My Edx.com Scholarship ran out

 I had guessed that I could continue to complete any course I had enrolled in. At least, any course I had started. I was wrong. 

The nine courses in the Data Science package, all taught by the same Harvard Professor, were horrible. Well, the ones I got through, in any case. This professor is about the worst I have EVER seen at the post-secondary level. I was not surprised that the course was written around his book. At least I didn't have to pay for the book separately. 

When faced with paying for these dreadful courses, I decided that Data Science was not for me. I posted some rather critical messages on the discussion boards, and one of the staff members tried to defend what I felt was a clear error. 

Do you recall learning the "quadratic formula?" The one for finding the solutions to a quadratic equation. The latter being: ax^2+bx+c = 0. Quadratic is a word reserved for an equation with x^2, x, and a constant. 

There was a series of values that were the result of an exponential equation but not precisely a quadratic equation. When I pointed that out to her, she said the equation they used resulted in the sequence, didn't it? Sure, it did, but that didn't make it quadratic. In the lecture, the professor said it's quadratic. 

There was a mathematician who adopted the nome de plume of "student," and a statistical test he developed came to be called the "Student's T-test." The professor insisted on calling that "Student T-test." A Harvard Professor should know the correct name for that particular test. I posted that on the discussion board as well.

As soon as I accumulated enough points to pass the course and receive the certificate, they pushed me out of the course, and I arrived at the place where I could claim my certificate. There were some problems I had not completed, and I missed out on the opportunity to learn that part of the course.

There was one group of problems I simply did not understand. I decided to go through the course and request the answers to the problems I could not solve. I saved the source code for the correct answers, and in the end, I unenrolled from the course. I intended to take it over, and if the problems were the same, I would use the saved solutions as my guide. They postponed the following access to the course to a future date, which was after my scholarship was to expire. They really didn't like having me around.

For anyone familiar with CS50 at Harvard, the biggest course at Harvard in terms of the number of students. You know the professor's name: David Malin. He is the most amazing teacher I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. 

When that professor created another course, Malin offered enthusiastic words of promotion. I sent Malin an email about my experience and was not surprised that I did not get a response.

As part of my MBA program, I had to take a course in business statistics. Two teachers offered the course, and we were told that one was far more demanding. "How hard could business math be?" I asked myself. I signed up for the demanding teacher. I did get an A grade, but I learned that business math can, indeed, be HARD! I kept the textbook and still have it now, thirty-four years later.

A year after I got my MBA degree (paid for by Boeing Computer Services,) my wife enrolled in the same MBA program and asked me which business statistics teacher she should choose. I recommended the teacher I had and got hell for that from my wife. Like most students, she was there for the piece of paper while I was there for the knowledge I wanted to acquire. Eventually, she divorced me, but not for that reason. "Go know!" My wife had a bachelor's in Math from Brooklyn College and an MA in Math Education. She had been a math teacher at a Catholic Girl's High School and then worked for Computer Sciences Corp at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. 

Random Update of my activities:

Today, I kicked off the September issue of the Tucson Mensa monthly newsletter. I take the previous month's file and update the center-fold calendar grid and the event details. The latter is typically two pages.

Now that I am the Local Secretary (LocSec,) which is the top administrative position, I write a one-page article in the newsletter. The previous LocSec wrote interesting little stories that did not seem to have anything to do with Mensa, and I decided to do better. Now, in my second year, I'm finding it rather difficult to find Mensa-related things to bring to the attention of the group members. Consider that to be my learning.

My wife, having passed the national test for Pharmacy Technicians, became eligible for a state license. As we live in Arizona, I took care of the application process, and she has that license. Little did I know how tedious it would be sitting and applying for jobs with her. Three or four times, she has been turned down. Today, she had a brief phone interview which led to a video interview scheduled for tomorrow. 

On my job-seeking front, I have decided to redirect my career to cybersecurity, and I'm studying online to prepare. cybrary.it seemed like a good place to study, and having exhausted their free offerings, I am paying the monthly fee. I don't want this to go on for too long. I'm aggressive about studying. Right now, I am stuck at the end of a lab session because the labs get "graded" afterward, and I cannot proceed to the next unit of study until I "complete" this one. But to complete it, it has to be graded. If I cannot proceed tomorrow, I will open a support ticket.

On the "home front," a recent very windy rainfall with hail broke two limbs on my big African tree that has thorns all over the trunk and limbs. The two limbs did not break off completely. I bought a long pole cutting saw and cut one free. It's hanging there, tangled in the other one. That one took a huge effort of slow cutting, and I had to leave it still attached. Today, there was just enough wind to break it off completely. So now, both cut-off branches are tangled in the tree and suspended high up. How to get them to come down safely is the next challenge. I think I need to tie a rope on one branch and pull it down. But I don't have a rope, and the pole cutter already cost me a bit over $50. I'll have to buy a rope and then figure out how to tie it to one branch. I would prefer to avoid climbing my ladder up that high. But it might come to that.

Jam

 I am remiss! I should have publicly congratulated my wife on her being sworn in as a US Citizen. That happened on Friday, April 7, in the Federal District Court in Tucson, AZ.

When she received the appointment date by email and snail mail, she said it felt like an anticlimax, and she wasn't excited about it.

When I agreed with that, I found myself in a bit of trouble! <Sigh>

Nothing much has happened since then, and life hasn't changed noticeably. Why would it? I did nearly all the work of getting her IR1 visa and then the citizenship application. I even attested that "nobody helped me to fill in this application form." Nobody did, but that's not what they meant by the question.  

