Ending a Journey, Starting an Adventure

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted. Firstly, I wanted to note that I enjoyed my grandparents' 50th anniversary and enjoyed seeing my cousins from Texas again. Secondly, I've come down with the cold. I started feeling it Tuesday night and have just been congested since then. My throat was a little sore at first so I thought it was what Tim had, but it turned out to be a cold. Hopefully it won't last too long. Well, I'm still alive and that's pretty much what I wanted to say.

So the day was looking to be a normal day: spending most of the day on my computer interrupted every now and then to get some homework done. Around 2pm, I was in my bedroom and I hear the apartment upstairs turn their bathroom fan on (the fan and light are both on the same switch) and shortly after I hear water going through the pipes. I assume someone is taking a late shower, so I don't pay it much attention. About an hour later, I still hear the water going through the pipes, but the thing that's bugging me is that I've never been able to hear the water from my bedroom. So I go into the bathroom and see a few drops of water on the ceiling, and I can hear water going behind the walls on both sides of me. Not a good sign! Before I assume that there's a problem, I tell my roommate Dave that the bathroom doesn't sound right and have him check it out just to make sure I'm not crazy. Well, it turns out I'm not crazy! I start dialing Campus Safety to have them call the Facilities Management person on-call this weekend while Dave goes to the apartment above us to see what's going on. I give Campus Safety my information so they can forward it to Facilities Management for them to decide what to do next. In the meantime, Dave comes back and says the guys upstairs didn't notice that their toilet overflowed and flooded their bathroom, and he proceeds to get his tools so that he can shutoff the water to the toilet. Campus Safety calls me back to say that Facilities Management agrees that it's an emergency and will be there in 30-45 minutes. I hate to cut their Saturday short, but they have to be the ones to decide if it's okay to leave it until Monday.

When Facilities Management comes, they stop by our apartment first and see that there is a little pool of water collecting on our bathroom floor, but not too much damage outside of the walls yet. Apparently upstairs was much worse and had about 3 inches of water in their bathroom plus some got into the carpet. They had already managed to clean up some of it, but it was still a mess. The guy says that he's not going to touch anything until Custodial comes out to clean up and disinfect both bathrooms, so he calls and has the person on-call come out. When Custodial comes out, they go to the apartment above us so we don't see them for about another 2 hours, but that's fine because our bathroom isn't as bad as theirs. Still, it made for an interesting day!

Other than that, it's been a pretty normal week now that I've gotten into the swing of things. My evenings are going by pretty quickly, especially since I have class and work until 6pm every day. My homework has pretty much leveled off to about 2-3 hours of work every day, but some of it I can push off to the weekends. I've also considered waking up earlier (right now I wake up at 8:20 everyday) and using the extra time to do homework. I didn't know that D-Group was canceled on Friday, so I ended up going over to Josh's apartment and we decided to go to Taco Bell for dinner. Also, work is starting to slow down now and I've had time to start working again on a couple programming projects I'm responsible for. Well, it's getting late; I'm going to post my schedule below then head to bed.

MONDAY
Chapel 9:30-10:20
American Literature since 1865 10:40-11:35
Numerical Analysis 1:00-1:55
Work 2:00-4:00
Simulation and Game Programming 4:25-5:45

TUESDAY / THURSDAY
Differential Equations 9:45-11:10
Work 11:30-4:00
Systems Programming II 4:25-5:45
D-Group ?

WEDNESDAY
Same as Monday, but no work.

FRIDAY
Same an Monday from 9:30-1:55
Work 2:00-5:00

Funny story: For those who haven't heard, over Winter break, my family and I went to watch National Treasure at the AMC movie theater in San Jose. So we get our tickets, go in and sit down. About an hour into the movie, the lights come on and the manager walks in and says they're evacuating the theater. Oddly enough, we weren't allowed to use the emergency exit and had to go out through the main entrance. None of the AMC staff knew what was going on, but Mall Security was explaining that the mall had lost water pressure and that the sprinklers wouldn't work if there was a fire. We ended up going back the next night and they gave us tickets to watch the movie again, another ticket to see another movie, and a free popcorn and drink all for free.

Now fast-forward to tonight, our D-Group decided that it would be fun to watch a movie the first time we meet this semester. We ended up picking Cloverfield (not the best movie out there) and went to the AMC just down the street. So we get our tickets, go in and sit down. It started off oddly about this being archives from the Department of Defense so we were expecting amateur filming (shaky camera, film problems, etc). About thirty to forty-five minutes into the movie, we see holes appear in the film like its melting and then it splits and half, but some of it is still melted on the screen. I thought it was just part of the movie, but film is turned off and the AMC theme music starts playing. Shortly after, the manager comes out and apologizes saying that the showing is canceled. When we leave the theater, they had us a Guest Pass to see another movie for free. They also offer to give us a refund or another Guest Pass in exchange for our ticket stub. So, for the price of one movie, I've seen two halves of a movie, one full movie, and I have two passes so I can see two more movie for free! Maybe it'll happen again?

