Well, if you can’t be good at academics or athletics, you might as well make a run at being the top school in “something”.

“Coming in second on the party list was the University of Mississippi, followed by the University of Texas-Austin, the University of Florida and the University of Georgia.”

Courtesy CNN.com

I noticed this gem when visiting my former school’s website just a moment ago. Uhm, you have to be kidding me, right?

This is all well and great in the effort to curb underage drinking… but, what about the student’s that don’t drink? Or the student’s that are old enough to drink and do not live on campus? An absolute joke if you ask me.

“State Law Prohibits Alcohol Consumption at Any Intercollegiate Athletics Event.” - True yes, but does an entire day of partying in the Grove not constitute an athletic event?

Twenty bucks says nothing will change come Saturdays this fall

I heard about this story earlier today on the news and it just made me sick.

For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, “staff members of a Murfreesboro TN elementary school staged a fake gunman attack during a school trip”. Source: WREG

This has to be one of the worst decisions ever on the part of school officials. I mean, seriously, what were they thinking? After all of the school shootings in the past few years and most recently, the Virginia Tech shootings… the last thing you should do is stage a fake attack and scare the hell out of those kids. According to the story linked above, the assistant principal described the event as “a learning experience”. Uhm, ssuurree…

I will be keeping an eye on this story and can only hope that every involved in this plot loses their jobs / teaching license. Am I the only one who feels this way?

I just wanted to take a quick moment to congratulate my friend “Ms. Stephanie”. Steph graduated from Ole Miss yesterday with a Bachelors in Education. She will be teaching next year at a school back in my hometown.

Steph is one of only a few of my friends that actually graduated from college. You can read about my School Dilemma Here and my ultimate choice to Call It Quits.

College football season is just around the corner (ok so it’s more like five months away), but Ole Miss Rebel fans will get to think otherwise, if just for a day. The 2007 Grove Bowl is this Saturday in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium here on campus. What exactly is the Grove Bowl, you ask?

The Grove Bowl is the annual spring intrasquad scrimmage football game for the Ole Miss Rebels. The scrimmage gives anxious fans (right here!) their first look at the 2007 team and how they are progressing thus far. Spring practice has been going on for a few weeks now, but all of the practices have been closed to the public. The Grove Bowl is the final spring “practice” for the team.

Tailgating starts at 10 a.m. in the Grove and the players will take the traditional march down the Walk of Champions at 10:50 a.m. Gates open at noon with kickoff set for 1 p.m.

First I want to thank everybody who chimed in with their comments, suggestion and support on my recent school post. I really appreciate your feedback. I gave the situation a lot of thought, talked with my friends and ultimately came to the conclusion to quit wasting my time with school. Regardless of what angle I took on the subject, the outcome always looked bleak. Maybe sometime down the road I will go back and finish up my degree, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. So, what does mean and how will thing change things?

Well first and foremost, I am happy. I generally liked school but after four years, two majors and not gaining much ground, I was absolutely sick of it. There comes a time in your life where you need to do what’s best for you and not worry with what everybody else will think or say about your decision. That is exactly what I have done and it feels great.

Second, I am getting a jump on my original plans of running OCIA.net full time. I planned to do this after graduation in December but now I get to do this nearly 10 months sooner. I think the timing for this is perfect, coming fresh from our first trip to CES. I cannot stress enough how valuable that experience was and how much it has increased my motivation and desire to run the site.

Time… the one thing in life that, no matter how rich you are, how much “technology” you have or how hard you try… you can never alter time. Well, in a sense, I have done just that. I now have all the time in the world essentially to do what I want. I already know up front that I will need to work on my time management (more work, less play) but I don’t see that being a huge problem, especially considering the work isn’t really work to me because I enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong, I am taking this very seriously.

I have already started ramping up my review output and plan to continue this trend. My initial goal is to personally write 3-4 reviews per week, on top of the normal management duties and updating this blog, which I also plan to do more of. Perhaps 2-3 posts per day starting out; we will see. Anyway, enough ramblings, time to get to work!

Here lately I have really started second-guessing my latest plan as far as school goes. Let me give you a quick background which leads up to where I am today.

I graduated high school in 2001 and didn’t do much of anything for the next two years (besides website stuff). At that time I never planned to go to college and really didn’t have much of an idea what I wanted to do with my life. I enrolled at the University of Mississippi in the fall of 2003 as a computer science major. Truth be known, one of the main reasons I decided to enroll was to follow my girlfriend who was enrolling at the same time… that, and just get away from a home life that was less than stellar.

Things went well from the beginning, although it became clear that computer science wasn’t what I thought it was. Computer science = programming 24/7. I had taken a few programming classes in high school but nothing major, so I decided to stick with it and see how things would play out.

