Frustration

I am still waiting to hear from the University of Auckland (UofA) as to whether I have been accepted on their BSc programme for semester two, 2009. Today I received my student ID card from Massey University (MU). They seem to be much more organized than UofA. However, I am still holding out for a placing with UofA as transportation to and from class will be much easier if I am studying there than at MU.

One thing that I really appreciated was finding that UofA have a public iCalendar for the important academic dates, including semester start and end dates, study breaks, etc. I have added the UofA iCal to my Google Calendar. I have also sent an email to MU, Unitec, and AUT to enquire whether they also have an academic dates iCalendar. I’d like to collect them all in my Google Calendar.

In the meantime, I have been organizing payment of fees and my living expenses. I started the application process for a student loan using the StudyLink website, and have gotten up to the stage of deciding on living expenses. This is something that I cannot decide on alone, as it affects my wife as well, so I am trying to arrange an appointment with WINZ for my wife and I, to discuss the options available to us. This presented itself to be more difficult than I thought it would be. Just trying to arrange the appointment! I called WINZ to request the appointment, but got the third degree from their officious operator, Makelita (of the Wellington Contact Centre), who would not listen to what it was we were trying to achieve, and only wanted to follow her prescribed script to sign us up as a new beneficiary. As soon as I mentioned that my wife has a permanent disability, this Makelita woman didn’t want to speak to me at all any more, and would only speak to my wife, who according to her script would now become the “primary beneficiary”. Oh, give me a break! We haven’t even decided whether we want to be on a benefit yet, and whether it would be financially viable for us or not, considering that my wife is still working. All I wanted to do was to make an appointment to come in to a WINZ office with my wife, and discuss the options available to us. We may end up signing up as beneficiaries after that discussion, or we may find some other way to meet the living costs while I study. My wife is considering studying as well, and this would also need to be considered in any discussion of living expenses. I am waiting now for Makelita’s manager Susan to contact the local WINZ branch to arrange a suitable time slot for an appointment for us.

Talk about frustrating!

Application

I am starting to get feedback now about my applications to study next semester. I have applied to the University of Auckland and to Massey University for semester 2, 2009, and to AUT University for semester 1, 2010. Massey have just accepted me for semester 2, and I am waiting to hear back from Auckland Uni. I would prefer to be going to Auckland uni, only for the fact that my wife works at AUT, which is within walking distance of Auckland Uni, so travel would not be a problem. To go to Massey, I will end up catching the bus every day. Bummer! The other option is that perhaps my wife could move to Massey as well, as long as she could get a comparable position there. I think that is stretching it a bit though, but worth a try if things don’t pan out with Auckland Uni.

Amalgamation

Today is Queens Birthday weekend. Not that it means that much to me, as I am on paid leave already, and a public holiday doesn’t alter things much in my present situation. So, rather than going out to enjoy the fine (if a little chilly) weather, I decided to spend the day working on my blog instead. This news, of course, was greeted with a rather chilly reception from my wife. She did manage to drag me away for a short while during the day, but most of it was spent here at the computer.

While assessing the direction that my blog has been taking since I started it a week ago, I was alarmed to find that I have been straying seriously from the focus, which is computer forensic investigation. Admittedly, my studies have not started in earnest yet, and I am still very much in preparation mode. To keep things on target in my blog, I have therefore decided to spawn sister-blogs for my other interests. Today I created a new blog for my interest in online identity, privacy, internet safety, and online presence issues, which I call Cyber Presence (cyberpresence.wordpress.com). I have also created a blog to keep track of my informal studies in cyberpsychology, cyberculture, online behavior, and human-computer interaction issues, which I will call Psyber Psychology (psyberpsych.wordpress.com). My fourth WordPress blog is about my current project of creating a personal ontology of my life, and issues relating to mindmapping, the semantic web, and social semantic desktops. This blog will be called Personal Ontology (personalontology.wordpress.com).

