Wednesday, August 31, 2011

there's nothing to do here

in the arab world, eid is celebrated for three days. you visit family, you have big meals, you celebrate. here in america, we can barely find enough things to do for one day, let alone three. to celebrate eid yesterday, i went out to breakfast with my sister's family and her in-laws. i then ran a few errands, went home for a couple of hours, and went to class. i know you're jealous.

class was actually a lot better than i was expecting. the professor is pretty awesome and it's a writing intensive course, which i usually do pretty well in. it's classes like these where the super IT-y people usually get into trouble, because while they can build you a computer in three point seven seconds, they have no idea how to effectively explain what they did in words, especially not written. so i'm hoping i can end my master's career on a good note since i do in fact know the basics of grammar, something not as common as you would think in this field. can you believe that this might be the last class you ever hear me whine about on this blog ever? that is, if i don't get into a phd program which i'm thinking is pretty likely (the not getting in).

anyway, one cool thing about the professor is that he works in the private sector. every other professor i have had in this program in every other class has worked for the government. so we were basically just getting our minds stuffed with public sector work stories and tips and experiences. i had almost forgotten that the government is not the only one that uses computer forensics. it opened a few more potential options for me that i had been not seeing before.

like most other professors, this one enjoys telling stories of things he's seen and done in the field. (the cool thing about him is that he only tells the interesting ones. do you know how many stories i've had to listen to that ended with the professor either laughing or smugly smiling while the rest of us were listening to the serenading crickets?) so he was telling us about his mentor and the importance of using analogies to explain things to non-computer folk and how impressive this guy was at thinking up what to say and delivering it. "plus," he added, "he had a british accent. and everything just sounds smarter when said in a british accent... at least in america." and isn't that just so true? i think there are few places where the american accent makes someone automatically seem smarter and more sophisticated. it's kind of unfair when you think about it.

*Hospital Beds - Cold War Kids

2 comments:

  1. anonymous hippopotamusSeptember 16, 2011 at 12:03 AM

    no wonder this has zero comments..its totally boring. where is the mention of my adorable sons who you saw for the first time since you're wedding? and your tearful heartfelt reunion with them??? :P

    ReplyDelete
  2. it's hidden between the story about my class and complaints about eid.

    ReplyDelete