Classes look like they'll be a lot easier this semester. I was a little worried at first because my American Lit professor had us read Huckleberry Finn in about one week, which took longer to read than I would have liked. Fortunately, the reading we had for today wasn't quite as long and is more manageable. I also have 14 hours of work each week, so I pretty much have class and work from 9:30 - 5:45 Monday through Friday. My other classes seem like they will be good. Differential Equations is just like any other math class I've taken; Numerical Analysis and Systems Programming 2 will be my easiest classes because they have little to no reading and very simple projects; Simulation and Game Programming will require a bit more work but it'll be my favorite class. Well, it's getting late. Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

After a busy semester, I somehow managed to get by with a 3.5 GPA. I'm positive some of my teachers must have graded on a curve because I didn't do that well in all of my classes. At least it's over and this semester should be a lot easier. I got back to school on Sunday and had a couple days to relax before I started work again on Wednesday. The manager only told me what needed to happen and he was still on vacation, so it was up to me to make sure that everything got done. I had to call him a couple times to clarify a couple things, but for the most part everything got done. He wanted me to replace the tech desks in Marshburn and Darling, and there were other techs to help me so everything went well! :)

Dave Reynolds came in on Saturday and my new roommate Nate arrived yesterday. I think Nate will fit right in with the rest of us! He's pretty laid back, owns a mac, and likes to cook. I'm sure Dave will be glad that he's not the loudest one in the apartment now. Ben is still in China, I think, so he should arrive sometime today in time for classes to start tomorrow.

Work has me working 14 hours a week in between my classes. So, I basically have classes and work from 9:30am - 6pm. We'll see how it goes for the first week, but it shouldn't be too bad. My only worry is about finding a time to take lunch, but I'm sure I can work that out with work. Well, back to work. Have a great day whoever is reading this!

My classes are starting to assign more work. I was able to get my Sunday shift dropped, so I have more time now on the weekends to work on homework. For Shakespeare, I have to memorize 30 lines by October; but, I'll have other chances to make it up if I don't have it memorized by then. I chose a passage from Hamlet, so the professor would like me to read it by the time we get to Act 4 in class. I've rented a CD from the library that I can listen to, so hopefully it'll help in memorizing my lines. I have research due in a couple classes this week for papers due toward the end of the semester. I also have a paper due Tuesday, two on Thursday, and one on Friday. Hopefully I'll have some time this week to get a few other things done too.

We had D-Group last Friday. I enjoyed seeing everybody again and we all talked about how our summers went. We're not quite sure what we'll do this semester, but I'm sure we can find some book to read and study. Afterwards, Josh showed me Disney's Captain EO show that was replaced by Honey I Shrunk The Audience at Disneyland. It was pretty weird and I'm glad that they've stopped showing it; it was somehow a cross between a George Lucas film and a Michael Jackson music video.

On Saturday, Josh drove his brother and I to the Apple Store in Pasedena so that I could trade in my old iPod for a new one. On my current one, the battery is completely dead and cannot hold a charge. I've been waiting for Apple to come out with their next-gen iPod so that I could upgrade to that. I've thought about getting an iPhone, but I couldn't justify spending the extra $20 / month on an unlimited data plan that I would rarely use. The new iPod Touch is like an iPhone, but limited to the functionality of the older iPods plus web browsing over Wi-Fi. Anyways, when we got there I was told that they were out and that I should come back on Monday because they get more shipments every weekday. Josh said he would drive me there again, but it's kind of far to travel just to get a 10% discount if I recycle my old iPod.

The weather has been interesting here. With Lake Shasta draining 2 ft. a day, I've been preparing for a rainy winter down here. If Saturday was any indication, there's going to be plenty of storms for the next few months. It basically poured for a few hours and I was soaked by the time I got home from the Apple Store. At least there should be less of a drought problem now.

