Thursday, December 02, 2004
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
I went to bed last night at 11:00 and got up this morning at 8:00. It was wonderful. Kevin woke me up because he had to get up for his 8:00 class, but that gave me an hour to drift in an out of sleep before I finally got out of bed. I highly recommend this; I'm pretty sure it's the best way to wake up: slowly but surely. Anyway, I went to the gym...second time this week! I feel pretty good about that, both physically and mentally. (I was suspended from school today. Why? For bringing these guns [flex biceps].) And I had my smoothie on the way home...tres delicieux.
I went to calculus, and then in the hour between that and my EE lab I practiced piano, stopped by my room to exchange textbooks, and grabbed a slice of cheese pizza from Back Stage. Then it was off for my last meeting of EE 151 lab. At the end of every class at Cal Poly, the students fill out anonymous evaluations of their professors. The professors have to stand out in the hallway while a student administers the evaluations, because otherwise the results would "be skewed." And guess who got to be in charge of administration in my class? Oh, that's right. It was quite the excitement. I got to walk the sealed envelope all the way down to the EE department office in the next building. Aren't I special?
Upon return to class, I started the final (finals week is next week, but all classes that meet only once per week take their exams in their last meeting, in the week before finals). I think it went rather well. There were a few parts I was fuzzy on, but overall I knew what I was doing. And I actually found a large portion of the test very interesting, and that's always a good feeling. So that's one final out of the way (well, two if you count that California government test, on which - by the way - I got one out of only three A's given out). Tomorrow is my final in my EE 111 lecture, which I'm more worried about. 151 had more structure. There were six complete labs that we did over the course of the quarter, and each one of them had a very specific subject you were supposed to understand: Ohm's law, transistors, diodes, magnetic fields, etc. We didn't go into detail into anything, but we did get and idea about how each subject was important to the EE field. It was fairly easy for 151 because all I had to go was go back and read the lab procedures and my reports. 111, however, is a different story. Almost all of the stuff that we learned was common sense. I have access to the professor's lecture notes online and I can review all of the homework assignments, but on none of them is there anything that seems to warrant memorization. For example: he has about twenty Power Point slides on good test-taking skills. But all of it is...well...duurrrr. So I don't know how to study. Arguably I should be going through his notes again rather than writing here, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I haven't liked that class, and I'm not about to start now.
Anywho, we had a recording session for MB after that. We recorded all of the music we played in field show this year. I'm not sure where these recordings go but hopefully I'll get a copy of them from somewhere.
I got home and studied for EE 111. Midway through that I called Rosalie to see if she wanted to go to dinner. After two long hours of studying more for 111, I met Rosalie, here roommate, and Steven (Stephen?) from her floor, and we walked down to Light House for their special holiday dinner. I was quite impressed with Campus Dining...they had tents and twinkle lights and inflatable snowmen and red and green tablecloths...the works. And the food was a slightly nicer version of what they usually serve (just like Boise is a slightly nicer Fresno...Joanna knows what I'm talking about).
I arrived home after that and made myself a comfy spot on my bed to watch The Apprentice, but not five minutes had I been settled before Rosalie called me again to see if I "needed to go to Walmart." Well, I didn't really need to go...but it was a pretty darned good excuse to not study more for EE 111. So the same four of us were off to Arroyo Grande for some discount shopping goodness. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say (or is it "suffice to say"? Someone please set me straight on this so I can use it in conversation) that I had lots of fun.
I arrived home just as The Apprentice ended, so I rewound my trusty VCR and watched it from the beginning, fast-forwarding through the commercials. This week's episode was particularly good; I called Mom at the end of it for our weekly Apprentice discussion and we ended up talking for twenty minutes or so.
And then I put off studying some more so I could write in my blog. And golly gee darn it's just to late to study any more. So I'm going to go to bed and hope for the best tomorrow. Good night.
