Today marks the first day of my twenty-six years of living that I spent time inside a college classroom and on a college campus. (There was one time I attended an Indian classical music concert with my dad at MIT, but I was young and barely remember it.) I'm taking the Introduction to C/Unix/CGI Programming class at Harvard Extension. As I walked around campus on the first day of class, I very quickly observed how different things felt from the "normal world".

My perspective is probably somewhat unique in that I have been around business for as long as I can remember. My parents have always owned their own business and I myself just went through being a landlord for a few years and then lost all three of my houses to foreclosure. I also had my own consulting business going for awhile. Being home-schooled my whole life also meant that I saw nothing of the public school system.

The atmosphere of being on campus felt very unfamiliar to me -- almost alien. I was only a few hundred feet from streets I had driven on every day for the past few years and yet I felt as if I was on a different planet. It's a hard feeling to describe. As I stood there looking around, I could almost fool myself into believing I was in the middle of a utopian alien society where everything was about peace, harmony, learning, and knowledge. (Then I turned around, looked across the street, and saw all the money-hungry shops trying to buy your soul. I was quickly reminded that I am, in fact, still on Earth. Damn.)

As strange and different as the atmosphere felt, it also felt relaxing -- like there was nothing to do except learn and relax. I was able to walk into a building and have instant access to dozens upon dozens of computers just waiting for me to login and start using them for whatever constructive thing I needed to do. Everything outside was clean and there were plenty of benches and places to sit.

But my perspective is flawed. The company where I work is paying for the class and I'm sure things wouldn't feel quite as "free" and relaxing if I had student loans riding on my back. But that should say something for the current system. Imagine what society would be like if all education was free. Imagine the atmosphere it would create. People learning because they want to learn and because they can learn. Not learning because they want to make money and get an awesome job to pay off their student loans. No, learning because they want to create, explore, and evolve. Learning because it's fun. Learning to learn.

It's frustrating when I'm looking for a good FOSS app and the best one I can find was developed by non-native English-speaking developers.

How to become an astronaut is an interesting article. It describes the risks to consider (which definitely made me reassess my desire for space travel) and the kind of education path required to apply.

As of late, I've been spending more of my free time reading and doing yoga/stretching. One of my 2008 New Years resolutions was to read one book a month. Since that definitely hasn't happened, I thought it made the most sense to make my first cover-to-cover read for this year a book about getting things done: Getting Things Done by David Allen.

In what is being called a "historic government takeover", Freddie Mac and Freddie Mae have been taken over by the U.S. Government. Together, the two companies back $5 trillion in home loans. This move certainly shows how serious the financial situation is for the United States.

I heard an awesome song on the radio this morning by Toots & The Maytals. The song is called Sit Down Now from the Funky Kingston album and was released in 1973. It's age probably explains why finding a torrent for it was so difficult. All the music on the album is awesome. It's technically reggae, but it's unlike any reggae I've heard.

I played volleyball two days in a row (yesterday and the day before) at my brother-in-law's house and now my feet, and body, are so sore. I like playing sports barefoot because I sprain my ankles easily when I wear shoes. However, after I stubbed my big toe and obtained a quarter-size blister on the other, I decided shoes were needed for the second day. My body feels so stiff -- this isn't what I should feel like at twenty-six. I need to commit to a daily two hour running and stretching routine and stick with it.