Warren in India

Getting down to brass tacks
A lot has been going on here, so I'll just dive right into things, how's that sound?

First and foremost, my return date is a bit clearer: as with all but three of the other campers, I've been placed on a project here -- for me and many others, it's an internal (i.e. non-billable) project. This means that no-one is buying me a replacement ticket to come back before June just yet. There are two big caveats to this:

1. If billable work comes up for me in the U.S., I will leave ASAP. Apparently, this usually happens with 7-10 days' notice, mostly for booking a new flight.
2. There are people working on the internal project in Chicago, so I may be able to finagle my way back to Chicago to work on it. The powers-that-be in Resource Management are aware of my food issues, so that may be a a factor there. Don't hold your breath, though. You'll turn blue and pass out, and that's quite unbecoming.

Last Monday night, I saw Mark Knopfler (!), formerly of Dire Straits, in concert here. It was a very pleasant show; even though I don't know any of his "solo" work, I heard all of the Dire Straits songs I wanted to hear. The show was held at a part of the grounds of what is apparently still a functioning palace of sorts. I wish I could tell you more about that, but that's all I know. The downsides to the show were the late hour on a school night and all of the dust on the ground on the way back. My throat and lungs complained for the few days after the show.

It rained here Friday night. The skies opened up, and we got thunder and lightning -- the whole works. An hour later, it stopped. There were still patches of mud around when I was out today. I'm sure Monsoon Season is a blast. Apparently, rain in March is a rare thing. (As an aside, it was in the mid-90s -- again -- today...and it's not even Hot Season yet. That's coming soon, they say.)

The trip to Mysore was pushed back a week. It seems that I was not alone in thinking that four intense six-day weeks in a row weren't the best thing for everyone's health...so you'll have to wait for those photos.

However, I did prepare some other photos to share. That address is the place you'll want to watch for more photos.

This past week was the continuation of "Object Bootcamp," or "All Programming, All the Time." It has been as amazing as it was exhausting. Imagine a forty-hour week of a class of your favorite college subject where the level of instruction is so high that if it were any higher, it would be totally over your head. During the exercises, we are expected to not get things right so that we can be gradually steered in the right direction. It's actually a lot more effective than just sitting us down and showing us the "right way" to do things. I've learned almost as much as I did in any one programming class in college, and that's saying a lot.

The downside of this is that I've been dead tired almost every night. My typical after-class schedule this week was: take a nap, wake up, have dinner, go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. I'm actually a tad concerned that there may be another, health-related factor there, so I'm going to keep a careful eye out and go get myself checked out if I can't get properly rested. It's probably just the intensity of the schedule, which should ease off a bit after we finish Object Bootcamp on Wednesday. This should also mean more time for me to make entries here. I hope.

Anyway, I'm going to take my evening shower now and get myself sorted for next week. Take care of yourselves, and I'll shout at you all later.

| permanent link