Monday, January 03, 2005
Winter Quarter Commences
Well I'm back in good ol' San Luis Obispo. It's good to be here in a lot of ways, but I'm also very homesick, quite possibly moreso than when I first moved up here. I think it has a lot to do with the instability of my life right now...leaving all of my old friends in San Diego behind all over again and coming back to school to stay in the dorms, to take new and harder classes, and in general to stop living in the bubble I've been living in for the last nineteen years. I'm sure I'll adjust back to life up here, but it's often a slow process. At least I'm not starting from scratch.
As I said in my last entry, for whatever reason I don't really feel like writing about my Christmas break. It's not that I didn't enjoy it, I just don't feel the need to write about it. So I won't. But, in short:
--Christmas was good. Dad got a compass, Mom got a CD and a print of some chili peppers and some Spanish-looking pots, which we'll have framed. A bunch of other people got some stuff from me, my favorite being the Disneyland Detective book I got for Stacie, which gives her all sorts of trivia about the magic kingdom, including the locations of several hidden mickeys. This year was the first year that I was more excited to give the presents I got for people than to receive presents for myself. Hooray for maturity! But, if you're interested, I received some DVDs, Upwords (which is Scrabble for people with vocabularies limited to words of five letters or less), a giftcard or two, a big book of puzzles/brain teasers, a couple of CDs, a San Diego calendar (now hanging on my closet door), and a couple of other things. And let's not forget the car. All in all, I think Christmas was a success.
--Jenna, Joanna, Stacie, and I went to Ruby's on the Oceanside pier for dinner on New Year's Eve, which is the second year in a row. We spent the remainder of the evening at Stacie's (where Irene came to meet us) to watch Will & Grace, Reno 911, and a recording of the speech I gave at my 5th grade promotion, which Joanna happened to come across in Fresno. Joanna spilled Martinelli's on the carpet at midnight. Yay 2005! Quite memorable.
--Spent a lot of time trying to get someone to install the CD player in my car. This was quite an epic adventure, involving failures to return calls, malfunctioning adapters, a couple of orders and subsequent cancellations of them, and a solution in the end that would have removed the need for all of the trouble had it been discovered sooner. But, long story short, the CD player works. So woot.
And in general I relaxed, hung around with friends, and did not much in particular, which was exactly the break that I wanted. I took Kevin and my friend Nate home on Sunday, expecting heavy traffic after hearing tales of mudslides on the 101 and predictions of rainstorms. But, much to my delight, there was the least amount of traffic I had ever seen, and it only rained for maybe an hour or so. We made the trip in four and a half hours, without stopping once. (Now before you go crazy on me for driving fast, I'd like to point out that my average speed was only 71 mph. I'd also like to point out that Joanna went from Fresno to Rancho Bernardo in 4:45.) Upon arrival in SLO, I enjoyed my late afternoon and evening.
And that's pretty much all that needs to be said about all of that.
Today was the start of the winter quarter. My schedule is as follows:
Monday
11:10-12:00 Circuits Analysis I
2:10-3:00 Public Speaking
3:10-4:00 Chemistry
5:10-6:30 Wind Orchestra
Tuesday
9:40-11:00 Fundamentals of Computer Science Lecture
12:10-1:30 Fundamentals of Computer Science Lab
2:10-3:00 Public Speaking
3:10-5:30 Chemistry
6:10-7:00 Basic Electronics Manufacturing Lecture
7:10-9:00 Mustang Band
Wednesday
8:10-11:00 Basic Electronics Manufacturing Lab
11:10-12:00 Circuits Analysis I
2:10-3:00 Public Speaking
5:10-6:30 Wind Orchestra
Thursday
9:40-11:00 Fundamentals of Computer Science Lecture
12:10-1:30 Fundamentals of Computer Science Lab
2:10-3:00 Public Speaking
3:10-5:30 Chemistry
Friday
**no class**
So today I had three new classes. It's hard to tell whether or not I'll like circuits analysis or not...a portion of it is review from physics E&M last year, but a lot of it will be new. I am excited, however, to have my first EE class where I will actually learn something about EE. Can I get a "woot woot"?
I really like my speech professor, Erma Stauffer. I don't know how to describe her other than to say that she has a colorful personality, which I guess is what you would expect from someone teaching public speaking. I look forward to this class. I give my first speech on Monday...a three-minute description of myself...
Chemistry is going to be hard, but not quite as hard as everyone says it is. That's my prediction, at least. I read through almost four of the five chapters I'm supposed to know already (from high school chemistry) and I've remembered all of it so far. The class itself will be challenging, but I don't have a problem with teaching myself out of the book the things I didn't understand in lecture. So chem will take a little more work, but I'm not too scared. It'll give me something to do on Fridays.
And that was all for new classes. We received three new pieces in windO today, and scrapped one we had been planning to play. This is good in that I'll have more variety in what I get to play this quarter. This is bad in that the music is frickin' high for trumpets. J mentioned something about needing a piano player for one of the pieces...maybe I can get out of having to play first trumpet that way. We'll see...
For dinner I went with Rosalie, Heather, and Rosalie's friend from home Danielle (who's visiting for a couple of days) to the Big Sky Cafe, to have some "modern food." We went there to have some out-of-the-ordinary food, so I of course ordered the most ordinary thing on the menu: a chicken sandwich. It sounds a lot more boring than it actually was. And hey, give me some credit: I ordered tortilla soup with it instead of french fries. See? I don't live in a bubble completely...
And that was today. Tomorrow I get to go to my computer science class. I'm so excited. If I like it enough, changing majors wouldn't be out of the question, as I haven't been completely sure EE is exactly what I want to do. So this quarter will be good: one EE class and one CSC class. Hopefully I can get a better grasp of what each one is about. I'm sure I'll enjoy both.
