So for those who don't know, I made this blog because Ms. Piekarski (my 12th grade AP [U.S.] Government/Economics Honors teacher) made us keep a "current events" journal. Most of the post (actually, all of them except the previous one) are BS'd reports on CEs that I did at 2AM in the morning because it was due that day. I tried to pick interesting ones. After a while I gave up.
Although the reports were for a grade, the rest of this site (the layout, the name) was a joke. I thought it was funny.
I still think it is funny.
In any case, I feel like keeping a blog because I have (almost) nothing to do at work despite being paid 550 week for 10 weeks. This comes down to roughly 13.75 an hour. I've kept a blog before, but I ended up posting one-liners because I realized no one gave a crap about my day and then I ended up writing stories because it was more interesting than writing about my day. Nothing's really changed, except I cannot write stories anymore so I guess I'm back to writing about my life. I'm no longer a pre-adolescent teen with too much time on his hands, so maybe it will be a bit more interesting.
To start off, let's talk about World of Warcraft. I play it. It's consumed my life. I've roughly gained 55 levels in almost a month and have even beaten a guildie who has been playing for god knows how much longer than me. I feel vaguely accomplished, but at the same time know that I get about 4 or 5 hours of sleep depending on how tired I am/how much I want to level up.
I started playing because my brother started playing a while ago and he told me how great it was and, since I really missed playing MMO's, I decided to try it out. I am deciding whether or not to continue my subscription for August, though honestly I have nothing else to do down here in San Diego.
My brother's guild
On another note, Andrew IM'd me at around 2AM in the morning. It was a link to a phishing website (a disguised website designed to "phish" for your password/other info). I realized it was when it prompted me for a password, but I wonder if it spammed his entire buddy list and if so, how many fell for it. It reminded me of my spyware/malware battling days, when it'd grip my entire computer and pretty much proceed to own the crap out of it. Suffice to say I've gotten over those problems (thankfully), and I've come out a little more wiser about the power of google to solve ANYTHING given the right key words.
So for the most part of this morning, I have been trying to organize my classes for next year. And pretty much my entire shool year. Believe it or not, you can't go blindly through college without preparing classes at least a year in advance. It's a lot of work but it's worth it to look up what classes you may or may not take a given quarter (because some are only offered certain quarters) and how much of a workload that may be. My first quarter went something like this:
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Fall '08
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Dimensions of Culture 1 (Humanities/Writing combination class specific to my college)
Differential Equations (MATH20D)
Engineering Computation (ECE15)
Chemistry 1 (CHEM6A)
Chamber Singers (MUS95K)
Dimensions of Culture (just called DOC because no one runs around screaming Dimensions of Culture), a three-course mandatory sequence, can be summed up quite succintly as "how WHITE MALES suck." White and males being the key word here. It's basically a course designed to open up topics about discrimination. I certainly was pretty clueless about it (probably much to my girlfriend's dissappointment) about discrimination, stereotypes, and how America perpetuates all of it. It's very eye-opening, and I thought the material was very thought-provoking. Too bad all the required reading and crap takes up so much time and effort that no one bother to read it, and that discussion consists of students who repeat what the TA said, intermixed with a story about how their dog died, the title of some reading we were supposed to read, and the words "culture," "discrimination," and "I don't know what the hell I'm talking about." It's very saddening. I expected so much more, intellectually, from people at UC San Diego. But I suppose we're all UC Berkeley and Los Angeles rejects, so there's not much to say there.
Sometimes I wish I did end up at Berkeley. Apparently I can transfer in through a "Lower-Division transfer" if I tried, but the acceptance rate for that is pretty low. Like, '09-high-school-kids-trying-to-get-into-a-UC low. I would try, really. Is it worth it? The only thing I'd have to give up is my girlfriend. All the promises we've made. The late-night food runs. The sleeping over at Price Center (restaurant center of UCSD) on semi-comfortable sofas together. Falling asleep together from staying up the night before. I would turn into that student my parents always wanted. That kind of high-acheiving (maybe, my major at UCB is pretty competitive), study-orientated kid who doesn't get a girlfriend until he's graduated and is completely closed off to other people. I could be that kid, the one that doesn't talk to anyone and always studies. Who's so self-absorbed that he'd abandon even his girlfriend. All to fulfill some need to be recognized as an academically superior student. To use the utmost of his intellect and capabilities.
I could be that person. I could live like that. At the least, I'd have Melissa right? But probably not really. She seems pretty content with her own group of friends. I haven't made many friends in San Diego (though I have made one enemy). I wish I don't have as much self-control as I do, or otherwise I would be one roommate down and infinitely more happy. But that is another issue. Cynthia-M has told me that he does not make fun of me anymore, or my girlfriend, so for that I am happy. I was under the impression he continues to do so. Any less control and I would punch his face in and throw him out the window. I was seriously considering it at one point, but it is moot. He is gone; out of my life. Hopefully, forever. Living with my family, especially my brother, has made me learn a lot of self-control. Maybe more than some people deserve.
