Summer Week 4

Another week comes to an end.

Leadership

The final push to complete this class has begun. The 4th class was decent. As with the previous week, there were three presentations. The first one was about corporate ethical conduct. As expected, the group discussed Sarbanes-Oxley and provided some examples of proper conduct as well as unethical conduct. The second group discussed forming character in the military. It was a very interesting presentation. They emphasized that the military tries to break each person and then build them up again according to standards. While they are building them up, they try to instill in them the proper character of a soldier. This was an interesting presentation in light of the recent on-going investiagations in the war in Iraq. The third presentation was about social entrepreneurship. It was an OK presentation. What was really funny about this one was that the group mentioned Ben & Jerry's and how that company tries to import materials from 3rd world countries. After they finished presenting, they informed us that they had brought some ice cream (trying to influence us on our feedback forms). Anyway, Dr. Rasberry is talking to them and the class when one of the presenters starts to get the ice cream ready! Rasberry is trying to tell us something vastly important about ethics and this guy is over there getting the ice cream out of the ice chest ... making noise ... dropping spoons ... unwrapping cups and Rasberry kind of glances over and the student keeps going! One of the other presenters notices and he just puts his hand over his eyes in disbelief. It was kind of comical.

The rest of the time, Rasberry talked about ethics. We talked about Stew Leonard too ... that is an interesting story.

It was a good class.

This week(end) will be busy. I have to watch Gandi, write a paper on it, read 3 chapters and get ready for our group presentation (in two weeks). Fun.

Database

The fun begins. We've left the basics of Excel and Access and now we're getting into referential integrity and normalization. This is still a review for me, but I am learning a few new things. I finished my 2nd homework after the game last night.

We still havn't had our official quiz yet. We may very well one next week.

Quixote Update

I'm still reading it. I need to read about 8 pages a night to finish it before I begin The Circles.

Chess Update

If anyone is reading this, you may know that I created another blog to track my progress with Michael De La Maza's program. His program just isn't about doing 1000 tactics 7 times. Before doing that, he suggests doing some vision drills for a few weeks. To remain true to his program and to honestly test his theory, I am going to go through these drills.

I played a few games with my friend from school. He won twice and we drew once. Upon review, I should have won the two games I lost. He is a very good player ... much more consistent than I am. You can review those games by clicking on the link 'My Recent Blitz Games.'