... seemed non-existent here on my blog. When in fact, it was quite the opposite. So much went on, that it seemed to have enveloped itself into its own parallel universe or separate dimension altogether, thus its absence. Well, a pretty big part of it had to do with my own lagging and laziness. Quite often I have been clicking around aimlessly (but not without AIM running, haha... sorry about the pun) at other people's blogs, reading their daily entries and thinking about mine, only to put it off to the side because my mood at the time didn't quite strike me as one worth blogging. Either way, I'm doing it now - finally - so just shut up and listen (or read).
First and foremost, there is always and of course school. I'm quite sick of it, but before you know it, it is already week #7 of this Spring '06 quarter. So I guess I'll just skip by all of the introduction and how I think this class will end up turning out and just describe the damn classes already.
EE 425 (Analog Filter Design): So I take this class because I figured that being able to get all the old material (exams, homeworks, special problems) from Hasan when he took the class 1 year ago (which by the way isn't that long ago, seeing as how the class is offered only once a year) I should be set... and further set with the fact that Elijah is also taking the test. Dr. Corcoran also recommended the class, so I said what the heck... it'll go towards my electronics concentration. Well thus far, we've had 1 exam of which I got one of the lower grades out of the whole class (average was about an 80, I got a 71) but I really didn't do that bad considering it was 1 problem that basically killed me. The class itself if quite the joke, I don't pay too much attention in class when Granneman is lecturing (even while sitting in the front) but I do make an effort on the homework problems - well I kinda have to, I don't have any solutions. But then again, the homework is graded AMONG OURSELVES... Elijah and I trade papers and we've given each other perfects on the homeworks every time. I've actually managed to do okay on the homeworks, figuring stuff out. I guess I just have to keep up on it... the class isn't 1/2 bad.
EE 455 (Analog Filter Design Lab): So the lab for this course I'm partnered with of course, Elijah... which is actually pretty good because he knows his way around the labs. Usually he sets up the circuits (after helping him troubleshoot random problems such as the power not being turned on, bad chips, bad proto boards, ect) and I set up all the data acquring (Excel, plots, Microcap, etc.). We've been doing quite okay on the last few labs... and the best part is that we don't have to do any lab writeups! Granneman is going to have us do 1 (one) lab write-up at the very end, and as formal as it can be... it will be on one of the labs we have gone through. It should be cake.
EE 406 (Power Systems I): The class itself is huge, due to the fact that Taufik is teaching it and everyone jocks Taufik. He's a good lecturer, but I oftentimes find myself wandering off in class, because having his lecture notes printed out in front of you to follow along with gets boring sometimes, especially when he attemps to go over the math of the whole example to the whole class. Every week it seems like we have a quiz, which forces me to keep up with at least SOME of the material, and the 1 midterm that we've taken so far I did okay on. Class average was a 39/50 or something and I got a 40/50. It should've been better I think... but as with all good professors whom you learn a great deal from - they write hard tests to challenge you. The quizzes I haven't been doing fabulous, but the last one I did get a 100% on. We'll see where this goes.
MU 221 (Jazz Styles): For a class that I'm taking credit no credit, I've really kinda put in a lot of work. The only real lacking that I can figure out that I've been getting away with is the attendence. We've already taken the 2 midterms, I did okay on the first one and haven't gotten the 2nd one back yet. I still have to go to a concert review (probably this upcoming Saturday night) and write a stupid paper that's due this Wednesday. Seems like a lot of work, I know... but as long as I do enough work to earn me a "C" in the class I'll get credit and not affect my gpa.
IME 457 (TA for Advanced Electronic Manufacturing): So I'm taking this class to basically learn more and more about the surface mount machine (how to program it) in order to utilize it for my own senior project when the time comes. So far I've had pretty good success, learning how to load the feeders, the overall programming system, etc. Now I've just got to get some kinks out of it and start playing with the other load methods (super-strips, tray loads, etc.) and I should be golden. I've also messed with the solder-paste machine a bit, although I don't think I'll make too much use of that for my senior project because I won't ever need to mass product anything and a stencil will be too expensive for 1 project. Hopefully I can get some demos done for this to show off.
