New minor?

It became clear that I wasn't going to be able to take the classes that I wanted to for the GIS minor. So I have pretty much decided to change my minor to Geography instead. I'm still going to take several GIS-specific classes though, as they are eligible electives. This way I can also be more likely to graduate in June instead of after the summer term.

I will be registering for winter quarter classes on November 7. As of now, I'm going to take my last economics class (EC 457 American Economic History: The 20th Century), GEOG 345U (Resource Management), and GEOG 488 (GIS 1) along with an associated lab. This will give me a 5 day a week schedule, which is the first time I've had to do this. The following may be my weekly schedule.

• EC 457 - MWF 12:45-1:50
• GEOG 345 - TuTh 4:00-5:50
• GEOG 488 - TuTh 6:00-7:50
• GEOG 488 Lab - F 2:00-3:50

I'm also working on getting an internship, so this term could be much busier for me than normal. One of them that I'm looking at is under the AmeriCorps umbrella. If I get/accept that one it means an 11-month commitment, but with pay! I would get about $1000/mo in stipends and a $5500 education grant (to pay for continuing education or for paying off existing loans) at the end. The monetary rewards are very tempting. The experience would be invaluable in finding a job afterwards. We'll see how this all shakes out.

If this all works out like I hope, the spring term will probably consist of GEOG 492 (GIS 2), GEOG 210 (Physical Geography), and my senior capstone, which I hope will be Grantwriting for Indigenous Sustainability (I want this one for multiple reasons). And that's it! If all goes as planned, I will then be graduating. It's hard to believe that I'm getting so close to earning a 4-year degree!

How I spent my summer vacation - another long movie list

So this post is originally from the summer of 2011. Occassionally I try to add to it and finish it. I doubt it will ever see the light of day if I keep this up, so here it is in unfinished form. Sorry.


I've been watching movies like they are going out of style. Since my last movie update I've seen at least 30 movies and watched all the episodes of two 2-season TV shows, plus assorted current TV episodes. I iz couch potato. So once again, here is a list of what I've been watching, roughly in the order I watched them.

• Catch Me If You Can - I was reading an interesting article on con man Frank Abagnale, Jr.and there was mention of a 2002 movie that more or less told his story, at least as much as a Hollywood movie will, and I decided to watch it. DiCaprio isn't my favorite actor, but he did a really good job with this role. Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken help out a lot too. It's a fun movie that is easy to watch.
• Dead Man - I can't say enough about this 1995 Jim Jarmusch-directed movie. I'm pretty picky when it comes to westerns, but I've never seen one quite like this one. The director calls it an "acid western" and that fits pretty well. It was shot in black & white and has some pretty authentic Indian depictions in it. The cast was awesome - Johnny Depp, Crispin Glover, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thorton, Iggy Pop, John Hurt, Lance Henriksen, Robert Mitchum (in his last role), and all the others did an amazing job in this weird, surrealistic western. I now rank this movie in my top five favorite westerns.
• Misfits (current BBC series) - A bunch of annoying 20-somethings in a suburb of London are sentenced to community service and are caught in a storm that gives them superpowers. This show is silly and ridiculous. But it's funny and really well written. I'm looking forward to season 3.
• No Country For Old Men - I wanted to like this 2007 Coen brothers film more than I did. It seems that most everybody else thought it was great. Visually it was appealing and the acting was good. The story was intriguing but the ending was disappointing and had no closure.
• The Blue Max - I mainly watched this one for the WWI flying sequences. Those were pretty good. Otherwise, this 1966 film was mostly not that great.
• Wall-E - I sometimes have a hard time wanting to watch recent movies that are wildly popular. Most of the time they don't live up to the hype. So I resisted watching this 2008 animated Pixar science fiction film for quite a while. Too bad. It's a really great movie and actually deserves most of the praise it got.
• C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America - This is a little different. A pseudo-documentary that takes place on an alternate reality where the South won the Civil War.
• Better Off Ted An ABC television series that I had totally ignored. I quickly became a fan. Too bad they canceled it so soon.
• Spirited Away A really amazing Japanese animated movie. I was not sure I would like this film. It would probably appeal to 8-10 year olds as well, but there is probably something good there for any age. The animation is beautiful, the story is solid, and the message is positive. Not at all sugary-sweet, but still very moralistic in an un-overt (I may just be making up words now) way.
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Kind of disappointing, but not terrible. Nothing beats the original.
• The Dark Knight I gave up on the Batman franchise a long time ago. I really want to love Batman. I decided to give this one a chance. I was surprised at some of the performances. This is probably the best Batman movie so far.
• Valkyrie I hate Tom Cruise. But he's still a pretty good actor in the right role (if he sticks to action movies). This movie sounded kind of dumb, but I had lots of time on my hands. All in all, not bad for some tarted-up Hollywood take on a bit of obscure WWII history.
• Brutal Beauty I am torn on this one. I'm not sure if it's well made or not. Its about women's roller derby, the local Rose City Rollers specifically. I know or at least recognize, most of the women in this film. I think it probably gives a pretty good prospective of the sport from their point of view.
• Repo Man A classic that just doesn't hold up that well for me. Call me a pariah.
• Pans Labyrinth Super cool and different Spanish horror/fantasy film. Beautiful feel and look. Not anything like American horror films.
• Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park This is one of the worst movies ever. I had never seen it before, but had heard of its awesome terribleness. It's even worse than I thought it would be. The off-screen story of this waste of celluloid is kind of funny too.
• Bad Teacher Stupid. But kind of funny. But funny in a way that makes me mad if I think about it. Not worth seeing. Even though Carmen Diaz is pretty hot in it.
• The Big Lebowski This is supposed to be one of the greatest cult films of all time. I don't see it. Maybe I'm at just the wrong age. It seems like a bunch of pretentious crap to me.
• Trinity and Beyond I was mostly interested in seeing all of the footage of nuclear explosions. There are a lot of them. The story is pretty fascinating as well.
• Princess Mononoke Another classic animated film that is usually high on cult film lovers lists. I like it, but I liked Spirited Away better (the same guy did them). Certainly worth watching though.
• The Manchurian Candidate The original one. Great performances and a timely and topical story at the time. I won't even bother watching the recent remake.
• Minority Report Another solid Tom Cruise movie. I hadn't seen this one in a while and gave it another go. Good plot based on a Philip K. Dick science fiction short story and interesting "neo-noir" visuals.
• Battle Royale You probably shouldn't watch this Japanese movie. High school students are made to battle to the death on an island. Just graphic enough to be disturbing. I "enjoyed" this film, but that doesn't mean you will.
• Prophecy
• A Scanner Darkly
• They Live
• Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
• Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones
• Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
• Star Wars (Episode 4: A New Hope)
• Galaxy Quest
• Star Wars Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back
• Splice
• The Third Man
• Let the Right One In
• Initial D
• Star Wars Episode 6: Return of the Jedi