So far things are looking like I expected them to: busy. Here's my schedule so far:

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
		8:05 - 9:30 am Ancient Art History		8:05 - 9:30 am Ancient Art History
	10:40 - 11:35 am Senior Seminar	11:25 - 12:50 pm Shakespeare	10:40 - 11:35 am Senior Seminar	11:25 - 12:50 pm Shakespeare	10:40 - 11:35 am Senior Seminar
	1:05 - 2:30 pm Computer Architecture and Organization	1:05 - 2:30 pm Computer Architecture and Organization			1:05 - 2:30 pm Computer Architecture and Organization
2-8pm Work	2:45 - 4:10 pm The General Epistles		2:45 - 4:10 pm The General Epistles	2:30 - 7 pm Work	3:00 - 5:00 pm Work

Senior Seminar: Ethics in Computer Science
I have this class with one of the two new Computer Science professors. Interestingly enough, he is Chinese and went to college in Ontario, Canada; now he is teaching in Southern California at APU. It looks like he'll be a good teacher, but a little harder than the professor who used to teach it. By the end of the semester, he is expecting us to have a 30 page paper (which isn't bad compared to the 50-60 pages other departments require).

Computer Architecture and Organization
This is the first class that I've had with Dr. Reibling, one of the more common professors. I'm not sure how I managed not to have a class with him until my senior year, but he's a well experienced professor and should make the class interesting. We'll be doing a bottoms-up overview of the computer, which is something I'm not very familiar with. We started out learning about transistors; I got how they worked, but I didn't really understand why. Looks like it'll be one of my more interesting classes.

The General Epistles
I wanted to take this class just because it sounded interesting. I also studied these books during Bible quizzing, so it'll be good to go over them again. The professor told us that he recently had a baby daughter and has only been getting 5 hours of sleep a night, so we should expect him to act a little odd or quirky at times. It doesn't look like it'll be too much work, but he does like to examine every detail in the passages. I think I'll enjoy this class.

Ancient Art History
I was a little worried before class that I should have taken an "easier" 100 level art class instead of a 300 level one just because I'm not that much into art. After going to the class, the professor confirmed that I would do better in this 300 level class just because it was more analytical than about how much time I put into creating something. He also suggested that I should switch to History of Modern Art, but it conflicted with another class. Hopefully I should do well in this class and get it out of the way.

Shakespeare
This is my third option for a writing-intensive course. I took one last year (Software Engineering), but it didn't count because the previous teacher didn't do a good job. Then I tried to get into Math Reading, Writing, and Presentation, but it conflicted with my Computer Architecture and Organization class. So now, I'm going to try Shakespeare both because I find his work interesting and one of my friends took the class and recommended it to me. I'll have to write a page or two for every class, but I can then use it in the 15 page paper due at the end of the semester.

Interestingly enough, I've had a couple problems getting books for my classes this year. First, the bookstore doesn't have one of the books I need for Senior Seminar; they have it list as required, but they hadn't even ordered it when I asked them about it. Second, they have the book for my Computer Architecture class, but it's the edition from 1997 that they stopped using two years ago. The bookstore claims that they've always sold that edition, so they haven't ordered more of that book either. I ended up buying both books online from Half.com (eBay's site for new and used books), which I've been meaning to do for a while because you can usually find them cheaper there than the bookstore. I ended up saving $10 on my Senior Seminar book and $1 on my Computer Architecture book (but it's the 2007 edition and not the 1997 edition). I've heard of people saving around $20 - $50 per book by using the site. You can then just sell the book right back to the school, and in some cases get more back than you originally bought it for.

I'm currently scheduled to work 13.5 hours per week, but I might cut that down to 7.5 to give me more time to work on my papers this semester. Plus, I'll have to visit museums on Saturdays and write a 5 page paper for those. I've also been busy the last week just barely getting my homework done each night. I've already asked to drop my Sunday shift from 2-8pm, so that should give me a lot more time during the weekends to get most of my homework done.

Other than that, things have been going well. My morning class has been canceled both Monday and Wednesday due to the professor being away at a conference. I'll probably take the chance to sleep in during the week and go to chapel in the evenings. This will be the first time that I'll be able to go to Senior Chapel on Monday nights! Well it's almost midnight again and I should get to bed. Hope everyone has a great week!

Last week was pretty interesting. I don't know what it was, but the leftovers from Acapulco just didn't agree with me and I felt sick most of Monday night. By Tuesday, I didn't feel like eating much and it took me a whole day to drink a bottle of Sprite. By Wednesday though, I was feeling better; except Thursday I felt sick again. Finally by Friday and Saturday, I was starting to feel closer to normal. I still seem a little off, but I'm definitely feeling a lot better. I'm not sure what caused it; if it was having the fridge off all summer (it looked clean, but I guess you never know), or if it was caused by something else.

At work last week, we spent most of our time in different sessions getting trained on everything we needed to know. It was better than last year in that we had all the student managers doing their own sessions instead of just one teaching 8 hours a day. There were a few things I learned, but mostly it was review and I would interject when I thought they left something important out. At the end of the day we had a jeopardy game where our 4 teams competed against each other. We did okay every time, but somehow ended up in third with negative points! Oh well, we had more of the new people and some not-so-fast runners; I still enjoyed just playing the game every afternoon.