I guess this may all sound more like separation, rather than amalgamation, at first. But in the process of separating out the various strands I have been able to get a better picture of how they all fit together. Computer forensic investigation is about detecting criminal activity as it relates to computers. Cyberpsychology will help the forensic investigator to “know thy enemy” as Sun Tzu would say. Tracking a cybercriminal across the ‘net requires a certain amount of “getting inside their head”. This also links in with my interest in online identity, privacy, and online presence. A cybercriminal could easily have a secondary presence that shines with ethical meekness. Issues relating to emerging frameworks for online authentication may well impact on how cybersleuths track down the bad guys. I haven’t developed my theories on personal ontology well enough yet to link that in as well, but I know that it is related somehow.

Classification

My wife, with over eight years of close observation of my personality, has come to the conclusion that I must have Asperger’s Syndrome. A quick look over the diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s reveals some consistencies with her assertion. Of particular note is the “Imposition of routines and interests on self, in aspects of life”. My recent efforts in creating a personal ontology, using the PersonalBrain mindmapping software, may have contributed to my wife’s diagnosis. Sure, there may have been one or two other criteria in the list that collude also. Those who know me almost as well as my wife might even find other propinquity.

Creating a personal ontology is something that I have been considering for a long time now. A visual platform, such as a graphical mindmap, is much more alluring to me than trying to force an existing textual platform, such as DAML or OWL (or a knowledgebase or a wiki) to conform to my own understanding of what a personal ontology should be. So, what exactly is a personal ontology? I found this little gem on the gapingvoid website…

An ontology as defined by dictionary.com is:

“An explicit formal specification of how to represent the objects, concepts and other entities that are assumed to exist in some area of interest and the relationships that hold among them.”

A personal ontology by extension is simply one persons ontology as opposed to a global, all encompassing ontology [...]. A personal ontology on the other hand is more relevant to the individual.

In simple terms, I am trying to create a classification of myself, and anything and everything to do with myself. Does this sound like a particularly Asperger’s thing to do? Well, maybe, I guess, but I do have a good reason for doing it. I am finding it harder to keep track of everything going on around me, both in real life and in cyberspace. Maybe this is a symptom of my steadily advancing age. Maybe it is to do with the rapid advancement of technology. Whatever the reason, I think that traditional solutions such as memory improvement, stress management, and time management will not be as effective as practical creativity.

The outcome of such an undertaking must be effective in reducing the chaos that surrounds me. What I expect to get out of my personal ontology is a logical, easily traversed, searchable, and portable catalog of my life, with both online and offline components. The ideal goal is to have a mindmap on a PDA or Tablet PC that contains navigable links to my documents, links to websites I frequent, metadata, secure login credentials and personal private data. This information will be collated from, and relevant to, all aspects of my life.

To begin my personal ontology, I have downloaded the latest version of PersonalBrain, from TheBrain Technologies website. The home thought of my brain is my own name, and fanning out from that starting point are the major aspects of my life, which after some brainstorming came to:

• Citizenship
• Creativity
• Culture
• Education
• Employment
• Ethics
• Faith
• Family
• Finance
• Friends
• Goals
• Health
• Interests
• Perspective (Worldview)
• Recreation

While this is not an exhaustive list for an ontology, it is a starting point. I will no doubt add to this list as I go, and possibly rename some of them. From there I created a new thought under each one, for the goals of each aspect, and then linked them all back under the Goals aspect itself. So I can define goals for each aspect of my life, which are then accessible as a single collection under the aspect of Goals. I have also begun to add extra thoughts under each aspect.

Employment Mindmap

Educational Mindmap

I don’t see this project as having an expected completion date, as it will require constant modification, like a wiki or knowledgebase. There is currently no Mobile version of PersonalBrain, but I anticipate a Java-based version in the not-too-distant future. Either way, if I can get my personal ontology to achieve what I plan for it, while at least running on a laptop or Tablet PC, it should help to unscramble the pandemonium in my bookmarks / favorites, My Documents, and other aspects of both my online and real-world lives.