Two years later I found myself in my junior year and I was in serious trouble. Computer science simply wasn’t for me. I’d come to hate programming with a passion; it just didn’t “click” with me and seriously gave me a headache. Oh, and the math requirements for that major… yeah, not going to happen. Math isn’t one of my strong subjects to begin with. I took Calculus 1 twice and failed both times. I was done with computer science.

I tried “management information systems” for a semester but found it was more difficult than computer science. I hit the course catalog once again and stumbled upon journalism. I am not sure why I never thought about journalism before, but right away I knew I had found something.

Think about it for a moment: my main reason in selecting computer science was because, well, it was computer-related and I thought it might help me with my tech site. Well clearly that didn’t happen. Writing is a key ingredient in running a successful review site, so it just made since that journalism was the thing for me. I took the first two intro courses in the spring of 2006 and absolutely loved it!

Now, a new problem arose. Would I still be able to graduate “on time”, which is May of this year. Simply put, no. I was so far behind that it was impossible to cover all the ground I had lost wasting my time with computer science, but I was determined to get as close as possible. I took three classes last summer and had a full schedule in the fall. I had to change my graduation date to December 2007 and all was looking bright… well, sorta.

Completing the requirements for the major in journalism wouldn’t be a problem. What is a problem, however, is my foreign language and minor requirements. I am required to have two classes at the 200 level or above in a foreign language. I am in my first Spanish class this semester. The plan is to take Spanish 102 and 201 over the summer and finish up with 202 in the fall to complete the requirements. Not a big deal, just a lot of work. The real problem is my minor, which would be computer science since I had already taken four of the six required courses. I am taking C++ programming this semester and wow, I couldn’t be more lost. Everyone else in the class seems to be chugging along without issue, while I struggled and ultimately failed to get my first assignment completed. I can tell you right now, I will not be able to pass this class… much less the one after it.

So, I’m pretty much at a deciding point here…

First, the bad stuff. A) I have wasted four years of my life and will not have a diploma to show for it. B) I spent a ton of money on school these four years; I won’t get that back. C) I have wasted a ton of valuable time; time that I could have spent on other projects in my life. D) I could change my minor and still graduate, but that would take another year at the least. E) My eligibility for financial aid and other scholarships ends this semester, so if I was to continue, it would all be at full cost to me. News flash: I’m not rich.

Now, for the good things. A) I can quit worrying with school and focus my full attention on running OCIA.net. I am pleased with where the site is heading now and only wish I had more time to invest in it. Did I mention I absolutely love running the site? It is my dream job and I don’t see myself doing anything else in the near future. I planned to run the site full time after graduation anyway. So, with that said, B) getting a degree will do me no good. To me, it will just be a piece of paper that says “Hey I know what I am doing and I spent a lot of money to prove it to you with this piece of paper”. I will never use a journalism degree; I have no desire to work for a newspaper, magazine or television station. C) Sure I won’t get a diploma, and I have wasted time and money… but maybe not as much as it seems. Think about it… I have still learned the same amount from college, with out without a degree. Also, I have had a place to live the past four years. I have no clue where I would be living if I hadn’t come to school.

So here I am… left with this decision. That decision gets easier as each day passes… I realize I can’t get a minor in computer science; that’s probably the biggest thing holding me back. And yes, I already know its completely stupid to get “so close” then quit… but seriously, what would you do? Please feel free to comment…

I have the worst luck.  It’s cold enough to snow here in Mississippi, yet not enough to cancel classes… mind you, pretty much every other school in the area is closed.  Oh and to make matters worse… after my 15 minute outdoor trek to my 8 a.m. class, class got out after only 5 minutes, which meant another 15 minutes back home!  Not that I’m complaining, but…

Tomorrow marks the one week point since school has started back. For those of you who don’t know, I attend the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), majoring in Journalism. Technically, I am a senior… Ok, here goes. I started in the fall of 2003 doing computer science. I really wasn’t sure what computer science consisted of at that time. Yeah, I found out the hard way… computer science = programming 24/7. News flash: I HATE PROGRAMMING! Seriously, I tried it for two years and only managed to bring down my GPA and give myself a terrible headache on a daily basis. Once I realized computer science wasn’t for me, I spent the next semester just finishing up my basics before finally deciding on journalism. Needless to say I am pretty far behind in my progress. I took three summer classes last year and will probably end up doing the same this year. My goal is to graduate in December. And really, the only thing that might prevent that is my foreign language requirements. Only time will tell if it is possible or not…

Anyway, speaking of school, I have a photojournalism assignment due at 8 am tomorrow so I guess I should get started on that…