Last post of 2006
This is going to be my last post of the year.
And it may be long, since I'll probably just keep this open until 11:55 and then hit submit (I also want to get another post in on DP before the end).
So, 2006. What all happened of note this year:
I worked at Cirque du Soleil while they were here (wow, was that really only this year?). That was pretty fun while it lasted. I don't think I could have worked much longer than I did for them, though, especially considering that I was taking 16 or so credits that term. Working nearly every day did get to be a lot by the end. It's probably a good thing that it wasn't all during Winter Term or I probably would have had problems with schoolwork getting in the way.
Over the summer...I took 200-level Japanese. That was intense. 6hrs of studying Japanese a day, plus I had a 4hr a night Spanish class for 4wks. And I was fencing a lot more, since I had more free time. I keep saying I should get up to the Salle over the break, and I keep not doing it. Maybe in 2007. Maybe I'll finally drag Tina up there, too ;)
And August I had some time off. After all that studying Japanese, I promptly forgot all the kanzi we learned except maybe half a dozen. I signed up for way too many classes for Fall Term, and found out the hard way when the last date to withdraw from a class was (instructor approval or no). Almost at the end of break, we found out the Anime Club was in danger of becoming nonexistent since people had graduated and/or left the country. So I got involved in keeping it alive. It's so nice to have both monitor cables again for a month ^_^
And then came the Term of Too Much Work. I seriously need to learn to manage my time better. Chemistry, Physics, Japanese, Computer Science, Math...and labs. Oh, the labs. I shake my fist at them (metaphorically, of course; I'm typing). Especially Chemistry. That was way too much work for a 1-credit pass/no-pass class. My Physics lab was excessively easy; something on the order of an hour of work a week. But the Chemistry. Ooh the Chemistry!
Math was so much fun, but I should have done the work all term like I was supposed to. CS was boring when I went, and I probably should have gone more often. Scratch that -- I definitely should have gone more often. I also probably shouldn't have waited until Thanksgiving Break to do my entire lab notebook for it. Some of those early labs would have been lots of help before the midterms. Live and learn, I guess.
Not too much more of interest fall term. We watched anime in anime club and I skipped classes to have lunch with Tina way more than I should have. All in all, it was pretty normal. We did carve pumpkins one week - that's something I haven't done in a while, probably since my little brother was around 6 or 7.
Yes - this is definitely going under an lj cut when I get around to it.
There we go - bonus points if anybody can tell me where it's from. Oh hey! Speaking of which, I guess I should have mentioned that under stuff that I did over the summer. Choutanoshimi datta ^_^
So, I also joined the Computer Action Team (CAT) at school in October. That's a blast, but it takes a lot of my time. I'm working 4hrs/week doing tech support and they give me 4hrs/week (more when DaBAH really gets going) of knowledge. Except this week - we decided not to since people are gonna be gone anyway. I think there were all of 6 of us there last week. Which reminds me; I should really do my command spotting sometime soon. I should probably also have decided to do this in Dvorak instead of qwerty so I could get faster at that. I think next year, I'm gonna start doing most of my writing on Dvorak so I can get better at speed.
And the break...
This has meant a lot more time that I can work on CAT stuff, so I've been down there long after my shift is technically over. It also means that I've been working for my mom more; she's actually going to be getting her office organized (how weird!). I'm supposed to be setting up a VPN for her, but I can't seem to get it to work quite right.
I've been learning Perl and reviewing kanzi when I can, and playing no less than 3 FF games at the same time. My brother got me FF3 for xmas, and I've already got about 6hrs logged in it (for comparison, I had something like 10hrs within a day on FF12). It's a lot of fun, but very very bishi. I can see why they didn't release it in the US in the early 90s. It probably would have bombed almost as badly as 9. Quite by accident, I made my initial team a Fighter, Black Mage, White Mage, and Thief. The Thief was later a Red Mage and is now a Monk. Because Monks kick ass. Almost as much as pirates or ninjas.
Most of the other xmas swag was clothes, but there are rumors that we're getting a Wii sometime next year when there are more available. Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I'll really have to finish out 12, 3, and 4 quick so I can devote all my time to Twilight Princess.
I started rereading LotR about a week ago, too - I'm already into Book 2 (that's Book 2/6, not The Two Towers). Tolkein++ (Tom Bombadil)++ Nazgûl--
Is it û? I really hope it is. We'll find out when I click preview. And maybe not even then; I might release this in all its tyop-ridden glory without checking first.
So, I guess that's pretty much it for 2006. On to 2007:
Winter Term - I'll be again taking way too many credits. Even more than last term (by 1). But at least now I know that Chemistry will waste lots of my time with WebCT and various other crap. Physics shouldn't be quite as boring (and my labs aren't at 5-fucking-30 at night), and I'm not taking a class with Blieler this term. He's an awesome guy and great at teaching the stuff, but I couldn't handle the workload.
So, what will I be taking instead, you ask? (If you didn't ask, too bad)
Kanzi. 300-level Japanese is 4 classes; 2 speaking/listening and 2 reading/writing. Thankfully, everybody else has had even longer to forget the kanzi they learned in 2nd year, so we'll all be on an even footing. I hear we'll even be starting to do essays by this term, which will be kinda cool to finally be able to write that long in Japanese. I remember doing stupid little essays like "Describe tu familia" in Spanish in 1st year, but these might actually have substance to them. Plus, I can already understand some of the anime I watch and now I'll be able to read along with the theme songs, too.
Reimer-sensei would be so proud (We have one guy in the anime club who dances to the songs [and shouldn't! Oh gods, he shouldn't...*shudder*] but nobody has started singing them. Yet. ざんこくなてんしのように...).
Speaking of Japanese, I'm planning to go to Japan over the summer next summer, probably for about 6wks. Maybe more; I haven't found out whether I'll be going at all yet and it'll be expensive as it is, even if I do get a scholarship for it. The program lets me take 12 PSU credits off-campus at Waseda. So with any luck, I'll actually be in Tokyo and getting to practice my Japanese even more than I did this summer. And then I'll try my hardest to forget it all when I get back, just to have an excuse to go back again in 2008. Yes, yes...the plan is unfolding well...muhahahaha!
Actually, I want to be done in Spring 2008 if I can, which would mean I can't go to Waseda again that summer. Maybe I'll find an internship in Japan or something. But that's still another year off; I've gotta survive the last part of college first. I may be eating, sleeping and breathing code all next year in an attempt to finish out my degrees. (cs classes)--
You know, that's provided that I finish FF13 during the summer. I've always said I wanted to beat it in Japanese...I guess I'm gonna have to put my money where my mouth is. And a lot of it at that, quoth Sony. I keep thinking it'd be nice to get a real job again, and then I look at how long it took me to do those first 2 years worth of college courses. If I went back to only going half-time, I'd never graduate.
Well, that seems to about cover 2006 and 2007. With any luck, next year at this time, I'll be working on getting set up to graduate and probably be out on my own again. It's kinda nice not having to worry about food and stuff, but it gets to be a little much with the four of us crammed into this little house. At least the munchkin is over at Dad's half the time again now. It's definitely better for both of them, and it makes it really quiet here every other week. Plus, I can die on FF12 as much as I want without him laughing at me, even though he couldn't do any better anyway.
では、また来年ね!
And it may be long, since I'll probably just keep this open until 11:55 and then hit submit (I also want to get another post in on DP before the end).
So, 2006. What all happened of note this year:
I worked at Cirque du Soleil while they were here (wow, was that really only this year?). That was pretty fun while it lasted. I don't think I could have worked much longer than I did for them, though, especially considering that I was taking 16 or so credits that term. Working nearly every day did get to be a lot by the end. It's probably a good thing that it wasn't all during Winter Term or I probably would have had problems with schoolwork getting in the way.
Over the summer...I took 200-level Japanese. That was intense. 6hrs of studying Japanese a day, plus I had a 4hr a night Spanish class for 4wks. And I was fencing a lot more, since I had more free time. I keep saying I should get up to the Salle over the break, and I keep not doing it. Maybe in 2007. Maybe I'll finally drag Tina up there, too ;)
And August I had some time off. After all that studying Japanese, I promptly forgot all the kanzi we learned except maybe half a dozen. I signed up for way too many classes for Fall Term, and found out the hard way when the last date to withdraw from a class was (instructor approval or no). Almost at the end of break, we found out the Anime Club was in danger of becoming nonexistent since people had graduated and/or left the country. So I got involved in keeping it alive. It's so nice to have both monitor cables again for a month ^_^
And then came the Term of Too Much Work. I seriously need to learn to manage my time better. Chemistry, Physics, Japanese, Computer Science, Math...and labs. Oh, the labs. I shake my fist at them (metaphorically, of course; I'm typing). Especially Chemistry. That was way too much work for a 1-credit pass/no-pass class. My Physics lab was excessively easy; something on the order of an hour of work a week. But the Chemistry. Ooh the Chemistry!
Math was so much fun, but I should have done the work all term like I was supposed to. CS was boring when I went, and I probably should have gone more often. Scratch that -- I definitely should have gone more often. I also probably shouldn't have waited until Thanksgiving Break to do my entire lab notebook for it. Some of those early labs would have been lots of help before the midterms. Live and learn, I guess.
Not too much more of interest fall term. We watched anime in anime club and I skipped classes to have lunch with Tina way more than I should have. All in all, it was pretty normal. We did carve pumpkins one week - that's something I haven't done in a while, probably since my little brother was around 6 or 7.
Yes - this is definitely going under an lj cut when I get around to it.
There we go - bonus points if anybody can tell me where it's from. Oh hey! Speaking of which, I guess I should have mentioned that under stuff that I did over the summer. Choutanoshimi datta ^_^
So, I also joined the Computer Action Team (CAT) at school in October. That's a blast, but it takes a lot of my time. I'm working 4hrs/week doing tech support and they give me 4hrs/week (more when DaBAH really gets going) of knowledge. Except this week - we decided not to since people are gonna be gone anyway. I think there were all of 6 of us there last week. Which reminds me; I should really do my command spotting sometime soon. I should probably also have decided to do this in Dvorak instead of qwerty so I could get faster at that. I think next year, I'm gonna start doing most of my writing on Dvorak so I can get better at speed.
And the break...
This has meant a lot more time that I can work on CAT stuff, so I've been down there long after my shift is technically over. It also means that I've been working for my mom more; she's actually going to be getting her office organized (how weird!). I'm supposed to be setting up a VPN for her, but I can't seem to get it to work quite right.
I've been learning Perl and reviewing kanzi when I can, and playing no less than 3 FF games at the same time. My brother got me FF3 for xmas, and I've already got about 6hrs logged in it (for comparison, I had something like 10hrs within a day on FF12). It's a lot of fun, but very very bishi. I can see why they didn't release it in the US in the early 90s. It probably would have bombed almost as badly as 9. Quite by accident, I made my initial team a Fighter, Black Mage, White Mage, and Thief. The Thief was later a Red Mage and is now a Monk. Because Monks kick ass. Almost as much as pirates or ninjas.
Most of the other xmas swag was clothes, but there are rumors that we're getting a Wii sometime next year when there are more available. Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I'll really have to finish out 12, 3, and 4 quick so I can devote all my time to Twilight Princess.
I started rereading LotR about a week ago, too - I'm already into Book 2 (that's Book 2/6, not The Two Towers). Tolkein++ (Tom Bombadil)++ Nazgûl--
Is it û? I really hope it is. We'll find out when I click preview. And maybe not even then; I might release this in all its tyop-ridden glory without checking first.
So, I guess that's pretty much it for 2006. On to 2007:
Winter Term - I'll be again taking way too many credits. Even more than last term (by 1). But at least now I know that Chemistry will waste lots of my time with WebCT and various other crap. Physics shouldn't be quite as boring (and my labs aren't at 5-fucking-30 at night), and I'm not taking a class with Blieler this term. He's an awesome guy and great at teaching the stuff, but I couldn't handle the workload.
So, what will I be taking instead, you ask? (If you didn't ask, too bad)
Kanzi. 300-level Japanese is 4 classes; 2 speaking/listening and 2 reading/writing. Thankfully, everybody else has had even longer to forget the kanzi they learned in 2nd year, so we'll all be on an even footing. I hear we'll even be starting to do essays by this term, which will be kinda cool to finally be able to write that long in Japanese. I remember doing stupid little essays like "Describe tu familia" in Spanish in 1st year, but these might actually have substance to them. Plus, I can already understand some of the anime I watch and now I'll be able to read along with the theme songs, too.
Reimer-sensei would be so proud (We have one guy in the anime club who dances to the songs [and shouldn't! Oh gods, he shouldn't...*shudder*] but nobody has started singing them. Yet. ざんこくなてんしのように...).
Speaking of Japanese, I'm planning to go to Japan over the summer next summer, probably for about 6wks. Maybe more; I haven't found out whether I'll be going at all yet and it'll be expensive as it is, even if I do get a scholarship for it. The program lets me take 12 PSU credits off-campus at Waseda. So with any luck, I'll actually be in Tokyo and getting to practice my Japanese even more than I did this summer. And then I'll try my hardest to forget it all when I get back, just to have an excuse to go back again in 2008. Yes, yes...the plan is unfolding well...muhahahaha!
Actually, I want to be done in Spring 2008 if I can, which would mean I can't go to Waseda again that summer. Maybe I'll find an internship in Japan or something. But that's still another year off; I've gotta survive the last part of college first. I may be eating, sleeping and breathing code all next year in an attempt to finish out my degrees. (cs classes)--
You know, that's provided that I finish FF13 during the summer. I've always said I wanted to beat it in Japanese...I guess I'm gonna have to put my money where my mouth is. And a lot of it at that, quoth Sony. I keep thinking it'd be nice to get a real job again, and then I look at how long it took me to do those first 2 years worth of college courses. If I went back to only going half-time, I'd never graduate.
Well, that seems to about cover 2006 and 2007. With any luck, next year at this time, I'll be working on getting set up to graduate and probably be out on my own again. It's kinda nice not having to worry about food and stuff, but it gets to be a little much with the four of us crammed into this little house. At least the munchkin is over at Dad's half the time again now. It's definitely better for both of them, and it makes it really quiet here every other week. Plus, I can die on FF12 as much as I want without him laughing at me, even though he couldn't do any better anyway.
では、また来年ね!