Cheers,
Josh
mood: super (said like George Bush Sr.)
music: none
location: dorm
Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
[While doing the laundry, Peter climbs through the dryer and arrives in Narnia]
Goat Man: "Welcome to Narnia. I am Mr. Tumnus."
Peter: "Hey, give me back my sock, you goat bastard!"
I went to calculus, and then in the hour between that and my EE lab I practiced piano, stopped by my room to exchange textbooks, and grabbed a slice of cheese pizza from Back Stage. Then it was off for my last meeting of EE 151 lab. At the end of every class at Cal Poly, the students fill out anonymous evaluations of their professors. The professors have to stand out in the hallway while a student administers the evaluations, because otherwise the results would "be skewed." And guess who got to be in charge of administration in my class? Oh, that's right. It was quite the excitement. I got to walk the sealed envelope all the way down to the EE department office in the next building. Aren't I special?
Upon return to class, I started the final (finals week is next week, but all classes that meet only once per week take their exams in their last meeting, in the week before finals). I think it went rather well. There were a few parts I was fuzzy on, but overall I knew what I was doing. And I actually found a large portion of the test very interesting, and that's always a good feeling. So that's one final out of the way (well, two if you count that California government test, on which - by the way - I got one out of only three A's given out). Tomorrow is my final in my EE 111 lecture, which I'm more worried about. 151 had more structure. There were six complete labs that we did over the course of the quarter, and each one of them had a very specific subject you were supposed to understand: Ohm's law, transistors, diodes, magnetic fields, etc. We didn't go into detail into anything, but we did get and idea about how each subject was important to the EE field. It was fairly easy for 151 because all I had to go was go back and read the lab procedures and my reports. 111, however, is a different story. Almost all of the stuff that we learned was common sense. I have access to the professor's lecture notes online and I can review all of the homework assignments, but on none of them is there anything that seems to warrant memorization. For example: he has about twenty Power Point slides on good test-taking skills. But all of it is...well...duurrrr. So I don't know how to study. Arguably I should be going through his notes again rather than writing here, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I haven't liked that class, and I'm not about to start now.
Anywho, we had a recording session for MB after that. We recorded all of the music we played in field show this year. I'm not sure where these recordings go but hopefully I'll get a copy of them from somewhere.
I got home and studied for EE 111. Midway through that I called Rosalie to see if she wanted to go to dinner. After two long hours of studying more for 111, I met Rosalie, here roommate, and Steven (Stephen?) from her floor, and we walked down to Light House for their special holiday dinner. I was quite impressed with Campus Dining...they had tents and twinkle lights and inflatable snowmen and red and green tablecloths...the works. And the food was a slightly nicer version of what they usually serve (just like Boise is a slightly nicer Fresno...Joanna knows what I'm talking about).
I arrived home after that and made myself a comfy spot on my bed to watch The Apprentice, but not five minutes had I been settled before Rosalie called me again to see if I "needed to go to Walmart." Well, I didn't really need to go...but it was a pretty darned good excuse to not study more for EE 111. So the same four of us were off to Arroyo Grande for some discount shopping goodness. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say (or is it "suffice to say"? Someone please set me straight on this so I can use it in conversation) that I had lots of fun.
I arrived home just as The Apprentice ended, so I rewound my trusty VCR and watched it from the beginning, fast-forwarding through the commercials. This week's episode was particularly good; I called Mom at the end of it for our weekly Apprentice discussion and we ended up talking for twenty minutes or so.
And then I put off studying some more so I could write in my blog. And golly gee darn it's just to late to study any more. So I'm going to go to bed and hope for the best tomorrow. Good night.
Cheers,
Josh
mood: super (said like George Bush Sr.)
music: none
location: dorm
Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
[While doing the laundry, Peter climbs through the dryer and arrives in Narnia]
Goat Man: "Welcome to Narnia. I am Mr. Tumnus."
Peter: "Hey, give me back my sock, you goat bastard!"
