Randy Pausch, a professor of Computer Science here at Carnegie Mellon and innovator of many things, gave his last lecture this week. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year and doctors estimate the time he has left in months. It was a very powerful and often hilarious lecture on childhood dreams and life lessons and, if you have a couple hours and a good internet connection, I highly recommend watching it.
It made me think about a lot of things.
Author Robert Jordan died this weekend of a rare blood disorder.
I was a huge fan of the Wheel of Time series for many years and actually credit it, and the extensive online communities that grew up around it, with helping me cling to sanity during a particularly trying period in my life. There are still traces of that period scattered about. My AIM name, for one, is still the name I bore when I roamed the web as an Aes Sedai of the Blue Ajah.
While it’s not a flashbulb memory in the strict sense, I still remember where I was I found out.
I had shown up for my intro to social psych course with Professor Jeremy Freese with no idea that anything had happened. Back in those days, I simply got out of bed ten, maybe fifteen minutes before class, threw on some clothes and brushed my teeth, grabbed my backpack, and ran. My first indication that anything at all was amiss in the world was when Professor Freese announced that, due to events in New York, he was making a one-day exception in his strict anti-cell phone policy for anyone who was waiting to hear from someone. And then we pretty much had class as normal, except for one cell phone ring and the girl who ran out of the room to take the call.
After class, I went home and turned on the tv, wondering what was happening in New York. I believe my first response was, “Holy shit.”
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