Beyond Binary

I have been working on Parchment, a new OS that seeks to change the way users interact with their files, through a sponsored capstone, and so far the journey has been interesting. We started out with a team of 7, then down to 5, then just me. I have joined the Campus team for Parchment, which has been a bit of a pivot but overall great! I wish the best for my Ecampus team on their new project, and I’m looking forward to working on Parchment.

So far, my work with Parchment has mostly been environment setup and getting familiar with the code base. There’s already a pretty significant amount of functional elements, and the project uses Electron, so I have been getting some experience with new technologies, which I really appreciate.

As far as feedback on the course, I think overall it’s been great! I’ve appreciated the assistance from the instructional team, especially as things have gotten chaotic with transitioning to the Campus team. I really appreciate the opportunity to learn new technologies and libraries from my Capstone project. I’m also currently taking Intro to Networks, and during this past week I’ve taken such a deep dive into different transmission protocols that I can’t even use the Internet without imagining every single packet travelling worldwide just to show me images of cats. I’m also taking Programming Language Fundamentals, and the past few lessons have focused on learning Raku. I genuinely never thought I’d be learning so many new things all at once!

I honestly wish I had some groundbreaking life hacks for handling stress. I work full time and take a full load of courses, which has been a lot. I’ve seen some of my classmates mention they also have kids on top of a similar schedule, and I cannot imagine that stress. I’m grateful that I can handle the amount of stress I have, and (in the least suck-up way possible) I’m very fortunate to have some very understanding professors. On the off chance that any member of an instructional team reads this, I cannot stress my (experience-informed) opinion enough: flexible deadlines are a lifesaver in a program where most students have multiple obligations outside of school.

As basic as this is, I think the thing that helps me is carving out time for recreation, regardless of how behind I am or how little I feel like doing something ‘fun’ when I’m stressed out. Forcing myself to play a game for an hour, or watch a show or movie, or even just take a nap after work, is truly the only hack I have for getting this far. If I could go back to the beginning of my professional and educational careers and tell myself one thing, it would be to make time for myself because nobody else will do it for you.

In conclusion, I’m very excited to learn more about Parchment, to start learning Ruby in my Programming Languages course, and to work more in earnest with my Campus team. This week I had some family obligations that allowed me a bit of time on the beach (wow, what a sad little life) in North Carolina, and I was blown away by how beautiful it was. There’s so little light pollution that the stars are so vivid!

“The moon is set

and the Pleiades; Middle of

the night, time passes by,

I lie alone.”

— Sappho

Wow, my first post! It seems not just fitting to leave the title as the default, but almost necessary. I can’t remember exactly where I read this, but I’d never dream of displeasing the gods by not having my first anything in CS start with “Hello world!”. 

A little bit about me. My name is Hunter (they/them, hence the blog’s title 😏). Originally from Western Colorado, I moved to Oregon as a teen, got my Associate’s of Science at Mt. Hood Community College, and am working on my Bachelor’s of Science at OSU all the way from upstate New York.

Originally, I wanted to be a doctor. I spent most of my adult life working in the medical field in preparation for this. However, at one point I realized the thing I loved most about my work: seeing how people interact with technology. A well-designed program could make a job 100x easier, and a poorly-designed one often caused more headaches than it solved.

I suppose this should’ve made sense. I spent a lot of time with my grandma as a little kid, who taught Business Computing at a high school. At the end of every school year I would help her tear down her classroom: disconnect computers, wipe hard drives, etc. Then, at the end of summer, we’d put it all back together again. I learned a lot about computer hardware, basic OS functions, and various programs, before I could even read. Computers have been a big part of my life, and over the course of this degree path I have developed an even deeper appreciation (and, dare I say, love) for them.

My journey in Computer Science has had a lot of ups and downs. Pivoting from healthcare to CS was difficult to say the least, and, couple that with working full-time and trying my best to have some semblance of a social life, there’s been a large adjustment curve. However, here I am at the start of my senior year, having accomplished some things that would’ve seemed downright magical at the beginning of my education. I’m really looking forward to this projects series! I see this as an opportunity to push myself to learn new technologies, to showcase the skills I have acquired over the past 2 years, and to produce something I can truly be proud of.

I currently work as a helpdesk technician in an agency that provides residential and community services to people with developmental disabilities, which has been an eye-opening experience. In my (increasingly sparse) free time, I love playing video games, watching movies and TV with my spouse, exploring the area around us (we’ve been on some really beautiful hikes), and trying to teach myself game dev as a hobby.

Here, where the world is quiet;

Here, where all trouble seems

Dead winds’ and spent waves’ riot

In doubtful dreams of dreams;

I watch the green field growing

For reaping folk and sowing,

For harvest-time and mowing,

A sleepy world of streams.

–The Garden of Proserpine, Algernon Charles Swinburne

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45288/the-garden-of-proserpine