The Past Three Weeks
You're shocked and appalled and so am I. Or at least I should be. It's been about three weeks since my last update here. That's just terrible. But you'll just have to excuse me. Unfortunately, blogging isn't exactly a top priority for me here at university. However, I owe something to the people who still read this and my friends back home and around the world now on exchanges. Plus, even my parents are nagging me to update! I have to listen to them right? ;-)
So what's been going on? Well, I finished my exams towards the end of October and that's where I left off in my last post. So I'll pick up after that. So you'd think that maybe, just maybe, we'd get some sort of break after midterms. Oh no, of course not. Not only were we blasting through the material during out midterms, there was no letup afterwards and the assignments and quizzes restarted. In addition to that, we had a huge technical report to write for the week after my midterms were over.
Basically, we were given a power inverter and energy requirements. We then had to design a connection from a battery to the inverter that would satisfy those power requirements as well as taking into account the current limit of the conductors, the price, as well as the resistivity of the wire. Since most of us didn't have any, or at least very little knowledge of electric circuits, the project was generally pretty difficult. I was lucky that my parents are both electrical engineers and so they could help me out with any design or general problems that I had. As I wrote, more issues started popping up which required covering and so the report grew in size. I'm glad I started relatively early. Taking our first draft that was due a long while ago, I started the heavy work on Friday. I worked throughout Saturday and Sunday. I returned to campus Sunday evening and was still not finished. Luckily, I had gotten most of the work in Saturday already (worked for probably 10 hours that day) and so just needed to polish it off a bit. Unfortunately, for many of the other people, they had just decided to start on the project Sunday. That night didn't go too well for them. I knew at least 6 people who didn't sleep a wink that night to get it done in time for the due date.
Ahhh moving on, I'm currently listening to the Seussical soundtrack. Now this music brings back some damn fine memories. Actually, I'm sort of cheating. I was organizing my music in iTunes (gasp) to put on my new iPod this past week. If it weren't for the fact that I had ripped the CD in WMA format, I probably wouldn't have paid it an extra notice. However iTunes being what it is, doesn't like anything Microsoft too much. So I had to convert my all my WMA stuff over to MP3 format. In the process, Seussical was converted. And clearly, just seeing the name brought back memories so I decided to listen to it. So I decided I needed to listen to it again while I write this blog post cause I'm sure it'll bring back some interesting things from waaaaaayyyyyyy back then. I can picture everything so vividly. Hell, I even have the DVD here if I really want to see it again.
To Nick whom I wrote that something really funny happened last weekend: I played UT2004. Yeah I know, that's just hilarious isn't it? You know me and my past obssession with UT, well my interest really got piqued this past week. You see, we were talking about games we could play online with the guys here and a few names were rhymed off. Of them, UT2004 was the one that really got me going. So being me, I really got going about those good old days when I'd play competitively with my clan. So that Sunday, about 8 of us got together on our computers (only at Waterloo no?) and had a game of UT2004 Bombing Run. I was in heaven for a little while. Hasn't this just been the week of reminiscing? Yeah, those were good times. So young so carefree... Haha.
As you can probably guess, I've been obsessed and tinkering with my new 5th Gen iPod for the good part of the week. First off, I had to reorganize my music collection to sync it up with iTunes. Then to test out the video playing capabilities of the iPod. I searched around and found out how to properly convert videos over to a format that the iPod could correctly recognize and play. Clearly, I had to try it out with some Family Guy shows first. I was amazed at the quality of the videos. They were absolutely beautiful. Next, I loaded up some Mythbusters. Remember sitting over at your place watching that show Nick? Those were damn good times. So yeah, anyways, I loaded those up and they looked very slick as well. I found myself watching videos on the iPod basically just for the sake of using it this past week. I just as easily could have watched it on a 15.4" widescreen laptop, but nooooo. Had to watch it on the iPod. Here's a picture to end off this section. I'll see if I can't put up a review of this sleek player this weekend. We'll see how the work goes. I've gotta work on my picture taking abilities of shiny things. Flash makes the pictures look terrible, but apparently I have tourettes or something. Can't seem to keep my hand steady enough to get a clear picture.