In any case, I do not think I will pursue a transfer. I imagine Melissa must be disappointed, as she usually is, not in my reluctancy to join her at UCB, but rather, in my apathy towards higher acheivement. It may seem silly to say that I would give up self-fulfillment (and being closer to my hometown) just for a girl who've I've only known, really, for little more than half a year. I have no reasonable justification. Part-obligation, part-UCB-is-so-competitive, part-something-tells-me-I-don't-want-to.
Coming back to my first quarter at UCSD, when I wasn't being consumed by the blackhole that was DOC, I was busy pulling my hair out trying to figure out C programming. I look back on that class with very fond, very proud, feelings. Though I hated that class, my first real foray into programming has been fun, if not frustrating. I do not regret not attending a single lecture or discussion after the first week except when and ONLY when I was taking my midterm (the final was take home). I ended up stopping midway between my final program (it consisted of a few) that was due that very night just to see Irvington High School's (IHS) chamber choir. I also went to surprise Gloria, who, just mintues after getting off the phone with her about not being able to go, I decided to myself I would and rushed there while it was beginning. I've always enjoyed choir (even IHS's, though I cannot say much for Ms. Olsen/Mrs. Bell; I always called her Ms. Olsen despite coming in when she was already married). She was nice, the keyword being WAS and certainly before I came in. I sat by myself, quietly reflecting and enjoying the concert. Gloria didn't realize I was there until I came up behind her after the concert, though. I was surprised, but I don't remember why. She immediately glomped me, of course, after having not seen me since turkey-break.
I came home later that night to finish the program but I couldn't make very much headway. It was partially correct, but it was giving me incorrect output. That program consisted of some 2000 lines fo code I think. Or maybe it was 800. In any case, it was so big that it started to lag my Pentium 4 computer. I ran through the program without ever testing any of the code, only hoping to God it would at least compile. The process for code writing consists of writing and compiling. Once you've written it, you have to "compile" it so that the machine can read it. But if your program was hastily written and untested, you would get compile errors. As in, it can't even begin to run. Like mine. I debugged it into a compilable state, thankfully, but it gave incorrect output. And I left it at that. I got a B in the class.
Which is pretty damn good in my opinion, given that I did not attend lecture/discussion. I don't think it would've helped much, though; the teacher was pretty bad I've heard (of course, I wouldn't know) and the TAs were pretty helpless in terms of getting your program done. My friend, Wing, failed the course despite going to every lecture and discussion. It is some small respite, but I know for sure there were a lot of people who did very well.
Since then I've taken another programming class (because I'm sadistic or something) and, no surprise, another B. I am taking another, even harder one next quarter. Why? Why am I doing this to myself? Because despite my disgust, frustration, and pure hate for programming, some part of me loves every bit of it; like bittersweetness. For no other reason than the simple fact that I can see the results (or more often, failures) of a maddening adherence to ambiguous syntax rules and key words. It's a little empowering. Plus I know that I will have to do this for my job, no doubt. As much as I hate to say it, and destroy whatever misconstrued ideals you had about electrical engineers, we all sit in a sweaty, fan-whirring room on our little computers tapping away at code. Forever. We are glorified computer science majors. Without programming experience, there is no way I'd ever make it out in the work force.
Academically, though, there's no reason for me to take the programming classes that I am (outside of ECE15) because other engineering classes can certainly replace them. In fact, one engineering course would replace two (because one was a pre-requisite for the class I am going to take), but that is moot, really. The programming experience is invaluable because it is something I can put down on my resume that actually helps.
All and all, my first quarter consisted of 18 units. For Melissa, my, like, one single friend from UCB who goes by semester units and not quarter units like most of the other UCs, it is equivalently 12 units. Usually students take 16 (10.67) units. Some even take 12 (8). Though it doesn't seem like a lot, I can tell you the workload was certainly overwhelming.
DOC took up some 10-14 hours a week, CHEM6A was at least 6 hours a week (or, if you did it my way, 12 hours the day before the test every two weeks for eight weeks), ECE15 varying depending on how far I was in the class (the last few projects were nigh-impossible, only 1/3 of the class submitted anything at all the last homework assignment), but no doubt also time consuming. MATH20D wasn't that difficult but you had to put out a couple hours a week to do homework. To top that off, I took chamber choir. Because I wanted to. Don't judge me.
Considering how "easy" classes are roughly 3-4 hours, "okay" classes 5-8, and anything 9+ was a blackhole, I had roughly two hard classes and two medium ones. Plus choir. Which exists on its own plane. Not that it means much for you overacheivers back in high school, but I'd say it'd be equivalent to taking 3 AP classes and two normal classes, and choir. I'll talk about the next quarter when I come back (Winter '09), because I'm hungry and I'm going to get off to work to go home and eat.
I'M NOT DONE. BRB.
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