Hi all a' ya'll out in SG land!
The past few weeks have been busy. Trying to juggle a couple of classes and full time work isn't easy to say the least - being a grown up sucks! I've been going out but not as much as I would like since I'm taking these classes and have a lot of labs, assignments, and tests pretty much all the time.
I'm taking some UNIX and Cisco networking classes and I'm definitely more in tune with the UNIX class. The Cisco class has excellent content but you have to sign into like 3 sites to do the assignments and labs and login to a 4th site to pull the page which tells you which assignment is due and when. Lame shit if you ask me.
I've also just started speed reading. Normally I have the reading comprehension of a 5 year old so I thought about it and looked up ways to speed read.
I think my average starting out was something like 210 words a minute (rather average) and only after a day of using some software, my reading has jumped up to a consistent 320 words a minute. My comprehension has improved greatly too. Definitely well worth $20. It's nice because it has a lot of eye training, perception (ie: seeing several words at the same time), and comprehension exercises. After about an hour of exercises, I opened my networking book. Normally I'm pushing zzzzzz's within a paragraph but tonight I was able to read 18 pages in about 20 minutes and more or less remember what I read. I did have to go back and read a couple of pages which I didn't fully understand but that's just fine since I was able to get as far as I did.
Anyway, I helped a friend move out in the Mission this past weekend. His spot is pretty sweet and is still fairly close to Mission's epicenter but far enough where he can actually park on the street. It's got a sick view of the Mission/Noe Valley area and we had beers on his rooftop watching the sun set. It was really amazing since that is the first sun set I've seen in SF.
If anybody is interested in speed reading: http://www.readingsoft.com/freader.html
Runs only on Windows XP or earlier so all you Mac users are SOL unless you're using VMWare or Boot Camp w/ an XP instance.
Cheers,
Niko
The past few weeks have been busy. Trying to juggle a couple of classes and full time work isn't easy to say the least - being a grown up sucks! I've been going out but not as much as I would like since I'm taking these classes and have a lot of labs, assignments, and tests pretty much all the time.
I'm taking some UNIX and Cisco networking classes and I'm definitely more in tune with the UNIX class. The Cisco class has excellent content but you have to sign into like 3 sites to do the assignments and labs and login to a 4th site to pull the page which tells you which assignment is due and when. Lame shit if you ask me.
I've also just started speed reading. Normally I have the reading comprehension of a 5 year old so I thought about it and looked up ways to speed read.
I think my average starting out was something like 210 words a minute (rather average) and only after a day of using some software, my reading has jumped up to a consistent 320 words a minute. My comprehension has improved greatly too. Definitely well worth $20. It's nice because it has a lot of eye training, perception (ie: seeing several words at the same time), and comprehension exercises. After about an hour of exercises, I opened my networking book. Normally I'm pushing zzzzzz's within a paragraph but tonight I was able to read 18 pages in about 20 minutes and more or less remember what I read. I did have to go back and read a couple of pages which I didn't fully understand but that's just fine since I was able to get as far as I did.
Anyway, I helped a friend move out in the Mission this past weekend. His spot is pretty sweet and is still fairly close to Mission's epicenter but far enough where he can actually park on the street. It's got a sick view of the Mission/Noe Valley area and we had beers on his rooftop watching the sun set. It was really amazing since that is the first sun set I've seen in SF.
If anybody is interested in speed reading: http://www.readingsoft.com/freader.html
Runs only on Windows XP or earlier so all you Mac users are SOL unless you're using VMWare or Boot Camp w/ an XP instance.
Cheers,
Niko
My little study tip (and it involves alcohol too!):
After a few days, I'm absolutely happy with my quick progress with the lame but challenging exercises. If you do get the software:
1) Do the exercises, then:
2) Grab a drink (optional but much more fun) and don't read anything for a half hour or so - I'll catch an episode of whatever anime or Seinfeld I may be watching, then:
3) Find a random book you have laying around, open to any page and speed read a few paragraphs then ask yourself what you just read.
Smiles,
Niko