This is going to be a long one.
[For those not from Chicago, time goes 10th week, then finals week, then this week, when I am writing this.]
It was Thursday of 10th week, and I was eating dinner at Pierce, talking to Lulu, and she says something about our Soc paper being due on Monday... wait, what?
Now here I had thought our Soc paper was due on Friday of finals week. All quarter - or all quarter where I had been thinking about my final paper - I had been thinking I had most of a week more than I had. Of course I looked at the syllabus, but somehow, I always saw "Monday" and read "Friday".
I should probably note here that in this class, this was our only paper.
So my working time was now cut down from a week to 4 days. I had intended to go to Crerar that night, try to get something out of the data (I'm in Democracy, remember)... looked like now it was going to be "go to Crerar and frantically try to turn up anything I can". The teacher had wanted me to come in for help before, and so now I actually reply. The next day I speak to her, basically she tells me that I shouldn't waste my time looking for more numerical data, I say, well, at this point I do what I can and we'll see what I get.
Cut to Sunday night. I have turned up nothing. Nothing I can use, anyway. I hastily throw together a collection of descriptive statistics, totalling to half the ten pages required, call it a paper, and send it in.
I also send the teacher a not-so-nice email about how I felt screwed by chance and how ridiculous I thought it was that we only had one paper. I spent an hour writing it, actually, but it's not like there was anything I could do at that point that would have changed the fact that my paper was complete trash.
And so I went to my algebra final completely tired, and my major thought for the rest of finals week (well, aside from moving in to the apartment and the finals themselves) was how completely screwed I was. With the rest of my Soc grade not being so great either, it looked like there was a pretty good chance I was going to fail. I was talking to Jim about it - "Well, it's Soc, worst case scenario, you get a C, right?" "No. Worst case scenario, I fail Soc." Lucas points out that Jonathan's perfectionism has resulted in his failing Soc three times already, but that's not much of a consolation.
Well, as it happens, on Friday night, I get an email from the teacher. Indeed, were she simply to grade the paper as it is and incorporate it into my grade, I would fail Soc. But as it happens, she talked to Eric Oliver - the teacher first quarter, and also the guy who runs the whole Democracy class in general - and as I had gotten an A first quarter, did pretty well second quarter - and it probably helped that Professor Oliver certainly seemed to like me - he agreed, this is not representative, and so they decided to give me another week - till Saturday at noon - to do it over. Of course, that week - this week - I was going to be home, so I wouldn't have access to all the resources I would have had at Chicago, but...
That part makes up the "bad news" I had to tell my parents. But this entry's not nearly over.
Now on Saturday I came home and slept until Sunday. Well, I wake up, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, put on clothes, etc, turn on my computer... my laptop's not in my backpack.
Well, that's just great. What could have happened to it? Presumably I left it in Chicago... but that's not possible, because I remember taking it through security at the airport. Which means... it must have been stolen at the airport, presumably when I got up to throw something out. That was the very bad news. No, we're nowhere done yet.
So. I first call Delta, at my mom's suggestion. They, after much delay, of course tell me to call Midway, but also apparently speak to security at Midway; no, they don't have any laptops, just cell phones. So I didn't leave it when I passed through security. I call Midway, and they (after much delay) tell me to call the police. So I call up the Chicago police department, and as I'm relating what happened, the officer asks, Are you sure you didn't leave it at security? And I say, Delta said that I didn't. And he points out, if someone really took the laptop while you left your bag unattended - why not just take the bag? D'oh! I had noticed it was odd that none of the associated cables were gone... I tell him, I'll call Midway and speak to security myself, and call back. Indeed, after speaking to security myself, I find that they are currently holding a laptop that is identifiably mine (it has my name on it), and tells me how I can get it back. I call back the police and tell them, nevermind, it wasn't stolen. So we know where it is, we know how to get it... we just don't actually have it.
Mom suggests I do my paper-writing on Elana's computer or the upstairs computer. I have bolder plans: It's time to finally get my old computer up and running again. For those that don't remember, two years ago (apparently), frustrated with Mandrake Linux just plain not working right, and with the problem not fixed by reinstalls, I backed up everything important to the laptop and formatted the hard drive. I needed to put an operating system on the thing, and the obvious choice was to simply go with a different distro of Linux. But which? I wanted something I could really just... simply use. I mean, this was just my ordinary desktop, and I'm certainly not going to be modifying the fundamentals here, you know? Ubuntu didn't exist at the time, so I went with Gentoo, because I heard its package management system was good. So I burned Gentoo installation CDs, printed out all 40-odd pages of installation instructions (so I didn't need another computer nearby to do it[0]), and went through the initial steps of formatting the hard drive and setting up the partitions. I never actually installed anything on it, though.
