Sunday of my Life

Hell, I’m not even sure if that’s a word, but if it isn’t, then I shall insert it into the Urban Dictionary and damn well make it a word. Becuase someone has said something nice about a friend of mine and damn if I don’t agree with them!

When someone compared Dorothea to an oragutan most would not think this a source for happiness. But that’s not just any orangutan she’s been compared to. That’s The Librarian of Unseen University. The Ultimate Librarian, which is very nearly what I feel Dorothea is.

So here’s with a resounding ‘hear, hear!’

Or, should I say ‘ook, ook!’

OK, so at first when I started doing Java this semester I didn’t like it. It was huge, lumbering, complicated and confusing (and believe me, in my present medicated state I am easily confused). But now, as we draw closer to the close of the term, the little lightbulb has finally worked up the current the go *bing* in my head. Everything’s slipped into place, and I’ve even discovered that the things that I did understand but hated becuase the offended my sense of good design ethic aren’t as bad as they seem.

Perhaps I should explain that last part.

See, when you create a GUI application in java, at first you’re stuck with using the Abstaract Windows Toolkit, or awt for short, to make use of the FlowLayout parameters. FlowLayout allows you to specify a layout direction (LEFT or RIGHT usually) that all of your layout elements with allign to. Say you chose LEFT, youd end pu with your elements arranging themselves left to right, top to bottom on your Pane, in the order they were added to the layout. OK, so this, so far, isn’t so far from a basic CSS layout, right? Well then, here’s where it turns ugly. There is no way, absolutely no way at all insofar as I can find (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) to tell an element “I want you at these x/y coordinates”. You have to use (*shudder*) black labels to space out elements.

Dear God…hitting the spacebar wildly to add whitespace to the end of the label and so move away it’s associated text field. Creating blank labels to shove the next label and field set down to the next line. Save me! Save me now!

To the rescue comes the almighty Swing! Swing is by far a better GUI backender, with many more layout options (including the ulimate in power, design and flexibility, the Grid Bag), and just works so much better. plus there’s also a method allowed by swing called .setLocation which lets you set the location of an element in x/y pixel coordinates. This is rather a moot point when it comes to the Grid Bag, but I’m still excited that it’s there nonetheless.

So yes, I’m well aware of the fact that it has been some time since I posted. I’ve been busy doing school work, going insane, comnig back rom the brink of same, visiting doctors, being generally drugged out of my brain, and having disputes with my ISP over billing.

I probably should say this, but expect a number more posts from me soon.

Starting with the most recent:

I’ve been offline for a week, and I mean totally offline, thanks to the over-zelous administrative methods of the SysAdmins at my school. I was having a dispute with my ISP over the billing of my internet account (I had paid it and they didn’t think I had) which had me offline for the past week at home, and thanks to the wonderful SysAdmins at my school blocking all webmail and all IM aplications, I’ve had no way to contact my friends and let them know I’m OK.

As for insanity and drugs… well…

I never know exactly how to put these things. When I look back over the number of posts about this tht I’ve started and abandoned, I start to realise that maybe I am a bit overly self-critical. i tend to look at a post I’m writing and start thinking ‘stop whining, do people really want to know about this?‘

Well, whether you want to hear about it or not here it is:

I finally went and talked to my GP a couple of weeks back, got a formal disgnosis of Panic Disorder and everything. Aren’t I a lucky boy? Along with this diagnosis came a prescription of an anti-depressant to help control the effects. And along with the anti-depressant came a list of side-effects as long as my arm. Now, I’ll admit it, the doctor did warn me that I would really feel the side-effects at first, and possibly would feel worse than I already did. And now I believe him. Check this out:

• I feel like I have cotton-wool between my ears. Boy do I ever mean dopey. The world zooms past me in a blur and I miss things. Obvious things. Glaringly obvious things.
• I exist in a state of lethargy. With heavy limbs and burning eyes, something tells me that I’m a little tired lately. The doctor tells me it’s the meds, and it’s listed on the side effects, so…*shrug*…maybe.
• “You May Experience Vivid Dreams and Nightmares”. Wow… that was an understatement. Vivid hardly describes it, but now I’m melodramatising, so now I’m going to shut up on that one.
• Increase in appetite and weight gain. Increase in appetite? Funny that… at the moment if I was smoking weed you’d swear I have the munchies.
• Lack of concentration. Now, as it stands, this post has taken me a couple of hours to write. Like all things lately I just can’t manage to keep my mind on it long enough to power through it like I normally would.
• Ever had a day-dream moment where you just totally space out? Well I seem to be having thme all the time right now, just without the ‘imagination running wild’ component. All that happens is that my brain switches off for a while (say, 10 or 15 minutes) and I remain unaware of the fact until someone tells me I was just staring into space for a while. Fun this is…really helps things when you’re trying to explain how to debug their program to someone.

So, yes… that’s a good portion of what I’m having at the moment. Letme give a warning to anyone who might ever be prescribed the anti-dperessant Avanza (goes by other names in other countries, but the active ingredient is mirtazapine): The side effects are, to put it mildly, a bitch. Like, this isn’t me being whiney. If I was what I’d do is stop them and thne whime about how crap i feel. No…I’m carrying on with them, watching out, as my doctor advised, for the long-term benefits, not the short-term detriments. They’ll come, in that I have faith, but as for how long it’ll take… who knows? Between 2 weeks and 3 months is the professional estimate. We’ll wait nad see. Anyway, onto other business…