Note: The aforementioned nap lasted over three hours and was most easily described as dreamy.

Weekly movie night was bumped up two days this week because all of us will be gone by Sunday night. We decided to try and hit a flick on opening night this week–We Were Soldiers. Mel Gibson carries the lead role in this one, but there are several supporting characters that play significant roles, including Sam Elliot–the old cowboy/narrator from The Big Lebowski. I don’t feel that my opinion on the movie really matters at this point. What’s really on my mind right now is this: Does the fact that I will probably never be anywhere near the “front-line” or even in combat make me any less of a man? Throughout the almost two and a half hours of this movie, that thought continuously ran through my mind. It’s not that I wish I had the opportunity to fight in a war–in fact, the idea of it scares me to death. I would fight, if I was called, and I would give it everything I had. But that doesn’t change the fact that I happened upon a life that leaves me in the “top 1%” earning a college education. Even if the draft were reinstated and my birthday was drawn, I’d never end up on a battlefield; I’d be assigned to a nerdery somewhere, doing computer-nerd stuff–cracking codes, designing electrical systems, analyzing data–never even seeing a gun, or Charlie.

I will never know what it does to a man to see the things those soldiers saw. My mind can never know the atrocities, the pain, the loss, the rush, the sorrow, the appreciation for life that men who have fought for their country–for a cause greater than any one of them, but dependant on each of them–experienced time and time again. I’ll simply continue to live the college kid life, enjoying a week of doing nothing because I so desperately need a break, as it’s Spring and I’ve worked real hard studying for my few exams (I don’t believe I could possibly pack any more sarcasm in that sentance). The very idea that there are men who are currently fighting for our country and all the freedoms it takes for granted just blows my mind.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I felt this insignificant.

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Spring Break has officially begun. Mid-term week is over and slacking is now in style. Mountains, beaches, highways–anywhere but here is the place to be. My first order of business, seeing as how I now have free reign over my schedule, is to take a nap. So, without further adieu…

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Six hours, twenty-two minutes til Spring Break begins for me. But first, I have to attend a guitar lesson, cram for a test, take a test, turn in a project and pick-up a graded exam.

Let the chaos begin!

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Nimble up, fingers, it�s time to get to tappin�. If my life were a pie-chart, it would be an apple pie. Besides that, one of the biggest slices would be electric-blue and labeled �Music�. I often forget how big a part of my life music actually is. I�ve been thinking lately about having an eclectic musical taste and how allowing myself to try and enjoy different kinds of music may have opened my mind to aspects of the world I couldn�t see before. Woah, backup a sec. This guy sounds like he�s talking about some kind of �mind-enhancing” drugs. Maybe I am. Maybe music is a mind-enhancing drug. I�m certainly addicted to it; it changes the way I think about things; I have and do pay for it; I encourage other people to try it; I�d sell it if I had my own; I sometimes brew small batches of it; I know the good stuff when I hear it; the bad stuff doesn�t do much for me. �maybe I�ve had a little too much of it tonight.

Regardless, that actually had nothing to do with my point. My point is that people smile for different reasons; I often smile because of music. People cry for different reasons; music has brought to tears on several occasions in the past. I smiled the other day as I drove around aimlessly listening to my new speakers, just because of how happy it made me to be able to tell the difference between a kick-drum and a tom. I drove around for about a year with blown, green speakers hanging out of my front doors, experiencing the flattest rendition of �music� ever known to man. I remember one day in eighth grade, I sat in out television production studio at school, alone, listening to Pachelbel�s Cannon in D, and bawling like a baby. I love movies, but I�ve never cried during one. I love basketball, but I rarely start smiling and feel an overwhelming sense of happiness as I play it (although, I do occasionally feel somewhat giddy after a particularly solid play).

To further exhaust a tired clich�, �there�s just something about music�. There really is. Maybe that something stems from the fact that God Himself created it, so that He could be glorified by and worshiped with it. Sometimes, I wonder if maybe Romans 1:20 & 21 isn�t alluding to music, at least partially:

For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead�

Currently downloading the music of: Sonny Rollins, George Clinton (Parliament), Eric Clapton, Boyz II Men, Az Yet and Dizzy Gillespie.

