On Apr 30, 2004, at 4:19 PM, Duncan wrote:

> I realised that my students would also find inspiration from Jim's
> story of courage and commitment and resolved to direct them to his
> posting.

Thank you very much for your kind words Duncan. :) It's funny, as I
wrote 'Duncan' I thought to myself, "I should be calling him Mr. Smeed,
he's a prof!" :-) Clearly I'm in school mode already. ;-)

> When I reached the final paragraph I was surprised, but particularly
> chuffed, to see that I merited a mention. I'd be very very proud if
> Jim has taken even the tiniest bit of encouragement from some of the
> things I've posted to my weblog over the years.

More than the tiniest bit, I assure you! I recall only a couple
teachers over the years who expressed the same kind of concern and hope
for their students as you constantly show here. I've always enjoyed
reading about your students, your career, and especially your
perspectives on computers, computer science and education in general.

I think if more teachers/professors had weblogs, students would have a
better understanding about what makes them tick, and the level of
respect would probably increase too.

> The UVic Department of Computer Science <http://www.csc.uvic.ca/> will
> be fortunate indeed to have such a keen and committed student

I hope so, though I won't blame them for being cynical towards me for a
while either, given my history. I'm sure they see a lot of people who
don't live up to expectations, and even some people that try again with
good intentions and fail anyway...

After all I've gone through to get to this point, I won't go down
without a fight, of that much I'm certain.

> and I know Jim will do well. I have no doubt that he will be the sort
> of student that is a pleasure to teach. I look forward to the regular
> updates on his progress and to hearing of his graduation in due
> course.

I'll definitely be keeping everyone up to date. The only thing I'm
worried about is the Math... it will have been just over 10 years since
I have taken a math course, never mind Calculus II! I was decent at it
before, but I found it quite difficult at University, hopefully only
because I didn't study hard enough. :-)

I'm thinking of going to go to my junior high school next week to see
if I can borrow some old math textbooks to study from. Then again,
maybe they'd have that stuff at the public library. :-)

> Very best wishes Jim.

Thanks again!

Jim