Fiction Literature features almost exactly the same content, according to the teacher. This class is the first half of my mandatory senior English credit, probably the least painful of all the choices offered to us. I've never been a huge science-fiction reader, but it's tolerable. Antonoff's classroom is plastered wall-to-wall with Star Trek, Star Wars, and other movie posters. He appears to be a really laid-back guy, and realizes that our class is just a bunch of jaded seniors who can't wait to be out of here. Medium-sized workload. Antonoff is pretty old-school, to the point that he types handouts in all caps, gives paper length requirements as hand-written pages, and imposes extreme doubt upon me that we'll ever step foot into a computer lab over the course of the semester. Oh well.

AP Statistics (Mr. Malczewski): The hardest class on my schedule, and it's not even that hard. Mr. Klaeren last year advertised this as "an easy senior class," but that remains to be seen. Two days are given to complete all homework assignments. Heavy computer usage promised. Heavy Blackboard usage. SMART board in the classroom, and Malczewski will post the day's notes in PDF format on Blackboard for absent students (or lazy ones). The teacher himself seems decent, slightly eccentric (but not so much as Klaeren), and willing to help. His mantra: "it's easy to get a B, but hard to get an A." Fine with me.

Archery/Fitness/Bowling (Mr. Macdonald): The mandatory P.E. class (thanks a bunch, state of Illinois). Macdonald seems extremely relaxed, yet intelligent. He also happens to be the department head. Not much to say about P.E., as always.

TCD - Computer Information Systems (Mr. Scurte): TCD is advertised as a self-paced, college-type class, and that it is. I breezed through the VB .NET track in under 3 days, something I hear usually takes 3 weeks (several of my friends are in this class for the second year). Now I've moved on to C++, with a simultaneous track in Linux system administration coming soon. Mike, Mitch, and Cameron (the aforementioned second-year students) are on the "Play Counter-Strike and Web-Based Flash Games" track. And Photoshop in their spare time (whenever Scurte comes around).

Easiest. Courseload. Ever. Feel free to envy.

UPDATE: (September 11, 2007 @ 7:19 pm) A few updates:

• The cafeteria system still sucks.
• The activity bus was formally announced and began yesterday.
• Mr. Macdonald isn't the PE department head anymore.

I think this incident is slightly worse than my previously reported one, especially considering the context of the calendar event here.

Wonderful. I continue to have great faith in my school's English department.

I taught my AP Computer Science class for the entirety of chapter 5, and here's the game we played at the end of the unit to review for the test. I plan on posting the rest of my lesson PowerPoints soon, as well as the Java Jeopardy! Semester Review I'm working on right now.

Download PPT file (154 KB)

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Many stores open early and offer "doorbuster" items, sold at really cheap prices. Laptops were a popular item this year, with many stores offering them for around $200-350. Ads were leaked online weeks in advance, with my personal favorite site this season being BlackFriday.info. I had my shopping spreadsheet done early thanks to that site.

I camped out at Staples in Bolingbrook. I got there around 11:30 pm -- I was number four in line. The first 10 of us or so got to know each other really well. Two were alumni of my high school, another had a kid that goes there now. Most of the people in line were after the TV ($499) or the laptop ($399). I slept around 12:45 am and woke up around 2 when someone made a coffee run (and I took a few laps around the building). Around 4, the line started to fill up. At its peak, it wrapped around the side of the building. It was not, however, anywhere near as bad as Best Buy (100 people by 8:00 pm Thanksgiving day) or Circuit City (a couple of my buddies were first in line there, around 6:00 pm). Around 5 (the store opened at 6), employees started to arrive. They came out 20 minutes before opening to hand out vouchers for the items that were of very limited quantities: the TV and the laptop. Wanting neither of them, I still got tickets for both. After the employees went back inside, I casually walked near the end of the line. "Anyone want a laptop or TV coupon?" I made an extra $75 selling my tickets.

