Thursday September 3

Finally, I'm starting to make some progress in this joint. The last few entries I've been bemoaning (to put it nicely, more accurately would be bitching) about my job and how I've basically just been doing busy work for the last two days. That changed yesterday. It started out like a normal, waste of time day until I got some much clearer instructions as to what I'm supposed to be doing. Basically, I'm trying to replicate the US News & World Report college rankings using their data and their formulas. The trick, however, is that US News doesn't release ALL the data. Some of it we have to get from other sources.

I went over their methodology and it's surprisingly involved, with lots of formulas and z-score calculations. I think it is doable, but on only a 10hr/week schedule, I will need to make the most out of my time with it.

I didn't mention this before, but I feel that, as an aspiring movie buff, my historical knowledge of film is, well, pathetic. So I decided to undertake a project to educate myself on the history of film. I'm starting with Roger Ebert's great movies list, about 100 or so important movies, then I might (stress might) dip into the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die List, but that's a ways down the road.

Today is going to be a bitch. 4 classes in one day. I'm usually pretty brain dead by the end of it and pretty much good for nothing the whole rest of the night. But oh well, Thursday is my last serious day of the week anyway, with the rest of the days left to just clean up what I didn't do before.

Cheers!