Cut back to the present, where I need to get this machine working, and I need to get it working fast. Well, then, I suppose the obvious choice is Ubuntu, right? It's supposed to be fast, easy, all that, right? So! I go to the upstairs computer, burn an installation CD... I get an error message, but I figure I'll try it anyway. Nope, it didn't work, the CD's not even bootable. I think the problem is with the CD-burning program.
Now at this point, what I probably should have done is tried the one on Elana's computer, or spent the 10 minutes it would have taken to find and download a decent CD-burning program. Instead, I figure, well, I already have a working Gentoo installation CD, right? I mean, it's all set up for it...
Many, many, hours later... say about 3:00 in the morning or so, with everyone else gone to bed... it's finished. I don't know that I configured everything the best way, but what the hell, I just want this thing to /work/. I'm glad at least that the installation CD being so old that the version it was made for doesn't seem to be available anymore didn't seem to cause a problem. So finally, I type: reboot. Well, except the CD drive won't open, so it boots from the CD again. I reboot again, manage to get the CD out. It begins booting up. Suddenly, oh no! Major error! It can't read the hard drive! I realize I set up my fstab wrong. Reboot, get the CD back in - probably reboot one more time in there - fix fstab, reboot (don't forget I have to get the CD out too), and this time, it boots. The network isn't working because I set it to use DHCP and only on noticing this error did I remember we don't use DHCP, but whatever, that's not important right now, I can fix that later. So. Login as root. Make myself an account. Logout. Login as sniffnoy. startx.
startx not found.
What?! You're kidding me. I frantically search the installation instructions for any hint of what to do. I notice in the documentation of the display manager setting, there are other ways to start X, such as xdm and xinit. xdm. xdm not found. xinit. xinit not found.
So, I try using locate to see if they're actually on the computer. OK, first I have to set up locate... OK, are they there? I find things related to them, but not them themselves (I think).
...whatever. I declare it a failure (though perhaps I should have checked online to see if there were any more instructions, say what to do with that packages CD I also had lying around) and resign myself to using Elana's and the upstairs computers.
And now it's Friday night, it's due at noon tomorrow, and so I should probably get back to writing it.
-Harry
(It's actually coming out pretty well, though due to being home this week, it's, ah, rather light on references.)
[0]In truth, this is out of sequence. In actuality, I don't believe I printed the instructions until I went off to Chicago, so I could install it on my laptop without needing another computer nearby. Of course, I never did this, because with access to the University's computers, I really didn't need to. Also when I tried to resize the Windows partition the first time, I got hideous errors, and I didn't touch it after that.
[For those not from Chicago, time goes 10th week, then finals week, then this week, when I am writing this.]
It was Thursday of 10th week, and I was eating dinner at Pierce, talking to Lulu, and she says something about our Soc paper being due on Monday... wait, what?
Now here I had thought our Soc paper was due on Friday of finals week. All quarter - or all quarter where I had been thinking about my final paper - I had been thinking I had most of a week more than I had. Of course I looked at the syllabus, but somehow, I always saw "Monday" and read "Friday".
I should probably note here that in this class, this was our only paper.
So my working time was now cut down from a week to 4 days. I had intended to go to Crerar that night, try to get something out of the data (I'm in Democracy, remember)... looked like now it was going to be "go to Crerar and frantically try to turn up anything I can". The teacher had wanted me to come in for help before, and so now I actually reply. The next day I speak to her, basically she tells me that I shouldn't waste my time looking for more numerical data, I say, well, at this point I do what I can and we'll see what I get.
Cut to Sunday night. I have turned up nothing. Nothing I can use, anyway. I hastily throw together a collection of descriptive statistics, totalling to half the ten pages required, call it a paper, and send it in.
I also send the teacher a not-so-nice email about how I felt screwed by chance and how ridiculous I thought it was that we only had one paper. I spent an hour writing it, actually, but it's not like there was anything I could do at that point that would have changed the fact that my paper was complete trash.
And so I went to my algebra final completely tired, and my major thought for the rest of finals week (well, aside from moving in to the apartment and the finals themselves) was how completely screwed I was. With the rest of my Soc grade not being so great either, it looked like there was a pretty good chance I was going to fail. I was talking to Jim about it - "Well, it's Soc, worst case scenario, you get a C, right?" "No. Worst case scenario, I fail Soc." Lucas points out that Jonathan's perfectionism has resulted in his failing Soc three times already, but that's not much of a consolation.
Well, as it happens, on Friday night, I get an email from the teacher. Indeed, were she simply to grade the paper as it is and incorporate it into my grade, I would fail Soc. But as it happens, she talked to Eric Oliver - the teacher first quarter, and also the guy who runs the whole Democracy class in general - and as I had gotten an A first quarter, did pretty well second quarter - and it probably helped that Professor Oliver certainly seemed to like me - he agreed, this is not representative, and so they decided to give me another week - till Saturday at noon - to do it over. Of course, that week - this week - I was going to be home, so I wouldn't have access to all the resources I would have had at Chicago, but...
