I got the robot to do what I wanted to. It was a nifty program. Didn't
work in the real world, but well, that's life.

I don't feel like much of a computer scientist, though. I'm supposed
to be thrilled that I got it to work, but now that it's done, I find
that I don't care about the program itself. I don't care that I got it
to work. It exercised my brain, but so many things do…

Open source has gotten me hooked on making people happy. As a CS
person, I'm probably not even supposed to care about making people
happy, but I do. Hacking on the LEGO code was fun, but it wasn't
something I would do by myself. I did it because it was fun to hang
out. I enjoyed the stories, the banter, the demonstrations of
particularly nifty things we'd gotten to work. I'm glad I had the
opportunity to help Calum breathe life into his machine. I'm glad I
got to meet Iain, Derek, Sandy, and the others.

Those who have known me since childhood know how far I've come. I find
it scary sometimes. Do I need people too much, now? But I do… I'm
glad that my friends at Graduate House now feel comfortable enough to
give me a hug without anyone worrying about improper intentions. I'm
glad that I can do nice things for people and make their day better.
I'm glad that I have the warmth and love of friends and family to keep
me going.

I've given myself enough time for fun. Tomorrow: work on my FIS paper.
If I need an emergency shot of warm-and-fuzzies, I've got my
collection of letters and good karma…

Random Japanese sentence: