I just got back from a pre-release showing of School of Rock, which turned out to be better than I had anticipated. No, wait, ahhh! That's what them evil distributors want me to say. That's why they were giving out free tickets. So I'll shut up now.
Speaking of which, I managed to get a volunteer position as Assistant Projectionist at Doc Films, which means I get to learn how to operate the 16mm and 35mm projectors, and get a free season ticket for two. They have showings every night (2 or 3 on weekends), and I got the third Friday shift which usually starts around 10 or 11pm. That kinda kills my Friday evenings, but I figured I probably wouldn't be doing much then anyway.
Classes started yesterday, and I'm 75% satisfied. The 25% that I'm unhappy with is my Calc class, which sucks no matter what. But I'm really happy with my other classes. My Hum ("Readings in World Lit") and Soc ("Classics in Social and Political Thought") classes seem like a lot of work (~100 pages of reading per week + a paper every other week), but it's pretty interesting. And we actually have real discussions, although I do wish the groups were smaller (they cap at 20-25). I'm also taking 3D Graphics, which sounds like it'll be pretty fun. The projects will be easy to start ('cause I've dabbled with OpenGL before) and the theory should be relatively familiar (since I've written that 3D graphics engine). The professor's pretty interesting (his teaching style is a lot like Tyson's -for those of you who know him), and what's more, we get to use the 1.8GHz PowerMac G5's in the MacLab. MacOS X is the preferred platform in U of C's CS department, Linux is accepted/supported, and Windows isn't even talked about. You just have to love that...
Anyway, I think I should go do some reading. I think I have about 100 pages to read from Plato's "Republic" by Thursday...
Posted Wed, October 1, 2003 14:41 by Ben
The School of Rock really was much better than I had been expecting. But then again when your expectations are rock bottom low... ;-) But it was definitely entertaining. Not mentally stimulating, but quite fun.
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