The Hiatus and an Update

So, my lovely wife pointed out that I need to update my blog because I haven't done so in almost two months. Considering I've gone through a week of finals, a move from MI to Ft. Wayne, a move from Ft. Wayne to Zionsville, a minor surgery (with some pretty nasty recovery time), a lot of work to get the house settled, settling into a new school (with an hour commute), and a ton of reading for wireless mesh networks, OS, algorithms, C, and data structures, I think the hiatus was rather called for. :-) That was a lot of work just listing all of those things.

Now that I'm here and looking at my class load, I must admit that I do feel slightly overwhelmed. There is a definite difference between grad classes here than at my old school. Prereqs for MSU grad courses were essentially optional. The grad material was either completely different (e.g., the advanced OS course focused on algorithms for distributed systems instead of actually OS material), or the grad class covered the undergrad and grad material (e.g., my hellish AI class that had about a 1200 page reading assignment). At Purdue, the profs assume that you have actually taken the prereqs or are comfortable with the material. So my algorithms professor is not covering basic algorithms material (e.g., sorting, data structures, basic analysis, etc.), and my OS professor expects that we have a solid foundation of C and assembly language to start writing low-level constructs right away. It's fun and exciting, but it's going to be damn challenging.

In addition to those classes, I'm a TA for the undergrad course in data structures. That was one of the courses at IU that I definitely liked due to the mathematical nature of the material. I'm also working with my advisor on a research project. To get started, I'm looking into something called wireless mesh networks. It's pretty new stuff, so there's a lot of work to do.

Having said all that, I need to get on the road since my office hour is over. I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to post again, but now you understand why!