Sunday, September 20, 2009

A Poem

I wrote this poem to my wife while we were still dating. I think I wrote it down during some class that I found especially droll, and I gave it to her shortly thereafter. Today my wife returned home from a trip to her parent's house, and she brought this poem with her.

A Poem
by Robert Whiting (3/25/08)

Well I thought I'd write a poem
in a sentimental way
for your lasting entertainment
at the ending of the... hour.

If it rhymed, it'd be romantic
and it may just make you red,
so I'll modify these lyrics--
it won't sound nice when it's... spoken.

In a poem what's required
but an image or a rhyme?
If you liked it then most likely
I would sing it all the... day.

And I thought I'd write your kindness
into something sweet and true,
but my brain is far too scattered
to write imagery of... Becca.

I think this poem's finished
as your class comes to an end
soon I'll give you all this writing
and this poem you can... repair.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Return to the Code

I always figured that my last semester in college would be packed so full of classes and last minute giant assignments that I wouldn't have time to write a blog entry, let alone have extra-curricular activities.

So far, this semester is looking rather promising. Numerical analysis has complex topics, but they're manageable and interesting. Romans is intriguing yet predictable. World literature is a good introduction into what I might read after I graduate and have time to enjoy some classics, but for the time being, it is bearable.

Software engineering will actually get me somewhere in my career. We've already covered the basics of software design and testing--something I should have learned years ago. The midterm is in a week, and then the whole class will be working together on a grand project as a single company. In networks I'm learning how to watch networks and understand the underlying protocols. Soon, I'll be helping a nonprofit organization restructure their local network with the help of some other computer science majors (an opportunity never before granted).

After four years of ACM members prodding me to join, I finally joined. They showed me how to use Pov-Ray, and today they're doing a demonstration on swarm robotics. Ever since I tried competitive programming, my professors have been asking me each semester to join, and yesterday, I joined. My newly formed team finished two of the programs and successfully submitted one before the time was out. Why did I wait so long to actually get involved?

Work. Homework. Studies. How is it that college could get in the way of my learning so quickly that I missed out on the real learning? Class work provides the tools, but clubs and student organizations provide the hands on experience that make college worth it. Ironic that I pay the college so much and the clubs so little.

I have warned myself before, and I say it again, "do not allow school to get in the way of learning."

Friday, September 4, 2009

The Written Word

Throughout my life I've suffered at the hands of the English language. It may not be apparent in my final drafts, but translating the known word (ideas and concepts) into the spoken word of English (in the American dialect) and then into the written word can be a very frustrating process.

I can only assume that I am not alone in my thought process and frustrations therein. These frustrations rarely come to the surface in conversation because in this country we so frequently go through the grievous process.

I was blessed to grow up bilingual, and it is to my shame that I am no longer bilingual. In the language I grew up around, the known word still had to be translated to the spoken word, but the written word closely mirrored the spoken word. My parents sought to aid me in my frustrations by providing "The Phonics Game" to my tools of syntactic analysis, but there were so many exceptions and foreign words that had been left with their original spellings that the game only applied to an arbitrary half of the language that I needed to master.

I've known all my life that there must be some solution to this problem, and I thought, for most of my life, that it was beyond the bounds of the English language. It wasn't until I began to play with programming languages in my early years of college that I realized that the English language could be adapted to become an easily learned international language. I wasn't the only one to think of it either: Orson Scott Card referenced a language called Common in his Ender's Game series. Common, according to Card, is the "more or less phonetically spelled English language" used as a standard for international communication.

I believe it is possible to create such a standard and blend it into the school systems as the international language. With English as a phonetic language as well as the language of programming, science, and trade, other countries would more quickly accept it as the global trade language.

The English language has the most potential for such a shift (thanks to computer keyboards, no pun intended), but if the English speaking community does not make a move within the decade, Mandarin and Spanish will become the international languages. Mandarin because it is already spoken by over a billion people on the planet as a primary language, and Spanish because it is next in line behind English and quickly spreading throughout North America.