The one item I really wanted from Staples was the 200 GB hard drive for $19. I'm in desperate need of hard drive space at the moment, so I picked up two. In addition to the hard drives, I got a 60-pack of DVD+Rs for $3. My dad, who showed up at 5:30 to cut in line where I was, picked up an external 60 GB hard drive for $40, a 1 GB flash drive for $8, a 2 GB flash drive for $30, and a couple pieces of free-after-rebate software.

Afterwards, we ran over to RadioShack for a radio scanner (PRO-528; $99). I've wanted one ever since Joe Winter showed me his, but this is one is way cooler. 1000 programmable channels, scans up to the 1300 MHz frequency, Signal Stalker to scan for strong signals in the area, PC interface, triple-trunking, backlit, service-based scanning: this scanner is awesome. I've been listening to the local police frequencies all day yesterday and today. You learn some interesting stuff, but I do need to work on memorizing my 10-codes.

Other than that, I finally broke down and bought a new motherboard for the one that fried a few weeks ago in my main PC.

I'm happy with my haul this year.

I've been kinda lax on the blogging lately, and to be honest I don't have an excuse as to why. Sure, school is school, but I rarely do any homework at home anyway. I haven't been doing a lot of other tech stuff lately either... I guess I just forgot about this thing. I have been sleeping a lot lately, not sure what that's all about.

Speaking of school, I figure I should update on that. The first quarter's over, and as the grades start to finalize, it's pretty easy to form opinions now.

Mrs. O'Brien (Early Bird P.E.): A decent class. O'Brien is fair, but weird. Gym is gym, and there's not a whole lot to say about it. The only reason I'm getting a less-than-stellar grade is because I slept late several times, and as a result didn't come to class.
Quarter Grade: C

Mr. Conard (Physics 400): A moderate challenge. Conard is a great teacher, and I really respect the guy, but I frankly should be studying a lot more for the class. I know I can do better, because the grade I got was with the sleeping in class, copying homework minutes before it's due, and the finishing up the next period's Spanish homework during his lectures. We spend a great deal of time going over problems, but I've come to view that as both a blessing and a curse. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Quarter Grade: C- (weighted)

Srta. Little (Spanish II): My newly discovered least favorite class of the day, something I feared Chemistry would hold (even though Chem is a ridiculously close second). The foreign language department really needs to have an honors course for the lower level Spanish classes (only Spanish 4 and 5 are AP). We spend enormous amounts of time on the same concepts, and while I recognize the need for some to have them drilled into their heads... I. Don't. Need. That. If it wasn't second period (where I'm still on my peak from the morning cup of coffee), I would sleep in that class every day. Little herself is a strict teacher, which I'm not thrilled with of course.
Quarter Grade: B

Mrs. Boyle (Chemistry 400): As I said above, Chemistry is my second least favorite class. The concepts aren't entirely new, they just seem vaguely familiar. This would be an ideal course for me to take as an independent study, but I'm not self-motivated enough to crack open my textbook to learn. I'm doing pretty well in the class, at least I would be if I did my homework on a consistent basis.

If you had asked me yesterday, I would have told you I hated Boyle. But after today, I'm not sure how I feel about the teacher. So I'm chatting with Mike right outside the classroom before class, and as the bell rings I end the conversation and walk into class. As she's checking homework, Boyle mentions to me that this is my third tardy, and I'll be serving a teacher detention with her on Friday. Being the argumentative bastard that I am, I take the school rules/assignment notebook up to her and debate several definitional terms such as "in the classroom when the bell rings" and "On your first tardy, you will be warned." She claims I've been late twice before (and to be honest, yeah, I probably have), but she never let me know I was going to be marked tardy. (I'm not sure how familiar you are with the general student demeanor, but we won't assume we're tardy unless we're told. If you can avoid the teacher's eye as you slip into your desk, you're in the clear.) As such, with her being the closest school-rule-abiding person ever, she had to follow the letter of the law, and I got out of the detention.

