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October 3, 2004 - Weekly. Again.

So, another Sunday night, another website update, and a lot more time that feels like I should have been doing something more productive. There might not be a correlation between all of these things.
So, what to say about last week? Not much, really. More of the same boring school-type junk that no one wants to read about. And it got cold. Real cold. We had a couple of frost warnings and one night in the upper 20's. This does not make me happy.
A couple cool things, though: For one, I went to a seminar about applying for National Science Foundation fellowships for grad school - more because I had gotten the invitation a couple weeks ago when I was going through my HolyCrapWhatDoIDoNow phase than because I actually had any interest. But they fed me, so that was cool. Secondly, at that seminar, I met Melinda, who is a current HCI student, and she had some very interesting things to say about the program and her experiences in it. Cooler even than that, she invited me to come to a 'club meeting' of sorts for a semi-official HCI grad student club that they are trying to form. They had a guest speaker, and I got to wander briefly through some of their facilities, so that was pretty cool.
Skipping over the rest of the week's boringness, that brings us to this weekend, when half a dozen of us went out to Ledges State Park (about twenty minutes away - apparently it's a big thing here, but I never knew it existed) on Saturday afternoon to chill, hike a little, grill out, and make s'mores. Quite the fun time. This was followed by a showing of Napoleon Dynamite, a very unique independent film which I greatly liked, but felt that I missed something. It's not for everyone.
Big surprise, Sunday was pretty much a wasted day. Watched a whole lot of football, did some work, played a round of Frisbee Golf, and then did a whole lot of nothing. Whee.
As a sidenote, maintaining a POTD is actually quite challenging, and I am running out of pictures. I think I'm just going to have to start taking more random ones.
And as with every month, we have archived September. Until next week...

October 12, 2004 - Definitely getting worse

Yeah, yeah. I keep making my intervals between updates longer. My audience is crushed, I am certain. Right.
So, about the last week and change:

• I had two tests last week. The first was in my 430 class (schedule, for reference) - for variety, we had our test in the lab. Log onto the computer, and in 50 minutes, write this program, run it, test it, and submit it. Yeah, mine didn't even compile. This is not good. Fortunately, I talked to about a dozen other people and none of theirs compiled, either. The second test was in 342 - this one, while not 'good' per se, was much better. Plus, for once I didn't have to go to 491, so that's a big plus.
• Speaking of tests, I had one today, in 322. Bad. Evil. I hate that class. Everything about it. And then the test today just made things worse. I will be thrilled if I got a 50%, and that'll only happen with some wicked partial credit. Once again, we shall see.
• Returning to last week, some of the less-thrilling items: I had two appointments with advisors to determine my schedule next semester. It's looking pretty sweet, with a grand total of 15 credits, at least 7 of which are Speech, Philosophy, and one more do-nothing course. More on that in a bit. Also, I had an interview with National Instruments, a company that I'm not sure I have any real interest in, especially since it's looking more and more like I'm going to stay for HCI here. The interview went well, up until I argued with the interviewer for several minutes about a technical question only to realize, oops, he's right. Oh well.
• Our team had another flag football game on Sunday, and - how cool is this - we won! My four-year dream of getting an Intramural Champion t-shirt has finally come true. Oh yeah, and (I guess this is the whole point of intramurals, or something?) I had an absolute blast in the several games we played. Definitely a positive experience.
• On Friday night, we had a DDR night at Emily's - madd props to her for hostessing! A good time was had by all, except Eric, who patently refuses to actually try and enjoy the damn thing. It was great to see Susan and Megan again too. Afterwards, I went over to King's place for a little while, hung out, had some pizza, and went to bed about 4:00.
• Saturday morning (afternoon, if you're going to be picky) came at about 1:00 with a phone call from King - let's go frisbee golfing. Dude, I can't, I have a million things to do and I'm tailgating later, where should I meet you? Immediately after that, I went tailgating with Kelsey, Adam, and company, and for a brief time, with HKN. Of course, that was a great time, despite our team getting brutally slaughtered to the tune of 34-3. But, as usual, what else is new?

October 14, 2004 - Real briefly

Two-second update: Remember that test from last update, the one I was going to be thrilled to get a 50% on? Well, I got a 60% - and beat the class average. Perhaps all is not lost.
Be sure to read the last update if you haven't been here in awhile. Guaranteed to be more informative than this one.

October 21, 2004 - Oh boy

It's the old refrain: "We're back to a week between updates!" Maybe I should stop even thinking that I'll ever update again in less than a week. Oh well. This one comes at 3:00 AM, and I have a class in six hours. This makes me not happy.
So, let's talk about the last week, shall we? In absolutely no particular order:

• On Tuesday morning I had an interview with Caterpillar for either an IT or a software-engineering-based position. I thought it went pretty well; the interviewer and I got along well, and I don't think I flubbed any of the questions. We'll see, I guess.
• I got an email yesterday morning from National Instruments inviting me to an on-site interview on Friday, November 19th; that's right before Thanksgiving. They'll fly me down to Austin, Texas on Thursday and fly me back on Saturday. I think I'm going to go, because, let's face it, a free trip pretty much rules. Oh yeah, and I got a phone call today from IBM, wanting to set up a phone interview for a possible summer-fall co-op position. I guess it's kind of cool to be wanted, but it would be nice if Microsoft would get back to me!
• Last Friday, I met with Ronald, a student in the HCI program here. He's working with Augmented Reality, which is pretty cool. He showed me some videos and demonstrations of what he's working on, and I must say it's intriguing. I guess I have to decide pretty quick if that's what I want to be doing.
• This is the busy season for HKN also. Last week, we had an informal meeting for the new recruits, and last Sunday we had a formal meeting - shirt and tie and everything. Oh yeah, and in two weeks, there's an initiation ceremony that I'm supposed to go to, though I might be out of town.
• SCUBA Club had a meeting this week, too - it seems that for once, we're actually going to get shirts made! We have some planning to be starting for our Spring Break trip - and we have a Try SCUBA coming up on Monday. More fun.
• I registered for next semester this afternoon. I got into all the classes I wanted; a schedule will be up soon. More details about this when that comes about.
• This week has been absolutely heinous with homework. I've had one or two assignments from virtually every class, and ongoing projects from those that didn't give me homework. My to-do list is pretty intimidating right now.
• Senior design is quite a bit of work, especially now that we've gotten out of our documentation phase and started coding. I can't remember if I've linked it before, but check out our team's website.
• My 409 class is a lot of work, too - coding and documentation and trying to figure out a whole bunch of things that are completely new to me - graphics and sound terminology - and trying to remember things I've long forgotten - vectors, rotations, and matrices. But hey, at least this one is fun.
• And we haven't seen the sun in about three days. I've been in Iowa long enough to know what that means: We won't see it again until April. Hello, winter. How many days until the Christmas decorations come out?

October 28, 2004 - Well, I called it

Yep, another week. Wahoo.
Honestly, not much earth-shaking has happened in the past week. It's been a lot of schoolwork, a lot of projects, and entirely too little free time. What else is new, though, right?
This past week, and the one upcoming, are really, really busy. I have three ongoing projects (Senior Design, 430, and 409), and all three of them have major checkpoints due next week; one each Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I have at least two other homework assignments due next week as well, plus all the normal classes, meetings, et cetera. Man, I get whiny on this thing.
So, with so much work surrounding me, what am I doing this weekend? I'm heading down to UIUC to see a whole bunch of really cool people and partake in the Halloween festivities. So I lose two and a half days - at this point, I'm not sure I care. I need a break.
So until next week, hope all is well. I should have some pictures to put up upon my return.