For some reasons (curiosity included) I started taking a few technical classes after work hours. Not thinking much ahead of time, I enrolled in three J2EE classes this quarter.

Three, I thought. Not bad, shouldn’t be that bad. After all, I used to take seven classes in high school, right? Right…

I forgot there are fundamental differences between university extension and high school classes. First of all, smaller classes. Second, much older folks, with one class full of gray hair respectable seniors who have experiences from IBM, to DBA, to VB, to 10 years of Java. Third, homework for each class takes much longer…

I cannot remember how I studied back in the days. I took so many classes, and I am pretty sure that I had at least two or three assignments due each day. Somehow I managed to read and finish all the work. But now, I feel so tired even just after one week of class. 9-5 on Saturday, that was exhausting!

I am not complaining about the classes. I just don’t know how I exactly feel about them right now. They are fun. I feel the thirst to learn everything that the instructors can teach. I guess it is just that the books are… intimidating… scary… o_O” Each one is about 600 pages long… 10 weeks for 1800 pages, actually not that bad. But I still need to figure out the new servers and tools we are using. That takes forever, too.

I am learning log4j and junit now. Luckily we are using Tomcat and Eclipse, which at least I am no stranger to. But I know, with my perfectionism, I will spend much more time than necessary for any homework. I like to not only have functional homework, but with clean codes, documentation, improvement on design, and some testing. And of course, playing with CSS, which I had wanted to master for some time. These are completely unnecessary for the classes, but it is just my habit I guess. My friend described me as an “overachiever,” in a sarcastic way. But I am not trying to be a teacher’s pet. I just love doing those things. How I hate that about myself…

Here are two snapshots of my homework. =)

Oh I even spent time creating that background from scratch, edited from a picture I took. That was fun, too. ;p

How I love playing with stuff. Silly me.