Alright, on to other news. I've been feeling a bit better about school in general recently. It seems like either I've climbed over some mental obstacle or they're teaching easier stuff cause I've been understanding Chemistry, Physics and Linear Algebra better. Programming is getting there (I'm still not so hot at it, but I think I'm thinking a bit differently when it comes to programming now) and Calculus is coming along. I guess I'd have to say Calculus is giving me the hardest time currently. At the beginning of the year, we were doing pretty easy stuff, but we've moved on integration now and boy, they don't ease you into it at all. I think the biggest problem is that I need to review it more and do more practice problems. Basically after about a week of teaching integrals, we're supposed to be able to do all single variable integrals already. There's some solid problem solving involved with integrals. Definitely a lot more than with derivatives. But enough of that; I'm sure I'm boring all you artsies out there. =P
So that's a pretty decently update for now. I've got a few thoughts about some 'deeper' things that I'll write about in another post. That way I'll provide the illusion of writing more and I'm sure you're about to either fall asleep or close this window right around this point. I'm reading Nick's, Will's and Reese's blogs and they're all like talking about the meaning of life and all that and I feel totally superficial. Perhaps that's what happens when you're too busy to think about anything other than what you have to do in the next 10 minutes of your life. I'm not poking fun at you people away on exchanges. You definitely should be enjoying your time and taking it all in. Just well... I'm a little busier than I was in high school. From what I hear from you Nick, you're definitely living it up. =D
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go downstairs and rifle through boxes of stuff to see if I can't find my Seussical piano music score. I have this sudden urge to play some of those tunes and try out my fingers again. I feel like an old person who can barely move my fingers compared to what I used to be able to do less than a year ago. Toodles.
P.S. This post originally started off titled 'The Past Two Weeks' but somehow writing this post has taken the better part of a week of on and off updating. I was never able to pull enough time out of my schedule in one big block to write it all. So yeah, this has taken me a week; you better enjoy it. ;-)
So what's been going on? Well, I finished my exams towards the end of October and that's where I left off in my last post. So I'll pick up after that. So you'd think that maybe, just maybe, we'd get some sort of break after midterms. Oh no, of course not. Not only were we blasting through the material during out midterms, there was no letup afterwards and the assignments and quizzes restarted. In addition to that, we had a huge technical report to write for the week after my midterms were over.
Basically, we were given a power inverter and energy requirements. We then had to design a connection from a battery to the inverter that would satisfy those power requirements as well as taking into account the current limit of the conductors, the price, as well as the resistivity of the wire. Since most of us didn't have any, or at least very little knowledge of electric circuits, the project was generally pretty difficult. I was lucky that my parents are both electrical engineers and so they could help me out with any design or general problems that I had. As I wrote, more issues started popping up which required covering and so the report grew in size. I'm glad I started relatively early. Taking our first draft that was due a long while ago, I started the heavy work on Friday. I worked throughout Saturday and Sunday. I returned to campus Sunday evening and was still not finished. Luckily, I had gotten most of the work in Saturday already (worked for probably 10 hours that day) and so just needed to polish it off a bit. Unfortunately, for many of the other people, they had just decided to start on the project Sunday. That night didn't go too well for them. I knew at least 6 people who didn't sleep a wink that night to get it done in time for the due date.
Ahhh moving on, I'm currently listening to the Seussical soundtrack. Now this music brings back some damn fine memories. Actually, I'm sort of cheating. I was organizing my music in iTunes (gasp) to put on my new iPod this past week. If it weren't for the fact that I had ripped the CD in WMA format, I probably wouldn't have paid it an extra notice. However iTunes being what it is, doesn't like anything Microsoft too much. So I had to convert my all my WMA stuff over to MP3 format. In the process, Seussical was converted. And clearly, just seeing the name brought back memories so I decided to listen to it. So I decided I needed to listen to it again while I write this blog post cause I'm sure it'll bring back some interesting things from waaaaaayyyyyyy back then. I can picture everything so vividly. Hell, I even have the DVD here if I really want to see it again.
To Nick whom I wrote that something really funny happened last weekend: I played UT2004. Yeah I know, that's just hilarious isn't it? You know me and my past obssession with UT, well my interest really got piqued this past week. You see, we were talking about games we could play online with the guys here and a few names were rhymed off. Of them, UT2004 was the one that really got me going. So being me, I really got going about those good old days when I'd play competitively with my clan. So that Sunday, about 8 of us got together on our computers (only at Waterloo no?) and had a game of UT2004 Bombing Run. I was in heaven for a little while. Hasn't this just been the week of reminiscing? Yeah, those were good times. So young so carefree... Haha.
