school – The Third Half

New Laptop Coming…

Well, it’s been a while since I wrote anything. A lot’s been on my mind with school and some Jack Swift things, but the end (of the quarter at least) is pretty much here. I just have a couple exams, and then I’m free for about a week. Wish me luck!

On another note, my laptop died a couple weeks ago. It was an old Toshiba one (relatively), and it held out nicely for the five or six years I had it. I’m not sure what made it croak; it started crashing mysteriously at one point, and then it just wouldn’t boot. Luckilly the hard drive seems to be alright, and at any rate I’d pulled my data off it. So I didn’t loose too much.

I’m getting a lower-end Lenovo to replace it. It’s not the zippiest machine, but I don’t need that – just something to throw Ubuntu on, and use for Web browsing and working in the coffee shop, checking my Email, posting here, watching the occasional movie on car rides, etc. I may do some heavier things from time to time, like edit video, but that’s what the desktop is for.

I should get it next week, and I can’t wait. I’ll post more when that comes. In the meantime, I’m off to the pool, because it’s too hot.

Winter Without Christmas

I believe that today is the Nativity, or the last day of Christmas or whatever. It is also the day I am heading back to school, back to the daily grind… Actually, I shouldn’t complain. My quarter is relatively light, and I’m used to the schedule and the campus. All and all it will be great, even if I do have to get up and think each day of the week. (Well, think about school, not that I don’t think otherwise… You get the idea.)

Well, as anyone who reads this blog regularly has probably figured out I like to talk about the weather. And I must say it is looking great outside, snowy, and sunny. Not too snowy, but it looks like winter. Now that the first set of Winter holidays are wrapping up it is becoming quite clear that it is really only the beginning of winter. Yes, we’ve got a ways to go, at least up here.

Now, the funny thing is, a lot of people complain about winter. And rightfully so; I hate digging my car out and the like. But I also love the snow, and I think more appreciation needs to be paid to it. I mean, if you live in an are in which a huge snow storm is pretty much the worst disaster you would expect to occur somewhat regularly, consider yourself lucky, I say! Because after all is said and done, it melts.

So I am looking forward to some nice days this winter. The sun is there; the days have been getting longer since the Solstice, and they will continue to get longer until the summer. Admittedly it’s harder to like winter without Christmas (at least I could see that), but it’s another season, and I say that as long as there’s sun out to keep the spirits high be happy. Gray days suck, but they don’t last forever.

Well, on a different note I would just like to point out that this place actually gets a ton of comment spam. You wouldn’t notice it thanks to the Askimet plugin I installed, which intelligently detects spam and marks it for me to look at and delete en masse. Now, it’s not perfect, so I do check it over, but I will appologize now if I missed a legit comment. If it was something basic, like “Thanks, great post” then it may get marked as spam and I might very well just delete it. But I will do my best to look for intelligent thoughts.

Healthy Again

Last week was hell for me, but now I feel better. I’m still blowing my nose now and then, but it’s fairly manageable, so it’s all good. I can also sit through a class without wishing to be put out of my misery feeling like utter crap and hardly being able to concentrate. So, I am happier now.

The weather has been pretty cold lately. It was in the teens the past couple of days, though today it’s in the 30s. We have some snow now; I actually have some pictures from home which I will put up later after I take them off of my camera. Today it was rainy and slushy, but we still have snow and pretty soon (I hope) we’ll get some nicer, cleaner, winter weather.

Sickness

This has been a tough week. It is the first week of a new quarter for me at school, so I was meeting new teachers and getting acclimated to new course material. Actually, that in and of itself wouldn’t really be so bad (only three classes this time around!) if it weren’t for the fact that I was sick beyond my wildest dreams.

Well, alright, maybe it wasn’t quite that bad. But I felt like shit. I had the ever-present headache, and was blowing my nose like crazy. Before I came back from break I figured that this week would have been a great time to get in the habit of getting more sleep, and luckily I succeeded in this. But I still felt like crap.

It’s not a lot of fun carrying a chunck of tissues around, and then blowing your nose in a tightly-packed classroom in the middle of a lecture. But I don’t think anyone minded. By the time I made it to classes I don’t think I was that contagious (it started off as a sore throate Sunday night). So, for the most part I only kept myself miserable.

I can usually expect a couple of these a year. At some point I will be exposed to most of them, and I won’t get them as much due to immunity. Well at least I hope. It’s been worse in the past; I remember losing most of my strength and almost collapsing walking back from the bathroom one time. But that was a while ago.