So enough about the boring school shit... I was over this quarter (academics) around week 2. I suppose that would also have to be about the same time that I took over a week off from school, haha. So due to Taiwan tradition, I'm supposed to go back to Taiwan and formally bury Dad into his family tree's temple right around the 6 month mark after his passing away. That's the main reason why I went back there, but that wasn't all. I left on April 6th, and returned on April 16th. What did I do the whole time I was back there? A number of things... I won't describe everything, but I'll try to at least list it in order... here goes: Arrived in Taiwan, went with Mom and Uncle Paul and Grandma up to see Grandpa's grave temple, then went back with Uncle Paul and my little cousin Ja-Ja to their house, went to their town's traditional night market, went to the (golf) driving ranges with Uncle Paul, went and saw Mei-Jing and Aunt to have lunch, went and had dinner with Mom and Godmom Barbara, went and did Dad's funeral procession thing, went to the biggest night market (Shi-Ling), went and got my teeth cleaned, had dinner with Mom at Ann's work and found out more about Dad's life, had dinner with Aunt Julia and Uncle and Johnson, went to dinner with Godmom Barbara and saw the night market of Dan-Shui, spent the night at Barbara's house, went to lunch with Godmom Barbara and Starbucks, played Mah-Jongg with Ander and Ann's boyfriend and friends (won), and finally went to Spring Love '06 Concert with cousin Ander, ate breakfast at a 7-11 at 4:30 in the morning, had lunch with mom's oldest sister (Aunt and Uncle), before finally having a giant fiasco at the airport - getting delayed by about 4 hours and finally making it onto the plane. Got back to America, went back to Vacaville after Will picked me up, washed Apollo free of fleas and ticks that have infested our house, then finally driving back to SLO at 1AM and getting pulled over by the cops only to realize that we've just been "speed checked".
Aside from all that, it was overall a very cool trip and experience. Only thing that sucked about it was the fact that I had tons of stuff to make up for (1 midterm and some homework and a lab) and academics were just piled on when I first returned. I don't even want to think about that right now, I'm just glad that was over.
I've been getting myself into a good amount of stuff and seem to be setting myself up for a lot of... "work" next school year. Granted that I'll be almost graduating, but I've seemed to be involved in a few other things.
- EE Fee Committee
- Cal Poly Billiards Club
These two new things will definetly take up a bit of time, but I guess not THAT much time, next year. The fee committee doesn't meet that often, plus I'll probably run for webmaster and just clean up the website over the summer if I get granted access. The Billiards Club might be a bit more... as I will probably end up being Vice-President and have to deal with WOW, Open House, t-shirts, assisting with the scheduling of league and tournament play, etc. All those things, on top of Engineering Ambassadors, Work, Senior Project, and the regular to extra heavy dose of classes towards my double concentration in EE and philosophy minor will be a handful.
What else... rent's gone up to $650 starting in June... the fucking bastard. I've never liked the guy from the get-go, but moving is a bitch, so we'll see what happens. All the computer things have arrived (sheesh, it has arrived for quite a while now) but I've been so lazy I haven't fucked with any of it. I might end up waiting until like the summer before I mess with it... this weekend was supposed to be some prime computer working times, but I seem to be somewhat sick with a sore-throat and I just decided to be a bum most of the weekend, so there goes that plan out the window.
Will continues to be a bum here, playing WOW 24/7 and stopping only to eat (and must watch something on TV or his computer at the same time, sometimes the latter induces the former btw) or to go running. He does nothing else. Hopefully he'll get called in to start training and work soon... Stevie said he's going to hire Will, and I also got a raise (of 22 cents each hour! let the money roll in!) I don't know what I'm going to do with him, but I need to do something as far as the academics go.
Apollo's fine... we've just had a recent outbreak in fleas/ticks for a while and hopefully that'll be over soon. He's doing just the same, hanging out all day long and playing, sleeping, eating...
