Here I sit

...at 3:10AM on a Tuesday morning watching the creator of my favorite webcomic (Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques) draw tomorrow's strip on a livestream. I really wish I had found out about this stream before tonight; it's so awesome. That's not all I'm posting about, don't worry.

I'm back at school for my final semester, but part of me just wants it to be over with already. I got hired for a full-time position in OPPD's EMS department. I'll be living in Omaha after I'm done with college, and I think I'll be pretty content with my living situation. Getting a job was a major concern, and that was one of the first ones on my list; needless to say I am thrilled. My only real concerns in life right now are as follows:

1) We need to get Senior Design done before I can start "living the dream", and
2) I am worried about being further away from people I'd much rather be near once the semester ends.

I feel like I can probably handle both of those issues (and any others that might arise). A major part of my life has snapped into place, so I suppose the other pieces of the puzzle will inevitably fly around chaotically and try to find their spot in the new scheme, possibly hitting me in the process. I'll just have to be ready to duck.

RANDOM TANGENT: I'm really enjoying having my desktop computer working (finally). The issue of it ended up being a bad Windows install disk coupled with an incompatibility with an older version of Windows. No hardware issues at all, though sometimes it decides to shut itself down suddenly when I am downloading something. It doesn't happen often enough for me to actually want to reformat though, so I guess I'll deal with it for now.

I just jumped into a spirited discussion on the livestream chat about old TV shows from when I was 10, and as a result forgot what I was going to talk about next. I think I'll go put away laundry and go to sleep once Jeph posts this strip. I think he's about done. Goodnight and stuff.

Mind's Eyes

Something stirs within...
After seemingly endless sleep,
the beast samples the wind.
Cautious at first, for patience is in its nature,
but hunger drives it to rise.

Its name strikes fear, though it knows none.
Its tongue caresses razor teeth,
its steely fur shuns claw and cold.
An unbreakable will burns beneath.
It hastens from its secret den,
and runs among the windswept pines.
Now it hunts, my beast within;
now the eyes of the wolf are mine.

November is a great month.

The past week has been too good to ignore, so I'm just going to go ahead and write a post about it.

The week mostly consisted of workouts, homework and studying for an Algorithms test on Friday. I increased my max bench by about 10 pounds (not very important, but still cool), I got all my work done, and I managed to do better on the test than I ever thought possible. I am by no means great at Alg. Analysis, and I usually go into tests and homeworks with fairly low expectations. It was a nice surprise when I found that I actually knew how to do everything on the test. Whether or not I did it all correctly remains to be seen, but I am somewhat optimistic.

The best and most important thing that happened in the past week is that I started a relationship with my friend Ashley whom I've liked since I met her at the end of September. She's a pretty fantastic person; smart, beautiful, fun, interesting, and nice (among other positive adjectives which I won't list for brevity's sake). I am really excited to have the opportunity to get to know her better.

Academically this has been a much rougher and more trying semester than I expected it to. Even so, it's been a really long time since I could honestly say that I am generally happy with how things are going in my life, and I think that I can say it today. It's a great feeling.

The leaves are fallin'

I am a huge fan of fall. Winter is actually my favorite season, because I love snow, but fall definitely comes close to matching it. I like cool weather, and the leaves changing color is pretty great, too.

I'm sitting at the Solution Center "working", which after 8 on a Sunday night means that I'm bored out of my mind and surfing the internet. It beats actually having hard work to do I suppose. As soon as I get home I'm going to ANNIHILATE my bioinformatics, HDFS and 311 homeworks and play some StarCraft II. I've decided that I'm actually going to practice a bit in SC2 and get good enough to go up a couple divisions. I don't care much about rank, but Bronze is getting a little old. I think Gold or Platinum would look much better in my profile.

I had a pretty good weekend. Last night I went out to the hookah bar and then went to Corner Pocket and shot some pool. I hung out with some good friends that I don't get to see very often, and reconnected with an old friend whom I hadn't seen in a couple years. That was a lot of fun.

I was surprised to find that I didn't get a midterm warning about my Com S 311 grade, and I'm thinking that even though I have the option to drop the class, I am probably going to stick with it and see how I do. If I don't retake 311 next semester, I will only have 6 actual credits, which means that I get to spend a ton of time doing things I enjoy; really looking forward to more time to write, bike, play guitar, etc. Homework has quite literally eaten my life for the past couple weeks, and I was getting pretty stressed until I caught up on Thursday.

That's about it for now. Life is good! Next time, hopefully I'll actually publish a poem. I wrote one today, but I don't like how it reads, and it might be a little bit too edgy. I'll keep that one saved and possibly post it later.

Happiness...

...is different for everyone. My definition of it changes almost daily. Today it was an empty classroom, sunlight pouring in through a dusty window, earbuds in my ears and not a single constructive thought in my head. Peace of mind is priceless.

What?

Well, I figure it's about time for me to post here again. As usual, I had planned to post something before now, but I got caught up with a bunch of other stuff that grabbed my attention and refused to let go. Most of my time in the past couple weeks has gone into studying, finding a "real person" job, and spending time with friends I don't get to see very often. Last week was the career fair, and I got some decent leads on possible full-time opportunities. I interviewed with some people from Siemens up in Minnesota, and I'm hoping that I get the chance to look into a job with them a bit further. I'm also planning on following up with OPPD and filling out an application for Rockwell Collins.

