Back to School

So I've noticed some changes between Grad School and my previous college experience. For one (and perchance a big ONE) is the demand for papers. As a Computer/Art major, intense papers were never really part of my classload, huge projects: yes, papers: no. So not only will I have to write a nice handful of them this semester, but they'll all have to be much longer than previous requirements. I believe the quote from the syllabus was, "Lets just say less than 5 pages would be drastically inadequate attention to the topic."

Secondly, and almost hand in hand, is the excessive amount of readings I have to do. Our assignment in one of my classes was this: read chapter 1 & 3 from Book A, Chapter 1 from Book B, and the whole Book C. In my other class we have lengthy articles to read and just the titles of some of those are enough to make a grown man cry. But hey, I'll handle it. I've already read my Book B (sample here) readings, I had to read it 2-3 times and take notes, but I got it.

So yeah, that's the schooling update, more to come as things progress. In the meantime I came across a really interesting article on Digg.com about Crocodiles and HIV. The short of it is that Crocs live in one of the most disease and bacteria ridden environments in the world. They get in nasty fights, get torn up and even lose limbs but almost never get an infection. So scientists are studying the blood and do little Virus Celebrity Deathmatches... In this corner Staphylococcus "Staph Infection" Aureus, and in the red corner, the returning champion... Croc Blood!!! So yeah, even up against tough opponents like HIV, croc blood is kicking butt. They haven't figured out how to utilize it with human blood but its a serious step in the right direction.