As you can probably guess, I've been obsessed and tinkering with my new 5th Gen iPod for the good part of the week. First off, I had to reorganize my music collection to sync it up with iTunes. Then to test out the video playing capabilities of the iPod. I searched around and found out how to properly convert videos over to a format that the iPod could correctly recognize and play. Clearly, I had to try it out with some Family Guy shows first. I was amazed at the quality of the videos. They were absolutely beautiful. Next, I loaded up some Mythbusters. Remember sitting over at your place watching that show Nick? Those were damn good times. So yeah, anyways, I loaded those up and they looked very slick as well. I found myself watching videos on the iPod basically just for the sake of using it this past week. I just as easily could have watched it on a 15.4" widescreen laptop, but nooooo. Had to watch it on the iPod. Here's a picture to end off this section. I'll see if I can't put up a review of this sleek player this weekend. We'll see how the work goes. I've gotta work on my picture taking abilities of shiny things. Flash makes the pictures look terrible, but apparently I have tourettes or something. Can't seem to keep my hand steady enough to get a clear picture.
Alright, on to other news. I've been feeling a bit better about school in general recently. It seems like either I've climbed over some mental obstacle or they're teaching easier stuff cause I've been understanding Chemistry, Physics and Linear Algebra better. Programming is getting there (I'm still not so hot at it, but I think I'm thinking a bit differently when it comes to programming now) and Calculus is coming along. I guess I'd have to say Calculus is giving me the hardest time currently. At the beginning of the year, we were doing pretty easy stuff, but we've moved on integration now and boy, they don't ease you into it at all. I think the biggest problem is that I need to review it more and do more practice problems. Basically after about a week of teaching integrals, we're supposed to be able to do all single variable integrals already. There's some solid problem solving involved with integrals. Definitely a lot more than with derivatives. But enough of that; I'm sure I'm boring all you artsies out there. =P
So that's a pretty decently update for now. I've got a few thoughts about some 'deeper' things that I'll write about in another post. That way I'll provide the illusion of writing more and I'm sure you're about to either fall asleep or close this window right around this point. I'm reading Nick's, Will's and Reese's blogs and they're all like talking about the meaning of life and all that and I feel totally superficial. Perhaps that's what happens when you're too busy to think about anything other than what you have to do in the next 10 minutes of your life. I'm not poking fun at you people away on exchanges. You definitely should be enjoying your time and taking it all in. Just well... I'm a little busier than I was in high school. From what I hear from you Nick, you're definitely living it up. =D
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go downstairs and rifle through boxes of stuff to see if I can't find my Seussical piano music score. I have this sudden urge to play some of those tunes and try out my fingers again. I feel like an old person who can barely move my fingers compared to what I used to be able to do less than a year ago. Toodles.
P.S. This post originally started off titled 'The Past Two Weeks' but somehow writing this post has taken the better part of a week of on and off updating. I was never able to pull enough time out of my schedule in one big block to write it all. So yeah, this has taken me a week; you better enjoy it. ;-)
This entry was posted
on Friday, November 18, 2005 at 11/18/2005 10:28:00 p.m..
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That thing is gorgeous, it's pure sex. But what's wrong with it? It looks like there's a giant gash underneath the screen.
Actually that's not even a part of the iPod at all. It's just part of the covering that it shipped in. I decided to keep it on the screen (did a crappy cutting job I know) until I can find something to cover the screen up. It's just peeling a bit in that picture. he review's coming along nicely. I'll hopefully be able to get it posted later... probably tonight.
Check out an iskin, thats what Im using for my iriver and its great. has a nice thick plastic screen cover too:) Great peace of mind for OCD people:D
You would do better with an iCondom. Look it up on eBay if you're not familier. It's what I use and I couldn't be happier.
Well, I'm trying to keep this thing as thin as possible. I personally don't like anything that's all weird looking colors and whatever. I went and picked up a few screen protectors. All I really need to protect is the screen anyways. I'd be half happy with what I've got right now if it weren't for the fact that it's peeling and all cut nastily.
And Rene... I don't even want to look that up.
Hahah, it's not what you think. It's a thin film which covers the back of the iPod and the screen. You apply it, and it sticks via static electricity. It's great because you can't even see/feel it, and it takes all the abuse leaving your 'Pod looking perfect.
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