Other than that, I had my first two tests of the semester last week, and I think they went pretty well. Human Sexuality and Bioinformatics are not the classes I'm worried about, but it's still nice to know that I've got two tests down. My senior design group has begun meeting regularly to discuss our project, and we've got a rough draft for a project proposal.

A couple friends who live in Minnesota and Chicago visited over the weekend. My friend Brett's car broke down here, and I almost made a round trip to and from Minneapolis tonight in order to get him home, but in the end he decided to wait until tomorrow morning when his car will (supposedly) be fixed. That's probably a good thing, because my car is in desperate need of an oil change due to a combination of a busy schedule and my amazing talent for procrastination. It was a great time hanging out with Brett and Kassie, but I might have overdone it a bit. I've been fighting a cold for the better part of a week, and I was almost over it on Friday night, but I had a mysterious relapse on Saturday. Some have suggested that lack of sleep and consumption of huge amounts of alcohol may have played a part in that, and I suppose the theory has some merit.

In other news, I now have a part-time position at the ISU Solution Center working as a concierge. That means that I greet people coming in for assistance, but I generally don't have to actually help them solve their problem. The hiring personnel who interviewed me seemed concerned that I would be unhappy with the position because I'd know the answers to people's problems and be forbidden by protocol to help them. What they don't realize is that feeling overqualified for a job is kind of refreshing to me; it certainly makes a sharp contrast to an engineering interview. In any case, I have a few friends who work there as tech support personnel, and I'll be more than happy to pass walk-ins on to them knowing that their problems will be solved.

This weekend I'm going back to Nebraska to visit the Omaha crew. On saturday I'm heading down to Peru State College with Jeff to visit his girlfriend and a bunch of her friends. I'm really looking forward to that!

Well, that's it for me. Bed time. No creative writing this time, but I'm hoping that the muse pays me a visit soon.

This is where a title would go if I had one

I have been having an allergy attack for the past 3 days that makes most of those I've had in years past look positively tame. Being the somewhat masochistic person I am, I waited until today to go get meds for it. I meant to pick up the sleep-inducing kind of allergy meds, because anything that helps me sleep and isn't alcohol is pretty great. Of course, being in my current stupor (likely caused by my sinuses increasing my cranial pressure to a dangerous level), I grabbed the non-drowsy Claritin. This means that I will likely be up for another two or three hours, because I'm incapable of sleeping while sick (yay). I can't wait for it to snow so all this nasty junk that I'm breathing in dies and leaves my sinus cavities in peace.

It occurs to me that I haven't done my usual run-down of my classes yet, so here is a brief one:

Cpr E 458: Real-time Systems... This class is kind of fun, though not the most interesting one ever. It's mostly had to do with scheduling algorithms so far, which is something I already knew a lot about from other classes. Hopefully this will be an easy A, though I don't know where it will turn after the scheduling part.

HD FS 276: Human Sexuality... What can I say about this? It's commonly referred to as "sex class" on campus, and that's exactly what it is. It covers everything about human physiology and behaviors related to sex. The teacher tends to make it very fun, and there's a lot of class participation involved (not that kind, get your mind out of the gutter).

Com S 311: Algorithm Analysis... This is one of only two classes I've ever dropped here at ISU, and both of them deal heavily with mathematical proofs. For most people, this class is tough. For me, it is close enough to torture that I actually think it should be illegal for them to require me to take it. This is it, though. I have to pass it this time. We'll see what happens, but I can almost guarantee that it won't look pretty on my transcript.

BC CS 444: Introduction to Bioinformatics... Interesting, relatively easy (so far) class. This is probably my second favorite this semester, next to sex class. It deals with the practice of using computers to map and process genetic data. There is a lot of discussion about the design and use of various protein and nucleotide databases.

Cpr E 491: Senior Design I... This class is essentially a waste of two hours a week. The project is the important part, though, and mine is pretty cool. My team is working on a system called the Homunculus Cam. It is going to be a 360 degree wearable camera system that can be embedded in the clothing of the user. When the system is active, it will provide a view of everything around the subject and relay the data wirelessly back to a base station. We have begun the process of determining our functional/non-functional requirements, and I'm sure I'll be writing more about this project soon.

Cpr E 494: Portfolio Design... This class is another waste of time in my opinion, but they require it, so I'll just have to grin and bear it. I'm going to throw together a website at some point with data on all the major projects I've worked on as a student at ISU. There are only about 5 or 6 major ones that I'm going to mention, but that should be enough to make the teacher feel I've earned a pass.

So, that's my semester. I don't think I have a whole lot to worry about aside from Com S 311. Let's see, what else is going on with me besides illness and classwork? Not much I suppose. I finally managed to finish reading the 6th book in the Wheel of Time series. I loved this book, but the end seemed fairly rushed. I'm hoping that they don't start going downhill from here. According to people I know who have read them all, they stay entertaining. I'll be picking the next few in the series up soon, and hopefully I can find time to read them. Other than that, I think the only other thing I have coming up is the career fair next week. I'll get my name out there and go further down the road to full-time employment.

That's it for now, maybe I'll find time to do some creative writing later in the week.