Updating in real-time.

Good morning everybody!

Theatre, amirite? Easily impressed

Well, I don't much care for Shakespeare, but there was a lot of glitz in this interpretation.

more tests

Theatre aggregate, do you understand this post is newer?

test post for aggregate

Test one two!

Thoughts on the article "Text Comprehension and Discourse Processing"

Dear Prof. Blustein- as I am not an official student of 6606, I cannot obtain the Chip server blog access. I figured it would be best to instead post it up on this preexisting blog of mine, that I had a brief interest in back in January.

Jonathan Chase here. I’ll get the ball rolling with the first blog entry regarding the reading. On Sept. 10^th, I received the full outline and introductory reading pack for 6606, and started with Butcher and Kintsch’s “Text Comprehension and Discourse Processing”. I thought it was a great read to get “back in the swing” of reading articles and thinking critically for someone years removed from academia like myself, with subject matter discussing the mental mechanics of how we do precisely that. Internet reference was invaluable, with occasional breaks taken to acquaint myself with the meanings of unfamiliar but ultimately decipherable terms such as “schema”, “homograph”, “modus ponens” and “reified”.

Reading an article about how one reads an article was an interesting experience- one becomes hyper-sensitive to the context of every paragraph based on what you read in the paragraph before. While not impenetrably dense, I found the article slow reading due to stops for metacognition, and frequently found myself analysing (perhaps overanalysing) every nuance- for example, page 581 and 583’s passages regarding writing quality aiding recall lead to a tangent of judgement over the writing quality of the article itself. (In brief, it was “pretty good”.)

The passage on the Construction-Integration Model also struck home with me, and lending conscious thought to the truth that “for a very brief period both meanings of a homonym are activated under certain conditions” lead to an upsurge in seeing double entendre. The following statement that “construction processes during comprehension… are inherently promiscuous” (588) garnered a raised eyebrow, and when this was quickly followed by a paragraph opened with “bottom-up spreading” I couldn’t help but interpret it as an innuendo fit to set an entire ninth-grade class giggling.

This paragraph was the beginning of the passage regarding the “Collaborative Activation-Based Production System Architecture”, where the text veered into much deeper waters. The writer’s tone appeared to change at this point, (perhaps a baton was passed from Ms. Butcher to Mr. Kintsch or vice versa?) and examples seemed to go by wayside in favour of a thick jungle of jargon. My interest wavered and I suddenly became very aware that I was hungry, my knee was sore, and it was in the best interest of the Nation of Mali to annex the neighbouring Dutch.

An hour later I returned to the article, and attempted to comprehend this model. I will confess to having limited success- and that same metacognition lead me to a belief that my own capacity limits were straining on this particular theory, and in-class discussion may aid my own comprehension process. Ironically, it is this same feeling of being “overwhelmed” by the text that lead to a crude (and probably flawed) understanding of the concept of constrained working memory, and a relatively easier time comprehending the following segment regarding “The Capacity Constrained Construction Integration Model”, combining this difficult theory with the more comfortable concept of Construction-Integration.

I was struck by the value judgement that opened the Wordnet passage: “Wordnet is what a dictionary should be.”. It was the first and only statement of that nature in the article. Even in the next segment, regarding Latent Semantic Analysis, the authors refrained from offering approval or disapproval of the software being used for evaluation of grades, a loaded issue that seems to be just begging for value judgement one way or the other.

Make way for Sitting Still

Sitting in Halifax airport cafe right now, waiting for the plane. It's going to be a long one, the weather isn't cooperating. Just got back from "Make Way For Youth" pilot weekend 3, in Sheet Harbour.

For the unitiated, MWFY is the program I've been in for about five months now. Long storey short, it's government funded programs to "reintegrate" skilled young people into rural Nova Scotia, and it's amounted to free flights and tourism. Hooray for marketable skills! My impending reintegration is going to be a damn site more urban than rural, but that's beside the point.

This one involved a bit too much of the old "sit and listen". And sit in the car. And now, sit in the airport (you can only pace so much in an airport before you get put on a watch list, or so I'm told) , and wait so you can sit for another 3 hours. I think my legs are going to atrophy.