As a team-building exercise, they took us out to Disneyland on Saturday. They paid for our ticket and lunch; they didn't tell us until we got there that we could also add 8 hours that day to our time card. I hit the jackpot on that opportunity! Most of the group of 7 that I spent the day with hadn't been to Disneyland in a few years, so we spent the time to go on some older rides as well as some newer ones. The new submarine ride featuring Disney Pixar's Nemo was okay; unfortunately it didn't actually have anything "living" in it, but is definitely something younger kids will want to ride again and again. I won't spoil it in case anybody is planning on going there soon. Oh, and the funny thing was that no one had picked up a map, so I was the only one who knew how to get from one side of the park to the other. I tried to let others lead but we'd always end up at a dead end.

This week we have the option of working, and it's always better than sitting around the apartment doing nothing (aka unpacking; I'm almost half-way done). There's not a whole lot for us to do, but I can always find something productive to do. After work, I tried cooking a chicken breast by broiling it the oven, but it didn't work as well as I had hoped. As the chicken was starting to get black on top, I check the inside but only the very outside of the chicken had started to cook. I thought about just sticking it in the oven, but decided to just let it blacken for another 10 minutes. It actually turned out okay and tasted pretty good, except for the broil pan now having burnt chicken I have to try and clean off.

There's going to be a lunar eclipse tonight, but we'll see how much I decide to stay up and see.

It's past time for bed, but I figured I'd at least post something since I'm not all that tired yet. Today was a transition from home to college life. Mom stopped by in the morning to drop off a few last things and say good-bye. We went out to eat for lunch but there is not a lot for one to say except "see you in a few months". When I come back home, there's always things to talk about and catch-up on. I was expecting this afternoon to be quiet and uneventful; it was just going to be Alexander and I for a few days while we unpack and make room for the others coming soon. Then Dave called and said that his plans had changed at the last minute and that he was going to be in around 11pm (well, I guess that's not going to happen at this point in time). A little while later, Alexander tells me Joel has invited us over for dinner. Sounds like I'm back at college: plans are continually changing and it's not just going to be a quiet night in the apartment. Joel (a roommate who graduated last year) is now living with a few other graduates as they determine what the next few years are going to be like (grad school, marriage, etc). We had a relaxing evening (starting at 6pm) of homemade spaghetti, conversation about how we passed the summer, and we ended watching the Corpse Bride until 10:30pm. Dave still isn't back yet, so I'll have to call him and let him know the door is open. And this is the beginning first few days of my ending year at college.

It's been too long since I last posted, so I figured now was as good as any time. Spring Break went well. I made some money, got some homework done, and relaxed a little. I don't have too much to do for the next three weeks until finals. I have a couple projects to finish up, and possibly a paper or two to do. I've started my World of Warcraft account back up, so now I have more free time. It's odd how it happens, but I always seem to have more free time when I'm playing video games than when I don't. Anyways, this is just a quick post before heading to bed. I'll see about posting again later in the week.

My roommates and I held a Superbowl Party today. We had a few people come in and out, but it was mostly just us. I found a Buffalo Chicken Wing recipe on a website that was recommended to me by a friend. It sounded really good, so I decided to make it for our party. I wanted some help, so Alexander said he would give me some assistance. It was actually quite simple; it had you cut up the chicken wings, fry them, mix in the sauce, and then bake them. It also included a homemade blue cheese dressing recipe. It took us about an hour and a half to make both, but it turned out really good! The wings weren't as spicy as I wanted, but they had plenty of flavor. The blue cheese dressing was the best I've ever tasted! It was nice and creamy with chunks of blue cheese and plenty of flavor. We only had a pound and a half of wings so they were gone fast. Being able to pull off a snack like this gives me quite a bit of confidence in my cooking skills. I can't imagine anything much harder than cutting up your own meat, frying it, and then baking it.

A couple of my teachers were out last week, so it was a little slower than normal. My English teacher had strep throat, so we had subs come in and give a quick lecture. My philosophy teacher was out at a conference, so he just gave us the week off. I could have done some work on my paper on the existence of God, but I decided to wait until Tuesday so see if he explained it a little bit more. My Software Engineering II professor is on medical leave from the week before that, so we've had a sub since them who shares his experience with software engineering. It'll be nice to have my teachers back and get back on a routine in class.

On Friday, I was assigned the task of working on AutoIt for work. AutoIt allows us to script different tasks we have to perform, so for things like installing antivirus software we just run the script and it takes care of the rest. The manager who used to take of it isn't attending APU anymore, so they needed to find someone else to do it. I've been wanting to do some programming work for IMT, so they gave me the job! I've already found ways to improve over what the last manager had, so things are looking good!