Then comes the shocker: as she's writing me a pass to my next class (since I stayed late to argue with her), she compliments me on my maturity in dealing with the situation. I'm pretty sure my mouth was hanging open when she said that. I'm the kind of person that holds grudges. If I was her, I'd be ready to clock that smart-ass student in the face. She told me how when she worked in Chicago they got very confrontational with her about tardies, so she didn't tell students that they were tardy. She told me that she was impressed with the way I handled the situation. I was absolutely floored; what she said was completely unexpected. I personally thought my tone was completely smart-assed and mocking; I was ready to take it to my dean if she persisted with the detention (even though I'd have less luck-- the biased deans side with the teachers in every situation). But then Boyle goes and complients me for, basically, pwning her with the school rules. Hell froze over, and I gained an incredible amount of respect for her. I'm not sure if it'll last, because I had written another smart-ass comment on my bellringer sheet before I went up and argued with her. Regardless, it's almost like I feel motivated to do good in her class now, like I always feel when the teacher is exceptionally nice to me (see Bartell). Weird.
Quarter Grade: B (weighted)

Mr. Bruesch (AP Political Science): The exams are challenging (70 and 72, respectively; no studying) and I didn't do a few notecards on current events, but, even more so lately, Bruesch is cool. He's probably one of my top three teachers this semester. Not to mention the class has actually gotten me more interested in politics then I'd thought: the campaign work assignment was truly a very rewarding experience.
Quarter Grade: C+ (weighted)

Mr. Plunkett (AP Computer Science): It's the Plunkett. What can I say? Still going mind-numbingly slow (especially for an AP class), but it looks like I'll be teaching the next chapter, so that should be fun. I still managed an A for the quarter. Pretty good considering his infamously poorly-worded tests and lack of cushioning points.
Quarter Grade: A (weighted)

Mr. Bartell (English III): Great teacher, decent class. I can't love it too much, because, as a personal rule, I hate English, but Bartell is really cool. Also a top-three qualifier. I actually apply myself in his class, even though I could probably get the same grade without doing so. Allows conferences and rewrites on papers, which is a plus. He grades tough, but I know I'm a good writer when I try to be.
Quarter Grade: A

Mr. Klaeren (Calculus AB): I've been hovering at a B+ for most of the quarter, and I slacked off the last few weeks and brought it down a solid B. I'll try and get back into the homework habit for this chapter. Maybe I can snake an A for the semester. Klaeren and I basically have no personal interaction-- just the way I like it with my math teachers.
Quarter Grade: B (weighted)

Mr. Kowallis (MIDI Music): Joe and I are literally teaching the class starting next week. We use a method of composing music that's different from using the MIDI keyboard, and after Kowalis found out (because our compositions kick so much ass), he's comissioned us to teach it to the class. He even wants me to aide for him next semester after he discovered my awesome computer skillz, something he severely lacks (and admits to). Still doesn't give a ton of musical theory-based instruction on projects, but I've come to work around that. Quite a pushover for my fine arts credit.
Quarter Grade: A+

No idea when I'll have a blog post of any real substance or interestingness, but maybe this'll jump-start me. Who knows?

"The Specialist" was a kid in my computer class last year who was always out of his seat, messing with the printers, shades, microphones, speakers, and everything else he could get his hands on. Needless to say, we made fun of him relentlessly. The story behind his nickname: one day, I jokingly asked him if he's certified to work on the computers. "Sure," he replies. "I'm a specialist," [referring to the Microsoft Office User Specialist (useless) certification my school offers after taking a PC noob class].

Anyway, the final project for that class was a video about something in the school. When we showed them in class, even the teacher was laughing out loud when he put his nickname that I gave him in the video. The video is pretty funny to just about anybody, but it's downright hilarious to anyone who knows or has class with him. Check it out: