By angusmack101
This'll be my last blog for the semester. Thanks to everyone who's been reading them; it's a small piece of validation, but I get a kick out of it—and it's definitely influenced me to do interesting things since I got to GW. That said, this hasn't been the most outlandish week.
It's more-or-less the same no matter what university you're at: finals are a pain, nobody likes them, and you either rise to the occasion and knock them out effectively or you get swallowed up by the system and crash & burn. So far I've handed in two major assignments without a hitch and I'm leaning heavily on the last two. However, there has been a small problem.
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
For those not familiar with the world of file recovery software, that screengrab represents the loss of my entire final video project. An automatic Windows 'drive repair' killed the entire thing, presumably because it doesn't like files formatted for use on Macs. Not a happy day for me, but thankfully I should be able to salvage a passing grade out of the class after some talking to my professor. I'm not actually that devastated, my grades here aren't going on my GPA, so the loss is more isolated to the project itself than anything else. I can go home satisfied that I did learn something valuable from the class as well as receive a lesson in the importance of file backups at a time where I can afford to get it. If I believed in fate, this would be an example of it at work.
Just be grateful it wasn't you, kids. Learn from my mistake.
Aside from that it's been mostly business as usual. Some alternating low-&-highkey social evenings — including one final party with some friends at American — and a lot of writing. My other creative final turned out pretty well; I managed to build an interactive website documenting the film Inglorious Basterds. I'd host it to show it off for anyone interested, but that costs money I can't afford to spend. Enjoy this nice jpg instead.
There's more to it than this, I promise.
I highly recommend the course for anyone interested. Interactive Web Design, it says a lot that despite taking 4.5 hours from 8 a.m. every Friday morning, it was still one of my favorites. If you're looking for a creative and problem-solving outlet, web design is a fun skill to pick up. It's also fun to learn how the internet actually works, and you can leave with a marketable skill with unlimited potential to develop it for whatever purpose you so desire.
Once again thank you to everyone who's been reading my content these last four months. I'll be touring the country til mid-January before I have to head home and start another year in Melbourne, and I'll definitely look back fondly on everything I've experienced at GW. If the economy doesn't kill me first I'll probably get a buzz out of rereading all these rants in a few decades — hopefully as a much better writer and having done many more things like it.