BTW, Dubai is amazing. The more I read about it, the more I want to be an obscenely rich Arab real estate mogul. But don't we all?

This will not happen again, right?

Dear Mr. Wisetooth,

It is unfortunate that you left this computer while still logged on to Blogger.

Oh the potential mischief...Not very wise. *shakes head*

Then again, this computer belongs to someone whom you trust completely (fine, maybe 99.9996%).

Lucky this time.

p.s.: This entry contains no clicky linky link-links. Just ain't my thing. Feel free to add some later to give it the full flavour of authenticity, or just for the sake of consistancy.

Route settled

Decided there'll be a big selldown to "moving weight" with the personal belongings, and fire the rest up by train. Feels good to have an exit strategy hammered out. New birth certificate's in the works from PEI, and the passport app is done. Seems like things are all adding up nicely.

Ship Happens

Got a quote from a different Allied Movers affiliate that smokes Tippet-Richardsons by $650. They have the ground-breaking logistical innovation of "putting my stuff in a truck with other peoples things going the same way". Real rocket scientists this bunch. Tippet could take notes.

Thanks for the welcomes Kyle, and in regards to cube-vans and the like, it's a very real option. Trouble is, the distance I'm going the cost works out to only a few hundred less than having it moved... and the downside of, y'know, spending 29 hours driving a cube-van. Add in any possible complications or delays that may arise during a late February cross-Canada drive and the math starts looking a little unappealing. But they say long-haul trucking builds character. And hemorrhoids.

In non mesh-backed news, I made my pending ending of employment official today, with the "here's the date" announcement to management. (Feb 23rd last day) Gives adequate time to get my house in order, get a couple weeks of job shadow for whoever inherits my accounts so the transition is smooth like five blades , with the precision of one. I'm feeling really good about how disengaging from the company is going, very much on the best of terms with a clear invitation to come back in the future or go international if it's in the cards. You never know, eh?

Tricky Extrication

I'm finding it real hard to find a proper mover to go back to NS.

I'm in this shady nether-region where I've got too much stuff to move in the car, and can't really sell myself down to a movable load. (especially since some of it, namely the bed and desk, I need right up to my last day, with the roomate moving out ahead leaving with no couch) And still, it's too much to really effectively ship via the train or Greyhound.
But it's not quite enough to justify a mover... Tippet-Richardson did a site assessment but doesn't really want to do the job, cause it's at their lowest end in terms of their size and not really worth their while even if they gouge me, oh and gouge me they can.

To make matters worse, the roommate's situation's getting pretty unbearable. The grievances aren't even founded in REALITY anymore. My next roommate's going to be a robot. Logic, flawless recollect, and an inability to bend facts. This needs to end.

The plan as it stands

So, I'm currently in Toronto, planning my escape back to Nova Scotia. It's been a great 3 years in the T-Dot, whole lotta learning, but it's time to go. It's 2007, and I've got my Dell savings in the bank, my transferrable skills, and a burning desire to be my own man again.

As it stands now, the plan is:

1) Move back East when the lease expires in March

2) Do Europe for 2 months with Ching after she finishes her MCAT.

3) Spend a few weeks on digging up the buried treasure quite possibly in the woods behind my grandparents camp on the Miramichi. (No, I'm not kidding!) I'll elaborate on this when the time comes. In the meantime, you claim jumpers can stay off my land. :-)

4) Get Masters of Electronic Commerce from Dalhousie in Halifax starting in September.



1, 2, and 3 are entirely contingent on number 4. I think if you don't have a concrete plan with what you're going to do to keep moving forward professionally, all the Don Quixote amateur archeology and back-pack globetrotting in the world need to go on the back-burner. But, as I've got this sorted out pretty good, this'll be the first time in my life I've ever had more than a few weeks to "do my own thing".

I've gone directly from high school to university, to university to industry... the concept of having half a calender year to... grow spiritually(??) is exciting as all get out.

Following a lovely round of dental surgery, I find myself stuck at home, for the most part mute, and certainly too full full of codeine to drive anywhere. What's a guy to do? Start a blog, evidently.

I'm sure given time this blog will have
1) A layout
2) A topic

and maybe even

3) A readership!


In the interim, I'll just put items up here as they catch my interest, maybe a little personal info.