For now, I'm off to bed. Good night!
Cheers,
Josh
mood: homesick, and excited for class tomorrow
music: none
location: dorm
As I said in my last entry, for whatever reason I don't really feel like writing about my Christmas break. It's not that I didn't enjoy it, I just don't feel the need to write about it. So I won't. But, in short:
--Christmas was good. Dad got a compass, Mom got a CD and a print of some chili peppers and some Spanish-looking pots, which we'll have framed. A bunch of other people got some stuff from me, my favorite being the Disneyland Detective book I got for Stacie, which gives her all sorts of trivia about the magic kingdom, including the locations of several hidden mickeys. This year was the first year that I was more excited to give the presents I got for people than to receive presents for myself. Hooray for maturity! But, if you're interested, I received some DVDs, Upwords (which is Scrabble for people with vocabularies limited to words of five letters or less), a giftcard or two, a big book of puzzles/brain teasers, a couple of CDs, a San Diego calendar (now hanging on my closet door), and a couple of other things. And let's not forget the car. All in all, I think Christmas was a success.
--Jenna, Joanna, Stacie, and I went to Ruby's on the Oceanside pier for dinner on New Year's Eve, which is the second year in a row. We spent the remainder of the evening at Stacie's (where Irene came to meet us) to watch Will & Grace, Reno 911, and a recording of the speech I gave at my 5th grade promotion, which Joanna happened to come across in Fresno. Joanna spilled Martinelli's on the carpet at midnight. Yay 2005! Quite memorable.
--Spent a lot of time trying to get someone to install the CD player in my car. This was quite an epic adventure, involving failures to return calls, malfunctioning adapters, a couple of orders and subsequent cancellations of them, and a solution in the end that would have removed the need for all of the trouble had it been discovered sooner. But, long story short, the CD player works. So woot.
And in general I relaxed, hung around with friends, and did not much in particular, which was exactly the break that I wanted. I took Kevin and my friend Nate home on Sunday, expecting heavy traffic after hearing tales of mudslides on the 101 and predictions of rainstorms. But, much to my delight, there was the least amount of traffic I had ever seen, and it only rained for maybe an hour or so. We made the trip in four and a half hours, without stopping once. (Now before you go crazy on me for driving fast, I'd like to point out that my average speed was only 71 mph. I'd also like to point out that Joanna went from Fresno to Rancho Bernardo in 4:45.) Upon arrival in SLO, I enjoyed my late afternoon and evening.
And that's pretty much all that needs to be said about all of that.
Today was the start of the winter quarter. My schedule is as follows:
Monday
11:10-12:00 Circuits Analysis I
2:10-3:00 Public Speaking
3:10-4:00 Chemistry
5:10-6:30 Wind Orchestra
Tuesday
9:40-11:00 Fundamentals of Computer Science Lecture
12:10-1:30 Fundamentals of Computer Science Lab
2:10-3:00 Public Speaking
3:10-5:30 Chemistry
6:10-7:00 Basic Electronics Manufacturing Lecture
7:10-9:00 Mustang Band
Wednesday
8:10-11:00 Basic Electronics Manufacturing Lab
11:10-12:00 Circuits Analysis I
2:10-3:00 Public Speaking
5:10-6:30 Wind Orchestra
Thursday
9:40-11:00 Fundamentals of Computer Science Lecture
12:10-1:30 Fundamentals of Computer Science Lab
2:10-3:00 Public Speaking
3:10-5:30 Chemistry
Friday
**no class**
So today I had three new classes. It's hard to tell whether or not I'll like circuits analysis or not...a portion of it is review from physics E&M last year, but a lot of it will be new. I am excited, however, to have my first EE class where I will actually learn something about EE. Can I get a "woot woot"?
I really like my speech professor, Erma Stauffer. I don't know how to describe her other than to say that she has a colorful personality, which I guess is what you would expect from someone teaching public speaking. I look forward to this class. I give my first speech on Monday...a three-minute description of myself...
Chemistry is going to be hard, but not quite as hard as everyone says it is. That's my prediction, at least. I read through almost four of the five chapters I'm supposed to know already (from high school chemistry) and I've remembered all of it so far. The class itself will be challenging, but I don't have a problem with teaching myself out of the book the things I didn't understand in lecture. So chem will take a little more work, but I'm not too scared. It'll give me something to do on Fridays.
And that was all for new classes. We received three new pieces in windO today, and scrapped one we had been planning to play. This is good in that I'll have more variety in what I get to play this quarter. This is bad in that the music is frickin' high for trumpets. J mentioned something about needing a piano player for one of the pieces...maybe I can get out of having to play first trumpet that way. We'll see...
For dinner I went with Rosalie, Heather, and Rosalie's friend from home Danielle (who's visiting for a couple of days) to the Big Sky Cafe, to have some "modern food." We went there to have some out-of-the-ordinary food, so I of course ordered the most ordinary thing on the menu: a chicken sandwich. It sounds a lot more boring than it actually was. And hey, give me some credit: I ordered tortilla soup with it instead of french fries. See? I don't live in a bubble completely...
And that was today. Tomorrow I get to go to my computer science class. I'm so excited. If I like it enough, changing majors wouldn't be out of the question, as I haven't been completely sure EE is exactly what I want to do. So this quarter will be good: one EE class and one CSC class. Hopefully I can get a better grasp of what each one is about. I'm sure I'll enjoy both.
For now, I'm off to bed. Good night!
Cheers,
Josh
mood: homesick, and excited for class tomorrow
music: none
location: dorm
