So far, with only 4 days down on the break, I’ve been having a good time. It feels good not having to worry about finishing anything or having to do anything. That of course shouldn’t be the case but I’ve been lazy. I’ve actually been busy so far working on Friday, Sunday, and now Tuesday. This has kept me busy for the most part. I’ve also been enjoying watching some movies and generally just killing time. The Olympics have kept me interested.
A good movie for everyone to check out is Waiting. It is a comedy that is based in a restaraunt called Shenanigans. I think that this has to be a good representation of what working in a restaraunt must be like. I found myself laughing quite a bit throughout, especially scenes with Dane Cook. That guy is hilarious. You can get it from Amazon with the following link, Waiting DVD as well as check out the details on imdb
Well it’s that time of year again; Reading Week. I don’t think that I will actually spend much time reading or even going over school work but that is the name it has been given. My goal for the week is to try to relax and goto work. I also plan on watching more Olympics and cheering for Canada. They need all the cheering they can get it seems. The mens hockey team lost again; a 2-0 loss to Finland. I think we should be able to pull it together for the playoffs. We seem to be doing really well at getting medals though, much better than our Summer Olympics results.
Time has come for midterms. Up first is a midterm for CS290AF, the java class. I am not sure what to expect for the midterm. So far the quizes have been tricky which I believe to be a ploy to lower the class average to a respectable level. I sure hope the midterm isn’t quick so tricky but I’m going to make sure to keep a sharp eye out for any tricks. After this midterm on Friday, I have another Chinese 100 quiz. I did not bad on the first quiz but it wasn’t 100%. I am going to have to try harder this time to strive for perfection. I hope that this will be the class to really boost my average up. After this, I have a week off for school. Yay to Spring Break! Then I come back from the break and have a CS340 midterm and then an Econ202 midterm. I am not going to be happy for both of these at all. I guess I should probably do a little bit of studying during the break but I doubt I will get anything done. Since I never seem to actually study for these things beforehand.
I have finally finished all my job interviews for my coop job for the summer. I think I should be able to find a nice job that will allow me to have plenty of money. I’ll have to try to balance it out so that I am saving a portion of my earnings so that way when I go back to school I will still have a lot of money around.
Back to the job interviews. The interviews weren’t very stressful at all for me. I remained relaxed and confident throughout. I think that this has to do with my prior experience for past job interviews. Some of the jobs sounded really interesting and there were some other jobs that were only slightly interesting. I only applied for jobs that I would be interested in working at this semester. This helped me since I knew the jobs that I would be doing and the material in their fields. This game me a knowledge boost for the interviews and I was able to better express myself. I will find out next week how I am ranked at the jobs and then I will go from there. If I am ranked number 1 by more than one job I will get to decide where I work. If only 1 then thats where I will be, and if no rankings . . . I better be looking for more employment elsewhere.
Today was the Coop Office’s Resume day. I believe that I was able to find a bunch of great looking jobs for the upcoming work term. I am hopeful that everything will go well and I’ll be out working for the summer. If I don’t end up getting a job anywhere, I could always go into this interesting International Business class. Since its a summer class, I think it will only last a short time. The highlight of the class is a 10 day tour of China. They will visit to Beijing and Shanghai. I think that would be very fun. The total cost for that class says it would be $2500. I’m definitely keeping my options open for that one!
The past couple days have been rather busy for me. Although I have been way busier in the past, being busy now snuck up on me. I had a simple assignment in CS306 for Monday, and then a moderately difficult assignment for CS340 due Tuesday. Now, I have to get my resume, and everything all in order and apply for jobs for Wednesday for coop. Luckily, my Chinese 100 quiz on Friday shouldn’t be too dificult. I just have to focus on when she speaks and I’ll get the tones correct. Writing the words comes easily to me. Java 290 on Thursday should be some more fun. I’m really enjoying that class and look forward to it every week.
Finally! I have been waiting for over a month now for my Xbox Training prize. I ordered Project Gotham Racing 3 and Perfect Dark Zero. It seems like they have been on backorder or something so I had to wait, and wait. Well I just checked today again, and the status now saying In-Process. It looks like I will be getting these games sometime in January!! Good times are ahead indeed. In other shipping news, I finally received two of my textbooks in the mail today. It feels great to buy textbooks less than half of what the bookstore is charging. Talk about a rip off. My goal is to boycott them as much as possible since I don’t like their business practises of buying textbooks back off students for super cheap and then reselling them for over double. Especially when they probably sold the original textbooks to begin with. For them its a lot of profit IMO.
It seems like I have been keeping busy these days. With school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I have been having to fill 2 hour breaks inbetween classes. It seems like I lucked out and have a break the same time as Arthur and Nick. That means I have something to do during my first break . . . go to the gym. I think if I can keep this up for a large part of the semester I will be seeing results, for sure! For my second break, I still have not found a good waste of time. Maybe I should actually focus this semester and try to get some work done during this time. I shall see, but so far it has been hanging around the CSSS closet and partaking in strange debates about nothing. Fun times.
My classes have been going along fairly well. So far, even though I’ve only had one class, I am most worried about CS340. The class just gives me a bad vibe and the first assignment is downright scary for someone like myself who hasn’t done a lot of algorithm analysis so far. I hope it isn’t as bad as I expect it will be. I have been having a really good time in Chinese 100. The class itself is fairly easy with all my prior knowledge. I am keeping all that knowledge on the downlow just incase they suspect me to be overqualified for the course. It’s always great when we are learning new Chinese words and I already know how to draw the characters for them. My other classes CS290, CS306, and Econ202 have also been off to great starts.
After school and before I goto sleep, I have been keeping busy playing Xbox360. I think Microsoft was brilliant when they thought of the Achievements. It gives me reason to keep playing games and to try to pass them 100% doing a lot of stuff I might normally skip. Thumbs up to them for that. Now if only they would fill the backorder on their retail training webpage and ship me a couple more games, but that is another story.
Back to school, back to school …
It is back to school time again. I am feeling very optimistic about the upcoming semester. I feel that even though I have a couple of more difficult classes, CS306 and CS340, I will be able to have an easier time. My favorite classes this semester so far seem like they will be Chinese 100 and CS290AF. CS290AF in particular will be a very interesting class. The class itself is not going to be like anything offered before, as it is taught in the lab. Nova is emphasizing partner work so that should work out well since sometimes it can help to have two heads trying to answer a problem. I feel that Chinese 100 should be a breeze since I already have so much knowledge on Mandarin. I am making sure to not get too ahead of myself and will reinforce the material I already know.
My next semester is already taking shape. My book list appears to be online at the university and I already have good news. Last time I took an Economics class (Econ201) , I downloaded the entire textbook, study guide, and solutions manual from the textbook manufacturers webpage. The good news comes from the fact that I downloaded the Microeconomics and Macroeconomics portions of the textbook. That means I already have the textbook for Econ202.
My other textbooks include an expensive book for CS340, Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis. After that is another expensive book for CS306, Understanding Data Communcation and Networks. I also have to buy a reader and a workbook for Chinese 100. For CS290AF, there isn’t any textbook listed so far. Maybe it will be some free online text!! :) I can only hope.
