Three till Seven

I had my Master’s defense this morning, and I’m very glad it’s over. It went well, but one of my committee members was seriously making me nervous with all his very specific questions. I suck at theoretical stuff, and he asked questions like “did your tool produce 2ⁿ or n! pages?” and “can you give a proof why this language is not regular?”. The more I gave him “I dunno” answers, the more grim he looked. I was mentally kind of panicking, with thoughts along the lines of “does he hate my project? he must think I’m so dumb”. After they kicked me out in the hall and my advisor called me back in a few minutes later, though, the committee members were all smiles and congratulations. Pfhew. Now I just wait to receive my diploma in the mail this August (unorganized me didn’t submit the paperwork in time to get the degree this month).

As of this coming Monday, I’ll be done with school. My defense is in the morning, and then I’m through. Provided my committee accepts my Master’s project, but my advisor tells me not to worry. It’s crazy, though: eighteen years of school, and I’m finally done. I don’t think it’s really hit me yet. After my last final the other day, I chatted with a classmate on campus about the final, then just went home. I didn’t even realize that I probably won’t be back to that part of campus or that building for a long time, if ever. Lying in bed this morning, I felt incredibly free, because I realized not only do I have the rest of the weekend free from studying, reading textbooks, and doing homework, I have the foreseeable future free of such activities. I no longer have to balance my time between what I want to do and what my class schedule dictates I do. I can come home from work and immediately go to slacking off on the couch, or exercising at the gym, or whatever, because I don’t have homework due the next day that I’ve been putting off. It’s a lovely feeling.

So I’ve had my iPad 2 for a month now and I thought I’d write about how it’s worked for me. I hope you guys aren’t sick of iPad posts, because I’m all excited about my new baby and want to write about it. :P First the good things.

I downloaded Depict tonight after seeing someone on Reddit suggest it as another multiplayer iPad game like Words with Friends. It was $0.99, and it may be the best $0.99 I’ve spent so far on an app.

In case anyone else has the need to do this, I’ll explain how I converted a .docx file to a PDF on my iPad 2. The fact that I feel the need to write a tutorial on how to do this should be a big hint to the folks at Apple that their file management system, or lack thereof, needs work. :/

I feel like I gave the impression that I’m not enjoying my iPad, or that I regret its purchase. I don’t, and have been having a lot of fun with it. My big grief in the last post deals with stupid corporations, not limitations of the iPad. Anyway, from my few days of using this thing (I’m typing this blog post on it now), here are some of my favorite apps:

UK just lost to Connecticut in the Final Four so I’m cranky anyway, but one thing I’m really starting to find annoying is media limitations on my iPad. Grooveshark has a snazzy new HTML 5 interface, but they still require Flash for the music player. No Grooveshark app exists for either the iPhone or iPad in the App Store, so no Grooveshark for me on my iPad.