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I finished reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest tonight. I can undoubtedly say it is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Why I wasn’t forced to read it in high school is beyond me; of course, now that I think of it, I’m glad I wasn’t forced to read it in high school because having read it now–on my own accord, at my leisure, for my leisure–it was just that much more enjoyable. The most difficult thing is to realize that the Cuckoo’s Nest (at least as it was set in the book) doesn’t actually exist. I feel like Neo waking in the Matrix for the first time, not believing that this is reality and not that world from which he was just re-born. Barring re-reading it, I’ll never see Harding, McMurphy or Nurse Ratched through the big Chief’s eyes again except in my memory. I guess that’s the incredible thing about reading: everything I’ve read is mysteriously catalogued in my brain somewhere, whether it be on this synapse or that, jumping the gap on a neuron or stuck in a cell, next to a ribosome somewhere, it’s there. All the things I’ve learned from my 310 page journey are at my beckon call and all the pages that I turned while imagining something else will disappear into my subconscious. It really is fascinating how a three pound glob of gray matter can do so many fascinating and indescribable things, most of it without my telling it to.

More on One Flew… later.

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A friend requested that I post a poem on my blog. I’m not sure if she is aware that I used to dabble in poetry, or if she knows that I used to regularly vent in verse, but she seems pretty set on having me post some of my own stuff. Unfortunately, this won’t be the night that I’ll unleash my sarcastic creativity on this blog, but I intend to unleash some creativity, nonetheless. The following is one of my favorite Shakespearean sonnets–one of my favorite, because it is one of the few with which I am really familiar. I wrote a paper on it about five years ago for my eleventh-grade English teacher (or perhaps for me, I suppose, depending on one’s perspective) and it was received fairly well. So, tonight, I’ll copy Shakespeare’s sonnet and pose a question, and sometime soon, I’ll post my answer to the question.

Sonnet 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

My question is this: Is this a romantic poem about Love’s blindness and unconditional acceptance, or is Shakespeare dropping a bit of the sarcasm for which he was notorious?

Worst post ever…

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That’s it. I’ve hit the wall. I’m no longer being fueled by a desire to succeed, but a longing to have no more responsibility… not for now at least. I’m sick of spending my days budgeting my time so I can get a good start on my homework assignments, allowing me to spend more time on projects and opening up time to study for exams. I’m tired of seeing my guitar, so lonely over there in the corner, strings getting cruddy, tune fading. I’m tired of slowly watching my calf muscles atrophy because I don’t play basketball 3 times a week like I used to. I’m tired of being up til 3 am every day, not because it’s 3 am, but because it’s 3 am and I’ve been up since 9 this morning and I’ve been planted in my black leather chair, staring at lines of code on my computer screen for 8 hours consecutively.

I guess this all wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t still have two tests and a project submission to take care of. I have a test in just over 12 hours and I’m having a real tough time getting any sort of motivation to really study. All those thoughts of “I already know this stuff… all I need is a quick review” and “Just a few more minutes of nothing, then I’ll really dig into these notes.” are starting to set in for the first time this semester. If only Spring Break started a couple days earlier, then I’d have experienced this same lull two days ago and I’d be driving north on I-75 right now witha couple of my good friends. But alas, the Break is not upon me yet and I have a test to be studying for. Of course, I only have about 10 pages left in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest…

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I’ve officially almost finished a project. Where does that leave me? It leaves me experiencing a bit of anxiety because I can’t just get it done and out of the way. As I’ve trudged through this semester, sporting my new time-management skills and desire to be efficient, I’ve begun to realize why I was such a hard-core procrastinator for so long: I don’t like to begin something and not complete it before I rest. I can remember back in my high school days when I first began to experience the world of car-audio systems; I bought my first set of speakers for my car’s cabin (actually, at the time, it was still my mom’s car) and set out learning to install them. I used the schematics that Crutchfield sent me as a guideline, but I mostly just grabbed a philips-head screwdriver and went to town trying to find a way behind my door panels and under the back-dash. I remember I was up til about 2 am that night, using the flourescent light in our car-port to see what I could, hunched over with one foot on the ground and the other on the front floor-board. I eventually got those speakers in–it took me a good long time–and got a few hours’ sleep before I had to take the SAT’s at 7 that morning. What I don’t remember is actually taking the SAT’s. I just had to finish getting those speakers in before I could call it a night, and I ended up taking the SAT again after that, too.

