end of days, monitoring things, game on!

There’s lots to talk about, relatively speaking. I’ve started my final semester at EBC, and begun working as a computer lab monitor there in the evenings. The Otters’ season began last weekend on the road. This weekend’s the home opener; that Saturday, I’ll also be attending my first ever Penn State Nittany Lions football game in Happy Valley. You can’t imagine how excited I am about that. I’m also looking forward to watching the Pittsburgh Penguins (The NHL’s Back!!!) on tv in just a few more weeks, and watching Sidney Crosby make his way among the pros.

The end is in sight, for my programming degree. December 14th is my last day, with graduation closely following. I’m going out with a bang, language-wise, Advanced COBOL, and SQL, with Advanced Systems Analysis and Tech. Writing rounding things off. It’s not a bas schedule, but my COBOL class is and independent study course, which makes finding computer time a hassle, as only one room of computers has a compiler on it, and I don’t want to have to buy a suite of software for home, which I should at least give a little thought to, I suppose. I’m enjoying SQL, since it’s quite intuitive to code, and making charts and graphs for tech writing is fun. I’ve definitely seen my courses come together in the past year, using programs and skills from earlier courses to complete projects for later ones. It also seems that I could get a job with Erie Insurance as a COBOL programmer pretty easily. I should get a resume out to them soon, as a matter of fact.

Working as a lab monitor is going well so far. Fourteen hours a week at minimum wage. So, I’m not in it for the money, more to get experience solving computer problems, and to say that I held down a job while at school for at least one semester. As for the work itself, I’m pretty much left to my own devices, and get paid to do homework. We’ll see how that goes as time goes on, and more people are in the labs asking questions, and I’ve got bigger projects to do myself.

The Otters Season opened as well as could be expected, with a win on Friday, and a loss on Sunday. They’ve got a couple overage players too many, so the next few weeks or months will be exciting to see how the rosters shake out, and how we do with trades.