I read three or four entries at wikipedia about systems science

I got a little worried about studying for the fall so spent some study time reading at wikipedia.org the background of systems science and systems theory, another word for this science. I found the International Society for the Systems Sciences organization for professionals in systems science and considered joining this coming week. This is their home page http://www.isss.org. I read about famous systems scientists and their writings at both web sites.

I have been marking tests the past few mornings.

I completed marking about 100 tests for one question concerning a histogram and one question concerning a stem and leaf plot. I still have to mark some calculations for this set of data and also a box plot.

I am not going to be studying in an MA program in legal studies.

I got a letter from the law department saying I was not admitted to a legal studies MA at Carleton. I am now back to just being happy to be able to study in graduate school anywhere in my city. But wait there is more. I am now possibily going to join the camp that says the U of O is a better school as evidenced by their admitting little ol' me with my strengths to grad school where Carleton would not. I feel the U of O may have treated me with more fairness and assessed my record in a more balanced fashion whereas at Carleton I believe it may have only been my grades that mattered. Perhaps I should have left Carleton 24 years ago when I first started to have trouble there with my marks affecting the decisions and not my abilities and professional experience.

In another way of looking at this, I have always been a keen computer student and user and programmer. I am only now in my middle life finally entering a program of study of the computer. Perhaps this is in fact a further refinement of my looking within myself to see what I truly enjoy and respect.

I have three marking assignments right now.

I have to mark a test of about 100 students. I also have two assignments to mark this week. I need to get working on this but I have also been managing to clean our apartment, do some carpentry and look for work. So I have work to do as a teaching assistant.

Reading about social networks.

I searched out some books on schizophrenia at the school library. I read this chapter of a book last night.

Abrahamson, David. Social Networks and their Development in the Community in France, Jenny, & Muir, Niki. Communication and the Mentally Ill Patient: Developmental and Linguistic Approaches to Schizophrenia (London: Jessica Kingsley, 1997).

The author looks at some housing options and the observations of social networks amongst discharged patients. This was a study based on some housing in England where social networking was encouraged and studied.

I am reminded of Barry Wellman's paper on using SAS to study egocentric networks. I am planning on doing some mapping or writing down of my own networks but will read Wellman's paper again, as I do this and try to set something up in SAS.

I am posting this from the Math tutorial centre.

I am at school connecting to the Net wirelessly. I am giving my office hours. There don't seem to be any of my students here yet. They may in fact not show up today. My next office hours are on Monday at 17:00. I am just about to reboot my Macbook and launch SAS inside WinXP.

I completed marking the two first assignments and am starting the second assignments.

I got my marking done that was due this week. One assignment was about two days late. I now have a second assignmet to mark. I am giving some office hours this afternoon at 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM. Then besides the marking I am not working in this job until Monday when I proctor a test for one course and give more office hours. But next week there are no labs or tutorials scheduled.

I completed marking the question I was working on.

I completed marking the question I was working on. I now have two more questions to mark. I will do this marking this morning.

Marking continues

I just started marking for the evening. I am just completing marking a basic histogram problem and a stem and leaf problem. The problem asks students to construct both of these types of pictoral data description and then compare these description methods.

I got some marking done just now.

I got one courses' first assignment all marked now and the marks recorded. I now need to take a break and then mark the other courses papers. I am then going to a large labour protest today then I have a volunteer board of directors meeting in the late afternoon.

I started to study for my first course in the systems science certificate

I printed the course outline for SYS5130 Systems Optimization and Management. I then used the Carleton university library web journal search and found these ebooks at the Knovel Library and read this book:

Rao, Singiresu S. Engineering Optimization - Theory and Practice (3rd Edition) (John Wiley & Sons, 1996).

I type set equation 1.1 from this book in TeXshop and then stopped studying.

I did some more marking and am half way done one assignment.

I did some marking. I am going to do some more this morning. I am behind on this what with a recent job interview and getting excited about the graduate school admission.

I have also had some family time in the past few weeks and travel. I have been trying out on-line games that involve commerce. I have spent no money on these games yet. My big problem right now is cleaning my living quarters. I am also doing some carpentry at home.

But back to marking now.

I have been admitted to a graduate program in systems science.

My goal of being an interdisciplinary scholar is continuing. In the foot steps of scholars such as Rob Kling I might be treading. I got a letter saying I had been admitted to a graduate school program at the university of Ottawa in systems science. I have studied various studies in systems science all my life. Terms from cybernetics like feedback, systems, components, parts, wholes and sub systems etc., ring in my mind in regards systems. Optimzations, estimation, convergence, bifurcation are other terms from systems. There are financial systems. There are illegal and legal systems. There are banking and other industrial systems and international goveranace systems and there are biological systems and the king of them all, the planetary ecosystem.

Marking begins for the spring/summer term.

I began marking this morning. I marked for about half an hour. I got about a quarter through the assignment for one course. I was marking some very basic questions that would have the answers in the first chapter of the textbook.

I read about bargaining equality.

I started to read about bargaining equality in a binder provided by my national union office. I read this on the train. I am becoming a member of the teaching assistant bargaining team for the next contract. This contract might cover the next two years. At this point we have served notice to bargain.

I was talking about R software with my father.

My dad needs to do graphs on the computer of experiments in optics. I was discussing the use of R software for graphics with him tonight.

Social design of computer systems.

I have been reading about the need for social design of computing systems.

I faithfully completed my TA duties for today.

I had office hours today. I waited for students but none came. I did take the time to study the social design of ICT systems. I also took the time to enter all the lab and tutorial hours into my Palm agenda. I met with a new contract instructor and budgeted my hours, I got the assignment of duties form submitted now. While in the tutoiral room I talked briefly with the TA on duty and told him about monies available to him through his TA work. In other words I did some shop steward work with the other TA. I also had some union email to do today but otherwise it was quiet day. I got my new laptop and installed some statistics software and tried out some of the multimedia features of the new laptop.

I should start to study object oriented programming at least at a basic level for the U of Ottawa next year.

If I am admitted to the university of Ottawa certificate in systems science I will be required to do object oriented programming. I should prepare this summer by learning some more C++ and also learning some Java programming. I have some books to do this with and should start reading them this month, June.