I guess some things never do change. I spent 7 hours on Saturday putting new speakers in my car; I had a friend alongside to help this time because he happens to have the same model car. That may sound silly to some, but to me, it was a good learning experience and a day that I could spend with an old friend. There’s something about wrestling seats out of cars and straining with everything in me to get a bolt loose. I can’t really describe it in words, I guess, but there’s just something about it. On Sunday, my calves were sore for the first time in ages. Why? Who knows. Probably because I used them differently than I had in a long time–standing on the “hump” in the back seat, trying my darnedest to pop some bolt loose; balancing myself as I reached under the door to try and find the screw that just lept out of my hand; just being on my feet all day. Regardless, it was a good time and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Just over a year and I graduate from this institution known as the University of Florida. Then what? Struggle to keep in touch with friends, deal with having to learn a whole new system called “the real world“, sit at some desk for forty hours a week, designing something for a boss who doesn’t know me from Adam. One thing I’d put my money on, though, is that I’ll still be dabbling with my car stereo–checking out the latest amps, pricing speakers, chatting with my buddies about whether I need this or that component–and I find that comforting for some reason.

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This should paint a good picture of what I’ve spent the last four years of my life on. My resume:

Joshua J. Doody

Objective: To obtain a Co-op or Internship with a growing technical company in Dallas, TX
and gain experience in the Computer/Electrical Engineering field.

Education: Bachelor of Science in Computer/Electrical Engineering, Spring 2003
University of Florida in Gainesville, FL
GPA of 3.21/4.0

Field-related Courses:
Introduction to Maple
Solid-State Electronic Devices
Technical Writing
Elements of Circuits I, II
Introduction to CIS
Elements of Statics
Digital Logic and Computer Systems
Numerical Analysis
Computer Organization
Applied Discrete Mathematics
Electronic Circuits 1
Digital Integrated Circuits
Data Structures & Algorithms
Discrete Signals & Systems

Awards Received: Dean�s List at University of Florida, Spring 1999
Salutatorian of Sandalwood High School in 1998
Elected National Scholar in 1997

Experience: 2001 Raytheon Company Dallas, TX
Co-op with Electrical Systems�Commander�s Independent Viewer Program
� Redesigned test equipment to handle larger workload and higher throughput
� Helped troubleshoot existing test systems for electrical engineering issues

1999 Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) Jacksonville, FL
Co-op as an IT & S Technician
� PC trouble-shooting (hardware and software) and end-user support.
� Helped JEA with network migrations and other projects.

Design and Field-Related Experience:
� High-level Programming: Java, MATLAB, Maple, HTML
� Low-level Programming: Motorola 68K Assembly, MIPS
� Digital/Analogue Design: MaxPlusII, Mentor, PSPICE, L-EDIT
� Operating systems: DOS, Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP, Unix
� Hardware: Design, Troubleshooting, Assembly

Leadership Experience:
� Active with Campus Crusade for Christ for over three and a half years
� Led a team of five people that was responsible for planning the organization�s weekly meetings, which were attended by 250 to 300 people

References: Available upon request.

It’s amazing how difficult it is to get a Microsoft Word document into HTML format, so it can be posted on a webpage (without converting it to .pdf or some other reader-friendly format).

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I think one perspective on our earthly experience is as follows: Life is a long series of lessons�some we learn easily, others not so easily. I spent about six hours today, re-learning an old lesson. That lesson is read assignments carefully before attempting to complete them. Yesterday, I thought I had all-but-finished a homework assignment; I thought I had finished it more quickly than any of this class�s homeworks so far this semester. Then I spoke with a classmate today and asked him if he would take a look at my solution to make sure it was up to spec, as he had interpreted the requirement for the problem. Turns out that my solution was not only inadequate, but I did the wrong problem. Apparently, I neglected the significance of one word�chain�in the problem description. That mistake cost me about six hours tonight; six hours I could�ve been reading; six hours I could�ve been relaxing; six hours I could�ve been playing my guitar.

The good news is I am now able to confidently say I�ve learned a different lesson: double-check everything before calling it quits. Sure, I might�ve screwed up the assignment, but it wasn�t due til Wednesday night. If I had simply assumed I did it correctly, in spite of my doubts as to my solution�s accuracy, I would have submitted an incorrect solution that would�ve gotten me a low score on this homework. Yes, I would�ve been temporarily satisfied in my ignorance�that six hours would�ve been available to me for whatever I pleased�but I would�ve been sorely disappointed when I went to check my grade on the class website next week. Not only that, but I learned some new material while I was completing the real assignment.

Sometimes, much wisdom can be found in the strangest of characters: �It�s just good sense to backup your backup!� � Phoebe on Friends

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