For my non-techie friends: I swear I’ll stop obsessing about this soon.

So if I’m running Linux in Windows courtesy of VMWare Player, why can’t I run Windows in Linux the same way? I know it’s possible, so maybe I can just make that my solution. I mostly need to run Paint Shop Pro 9 (doesn’t play nicely with Wine, learning curve is too high on Gimp) and Microsoft OneNote (doesn’t play nicely with Wine and Linux equivalents don’t measure up; KeyNote works in Wine but it’s not pretty - I tried it). Although I’m using Ubuntu right this moment, it’s a bit laggy - no surprise since I’m running it on a virtual machine. But I want to do most of my work in Linux, so why not flip the software and make Windows my laggy OS? Of course, this brings up all kinds of issues with backing up data, partitioning, and who knows what-all else. But still, it’s an idea. It’s definitely the only way OneNote will run.

But of course…VMWare Player. Why didn’t I think of this before?

Okay! I think I have resolved my computer problems and my classes. I wasn’t able to do much online the past couple of nights, because the whole SP2 mess really hosed things up. At one point my monitor decided to make itself “vertical” and I had to crane my head sideways to read anything! I got that fixed but then it refused to come out of VGA mode. All I wanted was to have things back the way they were before I tried to fiddle with SP2! Fortunately Dave Pietromonaco has written a wonderful solution for monitor problems that fixed me right up!

Today I attended the history class and I was kind of taken aback by how uninterested the students seemed. I was one of just a few that asked questions or contributed during the entire class. I happened to bump into ayala920 on my way out of class, and learned she was headed to the Honors section of the same class. She wasn’t surprised that I was unimpressed by the regular class, and told me what time the Honors section met - and it was at a time I could fit into my schedule! So this afternoon I spoke to the Honors program director and got permission to switch, and then sent my academic advisor an e-mail and she clicked the magic button. So now I’m in class with ayala920, to_be_in_snafu, and three other people - there’s just six of us in the class now! The books are nearly twice as expensive as the regular section, but I think I will enjoy it a lot more.

I have finally gotten my laptop for work and gotten situated in my new cube. There’s computer equipment all over the place, and I don’t have a trash can, but it’s okay. Actually, I have virtually no amenities; when someone needed me to jot down a note she had to bring by a pad and pen! Fortunately she left them here, which is nice.

Obviously this laptop was freshly re-imaged before I got it, so I am starting from scratch. I had saved my entire Firefox profile - actually, I saved a very old copy, oh well - and I was planning to run Portable Firefox from my USB stick, but it was so slow as to be unusable, so I just installed regular Firefox to the C: drive. (Apparently I cannot install into C:\Program Files due to permissions.) I also grabbed kitten wallpaper to replace the green field thing that XP always comes with.