That part makes up the "bad news" I had to tell my parents. But this entry's not nearly over.
Now on Saturday I came home and slept until Sunday. Well, I wake up, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, put on clothes, etc, turn on my computer... my laptop's not in my backpack.
Well, that's just great. What could have happened to it? Presumably I left it in Chicago... but that's not possible, because I remember taking it through security at the airport. Which means... it must have been stolen at the airport, presumably when I got up to throw something out. That was the very bad news. No, we're nowhere done yet.
So. I first call Delta, at my mom's suggestion. They, after much delay, of course tell me to call Midway, but also apparently speak to security at Midway; no, they don't have any laptops, just cell phones. So I didn't leave it when I passed through security. I call Midway, and they (after much delay) tell me to call the police. So I call up the Chicago police department, and as I'm relating what happened, the officer asks, Are you sure you didn't leave it at security? And I say, Delta said that I didn't. And he points out, if someone really took the laptop while you left your bag unattended - why not just take the bag? D'oh! I had noticed it was odd that none of the associated cables were gone... I tell him, I'll call Midway and speak to security myself, and call back. Indeed, after speaking to security myself, I find that they are currently holding a laptop that is identifiably mine (it has my name on it), and tells me how I can get it back. I call back the police and tell them, nevermind, it wasn't stolen. So we know where it is, we know how to get it... we just don't actually have it.
Mom suggests I do my paper-writing on Elana's computer or the upstairs computer. I have bolder plans: It's time to finally get my old computer up and running again. For those that don't remember, two years ago (apparently), frustrated with Mandrake Linux just plain not working right, and with the problem not fixed by reinstalls, I backed up everything important to the laptop and formatted the hard drive. I needed to put an operating system on the thing, and the obvious choice was to simply go with a different distro of Linux. But which? I wanted something I could really just... simply use. I mean, this was just my ordinary desktop, and I'm certainly not going to be modifying the fundamentals here, you know? Ubuntu didn't exist at the time, so I went with Gentoo, because I heard its package management system was good. So I burned Gentoo installation CDs, printed out all 40-odd pages of installation instructions (so I didn't need another computer nearby to do it[0]), and went through the initial steps of formatting the hard drive and setting up the partitions. I never actually installed anything on it, though.
Cut back to the present, where I need to get this machine working, and I need to get it working fast. Well, then, I suppose the obvious choice is Ubuntu, right? It's supposed to be fast, easy, all that, right? So! I go to the upstairs computer, burn an installation CD... I get an error message, but I figure I'll try it anyway. Nope, it didn't work, the CD's not even bootable. I think the problem is with the CD-burning program.
Now at this point, what I probably should have done is tried the one on Elana's computer, or spent the 10 minutes it would have taken to find and download a decent CD-burning program. Instead, I figure, well, I already have a working Gentoo installation CD, right? I mean, it's all set up for it...
Many, many, hours later... say about 3:00 in the morning or so, with everyone else gone to bed... it's finished. I don't know that I configured everything the best way, but what the hell, I just want this thing to /work/. I'm glad at least that the installation CD being so old that the version it was made for doesn't seem to be available anymore didn't seem to cause a problem. So finally, I type: reboot. Well, except the CD drive won't open, so it boots from the CD again. I reboot again, manage to get the CD out. It begins booting up. Suddenly, oh no! Major error! It can't read the hard drive! I realize I set up my fstab wrong. Reboot, get the CD back in - probably reboot one more time in there - fix fstab, reboot (don't forget I have to get the CD out too), and this time, it boots. The network isn't working because I set it to use DHCP and only on noticing this error did I remember we don't use DHCP, but whatever, that's not important right now, I can fix that later. So. Login as root. Make myself an account. Logout. Login as sniffnoy. startx.
startx not found.
What?! You're kidding me. I frantically search the installation instructions for any hint of what to do. I notice in the documentation of the display manager setting, there are other ways to start X, such as xdm and xinit. xdm. xdm not found. xinit. xinit not found.
So, I try using locate to see if they're actually on the computer. OK, first I have to set up locate... OK, are they there? I find things related to them, but not them themselves (I think).
...whatever. I declare it a failure (though perhaps I should have checked online to see if there were any more instructions, say what to do with that packages CD I also had lying around) and resign myself to using Elana's and the upstairs computers.
And now it's Friday night, it's due at noon tomorrow, and so I should probably get back to writing it.
-Harry
(It's actually coming out pretty well, though due to being home this week, it's, ah, rather light on references.)
[0]In truth, this is out of sequence. In actuality, I don't believe I printed the instructions until I went off to Chicago, so I could install it on my laptop without needing another computer nearby. Of course, I never did this, because with access to the University's computers, I really didn't need to. Also when I tried to resize the Windows partition the first time, I got hideous errors, and I didn't touch it after that.
