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I hate weeks like this. It's another one of those weeks when I haven't the slightest notion of what I want to write. It's not that I didn't do anything this week -- quite the contrary, it was a pretty full one.

For one thing, my band has become active again. With another venue for a weekly jam session looking good, we've been practicing a lot this week (and I hope we can keep going at this pace). But it's not really enough for a column, yet; when something really starts happening with the band, I'll certainly write about it. Until then, though, I'm just going to have to bore you with academics.

One of the classes I started this semester is called Database Concepts, which is a bit of a misnomer; it's actually a course more specifically designed to teach application development using the MicroSoft Access database software. While it is possible for blind developers to use MS Access, it's not easy -- despite MicroSoft's recent efforts in making their products accessible, Access remains, in many ways, less than accessible. This is not, however, why I dropped the class. In fact, with the help of my tutor, Jake, I was making rather good progress until it became clear that my time would be better spent reviving old skills.

There's a very good chance that I will land an internship this summer. I hesitate to mention this at all, at this point, because I don't want to jinx it; but it's the reason for my slight change in career focus. The guy who interned last summer at this employer was hired full-time in January, and I'm hoping to repeat his success. They mainly use a computer programming language called COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language), which I haven't even looked at since I graduated with an Associate Degree in Data Processing in 1985. Accordingly, I decided that refreshing my knowledge of COBOL would be more beneficial than struggling with something that is better left to the sighted, for now anyway. The transition couldn't have been easier, either; Jake is in the COBOL class that I joined mid-semester, so catching up wasn't a problem at all.

With the help of my other tutor, John, I'm making excellent progress with Visual BASIC (another computer programming language) and I'm also doing well in Network Administration (using Novell Netware). Besides the two tutors assigned to me, I also have at my disposal, the staff of the Center for Students with Disabilities at NTC. And I'm making the most of all of this assistance, too, because I know that I won't have it when I return to the ranks of the employed.

Well, this may not be one of my best columns to date, but at least it's done. Now I can go to bed.