Long time no post - again

I can't believe it's been two months since I last posted anything here. Sorry. Here's one.

My classes are going well this term. Getting up early two days a week is still a drag, but at least I'm mostly enjoying all of my classes. As expected, GEOG 230 (Environment & Society) is pretty easy. So far it hasn't covered any larger concepts that are new to me, but my depth of knowledge of the rest of the world is getting larger. So far we've covered Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (aka MENA), and are now on South Asia. We will also be covering Southeast Asia, and then Asia. The class is too short (3 hour and 15 minutes each week) to cover much anything else. The instructor is kind of a ditz, but she is knowledgeable enough (and knows when to say she doesn't know something or will have to find out an answer) that it's a relatively interesting class. I did a paper in week 2 on sugar and how it has an effect on the world in terms of things like world trade, knowledge/goods dispersion, slavery, indigenous diaspora and extermination, etc. I'll be doing one more paper on a specific country's immigrant population in Portland. I haven't quite decided the group yet, but I need to get on this one soon. There is no midterm exam for this class. As long as I don't blow off the second paper and the other couple of smaller assignments still to come, I should be able to get an "A" in this class.

My earliest ever class (starts at 8am on Mondays and Wednesdays) is GEOG 380 (Maps & Geographic Information). Its a good thing I'm into maps because this class has a lot of map-related minutiae that would probably bore most people to death. The instructor is pretty smart, but doesn't seem very organized. Ultimately, we students pay the price. We somehow got behind so the schedule needed to be rearranged and compressed. And he forgot that there is no school on the 12th because of Veteran's Day, so that made it even worse. I have to read six chapters for next week. Six! That's ridiculous. Questions on the online weekly quizzes tend to be ambiguous and/or worded in a confusing way. We were warned during the first class that this would be the case, but everyone is still complaining. A lot of people seem to be doing bad on the quizzes. We were told not to worry too much about them and that the instructor grades on a curve. I guess this is good news for me. I've been doing relatively well on the quizzes. The instructions for labs (mine's on Tuesday afternoons) are also sometimes confusing. I also have a thing about grad students basically doing slave labor for professors and this class is no different. Ask me if you really want to know what I think. I am learning a lot though. I'm getting a little bit of experience with Idrisis, a mapping software program, which is kind of fun. There are also no papers and no mid-term exam. The final is going to be each of us working through a single GIS problem. I don't really know what that's going to entail, but I may just end up with an "A" in this class.

My third class is EC 417U, Women in the Economy. I really like this class a lot. More than I thought I would. The stuff I'm learning is eye-opening and enlightening. Being a male, I never really thought much about most of the gender-related issues of economics. The professor rocks! She is smart, funny, gives engaging and interesting lectures, and seems to really enjoy what she's doing. This is one class where I sometimes wish it was longer. My only actual midterm this quarter is in this class. Tomorrow! I've studied a little bit, but most of the strictly economic information hasn't been new to me, so I'm pretty confident. I'll do a little more studying tonight and tomorrow on the bus or between classes. I do have a pretty sizable paper for this class that counts for a large part of our grade. I've done little more than come up with three pages of source material. I have two more weeks to finish this paper. I really hope I don't wait until the last minute...If I do well on that, I think its likely that I'll get an "A" in this class as well. This might be my first straight "A" quarter at PSU. Knock on wood.

One of the biggest changes this term has been not driving my car AT ALL to get to school. That and having to pay for a Trimet pass (goodbye FreeRail Zone!). It takes about 15 or 20 minutes longer (more if I get on the wrong bus and don't notice for a while - oops!) but I'm generally a lot less stressed and have time to read or study before and after school during my commute. Its really not that bad. Except the part about having to get up earlier.