The causes of a good mood…

…because not all gift horses bite.

I’m fighting with Visual C++ 6.0 and working on this app for Dr. M that is requiring, essentially, translation from old Borland classes to STL equivalents that I myself am not familiar with, since we used proprietary Advanced Placement classes in high school. I know, though, that with enough time and persistence, I can figure out the GUI and event managers in Visual C++ and get this thing running again. Why Microsoft couldn’t make this shit as simple as it is in Visual Basic, I don’t know. Probably since the code will always be the most important aspect for any C++ coder, while GUI design always came first when we did VB.

So that’s fun. These types of puzzles I like.

I had very little interaction with Bridget this morning, which also got my day off to a good start. That sounds bad, but things are at the point now where every conversation becomes an opportunity for both of us to get in as many snide snipe-y attacks as we can, and it’s just damn annoying, although I’m being just as vicious as she is. Add on to that her new tendency to interrupt whatever I’m saying with “Huh?” (a major pet peeve of mine) and her childish overcompensation for my one-time request for the air to be turned down a little by keeping the air off and the window open on windless days, and the less we see each other, the better. At least she’s suffering from that last more than I am, since I can always leave and do work in the Thorn office. But she’s burning even me out at night, making it difficult to sleep.

So a lack of that, combined with a pleasantly social breakfast, started my day well.

Add on to this the extra time I’ve had to put on the clock this week at work due to long calls, and the little boost I can expect on the early-summer paycheck.

Then there’s the fact that I’m not rushing to finish Calculus homework because I got it done all this weekend–before the lesson was taught. At the beginning of the term, I expressed doubt that I would enjoy Calculus on the basis of a math major‘s suggestion. I officially sit corrected. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m finding all this stuff ridiculously easy, but it’s kinda fun, even if it doesn’t really seem to have practical applications. I do feel like quite the tool when I get a kick out of (or simply breeze through) working some double integration problem while the perpetually-confused alky sitting next to me gives me this look of complete horror as she stumbles to find the limits of the region. But that’s okay. I suspect it’ll catch up with me in the three friggin’ math courses I have fall of next year (Differential Equations, Discrete and Combinatorial Algebra, and Statistics, all one hour right after the other, no breaks.)

Then there’s the fact that my roommate situation next year is looking up. The rooms in the residence hall I’ll be living in have ridiculously high ceilings, so Hillary and I are going to buy a deck that turns the room into, essentially a split-level. There will be a single-level entry, then the room will have an upper level six feet off the ground that will be Hillary’s space, while I keep the ground floor. There will be separate lighting systems for nighttime working, separate space for friends/boyfriends/whatever, the floor space of the room practically doubles, and the setup is such that I won’t be in a cave even though I’m under the deck. It is a $50 to $75 expense I hadn’t planned on, but it’s worth it.

I’m finding myself keeping up with the news a lot more than I used to. I don’t read the newspaper so much, but I get RSS updates from several sections of BBC News. Add on commentary from Uppity-Negro.com (caustic and bitter, but enlightening) and (new on my list) The Liquid List, and I’m feeling kinda informed. And proud myself for actually being interested in something outside of my own little bubble, since I do tend to retreat into LissaWorld rather frequently. What my tenth grade world history teacher struggled to do for nine months, I finally do on my own with the help of a good syndication manager. Hmph.

I also got a good giggle out of “Living Down to a Low Standard“, a review of GNOME 2.6. The harshness of my review of this weekend’s show had nothing on this thing. Of course, I haven’t been a fan/user of GNOME in quite a few years, so I am both unqualified to judge the accuracy of the review and slightly pleased by it. I’m mean like that.

Off to a ridiculously early lunch and more classes.