The next challenge is to get a certified copy of her naturalization certificate, which we can send with a passport application. We don't want to let loose of the original. This turns out to be a bit complicated. In one place, we are advised that it is illegal to make a photocopy of the certificate. In another place, we are instructed to make a photocopy and bring that along with a passport application to some "acceptance" place where they will certify the copy and accept the passport application. There are two kinds of "acceptance" places; only one accepts the passport application. The other sort packs it up and mails it for you to the REAL acceptance office. That second sort of place cannot make a certified copy.

Does that sound like fun? Do you wonder why I refer to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) as a branch of the Gestapo? To describe them as arrogant doesn't begin to describe them. Dealing with them has been a hell that began in late November 2017 when we mailed her application from Taiwan. Most of the time was waiting for the backlog of work at every location where the application kept being transferred. There were so many different steps and each at a different location. 

Could we be through with those people? I sure hope so. I don't remember how I got my first passport in June of 1974. If I had to get a copy of my birth certificate, It should be somewhere here but WHERE?

I don't remember seeing that any time recently. Now, all I need when I renew my passport is my unexpired old passport. I keep my passport renewed because I don't want the hassle of starting all over again. My most recent passport is one I renewed in Taiwan, and I have used it ONLY to travel from there to the US and not since. I have used it to prove my eligibility to hold a job here, but that can be done with less than a passport.

What have I been up to, neglecting my blog for so long?

 From the little piece of the Catholic church I was exposed to at Saint Joseph Parish, I'm happy to be out of there. It's run like the military (not that I've been in,) with everything flowing from the top to the bottom and there is no time or desire for information flow in the other direction. 

The last staff meeting I attended was, supposedly, for the principal to explain the reasons behind the new dress code regulations. There was no explanation. The math teacher declared his subservience as: "you make the rules and we follow them!" The principal, whose face was so amazingly telling, gloated with satisfaction, hearing that. 

I, on the other hand, was reminded of the first Mass I attended as an employee. The local parish priest called the principal up to a speakers podium and asked her: "Who has the final say about everything that happens in this parish? "You do!" pandered the principal. "Yes, that's right!" gloated the priest.

The reality, of course, was quite different as it was the Bishop, located downtown, who always had the last say. But the priest was, it turned out, trying to establish his superiority so that nobody would ever consider escalating an issue to the Diocese Office. 

I had always imagined that priests were dedicating their lives to the care of their "flock." The flock being the members of the parish. Imagine my surprise when the priest, at another mass, warned the students not to challenge the rules because if they did, the matter would be escalated to him to deal with and, he added: "Let me assure you that you don't want that to happen!" What a pathetic little nothing he turned out to be. 

After leaving Saint Joe's, I've had two short jobs. The first was as a Computer Science Teacher at Basis North Tucson. I was rather surprised at the interview, which went so extremely well. I asked if I was a "Viable Candidate" and the immediate reply was: "Oh yes, indeed you ARE!"

They took zero time to discuss their (the three of them) opinions of me. During the training period, all sorts of obstacles were thrown in my path. I struggled along until classes began and only then did I realize they were trying to get me to quit. My best guess is the principal had a friend lined up at a salary the business did not want to pay. By getting me to quit, the system was forced to accept the originally desired teacher. The last time I checked, that principal (called the "Head of School" in the Basis system) was no longer there. I wonder what that was all about.

My next, and even shorter job, was as an IT Support person. The head of IT, after an in-person interview, sent an email asking me to come back again the next day for a second interview. There he told me he had arranged with is boss to create a special position for me with greater responsibilities. I was to be an IT Specialist II, he was a III and my colleagues were all I's. Only the "Team Lead" was also a II. It seems she did not like me having the same rank that she had and after a short time she managed to get me pushed out. The explanation was: higher manager had rejected the new position and it was terminated. That was the end of July, 2022 and I've been applying for jobs ever since. 

I wanted to get back into IBM Mainframes as a Systems Programmer, but IBM has moved on quite a bit and my skills are deemed to be too outdated now. 

Another option came to light just recently. It seems that cybersecurity is the hot growing specialty and Udacity, an online education business, announced a coming scholarship program sponsored by Udacity and Bertelsmann, a German company. To apply, you study a short course, and then take a qualifying test. I passed the test and was accepted into the Cybersecurity "nanodegree." nano, being the prefix for a very small entity. This entity, which most people would call a "certificate" was intended as a basic introduction to cybersecurity. Everywhere I look, they remind us that this training is not sufficient for us to get a job in cybersecurity but that additional training was definitely necessary. 

What Udacity has done is package together four of their existing courses each with a culminating project/assignment. At this point I have completed three and my culminating projects have been accepted. (They can be submitted multiple times - a giveaway at best.) I have also completed the fourth course but I'm procrastinating on the project as it's such a bore! Somehow, I have GOT to get to that and get it written. This one has no "hands-on" computer element; it all writing and nothing but writing. 

From the above, you can conclude that I can write if I want to. It's just that Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance are not my favored topics. At least I know exactly what in Cybersecurity I definitely DON'T WANT TO DO! (It's a good thing for anyone to know.)

Tomorrow morning, I have a phone interview coming up. It's a defense contractor and they will sponsor me for a top secret clearance. Those are expensive and having one is a ticket to hundreds of jobs. Most companies don't want to sponsor clearances. I would guess I have submitted 200 - 300 job applications for which I've had about 10 interviews. This interview was requested in an email that stated: "...you are very fortunate to have made it this far in the hiring process."

We shall see if I clear the next hurdle.

 I've been neglecting my blog, which neglect I justify by the low probability of anyone reading or otherwise caring about what I write here.

My wife, whom I write about frequently, passed the interview and civics questions for her application to become a US Citizen. The very same day, USCIS notified her that all of the details for her application were in order and were accepted. She now needs only to wait to be scheduled for the swearing-in ceremony, culminating in her becoming an official US Citizen with the right to vote in all elections. Her score was 100%!

I congratulate my wife on her performance under pressure!