Hello Android! ( vs. Hello World )

boy was i tired yesterday after coming back from school. It was a long day...many students were having some confusion with OOP, and i helped morgan and the other students out by going to the board and reviewing some of the concepts from lecture. i guess i take myself for granted sometimes when i doubt my capabilities. but i sure do remember those days when i had no idea what classes and objects were. maybe that's why i can relate to them so well.

some of the students are picking up these things really fast. samuel has already started the J2ME lab from last year, and some of the other students are already antsy to getting their hands on making some mobile applications. i myself just started looking through J2ME yesterday, figuring out how the environment works and all the jazz. i'm so thankful for compilers....i would hate to be the one designing those things to run other people's crap...i mean code.

google android is giving us a lot of trouble. i still haven't been able to access my phone, which is bad, because we have 20 phones just sitting there. i've been emailing the google engineers on helping us out, but they've been telling us we need to do this, when we can't even do anything with the phones. oh well, i downloaded the sdk, and just played around with it, virtually, on my computer. i made my first android 'hello world' application. kinda of funny how i'm all over the place. hopefully my java skills are decent so that i can at least understand the tutorials and lessons they have.

all.....and as if we can't get any more spoiled.....we hired a cook. that's right....from now on, mon-thurs. we have a cook making dinner for us so that we'll have more time to 'work'. last night was the first meal he cooked....it was delicious! kenyan chicken, rice, and spinach! desert....watermelon! reminded me of anton's mom, who always loved to make watermelon for us after dinner.

yeah..so now we have a maid who cleans, and a cook who cooks. my room has never been this organized. you know that feeling you get when you leave a mess behind, and then you come home, and 'magically' it's all clean? yeah, i get that feeling every day. i'm so used to it now....hope i can start being 'responsible' once school starts....nah.

i can always just stay in kenya, get a teaching job, and have people do stuff for me. hehehe...not a bad idea.

anyhow, today michael has a two hour lecture prepared on static fields and methods. it's gonna be good.

oh, one more thing..we had a guest speaker yesterday come to talk with the students. dr. yasai, who is the chairman of IEEE and the CEO of an ICT company. he spoke about how we developers have the potential to realize the opportunities available for users of all kinds of backgrounds. he talked about the impact technology has had in kenya in the past 20+ years, and where it's going in the next couple years. really got me thinking. i wondered how things will be like in the next couple years. oh well...like my friend benjie said from high school...." the best way to predict the future is to invent it"

that's it for now. i started to get homesick the other day...don't know why. i had a good man to man talk with michael on monday..while we were in the jacuzzi and steam room. talked about life, the future, love... i'm so amazed at how balanced he is. so smart, friendly, loving.

oh wellz, i should focus on improving myself during my time here.

and before i go...this saturday is kenya vs. mozambique in football ( soccer ) and yup, we're going! see you there!