It was a loo-oong first day of school yesterday, with “Intro to Systems and Programming” from 9am to 3pm, then “Video and Audio for the Web” from 4pm to 10pm.

That first class was something of a disappointment to me, with the instructor pointing the entire semester towards working in an extremely specialized application whose main underpinnings were in MIDI authoring, and which lacks the capability to compile executables, export data, or post/get data to/from the web — objectives central to my aims for this semester. When the advisor said “Forget the web for this semester,” that was when I decided this class wasn’t for me. The web is where I work, study, play, live, and blog; simply setting it aside for the sake of a nascent and practically-proprietary authoring app is simply not an option.

I’m about to go and fill out a registrar’s form, so I can switch to Sound Design class, which is the other alternative requirement course. Given that, and my Video/Audio for the Web class, this is going to be a very production-oriented semester. (Sad news: the Advanced Network Art elective was cancelled for lack of enrollment. Video/Audio for the Web, however, is a worthy alternative, covering topics like production, post-production, streaming, compression, and web broadcasting. Fun fun.)

At 3:30pm, I present my thesis proposal. Top secret. Very hush-hush. I’d tell you, but then I’d have to Wet-Willy you.