Homecoming

This past weekend was my school’s homecoming. It was fun, I played in the Jazz Band and got to see Bill Nye and later Jimmy Fallon. The food was good too.

I only stuck around for Saturday, though. That night I went home and didn’t return until later Sunday evening. So, it was kind of my own homecoming too. It had been a nice weekend weather-wise, and I got to see a few friends who were home briefly from other schools. I took some pictures too.

Home

There is something that bothers me regarding school. More specifically, regarding the format the calendar follows. See, my school uses a quarter system. It’s a faster pase, but that’s not the problem. Rather, it’s that most of my friends at other schools are not on quarter systems. So, I hardly get to see these people on breaks and such.

I got to go home this weekend and hang out a little bit with a friend who goes to school back there and thus lives at home. This was nice, though it would have been nice to meet others as well, like some of my high school friends. Oh well.

And so there is my mini-rant for right now. I’m closer to the end than I am to the beginning. I think I actually may end up missing school a little bit after I’m done, but whatever. It’ll be winter soon, and then summer eventually, and another year down…

Bad Teachers

I’ve had many teachers over the years. Some good, some bad, some that really don’t stand out. Well, at the moment, I’ve got one who’s pretty bad. It’s always interesting when you get one of these, because there are a lot of different things that can make a teacher bad. Getting a bad grade isn’t necessarily one of them, though it can be. Sometimes it’s because the teacher’s boring. Sometimes they just aren’t good at presenting. It can go on.

This particular teacher is an older guy. He seems like a very nice guy, and it’s obvious he knows his stuff. I have heard that he’s good at explaining stuff if you go to him outside class. However, I’m rarely interested in his class. While the material isn’t that hard (thank God), he talks slowly, and often stands in front of exactly what he’s writing on the board, making it hard to take notes.

Now, I consider myself a technical person, and in general I generally find math and other technical subjects interesting. Now, this should be an advantage. Generally, when I read about something I’m interested in, I retain it more easily. Though I know everyone’s different, I’ll take a stab here and and say that this is probably the case for a lot of people. I think that a good teacher is someone who can latch on to this, and while they may not make the subject interesting all the time, they at least give you the tools to do so yourself. By this I mean that they’ll do things like talk loudly, move at a good average pace for the class, and pretty much just get the point across in the most efficient way possible.

I’ve had good teachers who do in fact accomplish this and, as I mentioned, this particular teacher is lacking. Nevertheless, I’m kind of stuck with the class. I guess it could be a lot worse; I could get one of those teachers who flips out at the mere mispronunciation of his name (I’ve heard a few stories). It’s just something I’ll have to work through.

1st Week

Well I’ve been back a full week now, and I must say it’s not so bad. Some of the same old stuf as last year, but this time I think I have a better handle on some things, which is good.

One thing that’s nice is that it’s starting to get cooler, particularly at night. This is good because we can air condition less, though we still end up running the one in one of the bedrooms, as we don’t get the cross breeze and there are computers running. But the rest of the apartment is staying cooler more now.

There are a few classes that I’m trying to get myself into the right state of mind for. Namely, I want to do well. Not just that, but excellent. I need to annihilate them. In a good way. They are just ones that I would like to conquer. Now, what I’m still working on is getting myself into the right state of mind, developing the right habits, and I think I’m improving. Sometimes I think you have to brainwash yourself, just a little bit.

Well, I’m going to try to get some sleep. But before I do, I will say that I’ve decided pursue turning WordPress into more of a content management system, rather than try to throw together a bunch of PHP. So, I’ll probably expand the category selection, and put up a few static pages. I’m not sure when I’m going to get around to this, but at some point I most certainly will. And who knows, maybe I’ll think of something else too.

The Engineering Building

I kind of like the first floor of the engineering building. Most of the time (generally anytime other than the top or bottom of the hour) there is a nice group of people around studying and talking, providing a decent level of white noise. It can be relaxing, whether you’re trying to study or just waste time. If you listen closely you can hear all sorts of interesting side conversations, and maybe occasionally something you don’t want to hear. But that’s OK.

I have to go to class soon, but it’s not that bad; the walkways around campus are cleared so snow isn’t an issue. And, it’s not too cold out either.

New Quarter

Well, I’ve been back for almost a week, and things are good. The quarter is nice, my classes are good, and so are the professors. Hopefully this will keep up.

It’s funny, because everyone else I know outside of this place is finishing up a semester, but here I am just starting a new quarter! I mean, I’ll be on break soon, in about two more weeks.

Well, good luck, whatever you’re up to.