tonight in my operating systems class we were talking about some material which was relevant to Isilon, so Hank (the prof) asked me before class if i would be willing to come up for a bit and talk about it. he wasn’t sure, but in the middle he did invite me up and i spent about 10 minute talking. i wasn’t real prepared so my “presentation” was poor (non-existent, really) but i did answer some questions. it was exciting. i’ve been in touch with him a bit more about research and it is looking more promising with each communication.

As I think about the mid-term, I realize that at the end of 2006, my direction is undetermined. UW will complete and I am unsure of where I will go from there. Today, I asked my professor if he would take me as a research student for my last quarter. Regardless of his answer, I realized (in the shower) that I need to begin my CS GRE prep (as this will be required for a doctorate application.) I have taken the test once before but did not score well; instead of seeing it as a hurdle in my way, this time I see it as an opportunity to excel. While at the same time that I think about my career, I realize that I need to balance my life more; particularly, I need to exercise my body as well as my mind – and I need to take a short-term focus. Eriko and I have decided to begin going to the pool twice a week. This will put further pressure on me to be organized (and complete class preparation early) as this activity will take approximately 4 hours. In addition, I’ve decided to resume riding my bike to and from work. Finally, I must find a way to excel at Japanese, instead of the bare-minimum I am doing now.

I purchased a memory chip for my sweet keyboard, so I can finally use it with Windows. UNIX supports software keyboard remapping, but Windows doesn’t, so I need hardware remapping so I can use this with my laptop. My hands were starting to ache a little from the cramped laptop keyboard. They’ll also ache a little bit as they readjust to the ergonomic keyboard, but that’s good ache. ;)